The agitation in the North-West Territories would have been constitutional, and would certainly be constitutional to-day if, in my opinion, we had not been attacked.1
There is, perhaps, no figure in Canadian history more enigmatic than Louis Riel. For more than a hundred years, his legacy has been the subject of intense debate.2 In this volume, several leading scholars analyze Riel’s speeches at his trial in order to gain further insight into the inner workings of this complex man. In this chapter, I explore a relatively neglected area of study: Riel’s understanding and reliance upon British constitutional law. During his trial, Riel’s speeches were peppered with references to concepts such as responsible government, public liberties, and representation.3 Understanding these constitutional ideas is key to understanding Riel’s dispute with the Canadian government over Manitoba and the North-West. In the context of the trial, Riel’s constitutional references were often cursory, and he did not explain his usage or understanding. However, Riel’s understanding of the foundational tenets of British constitutionalism can be discerned if one explores his role as leader of the provisional government at the Red River settlement in 1869. Riel was a key figure during the negotiations leading up to Manitoba’s entry into Confederation. In subsequent years, he maintained that he was a founding father of Manitoba.4 As a British subject, Riel relied on the rights he believed were inherent in this status. And, as a leader at the Red River settlement, which in 1869 still existed as a separate British colony, he proceeded on the assumption that the settlers would collectively be able to rely on their rights as British subjects as well. This understanding helps to illuminate the nature of his dispute with the Canadian state and permeates the statements he made at his trial.
To place Riel’s constitutional thinking into its historical context, one must begin by exploring some of the larger themes of nineteenth-century Canada. One of the most profound ideas was that of responsible and representative self-government in the provinces that would become Canada. The evolution of this idea was inextricably linked with the control and ownership of the public domain. As responsible self-government developed over the course of the nineteenth century, local governments were granted the authority to tax and control their public lands for the benefit of the local population. As early as 1839, Lord Durham emphasized the importance of the public domain in his report on the political situation in the Canadas. Writing in the context of the aftermath of the 1837 rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada, where one of the major grievances was the setting aside of large tracts of land as clergy reserves,5 Durham wrote that the disposal of public lands is “an operation of Government, which has a paramount influence over the happiness of individuals, and the progress of society towards wealth and greatness … upon the manner in which this business in conducted, it may almost be said that everything else depends.”6 Durham recognized that control of public domain lands was key to the establishment of responsible self-government: “the disposal of public lands in a new country has more influence on the prosperity of the people than any other branch of Government.”7
Durham’s recognition of the importance of the public domain to the functioning of governance prompted him to recommend that the imperial Parliament retain control of the natural resources in the colonies of British North America. This would ensure that policies in accordance with the aims of the imperial Parliament would be implemented in a uniform fashion without interference by local governments. The imperial government, however, rejected this recommendation, and the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada were granted control of their natural resources.8 The development of responsible government and the local administration of the public domain by ministers who were directly responsible to an elected assembly became an integral part of British colonial policy in the nineteenth century.9 The British North America Act of 186710 incorporated the principle of local ownership of the public domain into the Canadian Constitution. Section 109 reads, “All Lands, Mines, Minerals, and Royalties belonging to the several Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick at the Union, and all sums then due payable for such Lands, Mines, Minerals, or Royalties, shall belong to the several Provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick in which the same are situate or arise, subject to any Trusts existing in respect thereof, and to any Interest other than that of the Province in the same.” The only notable exceptions to this constitutional practice would be the three provinces of western Canada created by the Dominion Parliament of Canada: Manitoba in 1870 and Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1905.
The background to the anomalous constitutional position of the three prairie provinces begins with the actions of a Stuart monarch. In 1670 Charles II incorporated Prince Rupert and a group of investors as the “Governor and Company of Adventurers of England tradeing into Hudson’s Bay.”11 The Charter of the Hudson’s Bay Company of 1670 transferred proprietary interest and governmental authority in the Hudson Bay watershed, better known as Rupert’s Land, to the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). The HBC maintained its monopoly over the region for two centuries. However, by the mid-nineteenth century, Upper Canadians began looking toward Rupert’s Land and the “North-western Territory”12 in terms of potential expansion. As the nineteenth century progressed, land shortages were becoming an increasing problem, and people were beginning to recognize the need for an economic hinterland. The expansionist movement that developed in Upper Canada has been described in the following terms: “It was as though Canadians confined within a political and economic prison, saw suddenly opened before their eyes an avenue of escape to the West.”13 Confederation became the instrument of this movement toward western expansion.
