Mr. Eric Silk

This interview with Eric Silk provides a detailed account of his pioneering work as Ontario’s first Legislative Counsel from 1934 to 1947. Silk began his career in private practice with Arthur Slaght before joining the Attorney General’s department under Arthur Roebuck in 1934 as Assistant Law Clerk. He describes the chaotic early years of legislative drafting, working under difficult conditions with inadequate supervision and hostile colleagues like Herb Cummings, who was later dismissed during political upheavals involving Premier Mitchell Hepburn.

Silk’s most significant contribution was developing Ontario’s Regulations Act in 1944, which he credits himself with introducing to bring order to the province’s chaotic system of delegated legislation. Prior to this Act, regulations were scattered across departments with no central registry or publication system. Working with Attorney General Leslie Blackwell, Silk established the Office of the Registrar of Regulations and created a uniform system for filing and publishing regulations that became a model across Canada.

The interview also covers Silk’s involvement with the Conference of Commissioners on Uniformity of Legislation, his work on the Revised Statutes of Ontario (for which he was never paid extra compensation), and his eventual move to head the civil division of the Attorney General’s department in 1947. His account provides valuable insights into the development of Ontario’s legislative drafting system and the political dynamics of the Hepburn and Drew administrations.

This description was written by AI and may contain some inaccuracies.