THE EVOLUTION OF PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY IN NOVA SCOTIA
by Brian Cuthbertson Ph.D., Historical Researcher
THE ORIGIN OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT
Mi’kmaw Territory
At first European contact around 1500, the traditional Mi’kmaw territory ran from Cape Breton
Island through mainland Nova Scotia, all of New Brunswick east of the Saint John River and north to the
Gaspé Peninsula. For much of the year the Mi’kmaw relied on marine life while going inland during the
winter months to hunt. The pre-contact population, generally estimated at 15,000, was soon decimated by
epidemics of European imported diseases. During the “great dying” the Mi’kmaw suffered a mortality
rate between 75 and 90 percent.
French Acadia
Although throughout the 16th century, the Mi’kmaw had seasonal contact with French and
Portuguese fishermen, it was not until the founding of Port-Royal Habitation in 1605 that the French
became permanent settlers. Good relations developed between the French and the Mi’kmaw and
especially with their great chief Membertou. There was inter-marriage and the developing trade in furs for
European goods provided a living for the few French who resided permanently in Acadia. By 1650, there
were between 45 and 50 households at Port-Royal engaged in agriculture and the dyking of salt marshes
had become the accepted practice. Since the first French and English settlements, there had been imperial
rivalry. The English had attacked Port-Royal three times. In 1654, England gained possession of Acadia
and would retain it until 1670. However, there was only nominal English rule and no attempt at English
settlement, though a considerable trade grew up between Acadia and New England. During this period the
Acadian population continued to grow.
During the four decades after 1670 the Acadian expansion became most marked as family after family
moved to seek out good marshlands up the Annapolis River, around the Minas Basin with its great
meadow, Grand Pré, and at Beaubassin on the Chignecto Isthmus. In 1647, the French Crown had taken
over responsibility for governing Acadia from the Company of New France. Administration now lay with
a governor appointed by the king. After the re-establishment of French sovereignty in 1670, Acadia
became a royal colony under the jurisdiction of the Governor of New France at Quebec. There grew up at
Port-Royal over succeeding decades a small governing class composed of appointed officials and officers
of the garrison. Outside of Port-Royal, however, the government was unable to exercise much more than
nominal authority.
Failure to Establish Civil Government
Between 1689 and 1763 there would be a series of French-English wars that usually had their
origins in the European conflicts of the period. After a number of attempts, the English captured PortRoyal in 1710. By the Treaty of Utrecht signed in 1713 the French ceded Acadia to Great Britain.
However, the French retained both Ile St-Jean (Prince Edward Island) and Ile Royale (Cape Breton
Island). In 1719, they began the construction of Fortress Louisbourg, the largest such fortification in
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North America. Meanwhile, in honour of Queen Anne, Port-Royal became Annapolis Royal. With its
small garrison and a few civilians, Annapolis Royal much resembled its previous French governing
establishment, but in population it remained essentially an Acadian town.
Initially, the Mi’kmaw were not much affected by the British presence at Annapolis Royal. In various
Anglo-French wars they had joined with their Abenaki and Maliseet brethren from Maine and the Saint
John River Valley in siding with the French in resisting the New England expansion into Maine.
Advancing settlement in Maine and the increasing friction with New England fishermen off the Nova
Scotia coast caused the Mi’kmaw to join their brethren in a war of resistance during which they attacked
Annapolis Royal, but did not succeed in capturing it. Although a peace treaty was signed in 1726 at
Annapolis, it provided no more than an uneasy truce.
Political instability in Britain and bureaucratic inertia in the immediate years after the Treaty of Utrecht
meant that no policy was provided for establishing civil government or for attracting settlement. There
developed, however, some interest by private individuals who proposed a number of settlement schemes,
all of which came to naught. Finally, in 1719, the government appointed Colonel Richard Philipps as
Governor and provided him with instructions, mainly for making new settlements. It was expected that
the colony would soon be peopled by settlers of British origin and that Nova Scotia would then have an
elected Legislative Assembly similar to those in the other North American colonies. Once Philipps had
established a civil government, he was to govern with the advice and consent of a council and Assembly.
After his arrival at Annapolis Royal in April 1720, Philipps appointed a civil Council of twelve members.
The Governor, the Lieutenant Governor and the Council constituted the Government of Nova Scotia
while the seat of government remained at Annapolis Royal until the founding of Halifax in 1749. In
practice, it was no more than an “ill-disguised military government, with virtually no semblance of even
incipient representative institutions.” There would never be enough English to warrant an Assembly, but
without an Assembly laws could not be enacted and settlers attracted. This conundrum was never
resolved. As a means of dealing with problems of governing without an Assembly, governors issued
proclamations with the approval of the Council. The government had furnished Philipps with a copy of
the instructions to the Governor of Virginia. In following the Virginia model, the Governor and Council
constituted themselves into a General Court to try cases brought before it. In dealing with Acadians they
relied on deputies elected in the various districts. Among their duties the deputies superintended road
making, dealt with land disputes, adjusted differences and executed orders from the government at
Annapolis. By 1748 the system of deputies had become formalized as integral part of what government
existed with eight deputies chosen from eight districts on the Annapolis River and Basin and sixteen
others from the outlying districts around Minas and the Chignecto Isthmus. The Acadian population had
grown to around 10,000 for these districts.
Founding of Halifax
Since the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 Britain and France had been at peace, but in
1744 the War of the Austrian Succession broke out in Europe. It soon spread to North America when
French forces from Louisbourg seized Canso. They next struck at Annapolis Royal and again in 1745.
They, with their Mi’kmaw allies, came near to capturing the town and peninsular Nova Scotia. An
expeditionary force of New Englanders succeeded in laying successful siege to Fortress Louisbourg in
1745, only to have it returned to France as part of the peace negotiations of 1748 to much anger in New
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England. However, at the urging of the Earl of Halifax, President of the Board of Trade and Plantations
(often referred to as the Lords of Trade), which was responsible for advising on colonial policy, the
British government concluded that, to thwart French determination to recover Nova Scotia, it must bear
the expense of establishing a fortified town and naval base at the great natural harbour of Chebucto. To
undertake this, the government appointed Colonel Edward Cornwallis as Governor and Commander of
the military forces. In the spring of 1749 about 2700 settlers of British origin arrived at what would be
named Halifax. Soon a considerable number of New Englanders arrived. Starting in 1750 more than 2500
“foreign Protestants” from Switzerland and the Rhineland immigrated at British government expense.
Many of them would become the founders of Lunenburg in 1753.