In the mid-nineteenth century, George Brown, editor of Toronto’s Globe newspaper, advocated vociferously for western expansion. He claimed that “[Canada] is fully entitled to possess whatever parts of the Great British American territory she can safely occupy.”14 In this period, the Toronto Board of Trade advocated expansion into the western territories and politicians debated the idea.15 In 1856 an anonymous author, “Huron,” directly challenged the HBC’S rights to the region: “I desire to see Canada for the Canadians and not exclusively for a selfish community of traders, utter strangers of our country; whose only anxiety is to draw all the wealth they can from it, without contributing to its advantage even one farthing.”16 In another article, Huron declared that the HBC charter was null and void and that it was in “the interests of Canada to require that this giant monopoly be swept out of existence.”17 In subsequent years, western expansionism became a cause célèbre as the the Globe, the Toronto Board of Trade, the Reform Party, the Conservative Party, and business interests all made continuous pleas for a Canadian takeover of the North-West.18 Part of this effort included a boosterism campaign designed to change attitudes toward the North-West. Prior to this period, the North-West had a reputation as an impenetrable semi-Arctic wilderness. These attitudes gradually shifted in response to continuous reports of the region’s vast agricultural potential.19
The expansionist movement active in the 1850s and 1860s helped to persuade the government of the United Canadas to pursue a policy of annexation of other territories in British North America.20 In the negotiations leading up to Confederation, the drafters included a provision specifically dealing with the admission of new colonies or provinces from the lands of the North-West. Section 146 reads,
It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the Advice of Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, on Addresses from the Houses of Parliament of Canada, and from the Houses of the respective Legislatures of the Colonies or Provinces of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia, to admit those Colonies or Provinces, or any of them, into the Union, and on Address from the Houses of Parliament of Canada to admit Rupert’s Land and the North-western Territory, or either of them, into the Union, on such Terms and Conditions in each Case as are in the Addresses expressed and as the Queen thinks fit to approve, subject to the Provisions of this Act; and the Provisions of any Order in Council in that Behalf shall have effect as if they had been enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.21
Thus the acquisition of the North-western Territory and Rupert’s Land took place within the context of the creation of the Canadian federation as contemplated by the British North America Act of 1867.22 The western lands were intended to become an integral part of Canada. With this purpose in mind, delegates from the Canadian government, William McDougall and George-Étienne Cartier, went to London in 1868 in order to negotiate the terms for transfer of Rupert’s Land and the North-western Territory.23
The Canadian delegates arrived to find Lord Granville, secretary of state for the colonies, anxious to broker a deal between the HBC and Canada whereby Britain would be divested of all interests in Rupert’s Land and the North-western Territory.24 In this period, the imperial government considered the colonies to be a financial liability and sought ways to decrease its colonial holdings. The only obstacle to the transfer was the HBC’S claim to financial compensation for the surrender of its charter rights.25 The imperial government had been advised by its law officers that the HBC could not be compelled to relinquish its rights without compensation.26 The HBC was not adverse to the settlement policy advocated by the Canadian government; however, the company was determined to receive an adequate return for its shareholders in compensation for the loss of its monopoly in British North America.27 The Canadian delegates were reluctant to commit the Canadian government to paying for the relinquishment of charter rights when the imperial government had relinquished the charters of other corporations, such as the East India Company, without compensation.28 The negotiations ground to a halt until Lord Granville threatened to turn the whole matter over to deliberation by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Neither the HBC nor the Canadian government wanted to become involved in a costly and time-consuming judicial reference.29 A deal was eventually struck, and the transfer of sovereignty was accomplished by the passage of the Rupert’s Land Act of 1868,30 which authorized the imperial Crown to accept the surrender of the HBC’S charter rights. The agreement also provided that a deed of surrender would be drawn up when the HBC received £300,000 from the Canadian government and provision for a one-twentieth part of the land in any future township settled within the fertile belt. In order to facilitate this arrangement, the government of British prime minister William Gladstone promised to extend the Canadian government a loan guarantee for the £300,000.31 The Canadian Parliament then passed An Act for the Temporary Government of Rupert’s Land and the North-western Territory When United with Canada of 186932 to provide for temporary governance of the region.
