Attorney-General for Ontario v. Attorney-General for the Dominion

Attorney General for Ontario v. Attorney General for the Dominion, and the Distillers and Brewers’ Association of Ontario ("Local Prohibition Case"), [1896] A.C. 348 (J.C.P.C.) is a famous Canadian constitutional decision by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and was one of the first cases to enunciate core principles of the peace, order and good government (p.o.g.g.) doctrine.

Opinion of the Council

Lord Watson held that the federal government's residual power under p.o.g.g. allowed them to enact laws and "ought to be strictly confined to such matters as are unquestionably of Canadian interest and importance and ought not to trench upon provincial legislation with respect to any of the classes of subjects enumerated in section 92".

However, he was hesitant to apply the p.o.g.g. power as it could potentially destroy the autonomy of the provinces. He speculated that,

If it were once conceded that the Parliament of Canada has authority to make laws applicable to the whole Dominion, in relation to matters which in each province are substantially of local or private interest, upon the assumption that these matters also concern the peace, order, and good government of the Dominion, there is hardly a subject enumerated in s. 92 upon which it might not legislate, to the exclusion of the provincial legislatures.

Lord Watson formulated a situation in which the p.o.g.g. power could be applied in what would become known as the national dimensions doctrine.

Their Lordships do not doubt that some matters, in their origin local and provincial, might attain such dimensions as to affect the body politic of the Dominion, and to justify the Canadian Parliament in passing laws for their regulation or abolition in the interest of the Dominion. But great caution must be observed in distinguishing between that which is local or provincial, and therefore within the jurisdiction of the provincial legislatures, and that which has ceased to be merely local or provincial, and has become matter of national concern, in such sense as to bring it within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada.

Aftermath

The National Concern doctrine was largely ignored for the following 40 years. However, it was later reborn in its modern form in the case Ontario v. Canada Temperance Federation [1946] A.C. 193.

See also