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46 U. Toronto Fac. L. Rev. 424 (1988)
Sir Lyman Duff and the Fork in the Road

handle is hein.journals/utflr46 and id is 430 raw text is: Sir Lyman Duff and the Fork in
the Road
RICHARD GOLD
Sir Lyman Poore Duff sat on the Supreme Court of Canada for thirty-eight years,
starting in 1906; he sat as chiefjustice for the last eleven years. During this entire
period, Duff and the Court faced important issues concerning the meaning of the
constitution. Through Duff's encounters with these issues, the author attempts to
reconstruct Duff's approach to law, in genera and to the British North America
Act, in particular
Duff began by advocating that the provinces and the dominion had been granted
power separately from the United Kingdom. These powers were mutually exclusive
with little, if any, overlap. While the two orders of government were each dependent
on the imperial parliament, they were independent with respect to each other. Duff's
position shifted with time. He gradually came to realize that firm boundaries between
federal and provincial powers were impossible to attain. Rather, a certain degree
of concurrent power had to be tolerated Further, with Canada's evolution into
an independent state in 1931, Duff's vision of the relationship between the federal
and provincial governments changed The sovereign power, which until that time
had rested with the imperial parliamen4 in 1931 came to rest with the dominion
parliament. The provinces' subordination, therefore, switched from the former to
the latter.
Sir Lyman Poore Duff sijgea & la Cour supreme du Canada pendant trente-huit
ans, a partir de 1906. I y sidgea a titre dejuge en chef pendant les onze dernires
annges de cette pdriode. Au cours de cette pdriode entir4 Duff et la Cour
affrontrent d'importantes questions relatives a la signification de la constitution.
C'est a partir de l'affrontement de ces questions par Duff que l'auteur du prisent
article tente de reconstituer l'approche de Duff en matre du droit en gingral et
de l'Acte de l'Amirique du nord britannique en particulier
Duff debuta par soutenir que c'est de fafon sdparge que les provinces et le
dominion s'dtaient chacun vus accorder leurs pouvoirs par le Royaume- Uni Ces
pouvoirs s'excluaient mutuellement, avecpeu de chevauchemeni si aucun. Quoique
les deux ordres gouvernementaux dpendent du parlement impjrial ils demeuraient
indipendants l'un de l'autre. La position de Duff se modifia avec le temps.
Graduellement il se rendit compte qu'il itait impossible d'tablir de fermes
ddmarcations entre lespouvoirsf&gdraux etprovinciaux Uncertain degrgdepouvoir
concurrent devait plut6t etre toldr. De plus, avec l'volution du Canada en un
itat inddpendant en 1931, la vision de Duff en se qui avait trait a la relation

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