One hundred and fifty years ago, on July 1, 1867, the British government united three of its North American colonies into a single one, a development that is called Confederation. The three colonies were New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Province of Canada. The new colony took the name of the largest, but modified it to the Dominion of Canada. The new Dominion was given a federal system of government with one central government and four provincial ones, as the Province of Canada was divided into Ontario and Quebec. Confederation thus refers to these two separate developments—the adoption of federalism and the union of Britain’s North American colonies. The plan called for the inclusion of British Columbia, so the Dominion adopted the motto “from sea to sea,” and, four years later, BC did become a province. The Dominion acquired Rupert’s Land, a territory that included almost all of the continent of North America that drained into the Arctic Ocean. Covering half of North America, by geography, the new Dominion was the second largest political entity in the world. It still is.
At the time, the idea of governing states through a federal system was not new, but it was very rare. Debate about the possibility of adopting a federal system began in the Province of Canada in the 1850s because four previous British constitutions had failed, and the colony had become ungovernable. By 1864, there was broad agreement that federalism was the only system that would work, but it was far from clear what that system should entail, and the Fathers of Confederation did not have many models to guide them. Over three years of intensive debate, they worked out the best scheme they could for the new political experiment. They did far better than anyone had the right to expect, and the fifth constitution—the British North America Act of 1867—was successful. It is still in effect, although it has been formally amended a number of times and informally amended many times more through changing usage of its terms. That constitution succeeded because federalism is the best form of government for countries containing different economic regions and multiple ethnic and cultural groups.
Federalism is, however, a very difficult form of government to manage. The interests of the central government and of one or more provinces often diverge, with each government legitimately representing the interests of its citizens. Government is about power, making decisions, and applying policies, so there is often competition and conflict between the two orders of government. The division of responsibilities between central and provincial governments is never fully defined and changes over time. So does the balance of power between them. The evolving relations between the centre and the provinces thus becomes one of the most important elements in the political, economic, and cultural life of a colony or country with a federal system of government. This book is the story of those relations through the first 150 years of Canadian federalism.
The achievement of Confederation through political negotiations and democratic votes must be seen in context. At the time, other nations were being united, for example, Germany and Italy through a series of very bloody international and civil wars. The unity of the United States was maintained by a civil war that took six hundred thousand lives. The United States had only recently conquered Texas and the Southwest from Mexico, and one by one the Native Americans south of the border were conquered or starved into submission. By contrast, the Fathers of Confederation achieved their goals through debate, compromise, politics, and diplomacy, a tradition that continued as their successors dealt peacefully with the acquisition of the prairies, negotiations with the First Nations, the entrance of other colonies to Confederation, the threat of secession, the divisions created by two world wars, the rise of Quebec separatism, and the alienation of the West. None of these issues was handled perfectly and some lives were lost, but none was settled by violence and force. Many of those issues demonstrate the way Canadians have handled federal-provincial relations and are described in detail in the following chapters.
New France, the Loyalists, and the Atlantic Colonies
The underlying reasons why Canada needed a federal system of government date from before the British Conquest of New France in 1763. New France, the French colony along the St. Lawrence, had a population of sixty thousand that was extremely homogeneous, being entirely French and Catholic. These Canadiens had developed a sense of identity different from that of the European French or the French Acadian colonists in the Maritimes. They were a nation in the cultural or social sense of the word, a people who saw themselves as distinct from other groups because of their shared history, religion, language, customs, traditions, attitudes, and values. Following 1763, isolated from France and dominated by English Protestants, they were determined to maintain their identity and way of life. That determination to survive as a nation, to preserve their culture, and to resist British attempts to assimilate them became one of the major defining characteristics of their nationalism. It is known as la survivance, and their history is of how they survived as a nation. The slogan on Quebec licence plates, Je me souviens, means “I remember,” an acknowledgement of the Canadiens’ history of struggle.
