Picking up an old text book

Yesterday I took a look at a textbook I have had ever since I took a course in 1972-1973. The book was published in 1969 so it is 50 years old now and is titled "Computer Organization and Programming" by Professor Charles William Gear. Professor Gear is still around; currently at Princeton.
The book does not look very worn; no marks or writing or even food stains.
I read a little bit of it yesterday. Well written, fascinating and requiring more focus and attention than I am likely able to provide at this age.
Why is my copy so pristine?
It was the assigned text for Computer Science 202 a course taught at York University by Professor Frieder Schwenkel. That was his last year at York; he was appointed a Professor at the University of Hamburg in 1973 and passed away in 2012.
Neither I nor my classmates really looked into the book very much when we took the course. Professor Schwenkel's
attention was focused on an Interdate 70 16 bit mini-computer that resided in a room across the hall on the 6th floor of the Ross Building from his office. For reasons good or bad he decided to have us learn about it.
In some ways it was a good choice that made for a fascinating course, especially for me. The Interdata 70 was a half word machine with many of the same instructions as an IBM mainframe cut down to 16 bits. Picking up how to program it in assembly language was not that difficult and we learned quickly how to work with a machine in hands on fashion.
Professor Schwenkel was pretty flexible about we did and at one point he offered me the chance to work on some of the CS408 projects. The one that intrigued me was the development of an interpreter to execute programs written for another computer. I never did program it then but did some work in the area later on.
In the meantime there were some practical problems to solve.
One thing I learned from the course was that you could never totally trust the documentation that came with computers. The machine had shown up with a teletype machine with paper tape as the primary input system but at some point a floppy disk (8 inch size) drive showed up. It was run through an auxiliary processor which Interdata termed a channel (just as IBM did). Only problem, it didn't work the way the documentation said it would. Much scope for endless experimentation the need for which got me a prized key to the machine room for 24 hour access.
Now as I glance at Professor Gear's book I wonder if I would have benefited from a course more focused on its concepts. Certainly I would have approached programming from a more principled and academic foundation as opposed to figuring things out from first principles.
Maybe I should read the book although it does seem a little quaint with flowcharts and program examples written in Fortran. Flowcharts I never bothered with unless an assignment required one but I can sort of still read Fortran and it might challenge my brain a little. And, help me justify having kept the book for 47 years although keeping books around never needed much encouragement for me.

A big move

Big move...living in a different place now. Belleville instead of Moosonee.
Late last fall, after 36 years in Moosonee I moved to Belleville, Ontario. I spent my work hours in Moosonee at Keewaytinok Native Legal Services where I worked as executive director and lawyer. That's a long time to work and live in one place; probably something that few people starting out today will duplicate.
For 21 of those years I lived in a two room apartment in the office. It was not luxurious but it was handy to work. I just walked past the washing machine and into the reception area. I didn't have to go outside at all.
Outside the office was the tidal Moose River and an incredible view of sunrise every morning. Over the years I managed to keep on good terms with some of the local wildlife, particularly the ravens who knew to show up each morning to pick up some breakfast.

Well, all of that is over. Today I live in a seniors apartment project that is much less draft and leaky than my place in Moosonee. If I want to see the sun come up I need to head down to the Bay of Quinte. I don't see any ravens around home although I have spotted a couple in town and I know there are lots out in the country.
Moosonee was an isolated place. No roads led there so I spent a lot of time taking the train back and forth to Cochrane. Moosonee was also an expensive place. Almost always amazed when I go shopping at how cheap things are in comparison.
Because there are no roads to Moosonee it was hard to get things delivered. Nobody wants to ship by rail so it cost a fortune to have anything sent there. Here I can order from amazon and stuff shows up in a day or two. Kind of amazing.
Winter down here is pretty mild although sometimes there is freezing rain but certainly not cold like Moosonee.
Moosonee was a relatively free place in a lot of ways. People did more or less what they wanted unless someone objected very strongly. Belleville is a different world, lots and lots of rules.
Biggest difference between the two places: in Moosonee I knew almost everyone I saw; in Belleville I am pretty much anonymous. Good or bad?

Another great day with a raven family.

