Today, the responsibility for making laws about labour belongs to provincial governments. How did jurisdiction over labour law change from being federal to provincial?

When the federal government passed the Industrial Disputes and Investigation Act in 1907, many protested at the ability of the federal government to pass laws that affected all workers in all industries across Canada. They felt that under the British North America Act of 1867 the power to legislate about the civil rights of employers and employees was given to the provinces alone.

Several cases challenged the authority of the federal government but for one reason or another were not resolved. Then in 1923, a legal challenge was raised to the appointment of a board under the federal act concerning street railway workers in Toronto. In 1925, the Privy Council declared in the Snider case that the Industrial Disputes and Investigation Act was unconstitutional. The provinces had the right to make laws regarding the civil rights of employers and employees, unless it was in an area specifically in the domain of the federal government. The only time that this power could revert back to the federal government would be in a time of national crisis.

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