Continued Government by Governor-in-Council
As part of the recruitment of settlers, the government promised that a “civil government” would
be established with “all the liberties, privileges and immunities enjoyed by His Majesty’s subjects in any
other of the Colonies and Plantations in America...” In its instructions to Cornwallis, he was to convene
an Assembly as soon as it was expedient to do so. The Board anticipated that representatives in an
Assembly were to be elected by freeholders (only those who met the property qualifications could vote;
that is, those who owned property in free hold) in each township, but until further settlers arrived only
Halifax had sufficient numbers of qualified electors. In the case of Lunenburg, nearly all the settlers
would have to wait for seven years before they could be naturalized as British subjects. Moreover,
Cornwallis was not enamoured with the idea of convening an Assembly. He preferred to govern with his
appointed Council. Nevertheless, there was sufficient agitation by 1751 for an Assembly that 250
inhabitants reportedly signed a remonstrance petitioning for an Assembly. But on being told that such
agitation might jeopardize the large Parliamentary grant upon which the inhabitants, directly or indirectly,
depended for their livelihoods, those behind the remonstrance decided to drop the question while “waiting
for a fitter opportunity.”
In establishing the town and constructing fortifications, Cornwallis exceeded the annual Parliamentary
grant. In 1751, the Board of Trade told Cornwallis that if he so continued, he would not retain the good
opinion of Parliament. Cornwallis, believing he was not receiving the support of the government that he
expected, resigned the Governorship and returned to England. His successor Colonel Peregrine Hopson
received the same instructions on convening an Assembly, but he took no action before severe eye trouble
forced him to turn over the government to Charles Lawrence and he left for England in November 1753,
though he did not resign the Governorship until 1755. Like his predecessors Lawrence was army officer.
In 1754, Lawrence and Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts put together a plan to capture the
recently constructed Fort Beauséjour on the Chignecto Isthmus. They recruited two battalions of New
Englanders which were placed under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Monckton. After a short
siege in June 1755, the French surrendered the fort. When the Acadians refused to swear an unconditional
oath that included the promise to bear arms for the English king, Lawrence and his Council in July
ordered their deportation, which was carried out over succeeding months. The capture of Beauséjour was
the only success in a disastrous year for British armies. The war was to last for seven years; hence its
name The Seven Years War. The fall of first Louisbourg in 1758 to British forces and Quebec, a year
later, resulted in France ceding all her North American territories with the exception of St. Pierre and
Miquelon in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
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Legal Doubts about Legislation by Governor and Council
After assuming the Governorship, Lawrence had no more intention than his predecessors of
calling an Assembly. However, the Board of Trade had begun to doubt the legal correctness of legislation
enacted by the Governor and Council because the Governor’s commission and instructions assumed that
the only possible way of enacting laws was with the assent of an Assembly. When appointing Jonathan
Belcher in 1754 as Nova Scotia’s first Chief Justice, the Board directed him to provide a legal opinion on
the matter. Belcher concluded that an Assembly was legally unnecessary and that the laws being enacted
by the Governor and Council were legal. He based his opinion on Nova Scotia having been acquired by
conquest so that, consequently, the Crown could make what governing arrangements it wished, and might
continue to govern by prerogative Orders-in-Council. Lawrence of course was in full agreement,
particularly with Belcher’s opinion that calling an Assembly would be not only impolitic, but also
impractical. Writing to the Board in January 1755, Lawrence raised his fears about an Assembly
dominated by New England merchants and questioned their patriotism.
The Board of Trade were not satisfied with Belcher’s opinion and sought a second opinion of the
Attorney General and Solicitor General of England, the law officers of the Crown. Their opinion was
“that the Governor and Council alone are not authorized by His Majesty to make Laws till there can be
Assembly.” This opinion the Board sent to Lawrence with instructions to have Belcher prepare a scheme
for calling an Assembly. He was to report as soon as possible. The Board had a major concern that, if the
opinion became public, the validity of past laws passed by Governor and Council could be called into
question. Therefore, as soon as an Assembly was convened an indemnification act should be passed for
acts done under laws enacted without proper authority.
Belcher’s Plan for Electing an Assembly
The Board’s despatch reached Halifax in July 1755 and in the aftermath of the capture of
Beauséjour and beginning of the Acadian Deportation. Whether Lawrence was too preoccupied with
events or purposefully delayed giving the Board’s instruction to Belcher and the Council, he did not do so
until October. Once the law officers of the Crown had spoken, Belcher dropped any pretence of
opposition to calling an Assembly. He rapidly drafted a plan and presented it to Lawrence, which
Lawrence forwarded to the Board in December. Belcher considered that it was impracticable to constitute
an Assembly of members from townships, as was customary in the other American colonies, because
other than Halifax and Lunenburg such townships did not exist. He proposed that the first Assembly
should be made up of twelve members from the province at large. Later, when townships became settled
with qualified electors, the province could be divided into counties and townships. In transmitting
Belcher’s draft plan, Lawrence reiterated his opposition to calling an Assembly. Nova Scotia was not
ready for an Assembly. He wrote his patron Lord Halifax that he knew nothing “so likely to obstruct and
disconcert all measures for the publick Good, as the foolish squabbles that will be propagated afterwards
amongst the multitude of Persons qualified in their own imaginations only as able Politicians.” He upheld
the view that the laws passed by Governor and Council had been indispensably necessary. They never
had been questioned both for regulation of the town of Halifax and the encouragement of commerce. As
to Belcher’s plan, he commented that the town of Halifax was the only place qualified to elect members,
and its few representatives by themselves would not be sufficient to form an Assembly. Moreover, the
election would have to be held in Halifax where the merchants would elect their own.
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The Board of Trade Replies
In a letter dated 25 March 1756, the Board answered Lawrence’s criticisms point by point. In the
plainest language, it informed Lawrence that “the want of proper authority in the Governor and Council to
enact such Laws as must be necessary in the Administration of civil Government is an Inconvenience and
Evil still greater” than all the objections Lawrence had raised. Moreover, the Board noted that the first
Assembly would necessarily be dominated by merchants. Lawrence did not act to call an Assembly, but
put forward such reasons as the ongoing guerrilla warfare with the Mi’kmaw and a remnant of the
Acadians, and also the continuing war with France. While awaiting Lawrence’s reply to their letter of 25
March 1756, the Board received a petition from Halifax complaining about the inconvenience resulting
from the lack of an Assembly. The Board wrote Lawrence in August 1756 to remind him of their
instructions concerning calling an Assembly. Between August and October Lawrence worked on a
comparative analysis of Belcher’s proposals for an Assembly and the Board’s 25 March letter. In his
reply he laid out the most detailed case so far for not calling an Assembly, which he sent off on 3
November 1756. In it, however, he promised to consult with Belcher on the most expedient means of
convening an Assembly.
Framing a Plan for Electing an Assembly
On 3 December 1756, Lawrence placed the matter of convening an Assembly before his Council.
