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The Confederation Idea
Sentiment bound the Canadas, the Maritimes, and British Columbia more closely to England than to each other. There were different standards of currency in use in the several colonies, and trade between them was complicated by customs barriers. Their everyday business brought them into close touch with the United States. When the St. Lawrence ports of Quebec and Montreal were frozen in, news and even passengers traveled on the new United States railways across the eastern states from New York to the Canadian border. The newly invented magnetic telegraph, which was installed in Toronto in 1846, soon connected that city not only with Quebec but also with New York City and New Orleans in the United States. From 1861 to 1865 people in the British colonies watched with interest and uneasiness the course of the American Civil War. From this great conflict they saw arise a freshly united nation, powerfully equipped with what were now surplus tools of war and, in the opinion of many, only too willing to use them against the neighboring colonies of Great Britain. Britain had almost gone to war against the North because the North's blockade of Southern shipping interfered with Britain's cotton trade. The absorption of the British colonies into the United States was again being called for by United States extremists who revived the old cry of "manifest destiny" of their republic. Lord Elgin had negotiated a ten-year trade treaty with the United States whereby tariffs were reduced on a reciprocal basis on many items. The resulting stimulation of trade was scheduled to cease in 1864, when United States renewal of the treaty was withheld. The desirability of substituting increased intercolonial trade was recognized by everyone in Canada and the Maritimes. The government of the Canadas under the Act of Union was running into difficulties because Canada West by this time had increased in population faster than Canada East. The act had provided for equal representation of both parts of the colony at a time when French-speaking Canada East was numerically much larger than Canada West. A state of almost continuous deadlock ensued in Parliament, with no government able to secure a clear majority. Between 1861 and 1864 four separate ministries and two general elections failed to end the impasse. In 1864 a coalition headed by the leader of the Conservatives, John A. Macdonald, and Liberal leader George Brown, who was founder of the Toronto Globe, gave promise of a more stable government (see Macdonald). Macdonald, with his trusted ally Georges-Etienne Cartier from Canada East, then obtained Brown's assurance of cooperation in the best interests of the country, even though Brown had long considered Macdonald and Cartier his deadly political enemies. The coalition government wanted to work out some form of federal union to include the Maritime Provinces if they were willing. Provincial matters would be left to the individual provinces. Only subjects of concern to all the provinces would be dealt with by the federal government.  By fortunate coincidence, the possibility of a local union of colonies was under discussion at this very time in the Maritimes. A conference was convened in Charlottetown, P.E.I., in 1864 to discuss the question. Macdonald, accompanied by Brown and Cartier, headed a delegation from Canada to this meeting of their Maritime cousins. They set forth the possible advantages of a union wide enough to include the Canadas as well. It was quickly agreed that another meeting should be held to consider the plan further. The result was the Quebec Conference, which was held later the same year. Agreements in principle on the conditions that might permit so ambitious a union were finally reached. These agreements were summed up in the Seventy-two Resolutions. As if to lend emphasis to the importance of such a union, the anti-British Fenians in the United States were voicing plans to strike a blow for Irish independence at home by invading the British colonies in North America. In 1866 this threat culminated in a series of raids across the border into Canada, which were successfully repulsed. The United States took steps to preserve its neutrality by suppressing further Fenian attacks from its side of the border. Some of the national spirit of 1812 to 1814 was rekindled in the British colonies and served to strengthen the movement toward confederation. In 1866 representatives of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Canadas came together in London for final discussions with the Colonial Office. Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island for the moment had withdrawn from the confederation talks. The London Conference led directly to the most important statute in Canadian constitutional history, the British North America Act of 1867. This act, with its subsequent amendments, embodied the written constitution of Canada for more than a century. It was proclaimed on July 1, now celebrated as Canada Day. The British North America Act provided that there should be four provinces in the new Dominion at the outset--Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia--and that others could join later. Each province was to have its own seat of government, its own lawmaking body, and its own lieutenant governor to represent the Crown. In addition, the act established a federal government at Ottawa, composed of a House of Commons (elected), a Senate (appointed for life), and a governor-general as the Crown's representative. It set forth the matters on which the provinces could make laws and listed those that were the special