Sir John A. Macdonald wanted to acquire Rupert’s Land and the North-western Territory on one stated condition: “The land could not be handed over to them [the inhabitants], it was of the greatest importance to the Dominion to have possession of it, for the Pacific Railway must be built by means of the land through which it had to pass.”33 The lands were to be used to finance railway development and subsequent immigration schemes in order to create a transcontinental Dominion of Canada. It was for these purposes that the lands were held and administered by the Dominion government from 1870 to 1930.34 Canadian administration of these lands solved a number of problems: it opened up new trade possibilities for eastern Canada, it eased the land crisis, it secured a route for the Pacific Railway, and it countered American expansionism.35 The retention of the public domain allowed the Dominion to set unified policies over the entire area. The absence of local or provincial governments allowed the federal government to administer the lands to suit its commercial and economic interests.36 The federal government wanted to develop the North-West as an economic hinterland for the more densely populated parts of the Dominion. The resources were retained by the central government, and revenue from fees, land sales, rentals, leases, and royalties was directed to the government in Ottawa. If Canada were a unitary state, this would have been unremarkable since every province or territory would be little more than a municipal corporation.37 Macdonald may have preferred a unitary state for administrative efficiency; however, the residents of the North-West had other ideas.38
The Red River Resistance39 was an unexpected and unforeseen complication for the Macdonald government. Preoccupation with the economic aspects of the National Policy caused the Canadian government to be careless about the actual transfer of the territory.40 The details of the transfer were arranged by imperial authorities, the Canadian government, and the HBC as though the territory were terra nullius. The negotiations for the land transfer proceeded as though the transaction concerned only real estate and not the rights of the people who lived in the area.41 The settlers of the North-West were not consulted about the impending transfer. This arrogance, or neglect, fostered a climate of anxiety and ill feelings toward the Canadian government.42 Blinded by the desire to acquire territory, the Canadian government ignored the degree of political autonomy that existed in the settled areas of the North-West – the most prominent being the settlement at Red River. The settlers in this area owned the land by occupancy and were worried that they would lose their land rights in the transfer.43 Alexander Begg, an observer of the events at Red River, recorded, “Madame rumour has full sway for she has it all her own way – nothing official has transpired to enlighten us – everything is conjecture and conjecture is the worst thing to be abroad in a country like this.”44 Wild rumours spread throughout the settlement in 1869, and the settlers at Red River were not certain what would happen.
Led by the charismatic Louis Riel, the Métis and other settlers expressed their discontent about what they considered to be a complete disregard of their rights as British subjects.45 The provisional government set up by the residents of Red River forced the federal government to negotiate terms of entry for the Province of Manitoba into Confederation.46 At a constitutional convention, held at Fort Garry from 25 January to 10 February 1870, a List of Rights was drawn up as a basis for negotiations with the government at Ottawa. The List of Rights contained a variety of demands: no liability for the £300,000 paid to the HBC; no direct taxation, except for municipal purposes; confirmation of land ownership; representation in Parliament; and local control of the public domain within a circle whose radius was to be the distance between Fort Garry and the international boundary.47 The members of the convention spent several days debating whether the residents of Red River should be admitted to the Union as a territory or a province. In the notes of the convention published in the New Nation on 11 February 1870, Louis Riel put forth his argument:
One important consideration which we must bear in mind, is, that as a Territory we escape a great deal of the heavy responsibility that may weigh on us as a Province. Of course it would be very flattering to our feelings to have all the standing and dignity of a Province. The exclusive powers to Provinces are considerable, and in themselves satisfactory, if we found them applicable to our case. (Mr. Riel then read the Confederation Act to show the powers conferred on Provinces.) He alluded specifically to article 5 [s. 92(5) of the British North America Act of 1867] which provides that the management and sale of the public lands belonging to the Provinces and of the timber and wood thereon, is vested in the Province. This, he alluded to, as one of the most important as far as we are concerned. In looking at the advantages and disadvantages of the provincial and territorial systems, we have to consider fully the responsibility of our undertaking. I do not say positively that it is for our own good to go in as a province; but I think that the position of the Province might suit us better than that of a Territory.48
It was Riel who informed the convention of the constitutional differences between provinces and territories under the British North America Act of 1867. The importance of this distinction should not be underestimated. Riel argued for provincial rather than territorial status because he had formed the opinion that the Métis of Red River would have more autonomy within a federal state if they entered Confederation as a province among equals as provided in section 92(5) of the act.49 As a province among equals, Manitoba would have control and administration of the natural resources. This would have guaranteed the province jurisdictional authority to direct the use of the revenue derived from the lands and resources. From a constitutional point of view, Riel must have understood that control of the public domain would better protect the political and cultural interests of the Métis.