After considering it at a number of meetings, they framed a plan for introducing representative
government. It provided for an Assembly of 12 members with two to be elected for the province at large
until it should be divided into counties, four for the township of Halifax, two for the township of
Lunenburg and one each for the townships of Dartmouth, Lawrencetown on the Eastern Shore, Annapolis
Royal and Cumberland on Chignecto Isthmus. Other townships were to be entitled to one member each
when 25 qualified electors were settled in them. On 3 January 1757, the Governor in Council issued a
proclamation detailing the composition of an Assembly and its election. Suddenly, Lawrence went off to
Boston, reputedly to discuss with the Earl of Loudoun, who was Commander in Chief of forces in North
America, preparations for an assault on Louisbourg. Before going he seems to have signed the writ, but
left with Lieutenant Governor Robert Monckton instructions that he should issue the writ only if “he
found the people pressing.” Because of the proclamation everyone in Halifax was aware that all was
ready for the writ to be issued. Apparently, before Lawrence left for Boston he received an address calling
for the election to be held. Now Monckton was given a petition signed by 204 inhabitants calling for him
to issue the writ. When Monckton took no action, a second petition was handed to him, in which seven
leading inhabitants, all merchants except one, notified Monckton that they would be engaging an agent in
London to advocate their case with Board of Trade.
On his return from Boston in May 1757, Lawrence found a letter from the Board, though declaring that
they neither desired nor meant to press the measure for calling an Assembly upon him further, they still
made it clear that they expected him to proceed with doing so. In his reply, dated 9 November 1757,
Lawrence again presented reasons for not doing so, but at the same time writing that he would without a
moment’s delay after receiving the Board’s commands execute the plan that he and the Council had
framed the previous winter.
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A Barrage of Petitions to the Board of Trade
Lawrence’s procrastination now unleashed a barrage of petitions and memorials to the Board
from outraged Halifax inhabitants. These took a variety of forms, ranging from the accurate and
appropriate to the absurd and malicious. Accusations of all sorts were levelled at Lawrence and his
Council. Probably for the Board the most telling was from Belcher and three other members of the
Council complaining of delay in calling an Assembly and of ill-treatment from Lawrence. By his arbitrary
actions and insultingly arrogant behaviour, Lawrence had incurred the wrath of all but a few officeholders
and merchants who depended upon his patronage. The most recurring charge was that he had filled
government offices with former officers, creating a “military government.”
A Hearing by the Board of Trade
A committee of freeholders in Halifax had engaged John Fernando Paris to be its agent in
presenting the case to the Board of Trade for an Assembly. Paris presented a petition to the Board on
behalf of the inhabitants of Halifax, dated 26 January 1758, with supporting documentation elaborating
on the grievances of the petitioners. The next day the petition was read before the Board, detailing the
spoils system operating in Halifax and alleging financial laxity of Lawrence and his officials. The claim
was made that Halifax was practically defenceless against French attack and the inhabitants were the “the
Shamefull and Contemptible By-Word of America;—The Slaves of Nova Scotia, the Creatures of
Military Governors, whose Will is our Law & whose Person, is our God.” On 31 January the Board took
into consideration the Paris memorial. Much of the proceedings were taken up with stating opposition to
the plan for an Assembly, as proposed by Lawrence and the Council in their proclamation of 3 January
1757, because it had been “so framed that the Governor really and in substance may nominate more than
two-thirds of the members.” At the conclusion of the hearings on 7 February, the Board composed a letter
to Lawrence giving him explicit instructions to call an Assembly immediately.
First Election
By proclamation of 20 May 1758, Lawrence and the Council issued revised instructions for
calling an Assembly. There was now to be an Assembly of 22 members with 16 members to be elected
for the province at large; four for the township of Halifax; and two for the township of Lunenburg. Nova
Scotia’s and Canada’s first election was held during the summer of 1758. Only one poll book for it is
extant—that of Lunenburg, dated 31 July 1758, recording the election of Alexander Kedy and Philip
Knaut over five other candidates. On 2 October 1758, Nova Scotia’s and Canada’s first Assembly
convened in the old court house (no longer standing) at the north-east corner of Buckingham and Argyle
Streets. The struggle to achieve representative government thus ended, and a new era in the political
history of Canada and Nova Scotia had begun.
REPRESENTATIVE TO RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT: REFORMING NOVA SCOTIA’S COLONIAL
CONSTITUTION
With the achievement of representative government, Nova Scotians had obtained a constitution
similar to the other North American colonies. It was modelled on the British balanced constitution with its
three branches of government—Crown, House of Lords, and House of Commons—that, in the views of
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contemporaries, each branch should be at once independent and interdependent, while working together
harmoniously to promote the public good. Yet, the protection of freedom required that each be
interdependent so that it could effectively check the power of the other two branches. In colonial
America, the concept of a balanced constitution was replicated by an appointed governor, an appointed
council, and an elected assembly.
By the end of the 17th century, the “rights of Englishmen”, so often quoted in the struggle for
representative government in Nova Scotia, as an essential right for resisting tyrannical rulers, was firmly
established in public consciousness. Moreover, by the reign of Queen Anne and her Georgian successors
in the first half of the 18th century, they were constitutional rulers and the concept of ministers of the
Crown being responsible for their conduct to parliament, and only symbolically to the Crown, was an
accepted principle of parliamentary government. It was this ministerial responsibility to parliament,
however, that was changing the concept of a balanced constitution by perceptibly removing the Crown
from the day to day governing process. The executive branch (the terms Prime Minister and Cabinet were
coming into general use) had assumed a direct control of government, but only as long as it retained the
confidence of the House of Commons.
General Assemblies to Peace with France and with the Mi’kmaw
Charles Lawrence had predicted nothing but disaster for Nova Scotia by the introduction of
representative government; in practice, relations between the elected Assembly and the Governor and his
Council were generally good. The procedures for conducting public business were well understood with
those of parliaments at Westminster and in the New England Colonies serving as models and providing
precedents. The Nova Scotia Assembly asserted that its members considered they were entitled to all the
same rights as those given to members of the British parliament, while the Governor and Council insisted
that the only rights the Asssembly members would be given were those specified by the Governor’s
instructions from the Board of Trade. In these initial years there was never an open clash between the two
bodies. Nova Scotians were too preoccupied with the war with France. The capture of Fortress
Louisbourg in July 1758, however, ended the French threat and largely that of the Mi’kmaw who would
shortly seek peace. Within days of the convening of the First Assembly on 2 October 1758, Charles
Lawrence had issued a proclamation encouraging New Englanders to settle in Nova Scotia in the
confidence that peace was at hand. As interested as many were in the New England Colonies, there were
many questions, which Lawrence attempted to answer in a second proclamation of 11 January 1759.
In anticipation of an influx of New Englanders, the Governor-in-Council issued a resolution dividing the
province into counties and describing their limits and boundaries. In doing so, it eliminated the provision
for electing members at large. Thus for the second election, for which the writs were issued on 23 August
1759, there were elections held for two members each in Annapolis, Cumberland, Halifax, Kings and
Lunenburg Counties; four for Halifax Township and two members each for Annapolis, Cumberland, and
Lunenburg Townships for a total of twenty members. Although Horton Township was entitled to two
members, no one was elected there. Writs for the election of the third Assembly were issued in February
1761, but not returnable until July to allow many arriving New Englanders to vote. Although the Treaty
of Paris ending the Seven Years War was not signed until 1763, 1761 was also when peace finally arrived
in Nova Scotia with the signing of peace treaties with the Mi’kmaw, with the main signing taking place at
Jonathan Belcher’s farm overlooking the Narrows of Halifax Harbour on 25 June.
