The Legislative Council of Nova Scotia was the upper house of the legislature of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. It existed from 1838 to May 31, 1928. From the establishment of responsible government in 1848, members were appointed by the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia on the advice of the premier.
Before Confederation
The Legislative Council had its origins in the older unified Nova Scotia Council, created in 1719 and appointed in 1720, which exercised a combination of executive and judicial functions. Its functions were more formally specified in instructions issued by the Board of Trade in 1729. The Council acted as the Governor's cabinet and as the province's General Court until the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia was established in 1754 (but its judicial function was not totally eliminated). It assumed a legislative function in 1758, when the 1st General Assembly of Nova Scotia was called, by acting as its upper house.
The constitution of the Council and its form of tenure changed from time to time, usually upon the issue of a Commission to an incoming Governor:
During the period of 1845-1846, a sequence of ambiguous correspondence occurred between Lord Falkland and the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (initially Edward Stanley, followed by William Ewart Gladstone), on the subject of granting life tenure to members of the Legislative Council. Cathcart's commission and instructions were, however, not formally changed. In 1896, however, J.G. Bourinot expressed his opinion that the Crown had effectively yielded its right to appoint at pleasure, thus conferring a tenure for life, but he also conceded that the provincial legislature had the power to abolish the Council.
Post-Confederation
The Nova Scotia Legislature codified the procedure of appointment in 1872, by specifying that they would be made by the Lieutenant-Governor under the Great Seal of the Province. This was revised in 1900 to specify that the power of appointment rested with the Lieutenant-Governor in Council.
Until 1882, the Executive Council normally included one Minister with portfolio and one Minister without portfolio from the Council. During the administration of William Thomas Pipes, the practice was altered so that only the Government Leader in the Council would be appointed as a Minister without portfolio in the future.
After 1899, the Council performed all its deliberations on bills solely in committee, after they had been given first reading. This effectively placed its work in obscurity, far from the public eye.
1925 reform
With the Assembly seemingly unable to abolish the Legislative Council without its permission, it eventually came to consider reforming the Council as a next-best alternative. The first serious reform proposal was considered in 1916, when the Assembly passed a reform bill based on the Imperial Parliament Act 1911, which limited the veto of the House of Lords. The bill would have changed the Council's absolute veto to a suspensory veto; if the Assembly passed a bill in three successive legislative sessions over two years, the bill would go into effect notwithstanding the lack of the Council's consent. This bill, which was presented to the Council in the last days of the 1916 session at the height of the first World War, was received badly by the Council, which refused to pass it. A similar bill was considered by the Assembly the following year, but was dropped after the Council threatened not to pass any other bills sent to it by the Assembly.
The subject of abolition was revived in 1922, when the Assembly passed a resolution calling for the Legislative Council's resolution. Instead of sending an abolition bill to the Council, however, the Assembly formed a delegation to meet with members of the Legislative Council to consider methods of abolition. When the two delegations met together, the Assembly members were surprised that while the Councillors were unwilling to accept abolition, they were quite interested in potential reforms designed to make the Legislature work more effectively, including the possibility of electing the Council. As it was once again late in the legislative session, there was not sufficient time to negotiate a specific proposal, however. As such, the delegations requested permission from the Assembly and Council to continue working on the matter until the 1923 session. When the Legislature met again in 1923, the joint committee met again, but discussions once more led nowhere, as each group expected the other to offer a specific proposal.