Yesterday was a bright sunny day with a good strong wind. Perfect weather in Moosonee for photographing a raven family.
Family may be a strong word; two adults and four juveniles that pester them for food and spend their time screeching away to no one in particular.
The wind made it easier for the ravens to hang in the air, to fly slowly enough for even me to be able to capture them in pictures.
The juvenile ravens will not be around for long. Past experience has shown that they disappear pretty fast. I am sure that their life expectancy is not great; some of them get hit by vehicles before they understand about roads. The parents drive the others off to find their own space. But it is a treat to have them around for a while.
As usual I posted my pictures on my smugmug website:  Pictures of Ravens

Living without a highway

I live in Moosonee, a small town in Northern Ontario. A couple of thousand people, one main store, half a dozen smaller stores, three schools, a bunch of churches, the post office and one bank. Probably not that different from a lot of other small towns.
But there is one big difference. Moosonee is not connected to the Ontario road network. You cannot drive here (well not most of the time). If you want to come to Moosonee you need to take the train or fly.
Moosonee is not the only place in Ontario that is not on a highway. There are lots of much more remote places plus Moose Factory which is just across the river.
Living off the highway network brings some challenges.
For one thing no courier companies come here. If you want something it is going to come in the mail or on the train. You can ship stuff here by courier but the courier company is just going to throw your parcel in the mail. Fortunately, the post office works pretty well.

The Economist recently published an obituary for Chief Arthur Manuel who died on January 11th, 2017. He was the moving force behind a challenge to the Canada Act in 1982. That was the legislation passed by the Imperial Parliament that gave independence to Canada. He and the other Chiefs involved in the case argued that the legislation was invalid because it had not received the consent of First Nations. The UK Attorney General applied to have the case thrown out and was successful initially and in the Court of Appeal. Leave to appeal to the House of Lords was denied.
Because this is an English case its text is not easily accessible to Canadian readers so I am posting it here because I believe it is very important.
What was rejected were the following propositions:

"(1) the United Kingdom Parliament has no power to amend the Constitution of Canada so as to prejudice the Indian Nations without the consent of the Indian Nations of Canada and

"(2) the Canada Act 1932 is ultra vires."

	England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

		BAILII Citation Number: [1982] EWCA Civ 4

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
CHANCERY DIVISION
(THE VICE-CHANCELLOR)

		Royal Courts of Justice
		30th July 1982

B e f o r e :
LORD JUSTICE CUMMING-BRUCE
LORD JUSTICE EVELEIGH (not present)
LORD JUSTICE SLADE
____________________

	CHIEF ROBERT MANUEL of the Shuswap Nation suing on behalf of himself and all other Indians of the Neskainlith Indian Band and Others	Appellants
	v.
	HER MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL	Respondent

____________________
(Transcript of the Shorthand Notes of The Association of Official Shorthand-writers Limited, Room 392, Royal Courts of Justice, and 2 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, London, W.C.2.)
____________________
MR. J. R. MacDONALD, Q.C. and MR. C. P. L. BRAHAM (instructed by Messrs.
Herbert Oppenheimer, Nathan & Vandyk? appeared on behalf of the Appellants.
MR. J. F. MUMMERY (instructed by The Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Respondent. 
____________________
HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT____________________
Crown Copyright © (Revised)

LORD JUSTICE CUMMING-BRUCE: Lord Justice Eveleigh is not able to be present today.
The judgment of the court will be delivered by Lord Justice Slade.

LORD JUSTICE SLADE: This is an appeal from an order of the Vice-Chancellor made on 7th May 1982 whereby he acceded to an application by H.M. Attorney-General that the statement of claim in an action be struck out and the action dismissed. The plaintiffs in the action were 124 Canadian Indian Chiefs, who were respectively expressed to sue on behalf of themselves and named Indian bands. The defendant was H.M. Attorney-General. As the Vice-Chancellor explained in his judgment, the term "bands" is used in the sense of a body of Indians for whom lands have been set apart or for whom moneys are held or who have been declared to be a band by the Governor-General in Council.
The case raises issues which are no doubt of great political importance to all the peoples of Canada, particularly the Indians concerned. This court, however, is concerned with the bare question whether the claim to relief in the action is plainly ill-founded in English law. As the Vice-Chancellor recognised in his judgment, if, but only if, the answer to this question is in the affirmative should the action be prevented from proceeding to trial.
Canada emerged as a Dominion 115 years ago. Section 3 of the British North America Act 1867 empowered the Queen, by and with the advice of the Privy Council, to declare by proclamation that the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick should "form and be one dominion under the name of Canada". Section 4 of that Act, as subsequently amended, provided that "unless it is otherwise expressed or implied, the name Canada shall be taken to mean Canada as constituted under this Act".
Section 5 of that Act (which contained many other provisions) provided for the division of Canada into four provinces, to be named Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The Proclamation envisaged by the Act was duly made and the Dominion was established on 1st July 1867. Since then a number of additional provinces have been created and a number of further British North America Acts have been passed.
The nature of the present action is an unusual one. The gist of the facts alleged in the statement of claim, which give rise to the proceedings, may be very shortly summarised for present purposes. Immediately before the Canada Act 1982 was enacted by the United Kingdom Parliament, the Canadian Indian bands had certain special rights which were protected under the constitution of Canada. These rights were recognised or confirmed by a Royal Proclamation made on 7th October 1763 and subsequently under a number of treaties made with the Indian bands. They include (inter alia) rights in relation to Indian reservations, rights of hunting, trapping and fishing game and fish for food at all seasons of the year on all unoccupied Crown Lands and any other lands to which the Indians may have a right of access. Such rights are expressly referred to in a number of agreements set out in the Schedule to the British North America Act 1930 which, by section 1, expressly provided that these agreements should have the force of law. For many years, the Indians have thus had entrenched rights under the Canadian constitution.
In 1931, the Statute of Westminster 1931 was enacted to give effect to certain resolutions of Imperial Conferences held in the years 1926 and 1930. The Statute substantially gave legislative independence to the territories which were specified in section 1 and were there referred to as "Dominions". These included the Dominion of Canada. Before the Act became law, an enactment of a Dominion legislature such as that of Canada could not have had extra-territorial effect and, further, would have been void if it had been repugnant to an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which extended to the Dominion. These two disabilities were removed respectively by sections 3 and 2 of the Statute, subject to certain provisions contained in sections 7, 8 and 9, and to the adoption of sections 2 and 3 by the Dominion Parliament, if necessary under section l0.
The third paragraph of the Preamble to the Statute had recited:



