Viscount Maugham.:-

This appeal by special leave is presented by the Attorney-General of Alberta against the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada dated 2nd December 1941, which answered certain questions concerning the constitutional validity of the Debt Adjustment Act, 1937, of the Province of Alberta as amended by five later Acts. These questions had been referred to the Supreme Court for hearing and consideration pursuant to S. 55, Supreme Court Act (Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927, chapter 35) by the Governor General in Council by an order made on 19th May 1941. The Supreme Court decided that the Act in question is ultra vires of the Legislature of Alberta. The Attorney-General for Saskatchewan as a respondent and the Attorneys-General for Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick as intervenants supported the appeal. Distress of a very serious nature was rife in Alberta and the adjoining Prairie Provinces from at any rate the year 1920, and divers statutes were passed in those Provinces and in particular in Alberta directed to the relief of the inhabitants. In the view their Lordships have taken, it does not seem to be necessary to give even a summary of these statutes beginning with the Drought Area Belief Act, chap. 43 of 1922. The Act now under consideration (to be hereafter generally referred to as "the Act") is the last of a series of legislative attempts to relieve the distress of resident farmers and others while keeping within the legislative powers of the Province as laid down in the British North America Act, 1867, as amended. Their Lordships approach the important questions before them on the assumption that there was sufficient and it may be said grave need for legislation for the relief of distress in the Province. They desire, however, to point out that the question before them is not as to the expediency, still less as to the wisdom, of the present Act. The question is simply one as to the power of the Province to pass it. If the answer should be in the negative it must necessarily follow that the Dominion has full power to pass a statute dealing with the matter or such part of it as is beyond the power of the Province.

Before stating the nature of the Act, it should be mentioned that it contains amendments designed to deal with the objection that a preceding Act encroached upon the matter of "Bankruptcy and Insolvency" which (under S. 91 (21) of the British North America Act) is within the exclusive legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada. O'Connor J. had decided in favour of this objection, (1941) 1 WWR 430, North American Life Assurance Co. v. McLean Certain compulsory composition provisions mentioned by the learned Judge are now removed; but the important provisions of S.8 (which will be stated in detail later) remain. The consideration of the Act (as it now stands) came before the Supreme Court of Canada in the year 1940 in Winstanley's case (Attorney-General for Alberta v. Atlas Lumber Co., Ltd.). This was an action brought without "a permit" under the Act against a resident debtor in Alberta upon a promissory note. It was there held (the judgment of Deff C. J. being concurred in by Rinfret, Crocket, Davis, Kerwin, Hudson and Taschereau JJ. affirming the judgment of Ewing J.) that S. 8 (a) of the Act so far as it extends to actions upon bills of exchange and promissory notes is repugnant to the enactments of the Dominion in the Bills of Exchange Act (chap. 16 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927, and amendments thereto) and that the absence of a permit to bring the action was therefore not a defence. The Act is now under consideration in a proceeding which involves its validity as a whole. It is in four parts; but part 2 has been repealed. There is a preliminary part containing definitions including one stating that a resident debtor means a person who is a debtor and who is an actual resident of and personally living in the Province and includes the personal representative or representatives