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Reforming Nova Scotia’s Colonial Constitution
Charles Lawrence’s fear that an assembly would be controlled by Halifax merchants proved
correct. However, the real power lay with Joshua Mauger, by far the most prominent merchant and to
whom many others were indebted. Although he returned to England in 1760, he continued to have
appreciable influence at the Board of Trade. What amounted to a Mauger party extended its tentacles not
only in the election of members to the Assembly, but also to the Council appointees. . In practice, the four
Halifax Township and two Halifax County members of the Assembly were all under Mauger’s influence.
Because few of the 18 country members attended regularly, these six could control proceedings.
However, a weakening of Halifax control, and with it that of the Mauger party, was inevitable; by 1770
the increasing population of the province at large had required the addition of nine seats. The first major
challenge to the Mauger party came with the election of John Day in 1773 by the “great majority for one
of the Halifax Township seats.”
With Francis Legge’s appointment in the same year, Day had a zealous governor who believed that he
had been sent to bring order to Nova Scotian affairs. During the 1775 session, Day initiated the
Assembly’s famous loyal address to the Crown, which listed its grievances, while not prejudicing the
parliamentary grant on which the province so depended. By taking a leading role in advocating reform,
Day brought down upon himself the wrath of the Mauger party that had transformed itself into a ruling
oligarchy of merchants and officeholders, united now as much by ties of marriage as by common
venality. J.B. Bartlet Brebner in his Neutral Yankees wrote of Day that his “distinguished public career
made him the leading, perhaps, the only, independent, public-spirited statesman in Nova Scotia.”
The arrival of the major influx of Loyalists in 1784, doubling the population, created considerable
tensions between themselves as “newcomers” and the mostly New England Planters, the “oldcomers”. In
part these tensions can be attributed to the higher level of education of the leading Loyalists, a number of
whom became members of the Assembly. Of the 36 Loyalists elected to the Assembly between 1785 and
1800, nine were university graduates. They were behind the founding of King’s College in 1789 at
Windsor; it would be the chief source of college graduates who became members. Of the 17 university
graduates who entered the Assembly after 1800, 13 were from King’s College. In the first election after
the arrival of the Loyalists in 1785, just eight Loyalists were elected, but this number doubled in the 1793
election. By then, Loyalist members virtually dominated the Assembly’s proceedings.
After John Wentworth (Sir John in 1795), the last royal Governor of New Hampshire, became Governor
in 1792, his control over patronage ensured that his Loyalist friends received most of the offices, creating
a Loyalist oligarchy. By 1830 they held all the principal offices, except those of Attorney General and
Solicitor General. At the council table they held a firm sway over its proceedings and control over such
appointments as magistrates. In many counties there were family compacts of merchants and lawyers
whose ascendancy rested in large measure upon their control over local offices. They maintained close
ties with the Council and wealthy Halifax merchants to whom many were indebted.
The election of 1826 produced the first serious challenge to oligarchic rule by the Council. Among the
newly elected were eight young lawyers, called the “beardless boys” by the oligarchy. In challenging
council rule, Beamish Murdoch and Thomas Chandler Haliburton stood out. How the Council dealt with
their temerity provided an insight into its methods. Haliburton received a judgeship in 1829 and thus was
removed from the political arena. In the same year he authored Historical and Statistical Account of Nova
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Scotia. But his extraordinary literary fame came with publication of The Clockmaker, or The Sayings and
Doings of Sam Slick of Slickville in 1836. Beamish Murdoch had a much different fate. When he tried
for re-election in successive elections he had to concede defeat on each attempt in the face of the
overwhelming opposition from the Council and its mercantile friends. He, too, became a writer of which
his History of Nova-Scotia, or Acadie, published in three volumes between 1865 and 1867, remained a
standard reference well into the 20th century.
By the 1830 session, there was a noticeable hardening of attitudes in both the Assembly and the Council.
There was a growing resentment of the Council for using its control of patronage to maintain its influence
in the Assembly. Attacks on the constitutional role of the Council, as an appointed body, from within the
Assembly, and from such newspapers as the Colonial Patriot of Pictou, were becoming more radical in
language. Within the Council, members attributed the “fiery harangues” emanating from the floor of the
Assembly and the press to a faction playing on local and petty grievances, which required the Council to
exercise a “cleansing control.” The stage was set for a major clash. It came over a dispute between the
Assembly and the Council concerning a tax on brandy, which should have been collected in the four
previous years, but had not. When the Assembly included the tax in the 1830 appropriations as a means of
increasing the money for roads, the Council refused to accept the additional tax. An impasse ensued and
the session was prorogued without either of the revenue or appropriations bills being passed.
The death of George IV that year meant an election had to be held. The “Brandy Election” of 1830 proved
to be the most violent and nasty contest so far, especially for the two Halifax Township and the four
Halifax County (which then included Colchester and Pictou Districts) seats, with the Council using every
means in its power to influence the result. For the first time, the press played a significant and highly
partisan role. Three newspapers, the Novascotian, under the ownership of the precocious and youthful
Joseph Howe, the Acadian Recorder and the Colonial Patriot, all upheld the actions of the Assembly
week after week, while the Free Press came out in support of the Council. Although for the two Halifax
Township seats, the Council could ensure the election went to friendly candidates, the four County seats
were won by supporters of the Assembly’s position. For his efforts in winning one of the Halifax
Township seats, Charles Rufus Fairbanks was appointed Solicitor General and in 1834, was given a
judgeship.
In itself, the Brandy Election was not a political watershed, but never again would the Council so
blatantly challenge the constitutional prerogatives of the popularly elected representatives of the people.
Its unrepresentative character, its sitting in both executive and legislative capacities, and its control over
public offices became increasingly the focus of public anger and debate. As the result of the deaths of
Council members and their replacements, its composition and weight of influence shifted decisively from
officeholders to those engaged in commerce and banking. New members included Samuel Cunard, Henry
Cogswell, and Joseph Allison, the latter two with close connections to the Halifax Banking Company.
The Council’s religious composition was also a matter of considerable controversy. All of the twelve
members were Anglicans, with the exception of one Church of Scotland and another who was a Catholic.
During the 1830s, there was widespread financial distress caused by a depreciating provincial currency,
which proved especially calamitous for smaller merchants and traders in Halifax and for farmers.
Moreover, the British Government was moving with determination to have Nova Scotia assume
responsibility for paying the salaries of its judiciary and civil officers, the civil list as it was then called,
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instead of their being paid out of the parliamentary grant. When the Assembly passed a bill giving the
Chief Justice an exorbitant salary, including an amount in lieu of the detested fees being charged by his
office, Joseph Howe in the Novascotian gave vent to his fury that the Assembly would even consider
laying “its independence at the feet of a grasping and ambitious profession”; his paper became the chief
forum for arousing public opinion on the issue.