The first British constitution for Quebec, the Proclamation Act of 1763, created a government similar to that of the other British colonies along the Atlantic seaboard of what is now the United States. In those colonies, English Protestants constituted an overwhelming majority, and Catholics could not vote or hold public office. In Quebec there were only a handful of English Protestants, and the Proclamation Act proved to be quite impractical for a colony overwhelmingly French and Catholic. After a decade of confusion, the second British constitution for the colony, the Quebec Act of 1774, granted the Canadiens the thing most important to them: the right to live their lives as they wanted in terms of religion, language, culture, civil law, education, health, welfare, and land ownership. The Quebec Act became the bedrock of Canadien political culture, and they saw their survival as a distinct cultural group as dependent on the maintenance of the rights obtained in 1774. That has never changed, and one of the great achievements of Confederation is the preservation of Quebec’s distinct culture.
Ten years after the Conquest, the American War of Independence produced a wave of English-speaking refugees known as the Loyalists. Most of them settled in the Maritimes or west of Montreal, leaving the Canadien community essentially intact. To accommodate this new group, the Quebec Act was replaced by the Constitutional Act of 1791. This Act, the third constitution for the colony, was the first to officially use the name Canada. It divided Quebec into two colonies: Lower Canada, where the Canadiens were the majority, and Upper Canada, where English-speaking American Protestants were the majority. Both colonies would have elected assemblies, and elections were called to select politicians who were known as Members of the Legislative Assembly, or MLAs. Power, however, continued to rest with the governors appointed by Britain. The Canadiens soon became expert at playing the game of electoral politics and for them the main objective was la survivance, the protection of their right to live their lives as they wanted. In contrast, the main interest of English-speaking MLAs was usually economic development.
The Loyalist immigration in the Maritimes led to the separation of New Brunswick from Nova Scotia in 1784. Both colonies were dominated by English-speaking Protestants. Prince Edward Island had already been separated from Nova Scotia in 1769, so there were six British North American colonies by 1800: the oldest, Newfoundland; the three Maritime ones; and Lower and Upper Canada. Britain had little difficulty governing Newfoundland and the three Maritime colonies. The Canadas were a different matter, and their government eventually became dysfunctional. It was the political problems in the Province of Canada that led to the adoption of federalism for all the colonies. First Nations in all these colonies had no role in government whatsoever. They were not involved in any of the discussions, were not able to vote until 1960, and did not achieve a role in First Ministers’ conferences for another twenty years after that.
In the early 1800s, there were few clashes between French- and English-speaking Canadians. There were almost no Canadiens in Upper Canada, and the English-speaking minorities in Lower Canada were privileged as it was a British colony. In fact, French- and English-speaking people had few contacts with each other. Both colonies were beset with political problems caused mainly by the exploitation and abuse of privilege and power by small cliques of influential citizens. Rebellions broke out in 1837, prompting Britain to appoint a new governor, Lord Durham, to make recommendations for better governance of the Canadas. He proposed that the Canadiens be assimilated into British culture and recommended that the two colonies be combined into one, to be called the Province of Canada. Because there had to be separate governance for matters such as education and civil law, the new colony was divided administratively into two halves called Canada East and Canada West, but people continued to use the terms Upper and Lower Canada and sometimes still do.
Since Canadiens constituted more than half the population of the united Province of Canada, the British had to devise a means to prevent them from dominating the Assembly. Though the population of Lower Canada substantially exceeded that of Upper Canada, Durham recommended that the two halves of the united province each elect forty MLAs (later increased to sixty-two) and that the English-speaking minorities in Lower Canada be overrepresented. Those two undemocratic features ensured that about two-thirds of the MLAs were English speakers. Unfortunately for Durham, the main goal of English-speaking MLAs remained economic development, on which their opinions differed, while the main goal of the Canadiens was to prevent assimilation, on which they were united. The assimilation policy included barring the use of French in the new assembly, but defiant Canadien MLAs spoke in their own language on the very first day of debate. A wise governor and the English-speaking MLAs ignored the protest, and French continued to be used in the assembly. The new policy of assimilation had suffered its first serious setback. In 1848, the Canadiens obtained the right to use French in the Assembly and the courts, and it was never again challenged.