After much debate, the convention decided to pursue provincial status. In April 1870 a three-person delegation appointed by Riel was sent to Ottawa to discuss the entry of Manitoba into Confederation. Abbé Noël-Joseph Ritchot, Judge John Black, and Alfred Scott arrived with a List of Rights that demanded protection for the cultural and linguistic rights of the people of the Red River settlement. The eleventh item in the List of Rights demanded “[t]hat the Local Legislature of this province have full control over all the lands of the North-West.”50 According to W.L. Morton, “[Riel’s] aim was to make such terms with Canada as would enable the people of the North West to control its local government in the early days of settlement, and as would allow them to possess themselves, as individuals and as a people, enough of the lands of the North West to survive as a people, and to benefit by the enhancement of the wealth of the North West that settlement would cause.”51 In response to these demands, Cartier and Macdonald insisted that Canada had spent £300,000 to secure the charter rights from the HBC and that they anticipated spending more money to extinguish Indian title in the North-West by the negotiation of treaties. These expenses were presented to the delegates from Red River as justification for the Dominion government’s continued retention of the natural resources.52 The List of Rights, especially the demand for the public domain, did not please Macdonald and Cartier, who had planned to use the land to pay the indemnity to the HBC, to fund railway grants, and to provide for a free homestead policy.53
There has been much scholarly debate about what occurred during the negotiations between the delegates from the Red River settlement and the representatives from the federal government. It has been speculated that Abbé Ritchot believed that the cultural and linguistic interests of the Métis would be well protected by land grants secured for the children of Métis in the form of Métis scrip, protection for denominational schools, guarantee of land titles, and official bilingual status.54 Abbé Ritchot recorded the following in his journal about the negotiations:
Mr. Black finds it just that the Dominion should have control of the lands, he finds extravagant the pretensions of the inhabitants of the North West to claim the lands as theirs. I reply and prove that not only is it not extravagant but just and reasonable. Sir George supports me, Sir John is of the same opinion, but they reply that to reach a settlement it is necessary to make some concessions … Then the ministers asked us what we wished to do in the matter of lands. Reply, the control of those lands as requested in our instructions. Impossible, said the ministers. We could by no means let go control of the lands at least unless we had compensation or conditions which for the populations actually there would be the equivalent of the control of the lands of their province.55
Abbé Ritchot conceded his demand that the natural resources be transferred to the province.
The major problem was that the goal of the negotiations was to reach an amicable settlement. The representatives of both sides were only vaguely aware of the importance of the financial settlement provisions. There was no guide for the new province’s fiscal needs, and there was no existing government framework or provincial budget that could be used as a guideline for the actual financial needs of the new province. The fault rests largely with the federal government’s representatives, who should have thought it necessary to formulate a comprehensive financial arrangement for the province instead of giving merely what Manitoba’s negotiators were willing to accept.56 In the context of bargaining, no one looked beyond the exigencies of the immediate situation. No provisions were made to ensure the province had enough revenue to deal with the expenses that would inevitably arise due to immigration and settlement as a result of the National Policy. The federal government granted provincial status to Manitoba and based the subsidy schedule on the needs of the older, more established provinces.57
The lack of financial farsightedness by all parties involved in the negotiations led to a situation whereby provincial status was granted in the Manitoba Act of 187058 with no provision for control by the province over its public domain. Section 30 of the act provides, “All ungranted or waste lands in the Province shall be, from and after the date of the said transfer, vested in the Crown, and administered by the Government of Canada for the purposes of the Dominion, subject to, and except and so far as the same may be affected by, the conditions and stipulations contained in the agreement for the surrender of Rupert’s Land by the Hudson’s Bay Company to Her Majesty” (emphasis added). The phrase “for the purposes of the Dominion” incorporated the National Policy directly into the Constitution of Manitoba. Historian Chester Martin describes the position of Manitoba at its inception: “A premature province – a scattered population of 11,000 people caught in the eddy of a premature but imperative national policy – was thrust, by the operation of a single statute, from primitive Hudson’s Bay paternalism into the full responsibilities of self-government.”59 Manitoba’s financial and constitutional position stood in marked contrast to the position of British Columbia and Prince Edward Island upon their entry into Confederation. In 1871 British Columbia entered Confederation will full control over its public domain. Prince Edward Island entered Confederation with no public lands left because they had been nearly entirely alienated by the Crown a century earlier. In the absence of this source of revenue, the federal government granted a subsidy in lieu in the amount of $45,000 per annum. Additionally, the federal government made a loan of $800,000 available to the province in order to repurchase land. On repurchase, this land became part of the public domain of Prince Edward Island over which the province had full control.60 The constitutional position of Manitoba was an anomaly within the British Empire.