After Howe published in the Novascotian two letters, signed “The People”, describing the rife corruption
of what passed for municipal government in Halifax, the Council had Howe charged with “criminal
libel.” Howe chose to defend himself before judge and jury. In a memorable oration lasting six hours, he
laid bare the evils of local government by council-appointed magistrates. It took the jury but ten minutes
to find Howe not guilty. Howe’s successful defence launched him into politics and as a candidate for one
of the two Halifax Township seats in the forthcoming election in 1836, from which he emerged
victorious. In the months before the election, letters by Joe Warner (a pseudonym for John Young)
appeared in the Acadian Recorder. In letter after letter Young attacked the “swelling of the Civil List” and
the “ascendancy of Lawyers” in the Assembly.
As a means of giving the rapidly growing eastern region of the province fairer representation, the
Assembly had increased the number of seats to 49. But what made this Fifteenth Assembly, elected in
1836, significantly different from its immediate predecessor was the number of new members. Thirty of
the 49 members had been elected for the first time. More importantly, close to 20 of these members were
clearly for constitutional and financial reform and many of the others would be won over to the cause.
Nova Scotians had voted for an end to oligarchic rule and for constitutional reform. They had sent a
majority to the Assembly determined to reduce the costs of government and to make the executive branch
more responsible to the elected representatives of the people. The constitutional form of “responsibility”
was yet to be defined.
At the beginning of the 1837 session, Howe introduced his Twelve Resolutions, declaiming on the
unrepresentative character of the Council and the resulting injustices. By the end of the session these
resolutions became an address to the Crown, much to the dislike of Governor Sir Colin Campbell. A
former soldier, he had been highly popular after his appointment in 1834, but his stubborn opposition to
any constitutional change and his full support for the Council, and refusal to accept advice from any other
source, made conflict with the Reformers inevitable. However, the Colonial Secretary ordered Campbell
to create in Nova Scotia two distinctly separate councils—executive and legislative—as was already the
case in New Brunswick and Lower and Upper Canada. In a long overdue reform, the Chief Justice was
removed from any political involvement. Campbell also accepted that some members from the Assembly
and also from the newly appointed Legislative Council would have to be chosen to form an executive
council. Predictably, he chose three Conservatives or Tories and only one Reformer or Liberal from the
Assembly.
In 1837, rebellion had broken out in the Canadas, which, though suppressed, forced the British
government to recognize that constitutional change was imperative. The task of determining which form
change should take fell to Lord Durham. In his famous report, Lord Durham recommended the
introduction of responsible government, or as it was described in Britain “ministerial responsibility.” He
believed that far from inciting the colonies to become independent, as charged by Conservatives in the
British North American Colonies, it would put an end to the prevailing sterile political struggles and
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confirm enduring links between Britain and her colonies. Although some of Durham’s recommendations
were accepted, that of responsible government was not, as Nova Scotians learned from the Colonial
Secretary’s dispatch tabled at the beginning of the 1839 session in reply to the 1837 Address to the
Crown. What the British Government favoured was a coalition government, that would include the
leaders of both the Conservatives and Reformers and which would work in harmony with the Assembly.
Such a system had already been established in New Brunswick by Governor Sir John Harvey. In a
circular dispatch to all the colonies with representative institutions, Lord John Russell, the Colonial
Secretary, ordered colonial governors to change members of executive councils as public policy might
suggest was desirable. Russell’s dispatch convinced James Boyle Uniacke, the leader of the
Conservatives in the Assembly, to resign from the Executive Council and become a Reformer.
By the summer of 1840, the British Government had lost all patience with Sir Colin Campbell and
replaced him as Governor with Viscount Falkland with instructions to form a coalition government of
Reformers and Conservatives. Falkland succeeded in attracting Joseph Howe and two other Reformers to
join a newly constituted Executive Council. The coalition experiment survived the Assembly sessions of
1840, 1841 and 1842, though not without much tension and quarrelling concerning appointments and
disputes over the true meaning of responsible government. In 1843 the Reformers proposed a resolution
that there be one good college, “free from sectarian control,” open to all denominations and maintained
by public funds. Nova Scotia had four colleges—King’s at Windsor for Anglicans, Acadia at Wolfville
for Baptists, St. Mary’s at Halifax for Roman Catholics and Dalhousie, though it had only loose
Presbyterian connections. All received government grants. The resolution for “one good college” was
passed by a majority of five. Immediately, the Baptists called on James William Johnston, leader of the
Conservatives in the Assembly and a leading member of the coalition government, to oppose attempts by
the Reformers to confine grants to a single non-sectarian college. Attempts to enact legislation for one
college failed in the face of religio-political conflict.
Under the Quadrennial Act of 1840 an election had to be held every four years. Falkland dissolved the
Assembly in the hopes that the Conservatives would win a majority and he would not have to call on
Howe and the Reformers to form a government to which he was adamantly opposed. As it turned out,
neither party gained a clear majority. Howe and his fellow Reformers continued to be members of the
Executive Council after the election, though all knew a coalition of the two parties was hopeless. Falkland
gave up any pretence of being above parties. He placed himself openly on the side of J.W. Johnston and
the Conservatives by appointing Mather B. Almon, a prominent banker and Johnston’s brother-in-law, to
both the Executive and Legislative Councils. Joseph Howe, James Boyle Uniacke and James McNab
promptly resigned from the Executive Council. Falkland, as had Campbell, refused to accept any
compromise that might lead to government by a single party. The stage was now set for a bitter electoral
contest and party rivalry such as Nova Scotia had never seen and would not see again.
Falkland’s “rump” Council managed to get through the 1844 session without being defeated. In the 1845
session the Reformers directly attacked Falkland with a motion calling on him to appoint an executive
council from the party commanding a majority in the Assembly. Falkland conceded his position as
Governor and had become untenable and resigned. In his place the British Government appointed Sir
John Harvey. Earl Grey, the Colonial Secretary, instructed Harvey to accept responsible government in its
fullest sense, as had long been advocated by the Reformers. Under the Simultaneous Polling Act, passed
during the 1847 session, elections were to be held on a single day with the first election to be held on 5
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August. The results were that the Reformers took 29 seats to the Conservatives 24. When the Assembly
reconvened in January 1848, James Boyle Uniacke moved an amendment to the speech from the throne
that the Executive Council did not have the confidence of a majority of the Assembly, which passed. On
28 January, J.W. Johnston and his fellow Conservative members of the Executive Council tendered their
resignations to Harvey on the grounds that they did not possess the confidence of the country. On 2
February, James Boyle Uniacke, Hugh Bell, Joseph Howe and five others took the oath of office as
executive councillors. Thus, was formed the first Executive Council based on party in British North
America. James Boyle Uniacke became premier of “the first formally responsible government overseas”
in the British Empire. As Howe had boasted, responsible government in Nova Scotia had been achieved
“without a pane of glass being broken.”
Regulating the Conduct of Elections
The assembly Nova Scotians elected on 5 August 1847 was the eighteenth since the first election
in 1758. In the intervening years the manner of conducting elections did not change significantly. For the
1847 election, however, there was simultaneous polling. Under this scheme, there were sufficient polling
stations established in each county so that all voting could take place in a single day, instead of weeks as
in past elections.
