THE CRIMINAL CODE (CANADA) An Act Respecting the Criminal Law (R.S.C. 1906, ch. 146, and amendments 1907-1918.) Short Title. SHORT TITLE. 1. This Act may be cited as the Criminal Code. Origin]-Criminal Code 1892, 55-56 Vict. Can., ch. 29; draft English Criminal Code as reported 1880 by Royal Commissioners to the British Parliament but not adopted; various Canadian statutes dealing with criminal law and procedure. General effect as a Code]-The Criminal Code was intended to make complete and exhaustive provision as to the subjects with which it deals, in so far, at all events, as its provisions relate to procedure. It is explicitly called a code by the first section of the chapter in which it is embodied and its utility as a code will be greatly impaired if it cannot be so considered. R. v. Snelgrove, 12 Can. Cr. Cas. 189, per Russell, J.; Vagliano Case, [1891] 1 A.C., 144. Sec. 16 (Section 7 of the 1892 Code) which expressly makes common law justifications and excuses applicable to charges under the Act, implies that, in the absence of such a provision, the common law was meant to be superseded by the Act or else expressly embodied in it in the terms of a statute. For this reason sec. 999 of the Code is held to provide exhaustively for the cases in which and the conditions under which the depositions taken on the preliminary examination can be used on the trial in the event of the deponent's decease, and that the common law procedure as to this matter has been superseded. See also notes to secs. 15 and 16. Citation of Code in other statutes]-In the general Interpretation Act for the statutes of Canada there was introduced, 6 Edw. 7, ch. 21, sec. 6 (now R.S.C., ch. 1, sec. 39), this provision: "any such citations of, or reference to any Act (in any Act, instrument or document) 1 shall, unless the contrary intention appears, be deemed to be a citation of or reference to such Act as amended." Marginal notes in official text of Code not part of statute]-Sec. 3 of the Canada statute 6-7 Edw. VII, ch. 43, enacts as follows: 'The Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, are hereby confirmed and declared to have and to have had, on, from and after the thirty-first day of January, 1907, the force of law as if herein enacted. I The marginal notes thereon, the reference to former enactments at the foot of the sections, and the explanatory notes and tables inserted by the Commissioners, shall form no part of the said Revised Statutes, and shall be held to have been inserted for convenience only, and may be corrected or omitted." Further it has been said that the enactment itself should be read and not the sense or meaning given to it in a margin note by the official who saw to the publication of the statute. R. v. Battista, 21 Can. Cr. Cas. 1, 9 D.L.R. 138 (Que.). Official text in both English and French]-Where statutes are officially printed in two languages and the text of one version appears to be in conformity with the intention of the legislature, while an ambiguity exists in the other version, the former may be followed in interpreting the statute. Corporation of Coaticook v. People's Telephone Co., 19 Que. S.C. 535. Juvenile Delinquents]-In cities in which the Juvenile Delinquents Act, 1908, Can., is in operation, any provisions of the Criminal Code inconsistent therewith are superseded as regards such cities. 7-8 Edw. VII, ch. 40 and amendments; 2 Geo. V, ch. 30; 4-5 Geo. V, ch. 39. Crimes]-The distinction of public wrongs from private, of crimes and misdemeanours from civil injuries, seems principally to consist in this that private wrongs, or civil injuries, are an infringement or privation of the civil rights which belong to individuals, considered merely as individuals; public wrongs, or crimes and misdemeanours, are a breach and violation of the public rights and duties due to the whole community, considered as a community, in its social aggregate capacity. 4 Bl. Com. p. 5. As defined in Russell on Crimes, vol. 1, p. 1, crimes are: "Those acts or omissions involving breach of a duty to which by the law of England a sanction is attached by way of punishment or pecuniary penalty in the public interest." See also, 1 Austin's Jurisprudence, Lecture 17, p. 405. Federal jurisdiction over criminal law]—Sec. 91, sub-sec. 27, of the British North America Act, 1867, reserves for the exclusive legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada "the criminal law, except the constitution of courts of criminal jurisdiction, but including the procedure in criminal matters." The fact that from the criminal law generally there is one exception, namely, "the constitution of courts of criminal jurisdiction," renders it more clear, if anything were necessary to render it more clear, that with that exception the eriminal law, in its widest sense, is reserved for the exclusive authority of the Dominion Parliament. Attorney-General v. Hamilton Railway (1903), 7 Can. Cr. Cas. 326 [1903] A.C. 524. It is competent also for the Parliament of Canada to declare that what previously has constituted a criminal offence shall no longer do so, although a procedure in form criminal was kept alive. Toronto Ry. Co. v. The King (1917) 29 Can. Cr. Cas., 29 at 34, [1917], A. C. 630, reversing 25 Can. Cr. Cas. 183, 34 O.L.R. 589. The Canada Temperance Act was, by