Political Paralysis and Federalism
The new government in the Province of Canada continued to function as before, but after 1848, Britain gave both Nova Scotia and Canada democratic government in the form of control of local matters. Power over those matters was transferred from the British governor to an executive based on a majority of the MLAs in each assembly. In the Canadian Assembly the English-speaking MLAs were divided into loose factions, with a large group calling itself the Reformers, a smaller faction consisting of Conservatives, and many MLAs not affiliated with either. Canadien politicians were similarly divided on many issues other than assimilation, with a large conservative faction known as the Bleus and a smaller, radical faction known as the Rouges. These unstable and undisciplined factions had great difficulty combining to form governments, and elections failed to produce stable majorities. Governments could only be formed if they included Canadien MLAs and, because they were more united than the English-speaking MLAs, they came to wield great influence within these governments. That was the reverse of what Durham and his supporters had hoped to achieve.
In the 1850s, the weak coalitions faced a number of issues on which British Protestants and Canadien Catholics had very different views, particularly matters concerning education and religion. Governments could not deal with problems such as defence against the possibility of American aggression, the withdrawal of British military support, the pending cancellation of a free-trade agreement with the United States, or building transportation links to the Maritime colonies. French- and English-speaking Canadians also had different views about the future of their colony. The Canadiens were relatively content with their families, communities, and homeland along the St. Lawrence, while many English-speaking Canadians were interested in economic development and expansion into the western prairies. During this period, Britain’s interest in its North American colonies was changing. It had not previously favoured a union of all its colonies, but now it definitely wanted to reduce the cost of administration and defence, and the pending victory of the North in the American Civil War carried the threat of invasion. British investors also wanted a single, stable government to deal with in the colonies, and Britain gradually came to favour the union of the colonies.
Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island experienced very different historical development from each other and especially from that of the Province of Canada. Their main common denominators were the facts that they were all British colonies and that they all bordered the Atlantic. By the 1850s, all of them were jealous of their identities and powers and were very loyal to Great Britain. All but Newfoundland had government responsible to the people in local matters, but municipal government had not developed and local MLAs had enormous influence over roads, forests, property, and contracts. When the inhabitants of these four colonies peered beyond their local horizons, they looked first and foremost to Great Britain, second to New England, and then perhaps to each other or the West Indies. The Province of Canada was of little interest or importance to any of them, and they saw it as a confused society, incapable of dealing with its political problems, less than reliable in economic negotiations, and more self-satisfied than its circumstances warranted.
By the late 1850s, many of the politicians in the Province of Canada were dissatisfied with their situation. They included the leaders of three of the main factions in the Assembly—George Brown of the large Reformer faction, John A. Macdonald of the smaller Conservative faction from Upper Canada, and George-Étienne Cartier of the large Bleu, or Conservative, faction from Lower Canada. In 1858, a Conservative-Bleu government fell and the new Reform-Rouge government lasted only two days. Cartier and Macdonald formed a new coalition and asked Alexander T. Galt to join to give it more support in the Assembly. Galt believed that federalism was the only solution to the political problems of the Province of Canada, and he wanted to include the four Atlantic colonies in the scheme. He made acceptance of that position a condition for joining the government. Cartier and Macdonald did not want a federal system of government, but they agreed to his demand because they believed it was harmless. Few politicians were interested in Galt’s proposal, but it remained a plank in the Conservative-Bleu platform.
In the 1850s, George Brown’s Reformers were increasingly frustrated with political instability and with many of the decisions governments did manage to make. They liked the existing unitary government, but they wanted it to be based on the principle of representation by population, or “rep by pop.” Since the population of Upper Canada now substantially exceeded that of Lower Canada and the gap was increasing, that change would give English-speaking Protestants a large and growing majority in the Assembly. They could then pursue a major objective that had been shelved for twenty years, namely assimilating the Canadiens. But federalism also had appeal for the Reformers because it would provide a separate government for Upper Canada, which English-speaking Protestants would dominate, free of the influence wielded by Canadiens in the current government. Reformers were therefore increasingly of the view that if they could not base the current unitary system on rep by pop, then the next best option was a federal system in which the central government and the two provincial governments would be based on rep by pop. Brown abandoned the dream of a unitary government and accepted the necessity of federalism. In 1859, his Reform Party endorsed federalism and Brown introduced the proposal into the Assembly, where it was soundly defeated. Like the Conservatives, the Reform platform retained federalism as a plank, but, unlike the Conservatives, many Reformers were genuinely committed to it and never abandoned that goal.
