cuap. 111] REPUGNANCY OF COLONTAL LAWS 413
sidered apparently that it is hardly an authority for anything
except the danger of quoting judgements of inferior Courts
on points of law. In the British Columbia case of Tai Sing v.
Maguire} Gray J. emphatically rejected the dictum of
Draper C. J., and pointed out that the word ‘exclusive’
was clearly a word dividing power between the Dominion
and provinces. So in ex parte Worms? it was said by
Dorion C. J.: ‘The Act of 1870 (as to extradition) is not
inconsistent with s. 132 of the British North America Act
of 1867, and if it were the last Act would prevail.” In
Regina v. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario
the Ontario Court of Queen’s Bench held that the Imperial
Medical Act of 1868 applied to Canada, and gave a British
medical practitioner a right to be registered in Ontario. It
was there very neatly but ineffectually argued that as educa-
tion was an exclusive power of the provinces the Imperial
Act of 1868 must be read as not intended to interfere with
the exclusive power, and so must not be held to exclude
the Ontario authorities from requiring the applicant to pass
an examination as a condition of registration.t
The question as to repugnancy of Colonial legislation has
also been discussed in special connexion with the law of
copyright in Canada.
When the question was brought to a head in 1889 the
Canadian Government and their advisers did not deny the
power of the Imperial Parliament to legislate regarding copy-
right for the whole Empire. Thus they did not deny that
the Imperial Act of 1886 (49 & 50 Vict. c. 33), which was applied
by the Order in Council of 1887 to Canada, was binding upon
Canada. They contended, however, from a constitutional
point of view, that such legislation should be passed by
Canada and not by the Imperial Parliament, hut there was no
* (1878) 1 B. C. (Irving), at p. 107.
? (1876) 22 L., C. J. 109, at p. 111; 2 Cart., at p. 315.
(1879) 44 TU, C. Q. B. 564 ; 1 Cart. 761. Ci. below, p. 666, n.
4 Cf. also Metherell v. The Medical Council of British Columbia, (1892)
2B. C. (Cassidy), at p. 189. The Imperial Act of 1886 (49 & 50 Vict. c. 48)
modifies the law as to registration and only requires reciprocity, no longer
giving a British decree Imperial validity ps0 facto.
