Statute of Westminster, December 11, 1931
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N o t e s
The Statute of Westminster, December 11, 1931 finally provided the freedom from Britain that Sir John A. and so many others after him had long desired. It was akin to the earlier Treaty of Paris. In this document not only did Britain give independence to former colonies, including Australia, New Zealand, the Irish Free State, South Africa and Newfoundland, but also to Canadian Provinces. The provinces are not obliged to Ottawa because they have not formed a federal government, and the one that is there since the Statute of Westminster, is there as the result of some pretty devious.footwork.
Since this date, Canadians are.no longer recognized by Britain as British subjects, but rather are independent, and by Eminent Domain, possess the right to stay independent, federate, or form a union.
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By means of this document, Britain made the Provinces eligible to be self governing.(no longer colonies under a Dominion of Canada, controlled by Britain by means of her BNA Act).sovereign states, each in their own right, none were or are superior to the others. Ottawa was never a colony. Ottawa never had Eminent Domain.
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In this document, England gave up her rights to her colonies. In Canada the colonies were the Provinces, collectively called the Dominion of Canada. 
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This Statute of Westminster declared that the."Dominions are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated.(friends).as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations."
   The document provided for these now autonomous communities to have a basis for legally forming their own parliaments, and empowered them to reject any law the British Parliament left in its trail.('in its trail' meaning 'expectation of successive things that come afterward')
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The day after this Statute was enacted, the Canadian politicians, secretaries, et al, showed up for work as they normally would.
   I mean, the buses still took them to the same places for their work, the buildings were still there, the paycheques would still be coming, the same faces were at their offices, their work continued on from where they had left it when they went home the previous afternoon, but from that moment to this day, the Provinces, were absolutely, completely and totally supreme independent states in their own right, just as the original American states were which framed the true original US Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, not the one we see today..(*)
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Individual colonies which were formerly under the Dominion of Canada, once they were made free and independent sovereign states, never understood enough of the impact of this document to do anything meaningful regarding change. And of course, this would suit eastern central control of all the Provinces just fine. 'Let 'em stay in the dark."
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Since that time the Provinces have not set aside any land to be occupied by a federal government.(*).of the Provinces creation, and a creation which, because of the way it is possible to form it, represent what people in the Provinces have determined.
   How? Citizens would relate their ideas to representatives they have previously chosen and elected. These elected representatives would in turn.re.present (present again).these desires of their electorate in assemblies with other representatives. This would occur until a consensus occurs. This may take a short time; so what, let's do it right).
   The US and others have done it better and most of them have done it correctly, having given land in order for Eminent Domain status to be possessed by the fed.
   The individual sovereign states (Nebraska, California, New York, Alaska, etc.) allow their creation, the fed (Washington, District of Columbia), to also exercise sovereign power on behalf of matters of the nation. 

Few people in Canada understood enough of the impact of this document to do anything meaningful regarding change, and, some of those who did, did all they could to circumvent it. They either were threatened by it, or more probably, it just didn't fit in with.their.design for Canada, which would not have included the people setting up.their.country the way.they.wanted and now had authority to do. Looks to me like Ottawa's policy then was 'let 'em stay in the dark'.

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Section 2 (1.) and Section 2 (2.), when applied to the Provinces of Canada means the words 'Parliament of a Dominion' and applies to the 'Legislature of any Province of Canada'; as.now.(by means of this Statute of Westminster) they have become sovereign.entities
   What other way could independence be granted in more adequate language than that used to confer sovereignty upon the Provinces of Canada? 

Note that Newfoundland is mentioned as one of the Dominions which has an equality of status no less than the others mentioned. Today Newfoundland is one of the Provinces of Canada. Does Newfoundland have a superior status to that of the other Provinces? Such is not the case. The provisions of Section 2 apply equally to each and every Province, the same as Newfoundland.

Sections 8,9 and 10 do not apply to Canada.

Section 11 talks of Acts of Britain up to this time and from this time forward, will no longer be applicable.

The first page of the BNA Act was deleted sometime after being presented in the British House of Lords and before it went to their House of Commons for enactment.

So what does section 7. (1) mean? Imagine that the deleted page's words were still there, and again read section 7. (1.).
   Get the meaning now?
   It would not have been necessary to repeal, amend or alter the fact of the document with the original words intact that."...they have laws and regulations to guide them".