Governors issued writs for elections to county sheriffs. The sheriffs acted as returning officers, being
responsible for the whole conduct of elections. As returning officers, sheriffs decided on the date for
opening of the polling. On the morning the poll opened, the sheriff read from the hustings the writ and the
regulations governing elections. The hustings were generally no more than a raised platform, usually
erected in or outside the county court house, but sometimes in a church or a private dwelling. Two
passageways led up to the platform: one was for voters to come forward to declare their vote and the other
was for them to leave. On the platform stood the sheriff, his assistants, and the candidates with their
inspectors. The candidates were officially nominated from the hustings and could then address the
assembled freeholders.
The law required the sheriff to keep a poll book in which he listed, in running sequence as they voted, the
names of electors and their place of residence. Candidates and their inspectors could question electors on
their eligibility to vote. They could demand that voters swear to their property qualification. When
candidates objected to an elector, this fact had to be recorded opposite the elector’s name in the poll book.
The sheriff recorded the elector’s vote by placing a check mark opposite his name in the column of the
candidate or candidates named by him.
In those elections where there were few freeholders, the election could be decided in a day or two of
polling. As late as the 1820s, such old townships as Falmouth in Hants County or Onslow and
Londonderry in Colchester had well under a hundred eligible voters. Moreover, for township elections,
the poll seldom moved from the county court house. But, in such large counties as Annapolis, the poll
could move to as many as five different locations. At each new location, the sheriff erected the hustings
and conducted the polling as before. In the poll book he kept a running total of the vote for each
candidate. At the close of the final poll he declared the final victors. The county elections took weeks to
complete; consequently, they were most open to every abuse inherent in the system of open voting.
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The widespread and appalling drunkenness that accompanied many of the county elections was the result
of open houses kept by candidates at each poll. As early as the 1793 election in Halifax, candidates kept
open houses or “houses of entertainment.” These provided supporters with lodgings of a sort, food, rum in
abundance, and stabling for as long as the poll remained open. By the 1830s, candidates for most county
elections accepted that they had to provide open houses at each poll if they were to have any hope of
success. In some of the more fiercely contested elections the cost could run into thousands of pounds. No
aspect of elections aroused more passionate outcry than did the prevalence of open houses and the
resulting drunkenness. The increasingly influential temperance movement became the leader in calling for
their end. But attempts to legislate them out of existence failed until the Simultaneous Polling Act of
1847. It was the result of public pressure with the aim “to promote the purity of Elections, and... the
diminution of expense,” as the preamble to the act so singularly described its purpose. Instead of moving
the poll over a three- or four-week period, simultaneous polling provided for the division of each county
into a sufficient number of polling districts, each with its own polling station, so that all electors could be
polled in a single day.
Disputed Elections
After the last poll finally closed, losing candidates could demand a scrutiny. This entailed the reexamination of the property qualification of all those electors listed in the sheriff’s poll book and marked
as “objected to” by the candidates. Where the sheriff used the same poll book for the township and
country elections, there could be endless wrangling by lawyers engaged by both parties over which
candidate for which election had, in fact, objected to which electors. A scrutiny could last for days and be
costly in fees for the sheriff to attend and for deed and probate searches. Until 1821, the entire Assembly
or a committee of selected members heard petitions on disputed elections. . In that year it enacted
provisions of the 1770 English statute that delegated to a committee chosen by ballot the responsibility to
regulate and determine trials of disputed or controverted elections. “Trial” was the correct word for the
procedures enacted, with witnesses having to be brought to Halifax at much expense and lawyers
engaged.
Eligibility to Vote
What the Simultaneous Polling Act and its predecessors failed to deal with in a satisfactory
manner was eligibility of voters. It was a basic tenet of British parliamentary democracy that only those
who held property in freehold could vote. The 1758 regulations stated that candidates and electors had to
be possessed of a freehold property within the constituency in which they voted or were candidates. In
England, electors had to have freehold with an annual value of forty shillings. In 1759, the Council
revised the regulations to bring Nova Scotia into conformity with the English practice. But how Nova
Scotian electors were to demonstrate proof of their freehold and its value was another matter.
An act of 1789 allowed that eligible freehold was ownership of a dwelling house or 100 acres of land,
cultivated or uncultivated. In 1797, the 100 acre provision was changed; at least five acres had to be under
cultivation. Furthermore, any grant or conveyance had to be registered six months before the writ was
issued. The reason behind the restrictions lay in the desire to halt the scandal whereby candidates created
instant freeholders by having their agents make up deeds to hand to otherwise ineligible electors, who
would then vote for them. Often deeds were so worded that, in fact, the land was never legally transferred
to them. An amendment in 1839 eliminated the 100 acre provision. An elector had to have freehold
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possession to a yearly value of forty shillings. This amount was estimated by value of agricultural or other
produce, or the annual rent from buildings owned.
The whole question of voter eligibility was bedevilled by so much property in Nova Scotia being
conveyed, by one means or another, without being recorded in the local registries. Registration had never
been required by law. Generally, the male heads of households held the ownership of the family property.
As sons married and established their own households, the father often transferred to them their share of
the family lands. Within families, land could be handed on, divided among sons or leased over
generations, with few or none of these transactions recorded. The situation was the worst in Cape Breton.
In 1763, the island had been joined to Nova Scotia, only to be separated in 1784 in anticipation that many
Loyalists would settle there. Few did, and it was re-annexed to Nova Scotia in 1820. Consequently, little
land was granted in freehold before 1820 and licences of occupation had to be accepted as evidence of
freehold. Hundreds of Scottish families arriving in the great waves of immigration caused by the
Highland clearances simply squatted, and with no right or title except that of occupation. As late as the
1847 election, it seems that less than half of the heads of households in Inverness County could
demonstrate eligible freehold and vote.
Extending the Franchise
For the 1758 election only Protestants could vote. In the following year, however, the Assembly
passed an act allowing Quakers to make an affirmation instead of requiring them to swear an oath. In
passing this act the Assembly was following Parliament and other American colonies. A Council order
reaffirmed the exclusion of Roman Catholics from voting unless they took oaths repugnant to their faith.
By the 1780s there was a growing movement for religious toleration. In Quebec, for example, Catholics
could not only vote, but could also be members of the executive council without having to subscribe to
any oaths that were repugnant to them. In 1783, the Nova Scotia Assembly passed an act allowing
Catholics to own land if they took an oath of loyalty to the Protestant Succession to the English throne
and abjured the temporal power of the Pope. This was followed in 1789 by an act requiring voters to
swear only an oath of allegiance thereby extending the franchise to Roman Catholics and to Jews. Still,
repugnant oaths were required for a Catholic to sit in the Assembly. This changed in 1823 when the
Assembly voted to admit Catholics if they took only the state oaths, which they were prepared to do.