decision of the Privy Council, upheld on the ground that it might be referred to the general powers of the Dominion Parliament in respect of "the peace, order and good government of Canada." That legislation does not rest upon the execution of Dominion powers with regard to criminal law, although having direct relation thereto. Russell v. The Queen, 7 A.C. 829, 840; Hodge v. The Queen, 9 A.C. 117, 129; and see re McNutt, 21 Can. Cr. Cas. 157; 47 Can. S.C.R. 259; 10 D.L.R. 834. In Russell v. The Queen, 7 App. Cas. 829, at page 838, Sir Montague Smith, referring to the Temperance Act there in question, there says: "Their Lordships cannot think that the Temperance Act in question properly belongs to the class of subjects property and civil rights.' It has in its legal aspect an obvious and close similarity to laws which place restrictions on the sale or custody of poisonous drugs, or of dangerously explosive substances. These things as well as intoxicating liquors can, of course, be held as property, but a law placing restrictions on their sale, custody or removal, on the ground that the free sale or use of them is dangerous to public safety, and making it a criminal offence punishable by fine or imprisonment to violate these restrictions, cannot properly be deemed a law in relation to property in the sense in which those words are used in the 92nd section. What Parliament is dealing with in legislation of this kind is not a matter in relation to property and its rights, but one relating to public order and safety. That is the primary matter dealt with, and though incidentally the free use of things in which men may have property is interfered with, that incidental interference does not alter the character of the law. Upon the same consideration the Act in question cannot be regarded as legislation in relation to civil rights. In however large a sense these words are used, it could not have been intended to prevent the Parliament of Canada from declaring and enacting certain uses of property, and certain acts in relation to property, to be criminal and wrongful. Laws which make it a criminal offence for a man wilfully to set fire to his own house on the ground that such an act endangers the public safety, or to overwork his horse on the ground of cruelty to the animal, though affecting in some sense property and the right of a man to do as he pleases with his own, cannot properly be regarded as legislation in relation to property or to civil rights." Commenting upon this in re Richard 12 Can. Cr. Cas. 204 at 216, Duff J. of the Supreme Court of Canada said: Their Lordships, it is true, abstain from deciding the question whether the competence of Parliament to pass the enactment can be supported on the ground that it was passed in exercise of the exclusive power to legislate respecting the criminal law conferred by section 91 of the British North America Act, 1867. But it seems to me that there is no good ground for holding that, where Parliament under its power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of Canada declares in the interests of public order that certain acts shall be offences punishable by fine or imprisonment, the proceedings by which such laws are enforced are any the less proceedings in a criminal case because in enacting them Parliament did not formally profess to be dealing with the criminal law." The Manitoba Liquor Act of 1900 for the suppression of the Liquor traffic in that Province is within the powers of the Provincial Legislature, its subject being and having been dealt with as a matter of a merely local nature in the Province within the meaning of sub-sec. 16 of sec. 92 of the British North America Act, notwithstanding that in its practical working it must interfere with Dominion revenue, and indirectly with business operations outside the Province. (Re Liquor Act, 13 Man. L.R. 239, reversed.) Attorney-General of Manitoba v. Manitoba License Holders' Association [1902], A.C. 73. In Hodge v. The Queen, 9 App. Cas. 117, where the validity of a local regulation prohibiting the playing of billiards in taverns on Sunday, made under a Provincial License Act, Sir Barnes Peacock said: "Their Lordships consider that the powers intended to be conferred by the Act in question, when properly understood, are to make regulations in the nature of police or municipal regulations of a merely local character for the good government of taverns, etc.. licensed for the sale of liquor by retail, and such as are calculated to preserve in the municipality peace and public decency, and repress drunkenness and disorderly and riotous conduct. As such they cannot be said to interfere with the general regulation of trade and commerce, which belongs to the Dominion Parliament." Speaking of this case, the Chief Justice of Canada, in Huson v. The Township of South Norwich, 24 Can. S.C.R. at page 147, said: "That these words, 'municipal institutions,' do confer a police power to the extent of licensing and regulating was decided by the Privy Council in the case of Hodge v. The Queen.” A provincial law dealing with the prohibition of acts within its legislative authority may impose fine and imprisonment for infraction. Union Colliery Co. v. Bryden [1899], A.C. 580; Cunningham v. Tomey Homma [1903], A.C. 151; Re McNutt, 47 S.C.R. 259, 21 Can. Cr. Cas. |