Keywords
Marine hospitals, Constitution Act, 1867, federalism, division of powers, section 91(11), constitutional history, Canadian legal history, health law, maritime law, sailors, merchant seafarers, federal health care, quarantine, immigration, Confederation
Abstract
Previous scholarship has argued that the enumeration of marine hospitals as a federal head of power in the Constitution Act, 1867 reflected a national concern over immigration and quarantine. This article disputes that. Using primary sources, this paper demonstrates that Canadian marine hospitals were established in port communities to provide for the general health of itinerant merchant sailors, who would otherwise be a burden on local hospitals and charitable organizations. The article concludes that marine hospitals can be viewed in retrospect as one of Canada’s first federal health care programs.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Dan Dwyre, "Escaping Quarantine: Marine Hospitals, the Constitution Act, 1867 and Canada’s First Federal Health Care Program" (2026) 35:1 Dal J Leg Stud 35.