(2nd Year) Sir John A. Macdonald and the Birth of the Dominion: An Analysis of the Leadership and Policies of Canada’s First Prime Minister during the Mid-to-Late 19th Century. (original) (raw)
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Much of the historiography of British Columbia’s 1871 entry into Confederation has concentrated on the motives of British Columbians in seeking union with Canada. This article examines the discussion of the province’s Terms of Union in the Canadian parliament and in the eastern Canadian press, and recasts the debate as a conflict between two competing visions of Canada’s economic future. Proponents of the admission of British Columbia believed access to the Pacific would transform the new Dominion into a commercial superpower. Opponents of the Terms looked upon distant, mountainous, and sparsely populated British Columbia as a liability, a region and a community that, unlike the Prairie West, could never conform to the agrarian ideal that underpinned their conception of Canada. A reconsideration of the Terms of Union debate in eastern Canada suggests a broader conception of what constitutes Canada’s founding debates, and supports the work of other scholars who have identified an agrarian-commercial cleavage as a defining feature of nineteenth-century Canadian politics. Une grande partie de l’historiographie sur l’entrée de la Colombie-Britannique au sein de la Confédération en 1871 porte sur les motifs qui ont guidé la population de la Colombie-Britannique à vouloir s’unir au Canada. Cet article traite du débat entourant les conditions d’adhésion de la province, qui a eu lieu au Parlement du Canada et dans la presse canadienne de l’Est. Il reformule la question et la présente comme un conflit entre deux visions contradictoires de l’avenir économique du Canada. Les partisans de l’adhésion de la Colombie-Britannique croient que l’accès au Pacifique transformerait le nouveau dominion en une superpuissance commerciale. Quant aux opposants, ils voient cette Colombie-Britannique éloignée, montagneuse et peu densément peuplée comme un boulet, une région et une collectivité qui, contrairement à la Prairie de l’Ouest, ne pourront jamais se conformer à l’idéal agraire que soustend leur conception du Canada. Un nouvel examen du débat sur les conditions d’adhésion qui ont eu lieu dans l’Est du Canada mène à une conception élargie de ce que sont les débats fondateurs du Canada. Cette vision rencontre les travaux d’autres chercheurs qui confèrent à la division agraire-commerciale un rôle déterminant de la politique canadienne du XIXe siecle.
Model and Anomaly: The Canadian Confederation Seen from France, 1864-1871
Globalizing Confederation: Canada and the World in 1867. Eds. Jacqueline Krikorian, Marcel Martel, and Adrian Shubert. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 110-126., 2017
The nineteenth century is usually considered a key period in the history of nation-building. In addition, its second and last thirds have been called the "age of capital" and the "age of empire," respectively. 1 This particular era, and especially the years 1848-1914, saw the birth or development of many concepts and ideas that have shaped the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While the past is sometimes described as "a foreign country," the nation-building processes that speckled the nineteenth century also loomed large in the twentieth century, and still resonate in our day and age. 2 In addition to their longevity, these processes inherently defy the very concept of "national history"nations usually define themselves as peculiar entities, distinct from others (especially their neighbours). In that regard, the Canadian case is of particular interest, as attempting to historicize the very meaning of "nation" in this country is, at best, multifaceted and slippery, and at worst, a constant headache. Nonetheless, one useful way of approaching the national question in Canada consists of focusing on non-Canadian perspectives on the Confederation period. More specifically, this chapter argues that diplomatic corps and newspapers of the French Second Empire viewed Confederation simultaneously as a foreign, unique phenomenon and as a process related to the European nation-building projects of the era. Few studies have been made on the views expressed in France on state formation in Canada between 1864 and 1871. 3 The reasons for focusing on these years are quite straightforward. The year 1864 is, of course, the year of the decisive Charlottetown and Quebec conferences, and 1871 marked the geopolitically significant entry of British Columbia, which turned the Dominion into a transcontinental entity.
2014
This dissertation explores how the Upper Canadian and Ontarian belief that their province could preponderate within Confederation impacted the dominion of Canada’s political development. It reveals that federalism in Upper Canada remained weak until Reformers recognized that their province could exercise preponderant influence in a federation where representation in the national legislature was based upon population. After this realization, Reformers increasingly believed that they could best serve their province and country by using their potential parliamentary preponderance to quash policy demands from the rest of Canada that did not align with their national vision. This was not, however, the only way Upper Canadians interpreted their colony’s role within Confederation. As 1 July 1867 neared, many Upper Canadians acknowledged their province’s potential power but doubted its ability to dominate national policy debates. They also argued that opposing initiatives from the rest of Canada would destabilize Confederation. This second group, therefore, cautioned against opposing the rest of Canada or suggested using their province’s political muscle to support the passage of compromise policies that accommodated demands from other parts of the country. The dissertation explores how the ebb and flow of these two preponderant federalisms in Ontario impacted Canadian political debates from 1867 to 1896. The sense of power and entitlement that underlay preponderant federalisms often emboldened Ontarians to foment national political crises by rallying their province’s politicians to oppose policy initiatives from other parts of the country. The willingness of other Ontarians to withhold their support from these agitations or to stand behind compromise policies, however, frequently divided Ontario’s voice and limited the effectiveness of attempts to pit the province against other parts of Canada. The dissertation also challenges several bodies of research. First, contrary to the assumptions of political scientists, the House of Commons can be analysed as an intrastate institution when studying the development and significance of asymmetrically populous provinces within federations. It also proves that the inhabitants and politicians of Ontario rarely acted with the unity that many political scientists passingly suggest. Disagreements among Ontarians concerning the use of their province’s preponderance often fractured its potential influence. Second, the dissertation challenges several historiographical assertions regarding Ontario political culture. The provincial consciousness inherent to suggestions that Ontario’s preponderant potential required it to desist from antagonizing the rest of Canada, or to use its potential influence to facilitate compromise, calls into question the centralists’ contention that Ontario Conservatives supported nation-building policies because they subordinated their provincial identity to national imperatives. The willingness of provincial rights politicians and newspaper editorialists to advocate using Ontario’s influence to safeguard provincial autonomy overturns the scholarly contention that pursuing preponderant influence and provincial autonomy were contradictory goals. Lastly, by examining the role Ontarians wanted their province to play in Confederation, instead of focusing on their policy demands, this dissertation also questions the propensity of regional alienation scholars to contend that Ontarians were apathetic to policy initiatives from the rest of Canada.
Making Sense of Canada as a Federal System: the Relevance of Historical Legacies
This paper was first presented at a conference organized by Michael Burgess and Cesar Colino at Howfield Manor, near Canterbury (Kent, England). The main historical legacies at work in Canada, according at least to this paper, are the role of the state, the British heritage, the idea of federalism and autonomy, and the role of Québec.