Formalism, Liberalism, Federalism: David Mills and the Rule of Law Vision in Canada

CARL STYCHIN

ABSTRACT

The legal thought of David Mills, a nineteenth-century Canadian lawyer, academic, and politician, is examined in this article. The author shows that, although Mills's writing is fervently supportive of provincial autonomy, it is more importantly a discourse of individual rights. Because of the exhaustiveness of the distribution of powers in the Canadian federal system, Mills was forced to assume that the interests of the individual were coexstensive with those of the province, which thereby made the province the individual's natural protector. With the advent of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms the nature of the relationship between the individual and the state is profoundly changed. The alliance of the individual and the province breaks down, and Mills's liberal vision is brought to fruition through the explicit and direct protection of the individual. In turn, the arsenal of the provincial rights movement is depleted as rights are removed from the discourse of federalism.

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Citation: (1988) 46(1) U.T. Fac. L. Rev. 201.
Copyright © 1988. University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review.
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