Echoing Riel’s concerns, the Official Opposition sharply criticized the Manitoba Bill during debate in the House of Commons. Alexander Mackenzie, leader of the Opposition, characterized the bill as so “ludicrous … that it only put one in mind of some of the incidents in Gulliver’s Travels.”61 In defense of the bill, Macdonald pointed out that it represented a pragmatic solution to the realities facing the Dominion government. He pointed out that the demands for provincial status by the people of Red River had been acceded to and that the region would be granted self-government through the adoption of the Manitoba Act of 1870.62 However, even Macdonald had doubts about the constitutionality of section 30 of the act. He recognized that it represented a departure from British constitutional practice with respect to the control of the public domain. Macdonald’s papers contain a legal opinion on the validity of both section 30 of the Manitoba Act of 1870 and An Act for the Temporary Government of Rupert’s Land and the North-western Territory when United with Canada of 1869.63 The authors considered the temporary act to be constitutional because it did not provide for the creation of a province in the region. They did, however, express doubts with regard to the Manitoba Act because the retention of Crown lands was contrary to section 92(5) of the British North America Act of 1867. They recommended that the federal government request confirmation of the section in an imperial statute. The imperial Parliament, upon receiving the request from the Canadian government, passed the British North America Act of 1871.64 The act empowered the Canadian Parliament to establish new provinces and to formulate the terms of their constitutions.65 The Canadian Parliament could create provinces that had different constitutional powers than the original four provinces of Confederation; however, it could not unilaterally alter the constitutions of the new provinces once they had been created.66 Thus the constitutional inequality with respect to natural resources imbued in section 30 of the Manitoba Act was confirmed by imperial statute and was enshrined in the Canadian Constitution.
As foreseen by Riel, the constitutional inequality and lack of revenue from control of natural resources caused problems for the Province of Manitoba. As early as 1872, provincial premiers began making annual pilgrimages to Ottawa to request “better terms.” The annual subsidy provided by the federal government in the Manitoba Act fell far short of the amount of money needed by the new provincial government.67 The province requested more money to deal with rising costs associated with the flow of immigration into the region. The lack of revenue from the public domain meant that the province had no means of increasing its revenue except through grants from the federal government. The province had little money to spend on the schools, bridges, and roads needed due to increased immigration into the area.68 The federal government had retained the natural resources in order to co-ordinate the building of railways and homestead lands. And in 1905 the federal government retained control of the natural resources of Alberta and Saskatchewan as well when these provinces were carved out of the North-West.69
As one of the founders of Manitoba, Riel’s interpretation of the British North America Act of 1867 is historically significant. His arguments, formulated during his tenure as leader of the provisional government at Red River, were unattributed by later generations of prairie politicians who relied on the logic. Nevertheless, for over fifty years, prairie politicians reiterated Riel’s essential arguments regarding the constitutional differences between provinces and territories by arguing that unless a province had administrative control over its natural resources, it was simply a territory disguised as a province. Until the signing of the British North America Act of 1930,70 nearly every provincial premier of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba would echo Riel’s demands for control of the land and resources as a means of generating provincial revenue in order to create better public policy for the citizens. As the leader of the provisional government at Red River, Louis Riel understood that control over the public domain was an essential element of responsible government. The loss of this was at the core of his dispute with the Canadian government and a central issue at his trial for treason. Largely lost in the sensationalism of the trial was Riel’s concern with securing meaningful self-government for the settlers of Manitoba and the North-West – a right that every British subject throughout the empire possessed.