Cartier liked the status quo because he and his followers were in a powerful position in the Assembly and a dominant position in most governments. By the early 1860s, however, he realized that the adoption of rep by pop was inevitable because London could not allow a Catholic minority to override the interests of a Protestant majority indefinitely. Cartier needed a new means to protect Canadien culture, and federalism would provide a separate government completely under the control of Canadiens for Lower Canada. Such a government would have to be given full control of matters affecting the daily life of Canadiens, thus ensuring la survivance. The fundamental compromise that underlay federalism was emerging: Brown had to accept it in order to obtain rep by pop in the central government, and Cartier had to accept it in order to obtain French-Canadian control of their own lives in an autonomous province. In the mid-1850s, John A. Macdonald was as unenthusiastic about federalism as Brown and Cartier. He wanted a strong, unified state, unhindered by provincial governments, and he never changed his mind.
By the winter of 1863–64, political manoeuvring and stalemate had reached a level that exasperated both Brown’s Reformers and Macdonald’s Conservatives. On March 14, Brown proposed that a committee be established to identify a replacement for the dysfunctional constitution, a proposal that was accepted. He then formed a committee of twenty MLAs, including the leaders of the four major factions—himself, Cartier, Macdonald, and A.A. Dorion of the Rouges—plus powerful ministers such as Galt.
These politicians were well aware of the various solutions that had been discussed. One was to reform the existing unitary system to eliminate its weaknesses. Another option was a confederal system in which Upper and Lower Canada would become separate colonies once again, but would have some joint administrative bodies to manage things such as canals on the St. Lawrence River. Federalism was another option, one for which the United States offered an obvious, but flawed model. Another example was the British Empire itself, where the government in London controlled trade, defence, foreign affairs, and public land, while colonial governments controlled local matters. This option implied that the existing government would be replaced by three new ones: a central government with responsibility for common or general issues, plus two provincial governments, one for each of Upper and Lower Canada, with responsibility for local issues. Oddly enough, the existing constitution provided another model, in that there were separate systems of law and education for the two halves of the colony. All of these options had been discussed for years in political circles, in the newspapers, and among members of the public.
The challenge for Brown’s committee was to identify which of the options would be the best and how it might be refined to suit the circumstances of Canada. The chaos of the previous decade indicated that pragmatism was not their strong suit, but by 1864 their frustrations had driven them to the point of seeking compromise. In spite of themselves, they were evolving from petty politicians into pragmatists. A majority of the English-speaking committee members wanted to reform and retain the existing system. The main reform they wanted was rep by pop, which would give Upper Canada twenty additional seats and form the basis for a strong and stable government. The Canadiens were, of course, united in their opposition to this model. Since no solution was possible without their support, that option was effectively dead. There was little support for a confederal union of two separate colonies with some joint institution to manage common interests. By process of elimination, the MLAs were left with only one option: the Province of Canada must have a federal system with a central government plus two provincial ones.
The committee met eight times over two months, with twelve of its members agreeing to the federalist option; three were opposed, including Macdonald. On June 14, Brown tabled the recommendation for federalism, which was adopted by a vote of 59–48. Later that day, as if to demonstrate the urgency of dealing with that proposal, the Conservative government of Étienne Pascal Taché and Macdonald fell by a vote of 60–58. It was the fourth government to fall in three years. The political system established by the 1840 Act of Union had come to the end of the road.
