Opposition says Premier Eby using tariff fight to give B.C. cabinet ‘unlimited power’

It’s been 800 years since the Magna Carta. Governments everywhere now aspire to tear down the concept that it helped establish: the rule of law. Last week, British Columbia’s NDP government introduced the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act, also known as Bill 7, which would allow Premier David Eby and his cabinet the power to take the law into their own hands without going through the elected legislature.

In this case, the justification is President Donald Trump’s tariffs. But the bill would authorize any action taken for the vague purpose of supporting the economy of B.C. or Canada, or responding to the actions of any foreign government, even if the actions haven’t happened yet. But according to Eby, “These are not sweeping powers.”

The project of concentrating power in the executive branch (i.e. cabinet) and usurping the role of legislators has a long pedigree. In theory, no office or officers are above the law or are empowered to make it up as they go. In practise, that theory counts for less and less. Governments, including in Canada, don’t like the rule of law.

But what, exactly, does “the rule of law” mean? Legal theorists say it’s complicated. It need not be. To see it clearly, compare it to the alternative: the rule of persons. When King Solomon decreed that a baby claimed by two women should be split in half, he had absolute power to decide what to do. When Henry VIII ordered that Anne Boleyn should lose her head, that was absolute power, too. In each case, tyrants exercised their personal rule for good or bad.

The “rule of law” is the opposite idea. No single authority has free reign to decide how the state will use its force. The rule of law limits the powers of those who govern.

It does so in part by separating powers between three branches of the state. The Supreme Court of Canada has said that the “separation of powers” is a fundamental feature of the Canadian Constitution. Legislatures legislate. The executive executes. Judges adjudicate. In principle, no single office or officer can alone decide what should be done.

But not in practise. Exceptions are so common today as to be ubiquitous. The Human Rights Commission, not the legislature, declares what constitutes discrimination. The police decide whether to enforce court orders. Environment ministry officials determine when environmental impacts are permissible. Cabinet decides when pipelines will be built.

But in these cases, decision-makers at least must keep themselves within the boundaries of their authorizing statute, which was passed by elected legislatures. Under Bill 7, the Eby government will take delegation to the next level. Its cabinet will have the power not just to exercise broad discretion in accordance with legislation, but to override legislation itself. The bill will allow cabinet to make exceptions to the law, modify the law’s requirements, limit the law’s application, or establish powers or duties in place of the law. And not just a specific law, but any enactment on the books. The cabinet’s edicts will be valid for more than two years, until May 2027.

In 1539, the Statute of Proclamations conferred on King Henry VIII the power to rule by decree, directing that the King’s proclamations should be obeyed as though they were legislation. Such provisions, since known as “Henry VIII clauses,” are controversial because they eviscerate limits on executive power. Yet they may be constitutionally permissible in Canada. Parliament cannot abdicate its functions, the Supreme Court of Canada wrote in 1918, in a case considering the government’s conscription orders under the broad powers of the War Measures Act of 1914. But Parliament can pass legislation that delegates its powers to the executive as it sees fit. As long as the legislature retains the power to reverse the delegation, the theory goes, then separation of powers remains intact.

The rule of law is inconvenient. It gets in the way of governments and officials crafting solutions to problems they perceive as important. That’s not its downside but its purpose. Even when government efforts are well-intentioned, the power of officials to solve problems can pose a more serious threat to citizens than the problem itself. As the late Alan Borovoy, former general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, once put it, “The source of the most insidious peril is not evil wrongdoers seeking to do harm, but parochial bureaucrats seeking to do good.” If the modern administrative state is incompatible with the rule of law, then the state should be required to adapt. For decades, the current has flowed strongly in the other direction.

Crises are an ideal time for the state to advance into territory from which it will not wish to retreat. COVID-19 was the previous excuse. Now the threat of American tariffs is the latest justification to declare an emergency and discard the limitations of the rule of law. Even impending calamity does not justify the tyranny of unfettered discretion. Boundless authority to respond to circumstances is an unbearable licence to dictate.

This commentary is based on previous commentaries.

Bruce Pardy

Professor of Law, Queen’s University

Related Topics:#BrucePardy #FraserInstitute BCBill7 BCPremierUnlimitedPower BCTariffResponse DavidEby TrumpTariffs

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Albertans need clarity on prime minister’s incoherent energy policy

Published on June 15, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill

The new government under Prime Minister Mark Carney recently delivered its throne speech, which set out the government’s priorities for the coming term. Unfortunately, on energy policy, Albertans are still waiting for clarity.

Prime Minister Carney’s position on energy policy has been confusing, to say the least. On the campaign trail, he promised to keep Trudeau’s arbitrary emissions cap for the oil and gas sector, and Bill C-69 (which opponents call the “no more pipelines act”). Then, two weeks ago, he said his government will “change things at the federal level that need to be changed in order for projects to move forward,” adding he may eventually scrap both the emissions cap and Bill C-69.

