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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Carney government should retire misleading ‘G7’ talking point on economic growth

Published on November 3, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Ben Eisen and Milagros Palacios

If you use the more appropriate measure for measuring economic wellbeing and living standards—growth in per-person GDP—the happy narrative about Canada’s performance simply falls apart.

Tuesday, Nov. 4, the Carney government will table its long-awaited first budget. Don’t be surprised if it mentions Canada’s economic performance relative to peer countries in the G7.

In the past, this talking point was frequently used by prime ministers Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau and their senior cabinet officials. And it’s apparently survived the transition to the Carney government, as the finance minister earlier this year triumphantly tweeted that Canada’s economic growth was “among the strongest in the G7.”

But here’s the problem. Canada’s rate of economic growth relative to the rest of the G7 is almost completely irrelevant as an indicator of economic strength because it’s heavily influenced by Canada’s much faster rate of population growth. In other words, Canada’s faster pace of overall economic growth (measured by GDP) compared to most other developed countries has not been due to Canadians becoming more productive and generating more income for their families, but rather primarily because there are more people in Canada working and producing things.

In reality, if you use the more appropriate measure for measuring economic wellbeing and living standards—growth in per-person GDP—the happy narrative about Canada’s performance simply falls apart.

According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, if you simply look at total economic growth in the G7 in recent years (2020-24) without reference to population, Canada does indeed look good. Canada’s economy has had the second-most total economic growth in the G7 behind only the United States.

However, if you make a simple adjustment for differences in population change over this same time, a completely different picture emerges. Canada’s per-person GDP actually declined by 2 per cent from 2020 to 2024. This is the worst five-year decline since the Great Depression nearly a century ago. And on this much more important measure of wellbeing, Canada goes from second in the G7 to dead last.

Due to Canada’s rapid population growth in recent years, fuelled by record-high levels of immigration, aggregate GDP growth is quite simply a misleading economic indicator for comparing our performance to other countries that aren’t experiencing similar increases in the size of their labour markets. As such, it’s long past time for politicians to retire misleading talking points about Canada’s “strong” growth performance in the G7.

After making a simple adjustment to account for Canada’s rapidly growing population, it becomes clear that the government has nothing to brag about. In fact, Canada is a growth laggard and has been for a long time, with living standards that have actually declined appreciably over the last half-decade.

Ben Eisen

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute

Milagros Palacios

Director, Addington Centre for Measurement, Fraser Institute

Fraser Institute

Ottawa continues to infringe in areas of provincial jurisdiction

Published on November 1, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Jason Clemens

The Alberta Next panel—tasked with assessing how Alberta can protect its economy, assert its sovereignty within Canada, and defend its provincial rights after years of federal government intervention—has concluded its townhall sessions. The Smith government has repeatedly called for the federal government to stay in its lane, and according to a recent study, governments work better when they do.

The Canadian federation was intended to be decentralized. The powers and responsibilities of the federal and provincial governments are defined in the constitution. The federal government was given power over the regulation of trade and commerce, the postal service, national defence, navigation and shipping, and criminal justice. It also has the power to raise money by any form of taxation. The provincial governments were given power over natural resources, health care, welfare, education and overseeing municipal governments. Some areas, including certain aspects of the environment, entail joint or shared responsibility.

There are self-evident reasons for clearly dividing powers between national and provincial governments. There are some policies, such as national defence, where it makes obvious sense to have one national policy covering the entire country.

At the same time, there are numerous areas of responsibility where it makes an equal amount of sense to have the provinces exclusively responsible so they’re empowered to address areas and issues with more localized policies. Such a decentralized approach also allows for more experimentation and innovation, so provinces can learn from one another.

This is certainly the case with respect to welfare reform in the 1990s after Ottawa stopped interfering with the provinces’ delivery and regulation of welfare. This led to innovations by some provinces, and many of the successful reforms were copied by other provinces.

Yet more recently, the federal government has interfered in areas of provincial jurisdiction, which not only impedes the effective delivery of provincial services but also fuels regional tensions.

For instance, the Trudeau government increased federal involvement in areas of provincial jurisdiction via new dental, pharmacare and daycare plans. The federal government’s $10-a-day daycare, for example, has been disastrous, fuelling massive shortages across Canada. Some daycare centres have even exited the federal plan because government interference has threatened their ability to provide quality care.

Federal energy policies, such as the cap imposed exclusively on oil and gas emissions and new electricity regulations (which mandate all provincial electricity grids are decarbonized by 2035), have fuelled regional frustrations.

Consider that Quebec separatism essentially died during the Harper years, when the federal government left the provinces alone in their areas of jurisdiction. The provincial political party the Parti Quebecois (PQ) was reduced to 10 seats with just 17 per cent of the vote in 2018, for instance, but is now poised to form a majority government in the next Quebec election with the PQ committed to another sovereignty referendum vote. And there’s now a real sovereignty movement in both Alberta and Saskatchewan, with approximately three-in-10 Albertans (30 per cent) and one-third of Saskatchewians (33 per cent) indicating they would vote to leave the federation.

Provincial governments are fed up with Ottawa’s involvement in areas of provincial jurisdiction at the same time that federal policymakers have neglected areas of exclusive federal jurisdiction such as defence and criminal justice. History shows that Canada works best when governments stay in their lane. It’s time for the Carney government to change course and get out of provincial matters and focus on federal priorities.