# Talk:Section 54 of the Constitution Act, 1867

Here's some general comments on the prose:

I like the lead.  But I'm a fan of short leads so don't be terribly surprised if other reviewers tell you it's too short.
Not a problem.  I can expand it with references to the historical development in Britain and Province of Canada.
product of extensive negotiations ... Following those conferences The use of two different words (negotiations vs conferences) leads the reader to think there's two different things being talked about.  I'd use the same word in both places, or just do something like "... in the 1860s, after which there were ..."
I've clarified the sentence to say extensive negotiations at three separate conferences.
including creating the federal government and defining the powers ... I'd drop the "including".
Done!
In 1982, the act was brought under full Canadian control I had to read this a couple of times to realize we had skipped forward a whole century.  I'd give the reader some kind of heads up along the lines of "This remained the status quo for 155 years until when in 1982, the act was brought ...".  Or maybe just start a new paragraph here?
New para with copyedits;  I've added a cn tag to remind myself to stick in a cite.
Since Patriation the act can only be I read "since" as meaning "because of", but I'm pretty sure you mean "after this time", so rephrase to clarify that.
Both, actually.  "Patriation" is used to mean the substantive constitutional change, and the events in 1982.  I've switched it to "Since 1982" for greater clarity.
Section 54 is found in Part IV of the Constitution Act, 1867, dealing with the federal legislative power maybe an English variant thing, but "dealing with" -> "which deals with"?
Respectfully, I think this is ENGVAR;  "which deals with" strikes me as too wordy.  ;) However, I will keep in mind your admonition in your articles to not make everything a hill to die on going forward.
That this House will receive no petition for any sum of money relating to the public service but what is recommended by the Crown.[12][13] why the two citations?  As far as I can tell, the  Canadian Parliamentary Review covers all the facts in the article, so I don't see why the other one is needed.
A couple of reasons.  First, Erskine May goes into it in more detail than in the Parliamentary Review article.  Second, when writing about this sort of historical development, I usually want to provide sources to both the Canadian and English background, because both streams are part of our Canadian parliamentary heritage.  Providing a cite to Erskine May flags for the reader that there is more going on here than just what happened in Canada, without ever looking at either source.  Our constitutional history is different from the US, where there was a re-set on July 4, 1776.  Our constitutional history includes the English and British constitutional developments that contributed to our Canadian constitutional system.  I think it's important for that to be recognised in the citations. (And I guess a third reason:  if this is to be a featured article, I think loading up with cites is a good thing.)
The requirement for the royal recommendation continues to be set out in the Standing Orders of the British House of Commons I'm not too bothered by this, but I can pretty much guarantee that some FAC reviewer will complain about the single-sentence paragraph.
Point taken. I view it as one paragraph with a quotation in the middle.  Will wait and see. :)
The Union Act contained the following provision: Provided also ... rephrase to avoid the repetition of "provision".  Also, per MOS:CONFORM, you probably want to convert the various initial capitals to lower case within the quoted passage.
Isn't this a case of MOS:ARTCON?  I've not changed the capitalisation for the quotation of s. 54 itself?
I don't know that I can come up with a good argument to support this, but my hunch is that reviewers at FAC will be more likely to want to see compliance with CONFORM than with ARTCON on this.  @Gog the Mild and UndercoverClassicist: who are my go-to people on this kind of question.
the London Resolutions of 1866[18][19] as before, why do you need two citations here?
When I was putting this article up for GA, the reviewer cautioned me about relying too much on primary sources, so I provided cites to both the basic text of various resolutions and statutes, and also provided cites to secondary sources that provide some commentary.  That's what I've done here:  the first cite is to PrimaryDocuments.ca, which as the name suggests, just gives the primary sources.  Browne and Ajzenstat quote the texts as well, but also provide some commentary in their intros and footnotes, which I think makes them a combination of primary and secondary sources.  Citing to PrimaryDocs gives an internet cite for the reader;  Browne and provide a hard copy for those who want to follow up.
The leading authority on British parliamentary practice describes who is this leading authority?
Erskine May, in the cite.  Have added it to the sentence.  It's not a single individual, but a text that dates back about a century and a half and is regularly updated by extremely knowledgeable Britons who specialise in parliamentary practice.
appointed by the British government, became a routine aspect of public life.[27][31][32][33] Do you really need four citations here?
I think so.  Bosc is the general outline;  the two texts provide details, one for Lower Canada and one for Upper Canada;  and Creighton, one of the leading historians of his generation, provides the deep dive that ties it together.  Again, since I hope this will be a featured article, I think more cites are better, not fewer.
remnants of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia District try to avoid WP:SEAOFBLUE
I must be very dense tonight.  Where is this quotation?
Oh my, that's embarrassing.  I must have clicked through to Canadian Confederation and lost track of which page I was reading!
😁
It is clear that the Senate can amend a money bill to decrease spending or taxation. unless the source says it is clear, this is editorializing and should be avoided.
I will go back and check sources on this point.
The "Related provisions" section seems to just repeat what's already in the preceding two sections.
This is part of the standard outline I've developed for this series of articles.  In some of them, like this one, the related provisions get a lot of play in the main text, but in others, the "Related provisions" is the main reference to other provisions.  I appreciate it may be redundant here, but I would prefer to keep to the same format for all of the articles.  (On that point, when I started doing the series, I was a bit inconsistent on the legislative history;  I'm currently going forward and adding a lege history section to all of the articles and re-wording accordingly.)
If you really want to have some standardized way to show related provisions, perhaps develop a navigation template or a specialized infobox template.  But I don't think what you've got now is going to fly at FAC.
Fancy stuff like that is definitely not my strong suit. Are you thinking of a template at the bottom of the page, like the one that’s currently there for the Constitution? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 17:15, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
Overall, this looks pretty reasonable to me.

Thanks very much.
You may run into problems with the licensing of File:John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham by Thomas Phillips.jpg.  I think you're OK, but image licensing is not my strong point.

I wondered about that.  The Commons entry says it's approved for use, but then mentions the challenge.  I don't know how that will play out.  I'd prefer to keep this image if possible, because it's the only colour one that the Commons has for Durham.
My recommendation is that, after you address the above, to list this at WP:Peer review and make sure you link it into {{FAC peer review sidebar}}.  I would also post notes to Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada and Wikipedia:WikiProject Law, trying to attract some subject matter experts to the peer review page. RoySmith (talk) 18:06, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much for all these suggestions!  Really appreciated.
Wonderful!  thanks!  Will work my way through it. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 18:12, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
One other thought: look through the list of current FAs and see if you can find any on similar topics to yours.  If so, look over those articles (and their reviews) to see if you can learn anything but just as important, ping the nominators of those articles to see if any of them are interested in reviewing yours.  Also, I would jump in and review other people's articles at WP:FAC; it's a great way to learn the ropes and also if you review somebody else's article, they're more likely to want to review yours.  Kind of the worst thing that can happen is you've got a good article but nobody at FAC notices it enough to give you a review so it ends up just timing out. RoySmith (talk) 20:29, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for this background info for the process.  Really appreciate your help.