Property and civil rights

Section 92(13) of the Constitution Act, 1867, also known as the property and civil rights power, grants the provincial legislatures of Canada the authority to legislate on:

13. Property and Civil Rights in the Province.

It is one of three key residuary powers in the Constitution Act, 1867, together with the federal power of peace, order and good government and the provincial power over matters of a local or private nature in the province.

Provincial jurisdiction over property and civil rights embraces all private law transactions, which includes virtually all commercial transactions. This power is generally balanced against the federal trade and commerce power and criminal law power. With respect to the former, In the Insurance Reference,Viscount Haldane noted that:

It is the most powerful and expansive of the provincial constitutional provisions, and is capable of being applied in general matters and in specific cases, as noted by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council:

There appears to be no authority and no reason for the opinion that legislation in respect of property and civil rights must be general in character and not in respect of a particular right. Such a restriction would appear to eliminate the possibility of special legislation aimed at transferring a particular right or property from private hands to a public authority for public purposes. The Legislature is supreme in these matters, and its actions must be assumed to be taken with regard for justice and good conscience. They are not in any case subject to control by the courts.

The power has even been used to dissolve specific injunctions, such as one issued against the KVP Company in 1948 for discharging noxious effluent into the Spanish River.

Property and civil rights include:

By themselves, incidental effects of provincial regulations on a federal sphere of influence do not change their true nature. Moreover, the fact that a valid provincial regulation may affect an export trade or the cost of doing business is similarly not conclusive of determining whether it is made "in relation to" that power.

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