"And whereas it is in accord with the established constitutional position that no law hereafter made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall extend to any of the said Dominions as part of the law of that Dominion otherwise than at the request and with the consent of that Dominion: ..."

Section 4 contained a corresponding provision but with one significant difference, which will be mentioned later in this judgment. It provided:



"No Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the commencement of this Act shall extend, or be deemed to extend, to a Dominion as part of the law of that Dominion unless it is expressly declared in that Act that that Dominion has requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof."

Section 7(1) of the Statute provided:



"Nothing in this Act shall be deemed to apply to the repeal, amendment or alteration of the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1930, or any order, rule or regulation made thereunder."

Section 7(3) provided:



"The powers conferred by this Act upon the Parliament of Canada or upon the legislatures of the Provinces shall be restricted to the enactment of laws in relation to matters within the competence of the Parliament of Canada or of any of the legislatures of the Provinces respectively."

Section 7 thus preserved intact the existing powers of the United Kingdom Parliament to legislate by way of "repeal, amendment or alteration" of the British North America Acts. At the time when the Statute of 1931 was passed, these powers were very extensive, since an alteration of the Constitutional Acts of Canada could, with certain minor exceptions, be effected only by an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament. In 1949, as a result of the amendment of section 91 of the British North America Act 1867 effected by the British North America (No. 2) Act 1949, the Parliament of Canada acquired exclusive power to amend the Constitution of Canada, except as regards matters coming within a number of classes of subjects specified in the section. Even after 1949, however, United Kingdom legislation remained necessary in respect of any amendment affecting these excepted matters. The plaintiffs consider that it remained necessary in respect of amendments affecting certain entrenched rights of the Indians embodied in the British North America Acts.
On 9th December 1981 the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada submitted an address to H.M. The Queen requesting that a Bill ("the Canada Bill") be laid before the United Kingdom Parliament to amend the constitution of Canada in a manner summarised in the statement of claim as follows:



"by (inter alia) (1) terminating the remaining responsibility of the United Kingdom Parliament for amending the constitution of Canada and conferring all such responsibility on Canadian institutions, and (2) providing for a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms."

On 10th December 1981, before the Canada Bill had become law, the plaintiffs (or more accurately some of the plaintiffs, since others were subsequently added by amendment) issued the writ in the present action. A statement of claim was served on 22nd January 1982 and shortly afterwards amended.
On 29th March 1982 the Canada Act 1982 received the Royal Assent. The long title to the Act is "An Act to give effect to a request by the Senate and House of Commons of Canada". It contains a preamble in the following terms:



"Whereas Canada has requested and consented to the enactment of an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to give effect to the provisions hereinafter set forth and the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada in Parliament assembled have submitted an address to Her Majesty requesting that Her Majesty may graciously be pleased to cause a Bill to be laid before the Parliament of the United Kingdom for that purpose."

