660 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [rarT Iv 
and as supreme as it was before the passing of the Act. In 
Hodge v. The Queen,! Lord Fitzgerald, delivering the opinion 
of this Board, said : ‘ When the British North America Act 
enacted that there should be a legislature for Ontario, and 
that its legislative assembly should have exclusive authority 
to make laws for the province and for provincial purposes 
in relation to the matters enumerated in s. 92, it conferred 
powers not in any sense to be exercised by delegation from 
or as agents of the Imperial Parliament, but authority as 
plenary and as ample within the limits prescribed by s. 92 
as the Imperial Parliament in the plenitude of its power 
possessed and could bestow. Within these limits of subject 
and area, the local legislature is supreme, and has the same 
authority as the Imperial Parliament, or the Parliament of 
the Dominion.” The Act places the constitutions of all 
provinces within the Dominion on the same level ; and what 
is true with respect to the legislature of Ontario has equal 
application to the legislature of New Brunswick. 
It is clear, therefore, that the provincial legislature of New 
Brunswick does not occupy the subordinate position which 
was ascribed to it in the argument of the appellants. It 
derives no authority from the Government of Canada, and 
its status is in no way analogous to that of a municipal 
institution, which is an authority constituted for purposes 
of local administration. It possesses powers, not of adminis- 
tration merely, but of legislation, in the strictest sense of 
that word ; and, within the limits assigned by s. 92 of the 
Act of 1867, these powers are exclusive and supreme. It 
would require very express language, such as is not to be 
found in the Act of 1867, to warrant the inference that 
the Imperial Legislature meant to vest in the provinces of 
Canada the right of exercising supreme legislative powers 
in which the British Sovereign was to have no share. 
The Privy Council were of opinion that the case for the 
respondents really rested on the fact that the Lieutenant- 
Governor was appointed and could be dismissed by the 
Governor-General, but that the argument ignored the fact 
that by s. 58 the provincial Lieutenant-Governor was 
appointed by the Governor-General in Council by instrument 
under the Great Seal of Canada, or, in other words, by the 
Executive Government of the Dominion, which was by s. 9 
expressly declared to continue and to be vested in the 
1 9 App. Cas. 117.