Birth registration and birth statistics in Canada / by Robert R. Kuczynski.

  • Robert René Kuczynski
Date:
1930
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Birth registration and birth statistics in Canada / by Robert R. Kuczynski. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/248 (page 7)
    Still a year later he refers to the same problem: It is much to be regretted that the at least concurrent jurisdiction of the Dominion Government over the same subject renders it inex- pedient to recommend certain amendments [to the British Columbia Registration Act] alluded to in my previous Report, and others, Avhich have since been suggested, for more effectually insuring its more suc- cessful operation, until the question is definitely settled, as to whether the collection of vital statistics will eventually be performed under Dominion or Provincial authority.^^ The Dominion government itself, apparently, did not follow a very active policy in this respect. “An Act for the Organization of the Department of Agriculture,’’ assented to May 22, 1868, mentioned, it is true, among the subjects which “shall be under the control and direction of the Department of Agriculture,” “The Census, Statistics and the Registra- tion of Statistics,” and the Minister of Agriculture actually instituted in the Province of Nova Scotia a Dominion Registra- tion of Births, Marriages and Deaths by an outside branch of his department; but he evidently had certain hesitations to interfere with registration in the other provinces. The Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths, is not exclusively a question of statistics; but it is at the same time a social record, and concerns the interests of individuals and families in matters of inheri- tance and rights to property and relationship. In as far as it concerns statistics it comes clearly within the province of Dominion legislation and administration; but in as far as it concerns the social status, it may be contended that it falls within the province of the provincial legislatures and governments to deal with it. There cannot be, however, any sepa- ration of the interests and objects of such registration in so far as relates to the work of procuring the necessary information; and it is important that there should be some plan devised to settle the mode in which this should be done.^® The Dominion Minister of Justice likewise refrained from taking a firm stand as to the constitutionality of the provincial registration acts. On July 12, 1869, he recommended that the Ontario Act “be left to its operation. At the same time he feels it incumbent upon him to express his doubt whether the subject of legislation in this Act comes within the provision of the 92nd clause of ‘The British North America Act, 1867’; and as to the 16th clause, whether the expression that the Ibid., 1874, p. 7. See Statutes of Canada 1867-68, Part Second, pp. 147-148. Minister of Agriculture of the Dominion of Canada, Report 1871, pp. 21-22.