Section 1 states: "The Constitution Act, 1982 set out in Schedule B to this Act is hereby enacted for and shall have the force of law in Canada and shall come into force as provided in that Act."
Section 2 states: "No Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the Constitution Act, 1982 comes into force shall extend to Canada as part of its law."
Section 3 states: "So far as it is not contained in Schedule B, the French version of this Act is set out in Schedule A to this Act and has the same authority in Canada as the English version thereof."
The Constitution Act 1982 referred to in the Canada Act 1982 came into force on 17th April 1982 by a proclamation by H.M. The Queen pursuant to section e.g. of that Act.
Part I of the Constitution Act 1982 (sections 1-34) contains the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Under section 25 the guarantee in the Charter of certain rights and freedoms is expressed not to abrogate or derogate from any aboriginal, treaty or other rights or freedoms that pertain to the aboriginal peoples of Canada. Section 35(2) defines "aboriginal peoples of Canada" as including the Indian, Inuit and Metis peoples of Canada. Section 35(1) explicitly recognises and affirms the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada. It is not, therefore, claimed that the Constitution Act 1982 immediately divests the plaintiffs of any of their subsisting rights. Their anxiety appears to stem from a different cause. Section 37 provides for the convening of a constitutional conference within one year after the section comes into force (17th April 1982), which is to have included in its Agenda an item respecting constitutional matters that directly affect the aboriginal peoples of Canada. Part V of the Act (sections 38 to 49) introduces a new procedure for amending the Constitution of Canada. The effect of this new procedure is that the United Kingdom Parliament will henceforth take no part in any such amendment. Under section 53(D, sections 4 and 7(1) of the Statute of 1931 are repealed insofar as they apply to Canada.
In these circumstances, the submission of the plaintiffs, as appearing from their statement of claim, is that the enactment of the Canada Bill is inconsistent with and a derogation from the constitutional safeguards provided for the Indian peoples by the Statute of 1931 and the British North America Acts.
The statement of claim was re-amended on 14th May 1982, during the course of the hearing before the Vice-Chancellor, partly to take account of the fact that the Canada Act 1982 had by then become law. The prayer to the re-amended pleading seeks a large number of declarations, but as the Vice-Chancellor observed, the first five plainly lead up to the last two, which are declarations that



"(1) the United Kingdom Parliament has no power to amend the Constitution of Canada so as to prejudice the Indian Nations without the consent of the Indian Nations of Canada and

"(2) the Canada Act 1932 is ultra vires."

As the Vice-Chancellor commented in his judgment, a contention that an Act of Parliament is ultra vires is, on the face of it, bold in the extreme. It is not suggested that the Canada Act 1982 was not passed by the House of Commons and the House of Lords or that it did not receive the Royal Assent. On the face of it, the ordinary, elementary rules of English Constitutional law leave the court with no choice but to construe and apply the enactments of Parliament as they stand: (see Pickin v. British Railways Board (1974) AC 765). As Lord Morris of Borth-y-Guest observed (at page 789):



"It is the function of the courts to administer the laws which Parliament has enacted. In the processes of Parliament there will be much consideration whether a Bill should or should not in one form or another become an enactment. When an enactment is passed there is finality unless and until it is amended or repealed by Parliament. In the courts there may be argument as to the correct interpretation of the enactment: there must be none as to whether it should be on the Statute Book at all".


Though the Vice-Chancellor referred to a number of other matters in his judgment, in the end he founded himself substantially on this proposition in striking out the plaintiffs' statement of claim. As he put it:



"The Canada Act is an Act of Parliament, and sitting as a Judge in an English Court, I owe full and dutiful obedience to that Act".

If the matter is as simple as that, that is an end of the plaintiffs' case. But Mr. MacDonald on behalf of the plaintiffs in effect submitted that it is very far from so simple. In his submission, it is open to Parliament to give up its sovereignty in whole or in part. In particular, he contended, it is open to it to provide that any future legislation on a specified subject shall be enacted only with certain specified consents and that, in default of such consents, such future legislation shall be void. This, he submitted, is what Parliament did when it enacted section 4 of the Statute of 1931.
As we understood his argument before this court, it proceeded on lines which followed closely those which were summarised at pages 9 and 10 of the transcript of the Vice-Chancellor's judgment. By 1931, a convention had been established by a long-standing tradition that the United Kingdom Parliament could not legislate for Canada or the other Dominions, save at the request and with the consent of the Dominion concerned. Since (so it was submitted) that convention had ripened into law by 1931) section 4 of the Statute of 1931 was merely declaratory of the existing law. This convention required that, in any case where section 4 applied, there had to be an actual request and consent of the Dominion concerned. A mere declaration in a subsequent Act that there had been such a request and consent would not suffice to satisfy the requirements of section 4. The declaration in question, Mr. MacDonald strongly and repeatedly emphasised, had to be a true one and the consent had to be a real consent. Section 7(1) of the Statute of 1931) which provided that nothing in the Act was to be deemed to apply to the repeal, amendment or alteration of the British North America Acts" did not remove the need for the appropriate request and consent of the Dominion of Canada, and declaration thereof, in respect of the Canada Act 1982, because that Act went beyond a mere "repeal, amendment or alteration" of the British North America Acts. The effect of section 4 of the Statute of 1931 thus was and is that the actual consent and request of the Dominion of Canada had to be given to the Canada Act 1982, and the appropriate declaration of such request and consent had to be contained in that Act itself, if it was to be a valid statute extending to Canada. Furthermore, for this purpose, so it was submitted, the consent of the Dominion of Canada means the consent of the Federal Parliament, all the Provincial Legislatures and the Indian Nations, who are said to have a separate and special status within the Constitution of Canada - or alternatively at very least the consent of the Federal Parliament and all the Provincial Legislatures. Neither the Government nor the legislature of the Province of Quebec, nor the Indian Nations of Canada have joined in making the relevant request or giving the relevant consents in respect of the Canada Act 1982. In these circumstances, it is submitted that this Act is void, as not complying with section 4 of the Statute of 1931; or it must at least be arguable that this is so.
If, as we hope and believe, this is an adequate, albeit abbreviated summary of the essential features of Mr. MacDonald's full and strenuous argument, the argument will be seen to depend on a number of propositions, each one of which would be essential to its success at the trial of the action. Included among these essential propositions, though they are by no means the only ones, are the following three, each one of which must be established as arguable, if the plaintiffs are to succeed on this appeal:-