The delegates from Canada wanted the BNA Act to be their.guide.in creating a federal union, perhaps not fully understanding that it was never created for this, and also, understanding that they had to tred very carefully as Britain had the power over all Canada. The delegates request was based upon the results of the Imperial Conferences. They actually wanted Britain to know what they really were desiring, a creation of their own design. But it was not to be. Britain saw through it all and did what they did to ensure British control over Canada would continue. If the first page of the BNA Act not been deleted, Canada would have formed a federation of her own intentions.
   That's what England did to us! Conned us out of a union.(but they did own us.then, and weren't then about to give it up)..See also what Canada's prime ministers have done to us as well.
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Why do provisions of section 2 extend to the provinces of Canada and not to the States of Australia or to the States of South Africa? 
   For the reason that the Commonwealth or Federal Union of Australia, had been created by the States of Australia to be effective from January 1, 1901.
   And, the States of South Africa had created the Federal Union of South Africa in 1909.
   Both Australia and South Africa had federated their own.national.governing bodies (federal governments), but until December 11, 1931, were still under Great Britain's sanction..
   As the lawyers who drafted the Statute of Westminster knew and all constitutional authorities agree, that no confederation of the Provinces in Canada had occurred
   It was imperative that the Provinces of Canada should have an equality of status with the other Dominions and no longer that of colonies, in order that they could convene a conference in Canada and create a federal union; something they couldn't heretofore do as their status was below that of the other Dominions.
  This was discussed in Canada in the House of Commons, Thursday November 8, 1945.
 

The Statute of Westminster, 1931,
22 George V, Chapter 4.

An.Act.to give effect to certain resolutions passed by Imperial Conferences held in the years 1926 and 1930.(December 11th, 1931) 

WHEREAS the delegates to His Majesty's Governments in the United Kingdom, the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, the Irish Free State and Newfoundland, at Imperial Conferences holden at Westminster in the years of our Lord nineteen hundred and twenty six and nineteen hundred and thirty did concur in making the declarations and resolutions set forth in the Reports of the said Conferences:


    And whereas it is meet and proper to set out by way of preamble to this Act that, inasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown, it would be in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the Commonwealth in relation to one another that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom: 
    And whereas it is in accord with the established constitutional position that no law hereafter made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall extend to any of the said Dominions as part of the law of that Dominion otherwise than at the request and with the consent of that Dominion..(the "established constitutional position" was that many of the dominions had already federated {as explained in the column on the left here where it talks about Section 2, close to the bottom}, yet were still under Britain. It was a sort of 'pulling awat process'. Canada, however, was lagging way behind the others)
    And whereas it is necessary for the ratifying, confirming and establishing of certain of the said declarations and resolutions of the said Conferences that a law be made and enacted in due form by authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom:
     And whereas the.Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, the Irish Free State and Newfoundland have severally requested and consented to the submission of a measure to the Parliament of the United Kingdom for making such provision with regard to the matters aforesaid as is hereafter in this Act contained:

Now, therefore, be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty by and with the advice and consent of the LordsSpiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
(the King at this time was a limited monarch; that's why it says 'by and with'; a limited monarchy has reigned in England since Queen Elizabeth I.(1508-1603).signed away her rights to sovereignty. The King had no authority on his own to sign this document, that why it says 'by and with the advice and consent of ...' )
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1. In this Act the expression "Dominion" means any of the following Dominions, that is to say, the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, the Irish Free State, and Newfoundland.
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2..(1) The Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865, shall not apply to any law made after the commencement of this Act by the Parliament of any Dominion.(Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, etc.).

    (2).(England here saying that she's completely out of it now).No law and no provision of any law made after the commencement of this Act.(on December 11, 1931).by the Parliament of a Dominion.(or.the Provinces.{as section 7. (2) below imparts).shall be void or inoperative on the ground it is repugnant to the law of England, or to the provisions of any existing.('existing' means it also would cover the BNA Act if it hadn't already been rendered null and void.(*).or future Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, or to any order, rule or regulation made under any such Act, and the powers of the Parliament of a Dominion shall include the power to repeal or amend any such Act, order, rule or regulation in so far as the same is part of the law of the Dominion.

(if a British Act or a part of it is still being used after the enactment of this Statute, and is unwanted, it can be gotten rid of or amended with no repercussive effects from Britain; so, if the fed claims {and they will!} that the dead BNA Act is stll valid and part of the law of this country, or that Trudeau's 'constitution' is in effect; by this, the Provinces then have the power to rescind.any law, as Section 7. (2) extends all this to the Provinces who now possess Sovereign power, power to amend any act that is or may become a law to affect them, and that they, the Provinces, have the authority to do things by and for themselves)

When applied to the Canadian Provinces, Section 2 reads:
2. (1) The Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865, shall not apply to any law made after the commencement of this Act by any of the.Provinces of Canada, or to the powers of the.legislatures of such Provinces.
    (2) No law and no provision of any law made after the commencement of this Act by the.legislature of any Province of Canada.shall be void or inoperative on the ground it is repugnant to the law of England, or to the provisions of any existing or future Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, or to any order, rule or regulation made under any such Act, and the powers of.any of the Provinces of Canada.shall include the power to repeal or amend any such Act, order, rule or regulation in so far as the same is part.of the law of such Province.

