I appreciate Jack Webster’s Aug. 12 response to my Income Tax article. (“Income tax nonsense may be harmful.”) All open debate is important. However, Mr. Webster might do better to drop the derogatory comments and stay on topic.

For the first 50 years of our nation there was no federal income tax. Why? In the 1865 Parliamentary debates on Confederation, then Finance Minister Hon. A.T. Galt stated, “(the) Central government would have the power of raising money by all other modes and systems of taxation . . . and there was only one method left to the local governments if their own resources became exhausted, and that is direct taxation.” Direct taxes are levies like income and sales taxes.

Before and after Canada had a Supreme Court, Britain’s Privy Council were the final judges of highest law in Canada until 1949. In an 1885 Council decision on the Parsons case, they stated, “as regards direct taxation . . . that subject falls wholly within the jurisdiction of the Provincial legislatures.”

Sir Charles Tupper affirmed the same in an 1894 document submitted to the British Parliament, in which he states, “Under the Confederation Act passed by the Imperial Parliament in 1867, the powers of imposing (direct) taxation was exclusively assigned for the local governments and legislatures of the Provinces in the Dominion.”

During the raging crisis of WW1, 1917, Borden’s government imposed the temporary Income War Tax Act to pay for the growing war debt to the banks, and to partially punish war profiteers making over a certain income. Parliamentary battles raged over this Federal intrusion on Provincial territory, but the crisis won out.

Even Sir Thomas White, the Finance Minister who proposed the Tax in the Commons, acknowledged that the taxation of incomes is a special power left to the Provinces and municipalities. The Act was to be rescinded at the soonest point following the war.

Instead of revoking it, Prime Minister Mackenzie King centralized the illegal Tax in the 1920’s by extorting the power to tax directly from the Provinces in exchange for Federal transfer payments. The Provinces fought against it, had funding withheld, and caved eventually (only Quebec held out).

The 1950 Nova Scotia vs. Lord Nelson Hotel case reaffirmed that exclusive powers of jurisdiction could not be transferred between the Fed and the Provinces. The Vancouver Daily Province newspaper, commenting on this decision, stated, “We therefore see that direct taxation, such as the Personal Income Tax and Corporation Tax, etc., are the exclusive right of the Provincial Legislatures, and that the Parliament of Canada has no right to make and collect such taxes within any Province.”

  This later forced Prime Minister Diefenbaker to state in the House of Commons, “The Federal Government proposes to discontinue the tax rental system when it expires on March 31, 1962 . . . It will withdraw progressively and substantially from the personal income tax field in favour of the Provinces.”

Then he said, “(the Provinces) will exercise their Constitutional Right to impose . . . levies . . . Thus there will be a return to the active responsibilities which the Constitution confers upon both levels of government . . .” Meaning, the Provinces can tax directly and the Fed goes back to every other legal mode of taxation, just like the Constitution says.

It never happened of course, nor has the Constitution ever been amended to allow for Federal Tax, but these events formed the basis for Manitoba resident Gerry Hart’s Tax challenge based on the Constitution, Lord Nelson case, and Canadian History.

Gerry Hart won every time in court between 1953 and his death in 1991. The Justice presiding over Hart’s last appearance said he would hold Revenue Canada in contempt if they ever brought Gerry Hart in again for tax evasion.

I’ve spent many years researching Canadian history and constitutional law and am presently completing a book on this matter. I also have a contract to make a documentary on the subject. To be clear, in my article I never said to “avoid taxes,” I said to “inform yourself.”

Mr. Webster, please don’t flippantly paint people as crackpots. It’s a sign you might lack facts. Your few minutes at the BC Law Courts website doesn’t stack up against Canadian history.

Ken Rouleau,

Salt Spring