(1) that Parliament can effectively tie the hands of its successors, if it passes a statute which provides that any future legislation on a specified subject shall be enacted only with certain specified consents;

(2) that section 7(1) of the Statute of 1931 did not absolve the United Kingdom Parliament from the need to comply with the conditions of section 4 of the Statute of 1931 in enacting the Canada Act 1982, if the latter Act was to extend to Canada as an effective Act;

(3) that the conditions of section 4 of the Statute of 1931 have not in fact been complied with in relation to the Canada Act 1982.

At least at first sight, the first of these propositions conflicts with the general statement of the law made by Maugham L.J. in Ellen Street Estates Limited v. Minister of Health (1934) 1 K.B. 590 at 597:



"The Legislature cannot, according to our constitution, bind itself as to the form of subsequent legislation, and it is impossible for Parliament to enact that in a subsequent statute dealing with the same subject-matter there can be no implied repeal. If in a subsequent Act Parliament chooses to make it plain that the earlier statute is being to some extent repealed, effect must be given to that intention just because it is the will of the Legislature".

Scrutton L.J. said much the same thing in that case, at pages 595 to 596 of the report. In British Coal Corporation v. The King (1935) AC 500 at page 520 Lord Sankey made certain observations specifically directed to the Statute of 1931:



"It is doubtless true that the power of the Imperial Parliament to pass on its own initiative any legislation that it thought fit extending to Canada remains in theory unimpaired: indeed, the Imperial Parliament could, as a matter of abstract law, repeal or disregard s. 4 of the Statute".


Lord Sankey went on to observe that that was theory and had no relation to reality, but, if his statement of theory was correct, it would appear to refute the proposition now under consideration. However, a degree of support for the proposition is to be found in the writings of certain academic lawyers, for example Anson (1886) 2 L.Q.R. at page 440 and Dicey's Law of the Constitution 8th Edition at pages 66 to 67 and, possibly, in the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Bribery Commissioner v. Ranasinghe (1965) AC 172. In the latter case, Lord Pearce, in delivering the advice of the Board, expressed its view (at page 197) that "a legislature has no power to ignore the conditions of law-making that are imposed by the instrument which itself regulates its power to make law". A little later (at page 198) he described as unacceptable the proposition that "a legislature, once established has some inherent power derived from the mere fact of its establishment to make a valid law by the resolution of a bare majority which its own constituent instrument has said shall not be a valid law unless made by a different type of majority or by a different legislative process". Mr. MacDonald has submitted that the Statute of 1931 was an instrument which itself regulated the power of Parliament to make law for the Dominions and so was a "constituent instrument within this language. Accordingly, in his submission, no subsequent Act extending to a Dominion can be valid unless it complies with the conditions of the Statute of 1931.

