The Rowell–Sirois Commission officially known as the Royal Commission on Dominion–Provincial Relations was a Canadian
Royal Commission looking into the Canadian economy and federal–provincial relations. It was called in 1937 and reported in 1940.
The Commission was chaired first by
Newton Rowell
Newton Wesley Rowell, (November 1, 1867 – November 22, 1941) was a Canadian lawyer, politician and judge, as well as a lay leader in the Methodist Church. Rowell led the Ontario Liberal Party from 1911 to 1917 and put forward a platform a ...
and then by
Joseph Sirois.
James McGregor Stewart acted as chief counsel. It was called as a result of the
Great Depression. The attempts to manage the Depression by the government illustrated grave flaws with the
Canadian constitution
The Constitution of Canada (french: Constitution du Canada) is the supreme law in Canada. It outlines Canada's system of government and the civil and human rights of those who are citizens of Canada and non-citizens in Canada. Its contents ar ...
. While the federal government had most of the revenue gathering powers, the provinces had unexpectedly greater expenditure responsibilities. The founders had given the provinces responsibility for
health care,
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
, and
welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...
when these were only minor concerns; by 1937, however, these had all become massive expenditure areas.
The Commission recommended that the federal government take over control of
unemployment insurance
Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a comp ...
and
pensions. It also recommended the creation of
equalization payments Equalization payments are cash payments made in some federal systems of government from the federal government to subnational governments with the objective of offsetting differences in available revenue or in the cost of providing services. Many fe ...
and large transfers of money from the federal government to the province each year. Other recommendations were not adopted due to resistance from the provinces or the federal government.
Further reading
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External links
Index to Federal Royal Commissions
Royal commissions in Canada
Canada in the World Wars and Interwar Years
Constitution of Canada
Constitutional commissions
Great Depression in Canada
1937 in Canada
1940 in Canada
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