CANADIAN CONSTITUTION.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20275, 18 August 1937, Page 6

CANADIAN CONSTITUTION.

The appointment of a Koval Commission in Canada to report on certain const it ul ional matters may be the outcome of recent disputes between tim Government at Ottawa and some provincial Cabinets. Two or three months ago tile Liberal Premier of Ontario formally severed ills connection with tho Dominion Liberal Party. Tlie relations between the Federal and the State Ministries are said to havo been very strained ever since Mr Mackenzie King took office in 1935. Thero was a dispute in Quebec, but the open broach in Ontario may bo serious for the central Government. Tho cause of the break was tho attitude taken up by Mr King when Mr John L. Lewis, bead of the Committee of Industrial Organisation in the United States, crossed the border and supported a strike in n subsidiary plant in Ontario. Tho Premier, Mr M. Hepburn, asked the Dominion authorities for assistance in resisting what he termed “the invasion by foreigners,'' and no help was forthcoming. At once the Premier took charge of the position and brought tho strike to an end. There has been difficulty with Alberta, especially in matters conned cd with finance, and it was reported recently that the Dominion Prime Minister had asked Mr Aberluirt to submit the proposed banking legislation of that province to tile Supreme Court. Apparently tho request was refused. These tilings, and other items in dispute between Ottawa and provincial centres, may have convinced Die Dominion Government that the Constitution needed overhauling in order to re-defino the bounds of Dominion and provincial authority. There has been evidence that in Canada, as in the United States and Australia, any attempt to strengthen the central authority by transfering powers enjoyed by the States will be strongly opposed. The advocates of State rights do not intend In allow the issue to go by default. The report of the Commission will probably bring matters to a bead anil Canada may face, fill- the first time for many years, a political struggle on purely constitutional issues.