Abstract: This article examines the Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission on DominionProvincial Relations, the comprehensive study of federal government in crisis undertaken between 1937 and 1940. Based on new theoretical insights into the study of federal government, it argues that scholarly interpretations of Rowell-Sirois and mid-twentieth-century Canadian federalism have tended to dismiss their originality and continuing relevance. Here, the authors focus on the way the commissioners, particularly senior commissioner John W. Dafoe, arrived at a fresh concep...
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