concern of the government at Ottawa. Any powers not listed were to belong to the federal government. (The act remained in force until the Constitution Act of 1982.) The first Parliament of the new Dominion met on Nov. 6, 1867, with Macdonald as prime minister. By the Deed of Surrender of 1869, Canada purchased the vast Northwest Territories from the Hudson's Bay Company. The company was permitted to retain trading rights in the area and a small percentage of the prairie lands. The only western settlement of importance east of the Rockies was the Red River colony in Manitoba, which had attained a population of some 12,000 since Selkirk's time. The metis were the most numerous of these settlers. Their leader, Louis Riel, defied the new governor sent out to take over possession of the territory from the Hudson's Bay Company. Riel seized Fort Garry, set up his own provisional government, and forwarded demands to Ottawa that the civil rights and the land rights of the people be protected. At this point Riel might easily have won a place in Canadian history as the father of Manitoba, but he committed the grave error of imprisoning some of the Ontario settlers who opposed him and of having one of them, Thomas Scott, executed. Calmer judgments prevailed when Donald Smith (later Lord Strathcona) and Bishop Alexandre Tache, the religious leader of the Red River Settlement, went to Ottawa and obtained passage of the Manitoba Act of 1870. By this act Manitoba was constituted a province, with its seat of government at Fort Garry (later Winnipeg). But it was a much smaller province, amounting to little more than the Red River Settlement. The right of the French-speaking inhabitants to their own religion and schools was recognized. Soldiers under Col. (later Sir) Garnet Wolseley were sent to Fort Garry to bring law and order on authority from Ottawa. Riel allowed his provisional government to collapse and fled from the new province. The Red River Rebellion was ended but not the career of Riel. The first Dominion census, which was taken in 1871 in accordance with the British North America Act, showed a population of 3,689,257. In the same year the Treaty of Washington was signed between Great Britain and the United States, which settled United States and Canadian use of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system and the Yukon River in Alaska. The United States was accorded fishing rights in Canadian Atlantic waters for a limited period in return for 5 1/2 million dollars in compensation. Among the five commissioners who represented Great Britain in these negotiations was Macdonald. His presence was a recognition of Canada's new status in the British Empire. During the same summer of 1871, British Columbia joined the new Canada Confederation. Improvement in overland communications was a primary condition imposed by the new province. Macdonald pledged that the Dominion government would begin construction of a transcontinental railway within two years and complete it within ten years. Progress on the Intercolonial Railway, which was to link the Maritimes with Quebec, encouraged Prince Edward Island in 1873 to become the seventh province in the Dominion. The transcontinental railway project already was requiring heavy financial commitments by the government, and Macdonald was under considerable pressure in the House of Commons as well as in the press. He won the election of 1872, only to face charges by his political enemies that railway contractors had contributed heavily to his party's election funds. The Pacific Scandal, as this incident was named, defeated the Conservatives in 1873. Alexander Mackenzie headed the Liberal government that then took office. Mackenzie's contribution to the infant Dominion was real though unspectacular. During his term in office from 1873 to 1878, voting by ballot was introduced in 1874; the Supreme Court of Canada held its first sitting in 1876; and the Intercolonial Railway ran its first train from Halifax to Quebec, also in 1876. A tireless worker and a man of high personal integrity, Mackenzie nevertheless did not have great popular appeal. When Macdonald fought the 1878 election on a platform of protectionist tariffs, which he called his National Policy, the voters favored their "old chieftain." The Conservatives thus were returned to office. Macdonald sought to strengthen the new Dominion both at home and abroad. He could foresee the ultimate evolution of something akin to the modern British Commonwealth, in which Canada would be an equal partner with the mother country. During the seven years following his return to office, his government adopted its previously announced protective tariff (1879), appointed Canada's first high commissioner to London (1880), annexed the Arctic Archipelago (1880), and completed the overdue transcontinental railway (1885). In 1885 word of a new crisis was flashed from the Northwest Territories. Louis Riel was leading the metis of the valley of the South Saskatchewan in a new uprising against the federal government, and this time he had aroused numbers of the Indians to fight beside him. A militia force was hastily dispatched under Gen. Frederick Middleton over the completed portion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Within a few weeks the Northwest Rebellion was put down and Riel was arrested. His trial for treason and his execution aroused wide controversy across Canada and to a considerable extent cost the Conservative party the support of French-speaking Canadians for many decades. Macdonald's National Policy was by now the chief target of the Liberals, who were calling for "unrestricted reciprocity" in trade with the United