What it's saying is:.if Canadians don't like, want or feel they need, say, something like, say, Trudeau's 'constitution', or any other laws or acts, they can say 'to hell with them', and get rid of them.

As a federal union is a "Union of Sovereign States mutually adopting a Constitution", it was essential that the Provinces should be granted their independence and sovereignty in order that they could create a federal union. Britain knew this, as she wrote the Statute of Westminster. Until creating a legal and proper federal union happens, Canada is merely a geographical expression, not a We The People entity, but only a country by, as the Supreme Court called it, "by custom, convention and tradition.".(*).

3. It is hereby declared and enacted that the Parliament of a Dominion has full power to make laws having extra territorial operation. 

4. No Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after, the commencement of this Act shall, extend, or be.deemed.to extend to a Dominion as part of the law of that Dominion, unless it is expressly declared in that Act that that Dominion has requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof.

England here is divesting herself of her Dominions. Why? Because she still would hold control over them through ways that on the surface appear inoffensive - financial.

The only possible legal Dominion in Canada at this time.(what time?..the time of the end of Britain's rule over Canada, and the end of the Governor General's position as Britain's boss for Canada.(*).would have been a federal union wholly created by the people of the Provinces from their newly gained independence and sovereignty status. And since this 'dominion' was not then created.(and has not since been created up to 2006), there is no way anything could be legally requested from Britain. But the Trudeau regime did! Therefore, his concocted constitution is a total farce, completely inapplicable for Canadians, and as such, invalid.

Trudeau, no doubt, tried to justify.his snow-job with this section, hoping no one would think that the 'Dominion' mentioned above had absolutely no authority for further political activity after the commencement of this Statute of Westminster.

5. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provisions of this Act, sections seven hundred and thirty five and seven hundred and thirty six of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, shall be construed as though reference therein to the Legislature of a British possession did not include reference to the Parliament of a Dominion. 

6. Without prejudice to a generality of the foregoing provisions of this Act, section four of the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890 (which requires certain laws to be reserved for the signification of His Majesty's pleasure or to contain a suspending clause), and so much of section seven of that Act as requires the approval of His Majesty in Council to any rules of Court for regulating the practice and procedure of a Colonial Court of Admiralty, shall cease to have effect in any Dominion as from the commencement of this Act. 

7. (1) Nothing in this Act.(The Statute of Westminster).shall be deemed to apply to the repeal, amendment or alteration of the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1930, or to any order rule or regulation made thereunder..(this specifies.essentially, that the Statute of Westminster document had nothing whatsoever to do with the BNA Act; that it wasn't trying to alter or amend anything in it, as it was already a past Act)

These  BNA Acts.(plural because they became a bit different from the original as various amendments were added from time to time).were Acts of Britain.(generally referred to as just the 'BNA Act'), by which they legalized everything they had done by authority of their act, and putting a starting and an ending date on it.

The Statute of Westminster so far up and away supersedes the BNA Act as to be incomparable.(*).(*).(*).

(Britain was in consultation regularly with the Canadians over the impending implementation of this Statute. Britain knew what was on the first page of the original BNA Act that the Canadian delegation had drafted. They had wanted a guide.(*).to create their own federal union,  and a page vanished. Britain figured, in drawing up this Statute of Westminster so many decades later after the BNA Act of 1867, that it was important to give the Canadians what they originally wanted.
    It was essential to have the established processes remain in place, both for the government existing in 1931, and for the support workers in Canada that would still be there the next day after this Act's deployment, still there busy managing the country.(somebody had to do it), and for guidelines to be utilized in the creation of the federal union that Canadians so long before had worked toward.

