Farewell to Reform

Dr. Joseph Sirois of Quebec was a provincial notary and professor of Constitutional Law until 1937, when he was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations. A year later he succeeded Newton W. Rowell as chairman of the Commission, and for two years he labored tirelessly to produce what came to be known as the Rowell-Sirois Report -- virtually a new constitution for Canada. The report was a plan to end the incoherence, irregularity and overlapping of powers which exist among the nine provinces of Canada, to centralize fiscal and social policies in the Dominion Government at Ottawa, to make Canada a single nation instead of the loose federation of practically autonomous provinces which it has been for 73 years.

In a committee room of the huge, grey stone House of Commons in Ottawa last week the nine Provincial Premiers of Canada met with Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and his Cabinet to confer on the Rowell-Sirois Report. The Premiers of Canada's five poor provinces (Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island) were generally in favor of it. Premier Joseph Adelard Godbout of French-speaking Quebec was not ready to commit himself, but would talk. Three Premiers were flatly opposed: Ontario's florid Mitchell Hepburn, Alberta's vast shiny William ("Bible Bill") Aberhart, British Columbia's round, pink Thomas Dufferin Pattullo.

As the conferees gathered about Prime Minister Mackenzie King, Mitch Hepburn slunk off by himself, returned only when the meeting was called to order and he was forced to sit next to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister made a short speech of welcome, appealed to the Premiers to join in deliberating on the reconstruction of Canada's Constitution and taxation system. Mitch was the first to reply. He read a brief which not only rejected the report but insulted its authors as well. To him the report was a well-cooked nefarious deal" to get provincial debts taken over by the Dominion Government to the profit of provincial bondholders--something the report guarded against by recommending a capital-gains tax.

Premier Pattullo thought the report "fundamentally wrong." His Government, he said, had attained its present position "only after an arduous struggle up the hill of public economy" and did not want to be pushed down. Since British Columbia spends nearly twice as much per capita as the average provincial Government, this did not make much sense. Even less sense was made by Bible Bill Aberhart, who wanted the Dominion to stay out of provincial affairs altogether but to underwrite Alberta's debt. By this time it was clear to everybody that three politicians had effectively scuttled the reform.

But crafty old Mackenzie King had an answer for the politicians. At the second day's session, National Revenue Minister James Lorimer Ilsley stood up, and with his red hair flying and his face white with anger told the Premiers what was in store for them. To pay for the war, said he, the Dominion Government proposed to raise its income tax, levy an inheritance tax, cut off its contribution (now 40%) to provincial unemployment relief and ration gasoline, thereby reducing provincial gasoline-tax receipts. At this news Premier Hepburn turned red, Premier Pattullo turned white, Premier Aberhart blinked. Then the conference adjourned.

Two days later Joseph Sirois, who had been ill for some time, died. His report was not quite dead. When the provinces have suffered under the new war taxes the people's wrath may be turned against their provincial Governments for levying too many nonwar taxes. Then the Prime Minister will probably call another conference.

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