Introduction

of

the

“International Center for Provincial Rights”

The “International Center for Provincial Rights” is a non-profit organization working for the promotion of a well regulated and peaceful provincial autonomy and full rights restoration all over the world. The center believes in a sustainable, long-term and strong provincial autonomy in all the world states. For this vision the center work for its promotion, development and propagation.

We are happy to inform you that the “International Council for Provincial Rights” has been established for promotion, legalizing and development of provincial rights throughout the world. This is a Council on international level which addresses the issues, challenges and concerns facing the provincial governments at global level.

We seek unity and support from all the provincial governments of the world to further promote, develop and protect the provincial rights for the future generations of the world. We seek both provincial government and house of Assembly support and interest in participating in our global activities for provincial rights promotion, protection and development.We believe that there are greater progress,development, justice and happiness in provincial rights and autonomy throughout the world.

The council has been established the "World Provincial Assemblies Alliance for Provincial Rights" and seek support of this innovative and pioneer organization from all the forums of world provincial assemblies.

We are happy to inform provincial governments of any country of the world that the “International Center for Provincial Rights” has been established for promotion, legalizing and development of provincial rights at International level. This international center addresses the issues, challenges and concerns facing the provincial governments at global level.

We seek unity and support from all the provincial governments of the world to further promote, develop and protect the provincial rights for the future generations of the world. We seek esteem provincial governments support and interest in participating in our global activities for provincial rights promotion, protection and development.We believe that there are greater progress,development, justice and happiness in provincial rights and autonomy throughout the world.

Lets define the Provincial Autonomy from the core of vision of “International Center for Provincial Autonomy & Rights”.

Autonomy itself is defined as a condition of self-government. Federal and Unitary are two different states. In the former, powers are divided between the central and provincial governments. However, in the later, the powers are centralized.

Provincial Autonomy is such a system in which the government of the provinces is independent from any external influence and does not rely on any of the external forces. Complete or absolute provincial autonomy means complete sovereignty of the government of the provinces.

Provincial autonomy is also a fiscal and political federalism's concept. Provincial autonomy is a federation that consisted of self-governing or autonomous units. As far as the extent of the self-governance of these autonomous units was concerned, except for main areas, every authority was delegated to these units. These four main areas included: foreign affairs, communication, defence and safety, and currency. This is how Provincial Autonomy can be simply explained. The powers delegated to the provinces actually tell about the authority given to each province.

Due to the success of federations in larger countries like Switzerland and America, this system's acceptability has ascended; and hence, several other states like Pakistan, India, etc. emerged as federations. However, for these later states, there have been issues like regional imbalances.

There are many states in the world that although emerged as a federation but it failed to adopt it as a constitution for many years even after its birth. It actually took many years to take on a constitution for these states which ultimately led to the weakening of the federal bonds. These problems are the responsible causes and reasons of collapse of states like Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Also, the rejection of the demands for the provincial autonomy in the constitutions of many countries made the situation worst. The decade of non-democratic and aristocratic regime made the world a highly centralized structure which proved to be a catastrophe. Meanwhile, the terms with the majority of countries further deteriorated. The states broke up after some years as a result of denial for the provincial autonomy.

The constitutions of some developed countries was somewhat flexible and hence brought some recognition for the provincial autonomy. As a result, some dispensations were given to the provinces. However, in most countries the situation got deteriorated and hence the matter was not taken seriously. This denial of the provincial autonomy in the constitution of many states made some of the politicians angry. The civilian governments in many developing states were also not able to get the issue of provincial autonomy to be resolved. Even today, this issue is still unresolved and serious efforts are not taking place in this regard. Indeed, majority population has become rebellious and the issue has become more unstable and explosive; and has now become a danger to the integrity of many states.

The parliament in majority states of the world is considered to be the protector of the constitution and hence should seriously work for the revival of federalism. Currently, the country is facing the crisis of failure to satisfy the provinces by appropriate divisibility of resources, delegation of power to the provinces, and failure to identify the provincial rights.

Historical Background

The debate of the provincial autonomy in the world has been explosive because of the fragility of the issue. There are several reasons behind this debate. The reality is that socio-economic growth and expansion is not homogeneous among all provinces of many world states due to non-acceptance of the provincial autonomy. Many states has gone through a really tough time in when provincial autonomy was somewhat accepted. A question is posed for the people who are in favour of provincial autonomy that in this currently disturbed political scenario, how they can guarantee that provincial autonomy is the main solution for inequity and injustice.

Provincial Autonomy in States Resolution

According to the critical analysis of the Declaration of world states by the advocates of provincial autonomy, they state that since people’s efforts at the time of independence were to create and maintain states that have self-governing units in colonial eras, therefore autonomy should also be given to the provinces. Here is the extract of majority states of the world resolutions regarding this:

"No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the people unless geographical contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary.

The main reason for using the term "autonomy" was that the common people should get justifiable representation in the elected bodies of legislation. The most federal states of the world made an unfair distribution of powers in two of the majority provinces: therefore initially the founder thought it was unfair with the people.

