page_title: Legislative Council of Nova Scotia
section_title: Abolition
hierarchical_section_title: Legislative Council of Nova Scotia / Post-Confederation / Abolition
caption_attribution_description: fr:Edgar Nelson Rhodes, ancien premier ministre de la Nouvelle-Écosse, député fédéral et sénateur
context_page_description: The Legislative Council of Nova Scotia was the upper house of the legislature of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. It existed from 1838 to May 31, 1928. From the establishment of responsible government in 1848, members were appointed by the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia on the advice of the Premier.
context_section_description: Following the Conservative landslide in 1925, the Council abolition debate was reopened.  The Conservatives' first Speech from the Throne in 1926 called for the abolition of the Council; a few weeks later, Premier Edgar Rhodes introduced an abolition bill in the Assembly.  Meanwhile, Rhodes worked behind the scenes to try to negotiate for the Council to agree to abolish itself.  In February, Rhodes offered the pre-reform Councillors pensions of $1000 per annum for ten years, and the post-reform Councillors $500 per annum for ten years; this proposal was rejected almost unanimously by the Council as a "bribe", and inspired the Council to pass a resolution affirming its important constitutional role.
  With the Council seemingly unwilling to abolish itself, Rhodes considered alternative means of achieving abolition.  In early March, he settled on a scheme to appoint twenty Councillors in addition to the eighteen already sitting in the Council.  As the Council was presumed to be limited to twenty-one, this would have resulted in seventeen Councillors over and above the presumed constitutional limit.  Wary of the constitutionality of the appointments, Lieutenant-Governor James Cranswick Tory wrote of the plan to Secretary of State in Ottawa, stating that he planned to make the appointments on March 15, 1926, unless instructed otherwise by the Governor General.  After receiving an opinion from the Law Officers expressing the belief that the appointments in excess of twenty-one would be unconstitutional, the Governor General instructed Lieutenant-Governor Tory not to make the appointments for the time being, and suggested that the matter should be judicially considered.
  Rebuffed by Ottawa, the Rhodes government then filed a reference for an advisory opinion with the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.  The reference presented four questions:
  Has the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, acting by and with the advice of the Executive Council of Nova Scotia, power or authority to appoint in the name of the Crown by instrument under the Great Seal of the Province so many Members of the Legislative Council of Nova Scotia that the total number of the Members of such Council holding their offices or places as such Members would
  (a) exceed twenty-one, or
  (b) exceed the total number of the Members of said Council who held their offices or places as such Members at the Union mentioned in Section 88 of The British North America Act, 1867?
  Is the membership of the Legislative Council of Nova Scotia limited in number?
  Is the tenure of office of Members of the said Council appointed thereto prior to May 7, A.D. 1925, during pleasure or during good behaviour or for life?
  If such tenure is during pleasure, is it during the pleasure of His Majesty the King, or during the pleasure of His Majesty represented in that behalf by the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia acting by and with the advice of the Executive Council of Nova Scotia?
  In October 1926, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court issued a divided opinion, in which:
  all judges agreed that a full Legislative Council consisted of 21 members;
  two judges ruled that the Lieutenant-Governor could appoint more than twenty-one Councillors, while two ruled that he could not;
  three of the four judges ruled that the Councillor's tenure of office was at pleasure, but only two ruled that it was at the pleasure of the Lieutenant-Governor, while the third judge ruled that they served at the pleasure of His Majesty the King; the fourth judge ruled that Councillors served for life.
  With the court effectively evenly divided on all issues, it granted leave to appeal its ruling to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In October 1927, the Board, in a decision written by Viscount Cave, ruled that:
  from 1838 to 1867, there was nothing in any of the commissions to the Province's successive Governors that limited the number of Councillors that could be appointed, nor was there anything of that nature to be found in any other correspondence on the subject;
  the fact that s. 88 of the British North America Act 1867 continued
caption: Edgar Rhodes, who was instrumental in bringing about the abolition of the Legislative Council
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