The author would like to thank Hamar Foster and Douglas Owram for their thoughtful suggestions on various drafts of this chapter.
1 Both the title of this chapter and the epigraph are from Louis Riel’s final statement to the jury, 31 July 1885. Reprinted in Desmond Morton, ed., The Queen v Louis Riel: Canada’s Greatest State Trial (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), 318.
2 See, for example, Douglas Owram, “The Myth of Louis Riel,” Canadian Historical Review 63 (1982): 315–36.
3 Riel explicitly used the terms “responsible” and “irresponsible” in reference to government, as reprinted in Morton, ed., Queen v Louis Riel, at 312, 323, 324, 354, and 365; and he referred to legal or moral rights at 312, 323, 353–5, 357–8, 360–1, and 363.
4 See, for example, Morton, ed., Queen v Louis Riel, 318. Louis Riel is now often referred to as a “founding father” of Manitoba. Louis Riel Day is celebrated in Manitoba on the third Monday in February.
5 The Constitution Act of 1791, or the Clergy Endowments (Canada) Act of 1791, 31 Geo. 3, c. 31, reserved one-seventh of Crown lands for the support of Protestant clergy. During the rebellions, this policy was challenged. See Alan Wilson, The Clergy Reserves of Upper Canada: A Canadian Mortmain (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968).
6 See Gerald M. Craig, ed., Lord Durham’s Report: An Abridgement of “Report on the Affairs of British North America” (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007), 107.
7 Ibid., 118.
8 C. Cecil Lingard, Territorial Government in Canada: The Autonomy Question in the Old North-West Territories (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1946), 22.
9 Arthur Berriedale Keith, Responsible Government in the Dominions (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912), vol. 2, 1048; George G. James, “Constitutional and Political Aspects of Federal Control of Natural Resources in the Prairie Provinces, 1870–1930” (ma thesis, University of Saskatchewan, 1975), 7.
10 Renamed the Constitution Act of 1867, 30 & 31 Vict., c. 3 (UK), reprinted in RSC 1985, app. 2, no. 5.
11 See Bernard W. Funston and Eugene Meehan, eds, Canadian Constitutional Documents Consolidated, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Thomson Carswell, 2007), 63.
12 “North-western Territory” refers to the lands licensed to the HBC by the Crown prior to 1870. “North-West Territories” refers to the lands outside the boundaries of the Province of Manitoba created in 1870. “North-West” is a generic term used to refer to the entire region.
13 R.G. Riddell, “A Cycle in the Development of the Canadian West,” Canadian Historical Review 21 (1940): 268.
14 Globe, 10 December 1856.
15 Donald Swainson, “Canada Annexes the West: Colonial Status Confirmed,” in The Prairie West: Historical Readings, ed. R. Douglas Francis and Howard Palmer (Edmonton: Pica Pica, 1985), 125.
16 Globe, 18 October 1856.
17 Globe, 31 October 1856.
18 Jim Mochoruk, Formidable Heritage: Manitoba’s North and the Cost of Development, 1870 to 1930 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 2004), 12.
19 Douglas Owram, Promise of Eden: The Canadian Expansionist Movement and the Idea of the West, 1856–1900 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 3.
20 Ibid., 26.
21 Reprinted in Funston and Meehan, eds, Canadian Constitutional Documents, 169.
22 Swainson, “Canada Annexes the West,” 129.
23 R.S. Longley, “Cartier and McDougall, Canadian Emissaries to London, 1868–69,” Canadian Historical Review 26 (1945): 25.
24 Harold A. Kevin McQuinn, “Great Britain and the Red River: An Examination of Imperial Involvement in the Transfer of the North-West Territory to Canada, and in the Red River Rebellion” (ma thesis, University of New Brunswick, 1975), 45.
25 David M.L. Farr, The Colonial Office and Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1955), 75.
26 Longley, “Cartier and McDougall,” 34.
27 McQuinn, “Great Britain and the Red River,” 30.
28 Rudolph Robert, Chartered Companies: Their Role in the Development of Overseas Trade (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1969), 115.
29 McQuinn, “Great Britain and the Red River,” 48.
30 31 & 32 Vict., c. 105 (Imp.).