His recent cabinet appointments further muddied his government’s position. On one hand, he appointed Tim Hodgson as the new minister of Energy and Natural Resources. Hodgson has called energy “Canada’s superpower” and promised to support oil and pipelines, and fix the mistrust that’s been built up over the past decade between Alberta and Ottawa. His appointment gave hope to some that Carney may have a new approach to revitalize Canada’s oil and gas sector.

On the other hand, he appointed Julie Dabrusin as the new minister of Environment and Climate Change. Dabrusin was the parliamentary secretary to the two previous environment ministers (Jonathan Wilkinson and Steven Guilbeault) who opposed several pipeline developments and were instrumental in introducing the oil and gas emissions cap, among other measures designed to restrict traditional energy development.

To confuse matters further, Guilbeault, who remains in Carney’s cabinet albeit in a diminished role, dismissed the need for additional pipeline infrastructure less than 48 hours after Carney expressed conditional support for new pipelines.

The throne speech was an opportunity to finally provide clarity to Canadians—and specifically Albertans—about the future of Canada’s energy industry. During her first meeting with Prime Minister Carney, Premier Danielle Smith outlined Alberta’s demands, which include scrapping the emissions cap, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, which bans most oil tankers loading or unloading anywhere on British Columbia’s north coast (Smith also wants Ottawa to support an oil pipeline to B.C.’s coast). But again, the throne speech provided no clarity on any of these items. Instead, it contained vague platitudes including promises to “identify and catalyse projects of national significance” and “enable Canada to become the world’s leading energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy.”

Until the Carney government provides a clear plan to address the roadblocks facing Canada’s energy industry, private investment will remain on the sidelines, or worse, flow to other countries. Put simply, time is up. Albertans—and Canadians—need clarity. No more flip flopping and no more platitudes.

Tegan Hill

Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute

Fraser Institute

Long waits for health care hit Canadians in their pocketbooks

Published on June 13, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Mackenzie Moir

Canadians continue to endure long wait times for health care. And while waiting for care can obviously be detrimental to your health and wellbeing, it can also hurt your pocketbook.

In 2024, the latest year of available data, the median wait—from referral by a family doctor to treatment by a specialist—was 30 weeks (including 15 weeks waiting for treatment after seeing a specialist). And last year, an estimated 1.5 million Canadians were waiting for care.

It’s no wonder Canadians are frustrated with the current state of health care.

Again, long waits for care adversely impact patients in many different ways including physical pain, psychological distress and worsened treatment outcomes as lengthy waits can make the treatment of some problems more difficult. There’s also a less-talked about consequence—the impact of health-care waits on the ability of patients to participate in day-to-day life, work and earn a living.

According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, wait times for non-emergency surgery cost Canadian patients $5.2 billion in lost wages in 2024. That’s about $3,300 for each of the 1.5 million patients waiting for care. Crucially, this estimate only considers time at work. After also accounting for free time outside of work, the cost increases to $15.9 billion or more than $10,200 per person.

Of course, some advocates of the health-care status quo argue that long waits for care remain a necessary trade-off to ensure all Canadians receive universal health-care coverage. But the experience of many high-income countries with universal health care shows the opposite.

Despite Canada ranking among the highest spenders (4th of 31 countries) on health care (as a percentage of its economy) among other developed countries with universal health care, we consistently rank among the bottom for the number of doctors, hospital beds, MRIs and CT scanners. Canada also has one of the worst records on access to timely health care.

So what do these other countries do differently than Canada? In short, they embrace the private sector as a partner in providing universal care.

Australia, for instance, spends less on health care (again, as a percentage of its economy) than Canada, yet the percentage of patients in Australia (33.1 per cent) who report waiting more than two months for non-emergency surgery was much higher in Canada (58.3 per cent). Unlike in Canada, Australian patients can choose to receive non-emergency surgery in either a private or public hospital. In 2021/22, 58.6 per cent of non-emergency surgeries in Australia were performed in private hospitals.

But we don’t need to look abroad for evidence that the private sector can help reduce wait times by delivering publicly-funded care. From 2010 to 2014, the Saskatchewan government, among other policies, contracted out publicly-funded surgeries to private clinics and lowered the province’s median wait time from one of the longest in the country (26.5 weeks in 2010) to one of the shortest (14.2 weeks in 2014). The initiative also reduced the average cost of procedures by 26 per cent.

Canadians are waiting longer than ever for health care, and the economic costs of these waits have never been higher. Until policymakers have the courage to enact genuine reform, based in part on more successful universal health-care systems, this status quo will continue to cost Canadian patients.