Attempts to Equalize Representation
When Nova Scotia’s first election took place in 1758, the European population was probably no
more than 3,000. As the population grew with the arrival of 8,000 New England Planters in the 1760s and
some 19,000 American Loyalists two decades later, the Governor-in-Council acted to increase
representation from 22 to 39 seats. But, other than the two additional seats for Cape Breton Island on its
re-annexation to Nova Scotia in 1820, there was no further increase or redistribution in representation. By
the 1830s, when the population had grown to around 200,000, the Assembly finally felt compelled to deal
with the intractable issue of redistribution.
At the heart of the problem was the distressing fact that the older townships in the western and central
counties were continuing to have representation long after their number of freeholders ceased to warrant
it. Freeholders in each county could elect two members to represent them and in each of the older
townships, one member. Freeholders in the older townships, therefore, had a double franchise and double
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representation. The older townships defended their representation with political skill and tenacity; a
redistribution that fully reflected actual population distribution was a virtual impossibility. Moreover,
Scottish and Irish immigration into the eastern region of the province had much increased the population
that was not matched by the number of seats it had in the Assembly. The Assembly attempted to deal with
the worst of the evils by a series of patchwork acts that gave representation to some of the newer
townships, divided some of the larger counties, and created a number of new townships and counties.
Unfinished Reforms
Although responsible government was the great achievement of Nova Scotia Reformers, there
was less agreement on other much needed reforms. The Simultaneous Polling Act was the single other
important reform enacted before responsible government. Attempts at equalizing representation, for
example, never were able to overcome the resistance from townships. Finally, in 1859, township
representation was abolished by adding to the number of county seats in each case the number of
townships lost under the act. Determining voter eligibility remained the most difficult issue to find a
consensus. Largely through the work of the Conservative leader, J.W. Johnston, the Assembly enacted
manhood suffrage in 1854 for any males 21 years or over, except for paupers and Indians who were not
entitled to vote. Nova Scotia was first in British North America to introduce manhood suffrage; however,
it did not find favour with many because of the strongly held feelings that some form of property
qualification was necessary in a society whose members prided themselves on their independence and in
being their own masters. In 1863, at the insistence of Joseph Howe, the Government got through an act to
abolish manhood suffrage and to substitute an assessment franchise. No prohibition against Indians voting
was in the act and no such prohibition would appear in any future legislation. Meanwhile New Brunswick
had introduced the secret ballot in 1855 and Nova Scotia did the same in 1870 with other provinces and
Canada later followed suit.
For the average assemblyman, the greatest change brought about by responsible government was in the
procedure for dealing with money bills. Over the years the Assembly had jealously guarded what it
considered its sole right of framing money bills for the collection of revenue and for expenditures. As
S.G.W. Archibald stated, when he left the speaker’s chair to intervene in the debates during the dispute
with the Council in 1830 over a tax on brandy, “Consequences most serious... will follow, if we are to be
used merely as a machine in the hands of His Majesty’s Council, to prepare revenue bills in the manner
they shall dictate to us... we possess the right, which to an Englishman and a freeman, is the dearest of all
rights—that of taxing ourselves, without the intervention or dictation of any power on earth.” Nothing
was dearer to the average assemblyman than obtaining the maximum amount of road money for his
constituency each year. This he did by bargaining with his fellow members for what he considered his fair
share, which amount then appeared in the appropriations bill. A consequence of responsible government
was the strengthening of the executive branch in its relationship with the Assembly. Nowhere would this
be more apparent than the adoption in 1860 of the practice of the executive initiating money votes and
using party discipline to ensure passage. Thus, the assemblyman lost his time honoured privilege of being
able to bargain with his colleagues for his share of road moneys.
The Significance of Earl Grey’s Dispatch to Governor Sir John Harvey of 3 November 1846 for the
Evolution of Parliamentary Democracy in Canada
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When Sir John Harvey assumed the governorship of Nova Scotia, he hoped to recreate a coalition
government and thus avoid having to call on a single party to form a government. He knew there would
soon be an election and sought the advice of Earl Grey, the Colonial Secretary. In his reply of 3
November 1846, Grey informed Harvey that the first object which he recommended to him:
... is that of making it apparent that any transfer which may take place of political power from
the hands of one party in the province to those of another is the result not of an act of yours but of the
wishes of the people themselves... In giving, therefore, all fair and proper support to your Council for
the time being, you will carefully avoid any acts which can possibly be supposed to imply the
slightest personal objection to their opponents, and also to refuse to assent to any measures which
may be proposed to you by your Council, which may appear to you to involve an improper exercise
of the authority of the Crown for party rather than for public objects.
It was this dispatch that conceded responsible government not only to Nova Scotia, but also to the other
colonies of British North America, and later throughout the British Empire to colonies where
representative institutions formed the foundation of government. In the context of both the evolution of
democracy in Nova Scotia and of the evolution of parliamentary democracy in Canada, the achieving of
responsible government in 1848, with its underlying principle of ministerial responsibility, remains the
cornerstone of our system of parliamentary government and our democratic institutions.
PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY PROGRESSES…
Extending the Franchise and Removing Barriers
For Nova Scotians there were numerous consequences of Nova Scotia entering Confederation.
An immediate one, even before it became a reality on 1 July 1867, was the passage of an act in May 1867
that reduced the representation in the Assembly to 38 from 55 seats and the number of Executive
Councillors to four. Charles Tupper, a leading supporter of Confederation, pushed the act through the
Assembly while he was still premier on the grounds that the provincial government would have much
fewer responsibilities. No longer would it be accountable for such areas as customs, railways and post
office operations.
The federal and provincial elections were held on 18 September 1867 and in Nova Scotia the antiConfederates trounced the unionists in both. This situation was a result of only a small number of Liberals
voting for Confederation and a much greater number of Conservatives voting Liberal. Consequently,
since many of these former Conservatives remained Liberals, this party would dominate provincial
politics for the next 90 years. For example, in 1871 Philip Carteret Hill, a Conservative, attempted to have
the practice of trying disputed elections by the Assembly to a single judge of the Nova Scotia Supreme
Court. The Liberal majority, which was largely opposed to Confederation, would have none of it on the
grounds that the judges were “the creatures of Canada.” However, there was a realization that trial by
Assembly members was a constitutional anachronism and in desperate need of reform. In 1875 Hill
managed to have the trial of disputed elections transferred to the courts, as was the case with the
Parliament in Ottawa and other provinces.
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An achievement of the “New Woman” movement in the late 19th century North America and Britain was
gaining the vote for women, which was a reaction to the gender role as characterized by the so-called Cult
of Domesticity, ascribed to women in the Victorian era. Advocates of the New Woman ideal were found
among novelists, playwrights, journalists, pamphleteers, political thinkers and, most importantly,
suffragettes who sought the right for women to vote. In Nova Scotia agitation for women’s right to vote
began in the 1880s as part of the reform programme of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. A bill
to allow unmarried women with property to vote in municipal elections passed in the Assembly in 1887.
