Margarine Reference

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Margarine Reference

Hearing: October 5-8, 1948
Judgment: December 14, 1948


Full case name:	Reference as to the Validity of Section 5(A) of the Dairy Industry Act
Citations:	[1949] S.C.R. 1

Court membership

Reasons given

Majority by: Rand J.
Concurrence by: Tascherau J.
Concurrence by: Kellock J.
Concurrence by: Locke J.
Dissent by: Kerwin J.
Joined by: Kerwin C.J.

Reference re Validity of Section 5(a) of the Dairy Industry Act (1949), also known as the Margarine Reference or as Can. Federation of Agriculture v. A.-G. Que., is a leading opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada on determining if a law is within the authority of the federal government under the Parliament's powers to legislate criminal law. In this particular case, the Court found that a regulation made by Parliament was ultra vires. It contained sufficient punitive sanctions; however, the subject matter was not the kind that served a public purpose.

At this time, the Supreme Court of Canada was not the supreme authority on Canadian law. However, the decision, by Rand J., was upheld by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in 1951. The case has been cited in federalism disputes many times since.

1 Background
2 Decision
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Background

Under section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867 (or, at the time of this case, the British North America Act, 1867), Parliament receives exclusive powers to legislate in regard to the criminal law. The precise meaning of the criminal law power, however, had proved controversial. In Board of Commerce (1922), the JCPC seemingly chose to define criminal law power as limited to prohibiting only what was criminal in 1867, the year of Canadian Confederation. This was overturned in Proprietary Articles Trade Assn. v. A.-G. Can. (1931), in which it was found criminal law means Parliament could legitimately prohibit any act "with penal consequences." The problem with the latter decision was that it gave Parliament an excuse to legislate in regard to many matters, perhaps including those that were under provincial authority.

The matter came before the courts again with the Margarine Reference, and a compromise was attempted. In this case, Parliament had legislated against the production and trade of margarine, in order to give dairy businesses assurances that margarine would not threaten their existence. This legislation actually dated back to 1886, and it was claimed in the law that the real purpose was to target a product that was "injurious to health." While this, if true, would have made margarine a fair target for criminal law, the federal government admitted before the courts that this assessment was simply false.

[edit] Decision

Justice Rand, for the Majority, struck down the prohibition on production of margarine on the grounds that it was not valid criminal law, the prohition on importation of margarine, however, was upheld under the federal Trade and Commerce power.

Rand outlined a test to determine if a law falls under the criminal law.

A crime is an act which the law, with appropriate penal sanctions, forbids; but as prohibitions are not enacted in a vacuum, we can properly look for some evil or injurious or undesirable effect upon the public against which the law is directed. That effect may be in relation to social, economic or political interests; and the legislature has had in mind to suppress the evil or the safeguard the interest threatened.

From this, two requirements must be met for a law to be criminal in nature.

the law must be a prohibition with a penal sanction; and
the law must be directed towards a public purpose.

Rand also listed a few objectives that would qualify as legitimate public purposes, namely "Public peace, order, security, health, morality."

The JCPC, in upholding Rand's decision, agreed that in pith and substance, the law was primarily related to property and civil rights, a provincial power.