The difficulty has been in ascertaining the intention of Parliament rather than in giving effect to it when it is known. Indeed, as everyone knows, the intention of Parliament is somewhat of a fiction. Individual members of Parliament, or even the government, do not necessarily mean the same thing by voting on a Bill or, in some cases, anything at all. The collective will of the legislature must therefore be taken to have been expressed in the language of the enactment itself, even though that language has been selected by the draftsman, who is not a member of Parliament.
Thus the legislative intent is contained in the words that are in statute.This is the basic premises of the interpretation.The legislative intent is to be derived from the words and the language of the statue.No doubt courts have access to the extrinsic material but that has to be accessed when there is ambiguity otherwise if the meaning is plain and unambiguous the legislative intent is not to be derived as it is clear from the plain meaning.It is referred to as the plain meaning rule as is indicated below as well.[Blogger]
There are certain fundamental considerations which impinge on more than one of these questions. First, in the construction of all written instruments including statutes, what the court is concerned to ascertain is, not what the promulgators of the instruments meant to say, but the meaning of what they have said. It is in this sense that " intention " is used as a term of art in the construction of documents[1].
It is the fundamental rule that interpretation of statutes requires “in the first instance” determination of the intention of the legislature[2]. PIERRE-ANDRE COTE in his work The Interpretation of Legislation in Canada (2nd ed.) at p. 5 puts it this way: Because interpretation is conceived from the standpoint of communication, the goal of interpretation is to reveal the intention of the author of the message, the legislator. The court’s task in this proceeding is to interpret the Act to determine the intention of the Nova Scotia legislature. The terms of the legislation in other provinces is of little assistance in the absence of persuasive authorities defining those sections. In attempting to determine the intent of the legislature there is recourse to the plain meaning rule which, as stated in Driedger on the Construction of Statutes (3rd ed.) edited by Ruth Sullivan, divides interpretation into two stages. It is stated on p. 2:... During stage one, the literal meaning of the text was to be established and considered. During stage two, if the literal meaning was doubtful, the courts were to look to the purpose of the legislation and to other aids to interpretation. Again at p. 3: ... At the end of the day, a court may decide to go with its first impression, the meaning that emerged simply from reading the text. But no modern court would consider it appropriate to adopt that meaning, however “plain”, without first going through the work of interpretation. As explained by ROULEAU J. in EGG Canada Inc. v. M.N.R.:There is no question that the literal approach is a well established one in statutory interpretation. Nevertheless, it is always open to the Court to look to the object or purpose of a statute, not for the purpose of changing what was said by Parliament, but in order to understand and determine what was said. The object of a statute and its factual setting are always relevant considerations and are not to be taken into account only in cases of doubt.
[1]Farrell v Alexander [1976] UKHL 5 (24 June 1976)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1976/5.html
Cite as: [1976] UKHL 5, [1977] AC 59 per LORD SIMON
[2] See Manitoba (Registrar Land Titles District Portage La Prairie v. Canadian Superior Oil of California Limited, 1954 CanLII 74 (S.C.C.), [1954] S.C.R. 321
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