However, when a bill to extend the provincial franchise to women was tabled by Mr. Albert Hemeon, a
merchant and member for Queen’s County, the ensuing debate at second reading encapsulated the
opposing views held on the subject. Although it passed second reading, it was defeated on the third. This
remains the only occasion on which the issue was fully debated in the Assembly. Another attempt in 1897
would have passed if not for the opposition of Attorney General J.W. Longley. Among his reasons was
that one of the true functions of women was “to charm men and make the world pleasant, sweet and
agreeable to live in...”
When many women took jobs essential to the war effort during the First World War, their right to vote
became increasingly difficult to oppose except by the diehards. In Nova Scotia, Robert Henry Graham,
who would later become a justice of the Supreme Court, tabled a bill in 1917 which granted women the
right to vote. Although the Assembly, before a gallery filled with women, unanimously approved the
principle of women’s suffrage, the bill died in committee. Nonetheless, it was widely accepted that its
time had come. In the following year, a 1918 amendment to the Franchise Act provided that “Every
person (male and female) shall be entitled” to vote.
From 1885 although the Conservatives in the Assembly supported complete manhood suffrage, due to
the continual abuses during elections of a franchise based on property ownership, the Liberal majority
remained opposed on the grounds that manhood suffrage would mean the dregs of society could vote. In
retaining a property qualification for voters, Nova Scotia was not alone among the provinces or in
Dominion elections. The First World War, as it had hastened the vote for women, also did so for the
removal of any property qualification. With the precedent established by the Dominion Parliament before
it, in 1920 the Assembly passed an act for universal suffrage.
Other than the reduction in representation and a smaller Executive Council, the provincial constitution
remained as it was at the time of Confederation, including an appointed Legislative Council. By the
election of 1925, the Liberals had been in uninterrupted power for 43 years. The Conservatives decisively
won this election and Edgar Nelson Rhodes became premier. His government inherited a substantial
deficit and Rhodes saw the abolition of the Legislative Council as one means of dealing with it. All the
Councillors were Liberals, with the single exception of one elderly Conservative. In late 1927 after the
Liberal dominated Legislative Council defeated two bills for its abolition, Rhodes sought an opinion from
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England (not until 1949 were appeals to it abolished) on
two contentious constitutional points. First, the Committee ruled that the Nova Scotia Government had
the power to appoint an unlimited number of Councillors, and second, that it could decide on the tenure of
appointments to the Legislative Council. Rhodes immediately reconstituted the Council so that it had a
Conservative majority willing to vote for abolition, which they did, while having “the time of their lives.”
In the words of J. Murray Beck in The Government of Nova Scotia, “In this fitting manner the Legislative
Council of Nova Scotia passed away, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.”
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With the enactment of universal suffrage and the abolition of the Legislative Council, there seemed to be
no need for any further constitutional reforms. Government in all its parts remained a male preserve and
few thought that this should change. As had happened in the 1914 -1918 conflict, the Second World War
brought major changes to Canadian society, most notably in women assuming many positions in society
that had been previously filled by only men. Among Nova Scotian women who took leading roles in the
war efforts during both world wars was Gladys Porter of Kentville. She became first a town councillor in
1943 and then mayor of the town, being the first woman in the Maritime Provinces to be elected a mayor.
She was elected for a total of 11 years and resigned only after winning the King’s Centre seat in the
provincial election of 1960. In doing so, she became the first woman to be elected to the Nova Scotia
Legislature. She was still a member when she died in 1967.
Although Gladys Porter had succeeded in breaking down the barriers to women entering public life, it
was not until the 1980s that others followed her example in running for the Assembly. The first to do so
was Alexa McDonough, the first woman in Canada to be elected leader of a major political party, when
on 16 November 1980 she became leader of the New Democratic Party of Nova Scotia. She later went on
to win the Halifax Chebucto constituency and remained a member of the Assembly until 1994 when she
was elected national leader of the New Democratic Party. Another barrier to women’s participation in
public life fell when Maxine Cochran entered the Assembly after winning Lunenburg Centre. She became
the first woman appointed to the cabinet as Minister of Transportation in 1985. In 1989, Marie Dechman
was unanimously elected Deputy Speaker.
As in the case of women, there was no formal barrier to African Nova Scotians being elected to the
Assembly. As means of achieving representation for minority communities, the Provincial Electoral
Boundaries Commission recommended in 1992 that the African Nova Scotian communities in the Preston
area be consolidated into a single constituency of Preston to give this group a greater presence, which was
done by enactment before the 1993 election. In that election Wayne Adams entered the Assembly as
member for Preston and was named to the cabinet, thus becoming the first African Nova Scotian to
become both a member of the Assembly and a cabinet minister. When Yvonne Atwell won Preston in the
1998 election she became the first African Nova Scotian woman in Atlantic Canada to be elected to a
house of assembly.
On March 9th 1790, the Assembly passed a resolution that a proper person be appointed to “Act in the
Capacity of Serjeant at Arms to this House.” The Sergeant-at-Arms, with the mace, an ancient symbol of
royal authority, leads the Speaker to his chair, signifying the ceremonial opening of each day while the
Assembly is in session. The longest serving Sergeant-at-Arms was Major Harold Long who was first
appointed in 1957. On his retirement in 1990, Delmore (Buddy) Daye was appointed as the first African
Nova Scotian to have the honour of serving as Sergeant-at-Arms. In 2000 for the first time the office of
Sergeant-at-Arms was advertised. An all-party committee selected Elder Noel Knockwood who was the
first Aboriginal person to hold this office.
Until Confederation the British government had appointed lieutenant governors, who were all military
officers with the sole exception of Sir John Wentworth. After Confederation the federal government had
the right of appointment. The appointments went to Nova Scotians who had achieved prominence, mostly
in business and law. No consideration seems to have been given to appointing a woman until Myra
Freeman was appointed in 2000. Not only was she the first woman to hold that office she was the first
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Jewish Lieutenant Governor in Canada. She was succeeded in 2006 by Mayann Francis, the first African
Nova Scotian to hold the office of Lieutenant Governor.
From the first election in 1758 until 1920 when universal suffrage was introduced, qualifications for a
voter were based on some degree of property ownership . Two hundred and fifty years after Nova
Scotians first voted, the right to vote consists of two basic qualifications: voters must be 18 years of age
and Canadian citizens, ordinarily resident in the constituency in which they vote. Those disqualified from
voting are officials involved in conducting an election or those incarcerated, or detained in a provincial
correctional facility and declared unfit to stand trial. Since universal suffrage, the highest voter turnout
occurred in the 1960 provincial election when 82.1% of the eligible electorate voted. In the last provincial
election of 2006, 60% voted, though never were more of the electorate able to vote and moreover given
every opportunity and encouragement to do so.
Until Gladys Porter’s election in 1960, representation in the Assembly was a white male preserve, as it
was for nearly all other public offices. There were no legal barriers to others seeking to serve in the public
domain, just the ingrained mores of contemporary society. The last quarter of the 20th century proved to
be one of change in which neither gender nor race is a barrier to those wishing to enter public life in Nova
Scotia.
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