The provincial autonomy is only introduced in majority states of the world, as far as the protection of rights was concerned. However, still the people who support the concept of provincial autonomy argue that most countries were considered to be a loose Federation with certain level of authorities given to the provinces.

The dictionary tells us that autonomy means "self-governing, independent"; provincial autonomy would thus mean the capacity for a province to govern itself, to determine, without interference from the outside, its own policies and priorities, assured to have the financial capacity to fulfill its responsibilities.

Taken in this sense, it would be difficult to consider that any political entity is entirely autonomous, independent; we live in a greatly inter-dependent world, where interaction of governments and people make it very difficult for any state to be entirely independent. So the concept can be imagined theoretically in absolute terms, but can rarely be found totally in practice. However, interdependence does not prevent the existence of a large degree of independence. These two concepts are not fundamentally in opposition; rather, independence is to be opposed to dependence that can be defined as a condition where one is subordinate, subservient to some higher authority.

In a federal state, what characterizes the relationship between governments is that they are presumed to be independent each in their spheres of jurisdiction, and that one level is not subservient to the other. When such a relationship of dependence is found one must conclude one of two things: if the central level is subservient to the local level, then we have something that approaches a confederation. If the local level is subordinate to the central level, then we declare such a system to be close to a legislative union (unitary state).

The question then arises as to whether or not the Fathers of Confederation wanted a true federal system with the autonomy of the provinces fully protected. In other words, were the Fathers of Confederation federalists?

To answer properly this question one must consider the context, the pronouncements of the pre-Confederation period and the text of the Constitution Act itself. The main pitfall to be avoided is that of putting too much importance on the pronouncements of a certain select group of individual to the detriment of others. Louis-Philippe Pigeon, formerly one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, wrote in 1951 "the B.N.A. Act is not the expression of the intention of one man, whose ideas might perhaps be gathered from extrinsic evidence with a reasonable degree of certainty; it is the expression of a compromise between many men holding different and opposed viewpoints." That point had already been clearly made by George Brown during the Confederation Debates (p.87) when he stated in the House of Assembly of the United Province of Canada that the 72 Resolutions were "necessarily the work of concession; not one of the thirty-three framers but had, on some points to yield his opinions."

On the question of the relative position of the federal and provincial governments, Lord Watson declared, on behalf of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the Maritime Bank v. The Receiver-General of New Brunswick (1892): "The object of the Act was neither to weld the provinces into one, nor to subordinate provincial governments to a central authority, but to create a federal government in which they should be represented, entrusted with the exclusive administration of affairs in which they had a common interest, each province retaining its independence and autonomy." The central point made by Watson in this quotation was that the purpose of the Act had been to create a true federation with two levels of government, each sovereign in its spheres of jurisdiction. Of that quotation and its meaning, historian A. R. M. LOWER wrote: "a plainer misstatement of what everyone in 1867 had said was the object of the Act could hardly be made" (my emphasis) in Theories of Canadian Federalism, p. 34). It would be extremely easy to demonstrate that not everyone would have rejected what Lord Watson wrote, but for the purpose of discussion we will take Lower's comment to mean that fundamentally the Fathers of Confederation did not want to establish a true federal system in 1867, and that they would not have wished the relationship of the two levels of government to be that of co-equal governments but rather that the provincial governments be entirely subordinate to the federal authority; in other words that the Fathers of Confederation were not true federalists (this is not a view peculiar to Lower but one shared by a large cross-section of historians, lawyers and political scientists, especially in English-speaking Canada in the post Second World War period).

Let us first consider the context of Confederation.

The idea of the necessity for constitutional changes in the Union Act occurred as a result of many pressures. There were, first of all, economic problems: the credit of the several provinces had been stretched to the limit in a relentless search for development money particularly in the economic infrastructure for railways and canals. A larger union, it was felt, would provide a better guarantee for financiers who supported the provinces financially.



There was also the issue of the impending repeal of the Reciprocity treaty, originally drafted in 1854, under which terms British North America had done so well economically;

there was an urgent necessity for finding an alternate market and again it was felt that it would be found in a union of all of British North America. Canadians and Maritimers also feared that the American troops might turn right around, once the South had been liquidated, and attack Canada; if they did not, perhaps the Fenians would do it and it was generally felt that if the British colonies united that they would be capable of opposing a more formidable force.

Those were good reasons to seek a union of the British North American colonies and yet it is debatable whether such a union would have taken place had not the United Province of Canada been found in a hopeless deadlock in June of 1864. The main thing to be noted, so far, is that the reasons already quoted were compelling reasons to create a union of British North America but have very little relevance to the type of union which would be established. It mattered little at the time to solve such problems through a particular system of government: legislative union, confederation, federation, or quasi-federation, all would have equally done the job provided that, if the system was not a unitary one, that the central authority be entrusted with defense and tariff powers.


For more information about "International Center for Provincial Rights", please contact on the email address:
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