Since another election would not likely produce a better outcome, the Governor General Sir Charles Stanley, Viscount Monck, urged Macdonald and Brown to negotiate with each other. Monck was strongly in favour of a union of all the colonies, and he played a major role in solving the crisis and adopting federalism. Brown appears to have been the first to respond to Monck’s pressure. He realized that the only way his committee’s recommendation could be implemented was if his Reformers joined with the Bleus and Conservatives in a coalition government, with the overriding goal of adopting a federal system of government. Since he and Cartier now agreed on the federal option, the question was whether Macdonald would join the coalition that was emerging. Macdonald temporarily abandoned his position favouring a unitary system, but he never stopped trying to impose it or, at least, to make the central government so strong that the system would be in effect unitary. On June 22, 1864, the Grand Coalition took office with four Conservatives (Taché, Cartier, Macdonald, and Galt), and two Reformers (Brown and Oliver Mowat).
The agreement establishing the Grand Coalition reflected some of the most important political compromises ever made in North America. The Coalition’s stated purpose was to negotiate a union of British North American colonies based on the federal principle. Cartier had accepted that the central government would be based on rep by pop. Brown and Macdonald accepted that Lower Canada would be restored with responsibility for the issues that would put Canadiens in complete control of their own lives. And Brown had ceded to Macdonald’s insistence that they try to entice the Maritimes to join from the beginning, rather than establishing federalism in Canada first. The Coalition issued a statement saying that, according to the principles of federal government, local matters would be handled by local bodies and general matters by a general legislature. They invited the four Atlantic colonies to join, but made it clear that if they remained aloof, the Province of Canada would adopt a federal system for itself.
The Coalition had to figure out how to make federalism work and how to divide responsibilities between the central and the provincial governments. Another problem was how to combine the British form of government, with its unwritten constitution, and the American form of federalism, with its written constitution. Work proceeded quickly, and by the end of August, they had drafted a detailed plan for a federal system of government. The next step was selling that plan to the Atlantic colonies.
Uniting the Colonies: The Charlottetown Conference
Fortunately, events in the Maritimes were creating the conditions that would lead to the second goal of Confederation, the union of most of the colonies. The Maritimes had too much government for too few people. Britain wanted to combine the three colonies into one, but all of them had different priorities and needs, as well as strong senses of local identity. Since 1862, Lieutenant Governor Arthur Hamilton Gordon of New Brunswick had been discussing Maritime union with the premiers of all three colonies, and it was debated in the Nova Scotia Assembly in March 1864. On March 28, Premier Charles Tupper of Nova Scotia wrote the other two premiers, proposing a meeting to discuss the union of the Maritime provinces. Under British pressure, the three Assemblies agreed to appoint delegates to discuss union. The politicians then did what politicians often do when responding to unwanted pressure—nothing.
The Canadians were aware of the proposed meeting and were much more interested in union than the Maritimers themselves. Canadian economic development depended upon massive borrowing in London, and British bankers would be far more confident dealing with a single, stable government than with four or five small ones. As the United States had indicated that it would not renew the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, which had spurred significant growth of Canadian exports, uniting all the British colonies in a single economic market would help offset the pending loss of access to the American one. A single colony might be better able to defend itself in case of confrontation with the United States. And the idea of one colony stretching from sea to sea held attraction for those who dreamed great dreams. On June 30, Governor General Monck wrote his Maritime colleagues asking if the Canadians could attend their upcoming meeting. They agreed, and a meeting was scheduled in Charlottetown on September 1, with Canadian politicians attending as observers.
Besides being observers rather than delegates, the Canadians were set off from the Maritimers by several other factors. With seven members, the Canadian contingent was the largest. Having debated the issues for a decade in general and for five months in detail, the Canadians had a vast amount of knowledge about federalism and political union. All members of the Canadian delegation were government ministers subject to the discipline of cabinet solidarity, while both government and opposition parties were represented in the three Maritime delegations. The Canadian delegation was united in its objectives; the other delegations represented a variety of opinions in their colonies and attended the Conference as individuals rather than party representatives. In short, the Canadians did not have to “divide and conquer” the Maritime delegates as they were already quite divided and very ripe for conquest.
