Constitution of Canada

The Constitution of Canada, as indexed by the Constitute Project under Canada 1867 (rev. 2011), brings together the Constitution Act, 1867 and the Constitution Act, 1982. The 1867 Act, dated 29 March 1867 and titled An Act for the Union of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the Government thereof, records in its preamble that the three provinces had expressed their desire to be federally united into one Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom. It declares the union by royal proclamation under the name Canada and is divided into parts on the union, executive power, legislative power, provincial constitutions, the distribution of legislative powers, judicature, revenues, debts, assets and taxation, miscellaneous provisions, the Intercolonial Railway and the admission of other colonies. The 1982 Act opens with Part I, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees its rights and freedoms subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.