130 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [part II 
Governor-General by the letters patent or instructions down 
to 1905. But did that power carry with it the sole right in 
Canada to pardon offences, including offences against the laws 
of the provinces? It was the intention of the Imperial Govern- 
ment to effect this end, for they declined to accept No. 44 of the 
Quebec resolutions, which gave the power to the Lieutenant- 
Governors, and, on the analogy of the cases of the appoint- 
ment of Queen’s Counsel, the reply in Canada was for a time 
that pardons could be conferred only by one who had a 
delegation of the royal prerogative, and that in Canada the 
only person who had such a delegation was the Governor- 
General! This view was supported by the terms of the 
instructions down to 1905. Further, as the Crown was not, 
in the view of the Canadian authorities or Courts, a part of 
the Provincial Legislatures, the Dominion Parliament alone 
could confer the prerogative of pardoning if any legislature 
were to do so. This view was naturally no longer tenable 
after the decisions of the Privy Council in the case of The 
Maritime Bank of Canada v. The Receiver-General of New 
Brunswick? and it was accordingly held, not only by the 
Courts of Ontario ® but also by the Supreme Court of Canada, 
that the Provincial Act of Ontario which authorized the 
Lieutenant-Governor to pardon offences against the laws of 
the provinces was perfectly valid and a good exercise of power.4 
But it is clear that the Courts held that the power must be 
granted by some authority, either by the prerogative or by 
legislation. With this decision, as with the decision in the case 
of the appointment of Queen’s Counsel, is bound up the fact 
that the Dominion Parliament could not legislate on the topic, 
* Of. Canada Sess. Pap.,1869,No.16; 1875,No. 11. * [1892] A. C. 437. 
' 22 0. R. 222; 19 0. A. R. 31. See Blake, The Executive Power Case, 
Toronto, 1892, Ontario Sess. Pap., 1888, No. 37, where the power is 
claimed as inherent in the Lieutenant-Governor and Lefroy, Legislative 
Power in Canada, pp. 130-4. 
¢ 23 8. C. R. 458, where in view of the exact wording the validity of the 
Act is upheld, but it is not admitted that the power to pardon would else 
exist. The Provincial Acts (e.g. Ontario, 1910, c. 3) all enact it, but also 
enact that the power so conferred is not to be deemed necessarily not 
otherwise to appertain.