Royal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems

The Royal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems (Tremblay Commission) was appointed by the Québec government under chairman Mr Justice Thomas Tremblay to study the distribution of taxes among the federal government, the provinces, the municipalities and the school boards; the "encroachments" of the federal government into the field of direct taxation, especially its taxes on revenue, corporations and inheritances; the consequences of these "encroachments" for the legislative and administrative system of Québec and for the collective, family and individual life of its population; and generally the constitutional problems of a fiscal character.

The Commission's 4-volume report (1956) supported the view that the federal government was a creation of the provinces and that the role of the political regime of 1867 was to establish a framework within which English and French communities could live in a federal state. It called for greater provincial autonomy, proposing that social programs be under provincial jurisdiction. It also proposed major fiscal reforms very different from those recommended by the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations. The report is considered a classic in-depth analysis of Québec's nationalistic and traditional approach to the federal system.