This submission raises points of great interest and fundamental importance to constitutional lawyers but, for reasons which will appear, we do not find it necessary to deal with them. For the purposes of this judgment we are content to assume in favour of the plaintiffs that the first of the three propositions to which we have referred is correct, though we would emphasise that we are not purporting to decide it.
As regards the second of them, Mr. MacDonald submitted that the Canada Act 1982 does not fall within the exempting provisions of section 7(1) of the Statute of 1931, on the grounds that its provisions go beyond a mere "repeal, amendment or alteration of the British North America Acts". We do not think it has been or could be disputed that at least a substantial part of the contents of the Constitution Act 1982, if regarded in isolation, would amount to no more than a mere "repeal, amendment or alteration of the British North America Acts", within those exempting provisions. Mr. MacDonald, however, has submitted that at least some others of its contents (for example, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) fall outside such exemption and accordingly make it necessary that the conditions of section 4 of the Statute of 1931 should be complied with in relation to the whole of the Canada Act 1982.
By far the greater part of the plaintiffs' argument on this appeal has been devoted to an attempt to show that the conditions of section 4 have not been complied with in this context.
In the circumstances we will proceed to consider the third of the propositions referred to above which relates to section 4 of the Statute of 1931. We will revert briefly to the second of them and to section 7 at the end of this judgment.
For the time being, therefore, let it be supposed that Parliament, in enacting the Canada Act 1982, had precisely to comply with the conditions of section 4 of the Statute of 1931, if that new Act was to be valid and effective. What then are the conditions which section 4 imposes? It is significant that, while the preamble to the Statute of 1931 recites that "it is in accord with the established constitutional position that no law hereafter made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall extend to any of the said Dominions as part of the law of that Dominion otherwise that at the request and with the consent of that Dominion", section 4 itself does not provide that no Act of the United Kingdom Parliament shall extend to a Dominion as part of the law of that Dominion unless the Dominion has in fact requested and consented to the enactment thereof. The condition that must be satisfied is a quite different one, namely, that it must be "expressly declared in that Act that that Dominion has requested and consented to the enactment thereof". Though Mr. MacDonald, as we have said, submitted that section 4 requires not only a declaration but a true declaration of a real request and consent, we are unable to read the section in that way. There is no ambiguity in the relevant words and the court would not in our opinion be justified in supplying additional words by a process of implication; it must construe and apply the words as they stand: (see Maxwell's Interpretation of Statutes 12th Edition page 33 and the cases there cited). If an Act of Parliament contains an express declaration in the precise form required by section 4, such declaration is in our opinion conclusive so far as section 4 is concerned.
There was, we think, nothing unreasonable or illogical in this simple approach to the matter on the part of the legislature, in reserving to itself the sole function of deciding whether the requisite request and consent have been made and given. The present case itself provides a good illustration of the practical consequences that would have ensued, if section 4 had made an actual request and consent on the part of a Dominion a condition precedent to the validity of the relevant legislation, in such manner that the courts or anyone else would have had to look behind the relevant declaration in order to ascertain whether a statute of the United Kingdom Parliament, expressed to extend to that Dominion, was valid. There is obviously room for argument as to the identity of the representatives of the Dominion of Canada appropriate to express the relevant request and consent. Mr. MacDonald, while firm in his submission that all legislatures of the Provinces of Canada had to join the Federal parliament in expressing them, seemed less firm in his submission that all the Indian Nations had likewise to join. This is a point which might well involve difficult questions of Canadian constitutional law. Moreover, if all the Indian Nations did have to join, further questions might arise as to the manner in which the consents of these numerous persons and bodies had to be expressed and as to whether all of them had in fact been given. As we read the wording of section 4, it was designed to obviate the need for any further inquiries of this nature, once a statute, containing the requisite declaration, had been duly enacted by the United Kingdom Parliament. Parliament, having satisfied itself as to the request and consent, would make the declaration and that would be that.
Mr. MacDonald submitted in the alternative that, even if section 4 on its proper construction does not itself bear the construction which he attributed to it, nevertheless, in view of the convention referred to in the third paragraph of the preamble, the actual request and consent of the Dominion is necessary before a law made by the United Kingdom Parliament can extend to that Dominion as part of its law. Whether or not an argument on these lines might find favour in the courts of a Dominion, it is in our opinion quite unsustainable in the courts of this country. The sole condition precedent which has to be satisfied if a law made by the United Kingdom Parliament is to extend to a Dominion as part of its law is to be found stated in the body of the Statute of 1931 itself (section 4). This court would run counter to all principles of statutory interpretation if it were to purport to vary or supplement the terms of this stated condition precedent by reference to some supposed convention, which, though referred to in the preamble, is not incorporated in the body of the Statute.
In the present instance, therefore, the only remaining question is whether it is arguable that the condition precedent specified in section 4 of the Statute of 1931 has not been complied with in relation to the Canada Act 1982. Is it arguable that it has not been "expressly declared in that Act that that Dominion has requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof"? In our judgment this proposition is not arguable, inasmuch as the preamble to the Canada Act 1982 begins with the words "Whereas Canada has requested and consented to the enactment of an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to give effect to the provisions hereinafter set forth". Mr. MacDonald, as we understood him, attempted to argue that, in the context of this particular recital, the word "Canada", as a matter of construction, means not the Dominion of Canada, but the Senate and House of Commons of Canada. In this context he referred to the long title of the Canada Act 1982: "An Act to give effect to a request by the Senate and House of Commons of Canada". Thus, he submitted, even on the interpretation of section 4 which we think is the correct one, the relevant condition has not been complied with in the present case. In our opinion there is no substance in this point. First, the court is not, we think, entitled to look at the long title of the Act for the purpose of construing the contents of the Act, except insofar as these contents are themselves ambiguous (see Maxwell's Interpretation of Statutes 12th Edition at pages 5 and 6)- Secondly, the preamble itself uses the word "Canada", followed shortly afterwards by the phrase "the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada", thereby making it plain that "Canada" is intended to mean something more than the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada. Thirdly, and most importantly, each of sections 1, 2 and 3 uses the word "Canada" plainly in the sense of the Dominion of Canada. It would not, in our opinion, be justifiable to attribute to the word a different meaning in the preamble. Section 3 of the British North America Act 1867 expressly established one dominion under the name "Canada", and section 4 expressly provided that the name "Canada" should be taken to mean Canada as constituted under that Act. Manifestly, in our opinion, the word "Canada" throughout the Canada Act 1982 bears the meaning of the Dominion of Canada. The use of the word "Canada" in our opinion involves no ambiguity at all.
For all these reasons, we conclude that, if and so far as the conditions of section 4 of the Statute of 1931 had to be complied with in relation to the Canada Act 1982, they were duly complied with by the declaration contained in the preamble to that Act.
Consequently, it is unnecessary to consider further the second of the three propositions referred to earlier in this judgment. It is unnecessary to consider whether the Constitution Act 1982 contains provisions which go beyond "the repeal, amendment or alteration of the British North America Acts" so as to fall outside the exempting provisions of section 7(1) of the Statute of 1931 and thus within section 4 of that Act. If it does contain such provisions, the express declaration of a request and consent required by section 4 is duly contained in the Canada Act 1982. If it contains no such provisions (as we understood Mr. Mummery would have sought to submit on behalf of the Attorney-General though we did not think it necessary to call on him), no declaration of request and consent was necessary.
Clearly this is not the first time when the relationship of sections 4 and 7 has been under consideration by the legislature in the course of drafting legislation intended to extend to Canada. It will be observed that the preamble to the Canada Act 1982 contains two limbs. The first recites a request and consent on the part of Canada to the enactment of an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament to give effect to the provisions thereinafter set forth. The second recites the submission by the Senate and House of Commons in Canada to Her Majesty of an address requesting that a Bill be laid before the United Kingdom Parliament for that purpose. The second limb of the preamble follows a form of , preamble adopted by the legislature in previous instances where the legislation in question has clearly involved no more than a mere amendment of the British North America Acts, falling within section 7(1) of the Statute of 1931. The British North America (No. 2) Act 1949, for example, which was merely intended to amend section 91 of the British North America Act 1867, contained solely the following preamble:



