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''Reference Re Validity of Section 5(a) of the Dairy Industry Act'' (1949), also known as the ''Margarine Reference'' or as ''Canadian Federation of Agriculture v Quebec (AG)'', is a leading ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, upheld on appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, on determining if a law is within the authority of the Parliament of Canada's powers relating to criminal law. In this particular case, the Court found that a regulation made by Parliament was ''ultra vires''. It contained sufficient punitive sanctions; however, the subject matter was not the kind that served a public purpose. The case was decided by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on appeal from the Supreme Court of Canada, as the cause for appeal arose before the abolition of such appeals in 1949.〔''Supreme Court Amendment Act'', S.C. 1949 (2nd. session), c. 37, s. 3〕 The decision by Rand J was upheld in 1951, and the case has been cited in federalism disputes many times since. ==Background== Under Section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867, Parliament receives exclusive powers to legislate in regard to the criminal law. The precise meaning of the criminal law power, however, had proved controversial. In the ''Board of Commerce case'', the JCPC seemingly chose to define criminal law power as limited to prohibiting only what was criminal in 1867 (the year of Canadian Confederation). This was overturned in ''Proprietary Articles Trade Assn. v. A.-G. Can.'' (1931), in which it was found criminal law means Parliament could legitimately prohibit any act "with penal consequences." The problem with the latter decision was that it gave Parliament an excuse to legislate in regard to many matters. The matter came before the courts again with the ''Margarine Reference'', where the following reference question was posed to the Supreme Court of Canada: In this case, Parliament had legislated against the production and trade of margarine, in order to give dairy businesses assurances that margarine would not threaten their existence. This legislation actually dated back to 1886, and it was claimed in the law that the real purpose was to target a product that was "injurious to health." While this, if true, would have made margarine a fair target for criminal law, the federal government admitted before the courts that this assessment was simply false. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Margarine Reference」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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