The Balfour Declaration was approved at the Imperial Conference of 1926. It stated formally what was already in practice - that the Dominions of the British Empire were autonomousautonomy: self-government; independence. and equal in stature with each other and with England. A new association was created that was called the British Commonwealth of Nations.

The members of the Commonwealth were "in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united in a common allegiance to the Crown."

The Balfour Declaration did not change the legal status of the Dominions, though. The Parliament of the United Kingdom still had legal powers over Canada and the other members of the British Commonwealth and this could not be changed by the Dominions themselves, only by an act of the British Parliament. This is how the situation remained until the Constitution Act of 1982 brought the Canadian constitution to Canada.