Talk:Constitution Act, 1867

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[edit] Inclusion

On 31 July 2004, this page was nominated for deletion. As a result of the debate, it has been redirected to British North America Acts. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Constitution Act, 1867 for a record of the discussion. Rossami 22:39, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to have to strongly disagree on this vote. The Act is without question the most important Act in Canada, and it should be beyond debate whether it should stay or not. It is the Act from which the government derives all of its power to make law, which makes it no less important than the US constitution. As regards to the name of the article, it is hardly spliting hairs to call it Constitution Act, 1867 as that's its official name. With the patriation of the Constitution, the BNA Act effectively does not exist anymore, so it's incorrect to call the current Act anything other than the Constitution Act, 1867. -- PullUpYourSocks 22:06, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
I should further add that the two documents are not exactly the same. The Constitution Act, 1867 has had several amendments to it and so looks a bit different. -- PullUpYourSocks 22:57, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, guys, but although I strongly agree with having an article under the title Constitution Act, 1867 (and it's unlikely anyone would VfD this, since the new version establishes notability and the last one didn't, and since the old version wasn't even deleted but merely turned into a redirect), I was bold and went ahead and merged British North America Act 1867 into this. I did this because having two articles on two different names of largely the same law, as well as articles on the British North America Acts, Canadian Confederation, and the History of the Constitution of Canada, was becoming too complex and too confusing. IMO, there's nothing wrong with having a little history in this article, just like he have a history in Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and history sections in our Charter sections 1, 15 and 28 articles. This article wasn't too big for it; it also describes a lot of what's still in the Constitution Act, 1867. CanadianCaesar 03:57, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Preamble

Preamble out of date:::

How could it *not* be out of date? It was written in the 1860s. --Ggbroad 21:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

See constitutional amendment and Amendments to the Constitution of Canada re: how to update and improve constitutions. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 22:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
K., but just wondering how one guy's opinion on the preamble is relevant to an encyclopedic article on what is probably the most important single constitutional document in Canadian history. --Ggbroad 22:31, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Encyclopedic articles, being tertiary sources, often report academic analysis. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 22:34, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BNA is still valid legislation in the UK

I discovered recently that the "British North America Act 1867" is still technically in force under current UK legislation (under the original name, as opposed to the Constitution Act). Here is the text as it currently stands. A footnote has been added to the introduction, stating, "The Act is not necessarily in the form in which it is in force in Canada." When laws are repealed, the text is normally removed or edited in the Statute Law Database: look at the gaps in Magna Carta, for example. I don't understand why the BNA was not repealed in 1982, since none of its provisions are relevant within the UK's modern jurisdiction. Anyhow, perhaps this curiosity should be mentioned in the text? Mtford 22:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Manifest Destiny

I put a "citation needed" tag after the assertion that the BNA was a response to Manifest Destiny. This may well be the case, but it came more than 50 years after the last invasion attempt and at a time when the US was not in a position to invade. It therefore seems dubious enough to me to flagged. -Rrius (talk) 12:44, 14 December 2007 (UTC)