7. (2) The provisions of section two.(provisions of Section 2 are: The Colonial Laws Validity Act, and, the jurisdiction.of.the Provinces,.allowing them to amend any act that is a law).of this Act shall extend to laws made by any of the Provinces of Canada and to the powers of the legislatures of such provinces

(Britain knew the Provinces had wanted to federate for ages by this time; they knew of all the conferences that had taken place many months and years before, and of Sir John A.'s desires also; no doubt this was one reason they were so explicit regarding the Provinces here; Britain knew the situation was different in Canda than it was in her other Dominions like South Africa, Australia, etc. who already had constitutions or were in the process of producing them, so Britain gave special emphasis to the Provinces, the former colonies united under the BNA Act into a Dominion of Canada; special emphasis to let them know they were now Sovereign and independent, and, because of having Eminent Domain, could federate a proper federal union with rules the Provinces would agree upon for their newly created federal government to follow)

(in addition Britain expected a federation in Canada would be formed quickly, as the Provinces were now legally qualified to give competence to a federal government of their making; alas, some 75 years later Canadians have yet to do so; how very sad!; but that's what you get when you keep a populace so busy they have no time to find out stuff in any depth to do something meaningful about it..part of the snow-job?)

7. (3) The powers conferred by this Act upon the Parliament of Canada.or upon the legislatures of the Provinces.shall be restricted to the enactment of laws in relation to matters within the competence.(Provinces.never.gave competence to Ottawa).of the Parliament of Canada.(if the federal union, a new Canadian Parliament, had been created by the Provinces it would possess that competence).or of any of the legislatures of the Provinces respectively.

Section 7, 3 refers to a framework for a federation, where the independent sovereign Provinces can make laws completely on their own, or if they choose, they can collectively form a federal union and headquarter the new Parliament in say, Winnipeg, or whatever city they may choose.

Provinces were the ones who had the 'competence' to give and could now create a federal union (a Parliament in Canada that was new and of their creation), because they were the.ones qualified.to create such a federal union. Ottawa at this time was no longer tied to Britain. Since Ottawa no longer had legal competency forthwith this Statute's enactment, they figured they'd just carry right on with their cushy jobs controlling, and taking advantage of parts of Canada foreign to central control areas. With the help of a few cons along the way to assist them in their plan, they still have not made known to the poeple of the country the new found rights the citizens of Canada possess.
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8. Nothing in this Act shall be deemed to confer any power to repeal or alter the Constitution or the Constitution Act of the Dominion of New Zealand otherwise than in accordance with the law existing before the commencement of this Act.
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9. (1) Nothing in this Act shall be deemed to authorize the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia to make laws on any matter within the authority of the States of Australia, not being a matter within the authority of the Parliament or Government of the Commonwealth of Australia. 
    (2) Nothing in this Act shall be deemed to require the concurrence of the Parliament or Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, in any case where it would have been in United Kingdom with respect to any matter within the authority of the States of Australia, not being a matter within the authority of the Parliament or Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, in any case where it would have been in accordance with the constitutional practice existing before the commencement of this Act that the Parliament of the United Kingdom should make that law without such concurrence. 
    (3) In the application of this Act to the Commonwealth of Australia the request and consent of referred to in section four shall mean the request and consent of the Parliament and Government of the Commonwealth.
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10. (1) None of the following sections of this Act, that is to say sections two, three, four, five and six, shall extend to a Dominion to which this section applies as part of the law of that Dominion unless that section is adopted by the Parliament of the Dominion, and any Act of that Parliament adopting any section of this Act may provide that the adoption shall have effect either from the commencement of this Act or from such later date as is specified in the adopting Act. 
   (2) The Parliament of any such Dominion as aforesaid may at any time revoke the adoption of any section referred to in subsection (1) of this section. 
   (3) The Dominions to which this section applies are the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand and Newfoundland.
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11. Notwithstanding anything in the Interpretation Act, 1889, the expression "Colony" shall not in any Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the commencement of this Act, include a Dominion or any Province or State forming part of a Dominion.

(in other words, this Interpretations Act is also now null and made void by this document, the Statute of Westminster)

(Britain here saying that this Statute of Westminster document supersedes the Intrepretaions Act as well as the BNA; in fact, all previous Acts having to do with British control over her Colonies)
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12. This Act may be cited as the Statute of Westminster, 1931.

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.The Statute of Westminster, December 11, 1931 finally provided freedom from Britain.
    Mr. J.H. Thomas, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, said of the Statute of Westminster as he presented it for second reading in the British Parliament (page 1174, Orders of the Day, November 20, 1931:."The Bill which I presented to the House today is, in a sense,.the most important and far reaching that has ever been presented to this house for several generations. It marks the end of a long road.(BNA now dead.(*).which had its beginning when parliamentary constitutions were first established in the overseas Dominions of the Crown, three centuries ago. It marks the culmination of a process of constitutional development which began long before the war.(1914-1918 1st World War)."

.I n d e x  o f  s i t e

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