States. Macdonald won the 1891 election. His health was failing, however, and later that year he died. Because of their government majority, the Conservatives were not required to call a new election for five years. During this time, however, they had to select four prime ministers in succession--Sir John J.C. Abbott (1891-92), Sir John S.D. Thompson (1892-94), Sir Mackenzie Bowell (1894-96), and Sir Charles Tupper (1896). Finally the Conservative party foundered, under Tupper's leadership, on the thorny Manitoba School Question. Manitoba had abolished its separate Roman Catholic schools a few years earlier. This was allegedly in violation of provisions in the Manitoba Act and the British North America Act. The provincial government's action was upheld, however, by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. (See also Abbott; Thompson, John Sparrow David; Tupper.) The new Liberal leader, Wilfrid Laurier, a French-speaking Canadian, favored conciliation rather than coercion. The Conservatives were defeated on the issue in the election; and the responsibility of government passed to the Liberals, under Laurier. Wilfrid Laurier's regime lasted 15 years. It was one of renewed growth and prosperity. The Manitoba School Question was promptly hushed up by new legislation enacted by the province in accordance with a compromise worked out with Ottawa. To his Cabinet Laurier drew some of the most capable leaders from every part of Canada. Business throughout the world was on an upswing, and the Laurier government rode the crest. The demand for Canadian wheat abroad encouraged immigration, and immigration in turn increased farm production and the value of national exports. "The 20th century belongs to Canada," cried Laurier; and the whole nation took confidence from his assurance. Two new transcontinental railways were begun. By 1905 the west had expanded in both population and economic strength to such an extent that two new provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, were carved out of the Northwest Territories. These encouraging developments were inadvertently assisted by an occurrence in the far northwest. Since the Fraser River gold strike of 1858, prospectors had been consistently combing the mountainous areas of British Columbia and to the north. In 1896 their persistence paid off with the discovery of gold nuggets on the Klondike River in the far western Yukon Territory. When the news spread, the gold rush of 1897 began; it was to become the most publicized gold rush in history, eventually to be celebrated in the works of such writers as Jack London and Robert Service. The gold strike had some beneficial side effects. As miners poured into western Canada from the United States and other parts of the world, the extent of the unpopulated prairie lands became known. By this time, of course, the supply of free land in the United States had become exhausted, and the frontier was closed. Very soon after the gold rush, settlers began pouring into the western prairies of Canada by the thousands, from Europe as well as the United States. They came from as far away as Russia to establish farms on the open wheatlands. It was not long before demands arose for the creation of at least one province between Manitoba and British Columbia. Thus, in 1905, the government in Ottawa formed two new provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Another benefit resulting, at least in part, from the gold rush was the discovery of other minerals in the Canadian wilds. As early as 1883, nickel had been found at Sudbury, Ont. In the early 1890s large deposits of base-metal ores were found in southern British Columbia. After 1900 a rich deposit of silver was discovered north of Lake Nipissing in Ontario. Canada soon became perceived around the world as a mineral-rich nation with great untapped potential. The new prime minister thus basked in an environment of progress and prosperity after a depression that had lasted more than 20 years. Laurier's only serious political difficulties stemmed from his inability to satisfy fully the imperialists among his followers. Great Britain received support in the Boer War of 1899-1902 from the other self-governing colonies, and Laurier reluctantly committed Canada as well. His decision, however, sharpened the controversy between the two nationality groups regarding Canada's proper responsibilities to Britain in the future. On the other hand, he continued to resist pressures to tie the bonds of empire still more tightly during the years after the victory in South Africa. Seeds of distrust concerning his policies were thus sown on both sides of the wall that was rising between Canadians of French and of English descent. Another foreign policy issue arose as naval competition increased between Germany and Britain in the years before World War I. Great Britain naturally desired to receive military help from the colonies, and again Laurier found a compromise that satisfied neither the pro-British faction nor the French partisans. He founded the Canadian Navy in 1910 with the provision that in time of war it be placed under British command. This quickly led to accusations that Canadian soldiers would be drafted into the British Army if war came. In 1911, when his opponents denounced his government's decision to implement a limited reciprocity pact with the United States, Laurier felt he was on firmer ground and called a general election. His defeat, which occurred largely on this issue, showed that the prospering nation's reservations regarding his policies were exceeded only by its lingering distrust of the United States. |
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