"Whereas the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada in Parliament assembled have submitted an Address to His Majesty praying that His Majesty may graciously be pleased to cause a measure to be laid before the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the enactment of the provisions hereinafter set forth".

The British North America (No. 2) Act 1949 contained no express declaration of a request and consent on the part of the Dominion of Canada, no doubt because this was regarded as an Act which fell fairly and squarely within section 7 of the Statute of 1931, so that section 4 did not apply. The British North America Acts of 1940 and 1946 had contained similar preambles. In striking contrast to that of the British North America (No. 2) Act 1949 and of the Acts of 1940 and 1946 the preamble to the British North America Act 1949, which was passed a few months earlier, so as to confirm and give effect to the terms of the Union agreed between Canada and Newfoundland, contained a two-limbed recital more or less in the same terms as that employed by the legislature in the Canada Act 1982, and beginning with the words "And whereas Canada has requested and consented to the enactment of an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom ..." We infer that the first limb of the recital in the case of the British North America Act 1949 and the Canada Act 1982 must have been intended and was effective to constitute, so far as might be necessary, a declaration of the very nature specified in section 4 of the Statute of 1931.
For completeness, we should perhaps add that Mr. MacDonald referred us to a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, which concerned, among other things, the consents that are requisite under the constitutional law of Canada for an amendment of the constitution of Canada: Reference re Amendment of the Constitution of Canada (1981) 125 D.L.R. I. However, with all deference to the Supreme Court of Canada, this decision, though very important and interesting, does not in our opinion have any direct bearing on the issues of English law which fall to be decided on the present appeal.
For the reasons which we have given, in our judgment the plaintiffs have failed to disclose an arguable case in submitting that the conditions of section 4 of the Statute of 1931 have not been complied with in relation to the Canada Act 1982, even on the assumption that section 7(1) does not render the provisions of section 4 inapplicable. On this ground, if no other, we have reached the clear conclusion that, if this action were to proceed to trial, it would be bound to fail. The trial judge, sitting in an English court and applying English law, would on any footing be bound to follow and apply the House of Lords decision in Pickin v. British Railways Board (1974) AC 765 and accordingly to reject the attack on the validity of that Act.

In our judgment, therefore, the Vice-Chancellor was plainly right to strike out the statement of claim in this action and to dismiss the action. We dismiss this appeal.

Order: Appeal dismissed with costs. Leave to appeal to the House of Lords refused.

