The central legal point established in the judgment is the authority of the Parliament of Canada to regulate trade and commerce, including the imposition of restrictions on foreign companies operating within a single province.

Viscount Haldane:-

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada answering certain questions put to the judges by a reference from the Government of the Dominion. The questions so referred were as follows :

1. Are Ss. 4 and 70 of the Insurance Act, 1910, or any and what part or parts of the said sections, ultra vires of the Parliament of Canada?

2. Does S. 4 of the Insurance Act, 1910, operate to prohibit an insurance company incorporated by a foreign-state from carrying on the business of insurance within Canada, if such company does not hold a license from the Minister under the said Act, and if such carrying on of the business is confined to a single province?

Section 4 is in these terms :-

"In Canada, except as otherwise provided by this Act, no company or underwriters or other person shall solicit or accept any risk, or issue or deliver any receipt or policy of insurance, or grant any annuity on a life or lives, or collect or receive any premium, or inspect any risk, or adjust any loss, or carry on any business of insurance, or prosecute or maintain any suit, action, or proceeding, or file any claim in insolvency relating to such business, unless it be done by or on behalf of a company or underwriters holding a license from the Minister."

The Minister is defined in the Act to mean the Minister of Finance of the Dominion.

Sect. 70 is an ancillary section which imposes a penalty on every person who contravenes or attempts to contravene the provisions of the above and other sections. Sect. 3 provides that the provisions of the Act shall not apply to any contract of marine insurance effected in Canada by any company authorized to carry on such business within Canada, nor to any company incorporated by an Act of the Legislature of late province of Canada, or by an Act of the Legislature of any province now forming part of Canada, which carries on the business of insurance wholly within the limits of the province by the Legislature of which it was incorporated, and which is within the exclusive control of the Legislature of such province. Sub-sect. 3 of Sect. 3 also provides that any such company as is last described may, by leave of the Governor in Council, avail itself of the provisions of this Act on complying with the provisions thereof, and that if it so avails itself these provisions shall then apply to it, and such company shall thereafter have the power of transacting business of insurance throughout Canada. Sect. 12 enacts that no licence shall be granted to any individual underwriter or underwriters to carry on, any kind of insurance business, excepting in the case of associations of individuals formed upon the plan known as Lloyd's, under which, each associate underwriter becomes liable for a proportionate part of the whole amount insured by a policy. The Act contains other restrictive and regulative provisions.

It will be observed that section 4 deprives private individuals of their liberty to carry on the business of insurance, even when that business is confined within the limits of a province. It will also be observed that even a provincial company operating within the limits of the province where it has been incorporated cannot, notwithstanding that it may obtain permission from the authorities of another province, operate within that other province without the licence of the Dominion Minister.

In other words the capacity is interfered with which, according to the judgment just delivered by their Lordships in the case of the Bonanza Company [1916] 1 A.C. 566, such a company possesses to take advantage of powers and rights proffered to it by authorities outside the provincial limits. Such an interference with its status appears to their Lordships to interfere with its civil rights within the province of incorporation, as well as with the power of the Legislature of every other province to confer civil rights upon it. Private individuals are likewise deprived of civil rights within their provinces. It mu