While the Maritime delegations had little interest in uniting their three colonies, hosting the Canadians had some value to them. They had followed closely the Canadian debate over federalism, and they knew a federation of colonies would preserve their governments, offer possible solutions to some of their problems, and create opportunities for those who found the local scene too confining for their ambitions. They also desperately wanted a railway connecting their region to Lower Canada and that required Canadian co-operation. Negotiations for that and for economic co-operation had occurred spasmodically over the years, producing much frustration but at least some of the participants at the Charlottetown Conference knew each other. They all became even more familiar when Canada dispatched a hundred-man delegation to tour the Maritimes, sixty-five of them being members of the Assembly or the Legislative Council. It was led by D’Arcy McGee, a brilliant choice as he was among the most personable and popular of Canadian politicians, an Irish Catholic from Quebec, a man of vision who could capture imaginations with his wonderful, Irish-accented oratory.
The Conference began on September 1, and the idea of Maritime union was quickly shelved as none of the three governments was really interested in it. The status of the Canadians was upgraded from observers to delegates, and the twenty-five politicians got down to the real business of the Conference, namely listening to the Canadian delegates outline the details of their federal scheme. The Canadian delegation had arrived with carefully prepared presentations of the various aspects of the plan and a well-developed strategy for selling it. Macdonald led off with an overview of how the union of all the colonies would solve many problems and create the basis for a prosperous and peaceful future. Cartier supported him, which eased Maritime fears of domination by Upper Canada. Brown explained how the system would work, that is, how to meld American federalism with British cabinet government. The Canadians had already decided that the new federal assembly, or lower house, would be based on rep by pop so that was not a matter for negotiation.
Brown proposed that the upper house contain twenty senators from each of three regions, which the Canadians defined as Upper Canada, Lower Canada, and the Maritimes. Accordingly, provinces would not have equal representation in the Senate, as was the case in the United States, and central Canada would outnumber the other three colonies two to one. That meant that both the lower and upper houses would be based essentially on rep by pop, and the upper house would not bring regional or provincial balance to the lower one. A key question for the Maritimes was whether they would accept that both lower and upper houses would be dominated by central Canada.
Brown explained the proposed division of responsibilities between the two orders of government. Drafting the two lists had not presented many problems for the Grand Coalition, and they presented few problems for the Maritimers. The principle was simple: the central government would be responsible for general matters, the provinces for local ones. The new central government would thus handle trade and commerce, money and banking, navigation, the post office, criminal law, weights and measures, Aboriginal affairs, defence, and overall economic development. The provinces would handle property, natural resources, civil law, education, health, welfare, and municipal government. Finally, Galt explained Canada’s proposals for the financial details of taxation and expenditure under the new system.
Although the Canadian Coalition had endorsed the federalist option rather than a unitary government, the debate on the relative merits of the two systems re-emerged at Charlottetown. Macdonald and many other English-speaking delegates still preferred a unitary government. The four Canadien delegates were completely opposed, as were many Maritime delegates who were determined to maintain local legislatures with autonomy and meaningful roles. The advocates of unitary government were probably a majority, but no solution was possible without the support of the Canadiens and those Maritime delegates who agreed with them. No minutes were kept of the presentations or discussions, which maintained maximum flexibility, avoided giving ammunition to potential opponents, and limited debate outside the conference hall.
It was clear that the Canadians were going to implement a federal system in their colony if the broader talks with the Maritimes failed. The choice facing the Maritime delegations was therefore between remaining separate colonies or joining in the wider federal union the Canadians had just outlined. While the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick delegates generally endorsed federalism, the Island delegates were much less pleased with what they were hearing. The Canadians were willing to help with a railway connection, which would benefit Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but they showed little interest in helping Prince Edward Island deal with its economic problems. And with only a couple of MPs and senators, PEI would have virtually no influence in the new central government.