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2015 August 23rd not a bad morning: red sun and floatplane

The hydro (electricity) was scheduled to be off in Moosonee today so we were up early to make coffee before it went out. I checked outside and it really did not look that promising. No glorious sunrise seemed to be in the offing.

A bit later there was a little bit of colour down the river before sunrise so I headed outside. Nothing spectacular. Some cranes around but it was pretty dark although they were pretty loud.

Other people told me they saw a quartet of bald eagles at the other end of the sandbar. Also saw a hydro boat traveling to and from Moose Factory -- figured they were picking up workers.

All of a sudden things picked up. A red sun started to rise across and down the river from where I was shooting from the Two Bay docks. I had come outside with a 70-200mm lens and all of a sudden I wanted something longer.

It took me a few minutes to get back to the house and pick up something more suitable. The sun was still red but unfortunately it was also quite bright which meant it was not possible to really place it within the landscape. I tried an HDR sequence but didn't like the results when I processed them later.

The power was supposed to go off at 7:00 a.m. and sunrise was 6:23 so I didn't have a lot of time to process a few pictures before I shut down the computer. Got a few posted and turned it off and waited for the darkness.

The darkness was a bit slow in coming but eventually did. Didn't seem much else was likely but all of a sudden I noticed that the floatplane that had been docked was moving. Got a couple of shots of it from the top of the river bank as it taxied down the river.

It taxied a long way. I had time to get back on to the dock at Two bay where the aircraft would seem to come almost right at me as it took off before it turned and revved its engines for take off.

I was shooting RAW so I had to watch out that I did not overflow the buffer on my Canon 7DII. Takes a little discipline, learning not to just press the shutter and fill the memory card.

Got a reasonable sequence of the aircraft, a Sealane 182 taking off. Processing them was interesting since the sun had been on the far side of the aircraft. Finally decided to heck with the background and worked on keeping the near side of the aircraft reasonably light.

A lot of pictures so I decided to create a separate gallery on my smugmug site and just post links to that.

One comment I got later on was that the Sealane 182 had a three bladed propeller and the aircraft I photographed had a two bladed. A few internet sites later taught me that the plane could have two or three blades so I left my captions alone.

I took a few other pictures that I didn't use; ravens following me around looking for breakfast, people camping on Charles Island.

The past couple of days I had been using my new Canon G3X but today I used DSLRs. There is no way to follow a fast moving object on a back panel the
way you can through a viewfinder.

Making money with photography

Photography can be an awfully expensive hobby. It is one of those fields where you generally get what pay for in equipment and everything you buy is out of date a few months later. Ok, that is a bit of an exaggeration, lenses tend to last for a long time.

I take a lot of pictures; tens of thousands every year -- sometimes a thousand in a single day. The shutter on a camera is rated for a finite number of pictures, maybe 150,000 or so. Every picture you take is using up a bit of your equipment.

If you use flash you use up batteries. Those I buy when I go down south because they are a lot cheaper at Wal-Mart in Timmins than they are in Moosonee.

Replacements for cameras come out every three or four years. Unfortunately there are often big improvements with each generation and it is hard to say no, I don't "need" this new technology.

That's the justification for spending the money.

I'm fortunate that live a fairly simple life so I can devote much of my income to photography but at times it seems tempting to try to make some money as well.

Not so easily done.

One thing I don't do is charge for taking pictures. People sometimes call me and ask how much I would want to take some shots at this party or that event. The answer is zero. I have a day job. Most of the time I take pictures to please myself: sunrises, birds, trains, the river...

I have several websites. On a couple of them I have advertising. So far today I have taken in seven cents from that. It adds up and some days are better than others. Mind you, some are worse. In my dream world the advertising would pay for the websites. Probably not in this lifetime.

I sell prints from one website. Of course I also let people download most of the pictures so they can print them themselves. Sales are not a big feature; something comes along every few months it seems, mostly small sales. It took me about five years to make $1000 in sales.

Newspapers buy pictures sometimes. Out of town ones do if something big happens here or if I have a shot of something that was in the news. The bad things about this are that not much happens here that is of interest to the outside world and sometimes newspapers don't pay much or fail to pay at all. In the past there was a fairly local paper that used to  print a lot of my pictures and that was a reasonable and regular source of income. I had my first article in a newspaper when I was in high school and it is still a thrill to see my stuff in print, paid or not.

Finally and sort of surprisingly I sell pictures for textbooks. Here it helps to have a site that is relatively well indexed. This means that editors can search for specific images.

One nasty thing about making money is having to pay tax on it. That takes a lot of the fun out of the whole little business. I can deduct a few expenses, e.g. web space, which helps a bit.

In the end none of these small sources of income comes close to covering the costs of my photography hobby. In some ways that is a good thing. It reminds me that it is a hobby; that it is something I do because I enjoy doing it not something I have to do to make a living.