Confederation of Canada

I

Introduction

Confederation of Canada, the federal union of former British colonies in North America, originally known as the Dominion of Canada but now called simply Canada. The Confederation began on July 1, 1867, with four provinces and a population of 3.4 million; it now includes ten provinces and three territories and has a population of almost 30,000,000.

II

Background

The British lands in the northern half of North America did not take part in the American Revolution, and in the 1860s they were still part of the British Empire. More than 95 percent of the population lived in five colonies between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Superior. For most purposes they governed themselves through institutions modeled on the Parliament of Britain. However, the government of Britain provided military defense and conducted international relations for British North America, as the colonies were called.

The most important British possession in North America was the province of Canada, situated along the St. Lawrence River and the north side of the Great Lakes. Its population of 2.5 million was divided between French and British Canadians, and its administration was divided in a corresponding way. The French population was concentrated in the eastern section, known as Lower Canada or Canada East. There the laws, institutions, and prevalent language were French. In the western part (Upper Canada or Canada West), the laws and institutions were British, and the dominant language was English. Yet the two sections formed one province, with a single government and a single legislative assembly to represent both the French and the British.

III

Beginning of the Project

Governing the two Canadian peoples through a single legislature was difficult because there were important matters on which British and French Canadians had fundamentally different ideas. Education and church-state relations were major examples. Yet the economies of the two sections were so closely linked that they did not want to break up the union altogether. Federalism seemed to offer a solution to this dilemma. Under a federal system, both sections could have their own government responsible for those matters on which the French and British disagreed; a federal government could take charge of the areas in which they had common interests.

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The work of transforming Canada into a federation began in 1864 at the initiative of George Brown, the leader of the Reform Party in Upper Canada. Brown persuaded the majority leader in Lower Canada, George-Étienne Cartier, and the leader of the Conservative Party in Upper Canada, John A. Macdonald, to work with him to achieve it.

Cartier and Macdonald, however, wanted the new federation to include not just Canada, but other colonies in British North America as well. They hoped, no doubt, that including the Atlantic region—the colonies of Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island—would weaken the influence of the Reform Party, whose strength was in Upper Canada. But they had economic and military reasons as well.

A

Economic Incentives

If the four Atlantic colonies were included, it would be easier to build railroads and develop economic relations between them and Canada. That seemed particularly important in the mid-1860s because all these colonies were about to lose markets for their products in the United States. In 1865 the U.S. government had announced that it would cancel a treaty that had provided for limited free trade with British North America. In addition, cancellation would increase the costs of shipping goods by way of U.S. ports to Canada’s other major market, Britain. Canadian businesses therefore wanted a railroad that would carry their products to the Atlantic colonies, giving them access to a seaport in British North American territory.

These considerations were certainly important to Cartier. He was the lawyer for Canada’s largest railroad company and represented the city of Montréal in the legislative assembly. That city was already the center of Canada’s railroad system, and its budding industries hoped to benefit from that position to conquer new markets.

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