31 Farr, Colonial Office, 76.
32 sc 1869, c. 3.
33 Great Britain, Colonial Office, Correspondence Relative to the Recent Disturbances in the Red River Settlement (London: Printed by W. Clowes for H.M.S.O., 1870), 143. See also Enclosure #2, “Report of the Canadian House of Commons Debates,” Ottawa Times, 2 May 1870.
34 See Donald V. Smiley, “Canada and the Quest for a National Policy,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 8 (1975): 40–62.
35 Mochoruk, Formidable Heritage, 12.
36 Vernon C. Fowke, Canadian Agricultural Policy: The Historical Pattern (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1947), 157.
37 Mochoruk, Formidable Heritage, 105. See also Donald G. Creighton, John A. Macdonald (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
38 These economic development policies would eventually be referred to as the National Policy. See Richard Gwyn, Nation Maker – Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times, vol. 2, 1867–1891 (Toronto: Random House, 2011), 277.
39 In recent literature, Red River “Resistance” has replaced Red River “Rebellion.”
40 R.G. Riddell, “A Cycle in the Development of the Canadian West,” Canadian Historical Review 21 (1940): 268.
41 Lewis Herbert Thomas, The Struggle for Responsible Government in the North-West Territories, 1870–97 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1956), 27.
42 Michael Dorland and Maurice Charland, Law, Rhetoric, and Irony in the Formation of Canadian Civil Culture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 159.
43 W.L. Morton, Manitoba: The Birth of a Province (Altona, MB: D.W. Friesen and Sons, 1965), xv.
44 W.L. Morton, ed., Alexander Begg’s Red River Journal and Other Papers Relative to the Red River Resistance of 1869–1870 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1956), 152.
45 McQuinn, “Great Britain and the Red River,” 50.
46 See Thomas Flanagan, Riel and the Rebellion: 1885 Reconsidered, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000); Stanley A. Puchniak, “Riel’s Red River Government: A Legitimate Government, 1869–70” (ma thesis, University of Ottawa, 1931); Alexander Begg, The Creation of Manitoba, or A History of the Red River Troubles (Toronto: A.H. Hovey, 1871).
47 Thomas, Struggle, 39.
48 New Nation, 11 February 1870.
49 Section 92(5) of the British North America Act of 1867 reads, “The management and sale of the public lands belonging to the province, and of the timber and wood thereon.”
50 Begg, Creation, 327.
51 Morton, Manitoba, xvi.
52 Douglas N. Sprague, Canada and the Métis, 1869–1885 (Waterloo, on: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1988), 57.
53 Mochoruk, Formidable Heritage, 107.
54 Ibid., 108. Métis scrip was a form of currency issued to the Métis by the federal government that could be used to purchase Crown land.
55 Abbé Ritchot’s journal entry for 17 April 1870 is quoted in Morton, Manitoba, 140.
56 James A. Maxwell, Federal Subsidies to the Provincial Governments in Canada (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1937), 35.
57 Ibid., 37.
58 sc 1870, c. 3, s. 31.
59 Chester Martin, “Dominion Lands” Policy (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973), 206.
60 Chester Martin, The Natural Resources Question: The Historical Basis of Provincial Claims (Winnipeg: Phillip Purcell, 1920), 70.
61 Canada, House of Commons Debates, 2 May 1870, 1305–6.
62 Morton, Manitoba, xxvi.
63 Granville to Lisgar, 23 December 1869, Library and Archives Canada, Macdonald Papers, vol. 101/1, 40372.
64 Also called An Act Respecting the Establishment of Provinces in the Dominion of Canada of 1871, 34 & 35 Vict., c. 28 (UK).
65 Paul Gérin-Lajoie, Constitutional Amendment in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950), 53.
66 Gerard V. LaForest, Natural Resources and Public Property under the Canadian Constitution (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), 29.
67 Maxwell, Federal Subsidies, 77.
68 See Mochoruk, Formidable Heritage, 110–35, for a detailed analysis of Manitoba’s fight for “better terms.”
69 Maxwell, Federal Subsidies, 37.
70 See “Schedule” to the British North America Act of 1930, renamed the Constitution Act of 1930, 20 & 21 Geo. 5, c. 26 (UK), reprinted in RSC 1985, app. 2, no. 26.