What mattered for the Canadians, however, was support from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and the Conference was thus an overwhelming success. The reports of the balls, dinners, parties, and speeches suggest that delegates were almost giddy with the level of agreement they had reached so quickly and easily, and with the prospects of creating something far greater than a mere union of colonies. Britain had repeatedly separated and united colonies, but a union of all would be new, as would the federal system of government. Also new was the fact that this dispensation would be initiated by the colonies themselves, and it might lead to the development of a new nation and a new country, about which a few delegates, politicians, and newspaper editors were already waxing eloquent.
Filling in the Details: The Quebec Conference
The delegates agreed to meet at Quebec City just one month later to work out the details of the scheme. In the meantime, after the work and fun of the Charlottetown Conference, they went on a tour of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. One purpose was to become more familiar with the various regions of the proposed super-colony. Another was to build support for the new creation, which was furthered by lavish entertainment by local dignitaries. These activities had a positive effect on the delegates themselves, on civic leaders, on the press, and presumably on the public. Missing from the action plan, however, was any attempt to promote the actual deal or provide information on the scheme. Those gaps would be filled in only after the Quebec Conference had worked out the details.
The delegates did not seem to realize that two problems were developing with this approach. One was that the more the delegates partied with each other, fed off each other’s rhetoric, and enjoyed the attention, the oysters, the champagne, and their increasingly overly optimistic predictions for the future, the more they grew out of step with other MLAs, with their own constituents, and with the realities of the different colonies, not to mention the substantial number of Canadiens who voted Rouges and were not involved at all in the discussions. The second was that those who cheered them on at celebrations, dinners, and train and steamship stops along the route knew that something very important was developing, but did not know exactly what it was. Many of them were in for a major shock when they did see the details. Later, on September 26, a summary of the delegates’ conclusions was published in the Montreal Gazette, but it was too vague to give readers a real sense of what was being created.
On October 9, thirty-three delegates from five colonies met in Quebec City. This time, Newfoundland decided to see whether joining such a union would solve any of its manifold problems. Canada sent twelve delegates, nine Conservatives and three Reformers. Of them, four were Canadiens, and once more there was no representation at all for the Rouges. The delegations from the Atlantic colonies—seven each from New Brunswick and PEI, five from Nova Scotia, and two from Newfoundland—all contained representatives from both government and opposition. By now John A. Macdonald was the dominant player and the chief drafter of the various clauses, a role that reflected his two decades in government.
In Quebec City the debate over federal versus unitary systems surfaced once more. The supporters of unitary government could not prevail because French Canadians and many Maritime delegates would never accept it. As the Canadiens insisted, the provinces were given exclusive control of all the spheres of responsibility deemed essential for la survivance of the Canadien nation. The federal government was allocated everything else. A difficult issue was which order of government would be allocated residual power, that is, power over things not assigned to either order of government or matters that might arise in the future. Some wanted residual power to rest with the provinces; others advocated for it to rest with the new central government. The result was a compromise, as the BNA Act gave the provinces residual power over all local matters and the central government residual power over everything else.
Macdonald’s continuing struggle for a unitary government was reflected in his rather odd proposal that the central government alone would be based on the principle of democratic government. That would give the power the provinces had won in 1848 back to the lieutenant governors. And since it had been decided that the central government would appoint lieutenant governors, Macdonald’s proposal meant that the provinces would become, in effect, colonies of the central government. New Brunswick’s Charles Fisher introduced a crucial motion stating that both orders of government would be democratic. It passed without opposition, and another of Macdonald’s attempts to create a unitary government failed.
The main debate in Quebec was over the allocation of seats in the Senate. That was not because other issues were less important but rather that they were easier to resolve. The allocation of Senate seats was, in contrast, very controversial and has never been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. The Canadian proposal at Charlottetown was endorsed with Upper Canada, Lower Canada, and the Maritimes identified as regions entitled to twenty-four senators each and with the Maritime seats distributed between its three provinces. Newfoundland would have additional seats should it join. If Rupert’s Land was acquired and BC joined, the West would be treated as a single region, eventually also acquiring twenty-four senators. Unlike American senators, Canadian ones would be appointed rather than elected, and the appointment would be made by the federal government rather than the provincial ones. These provisions ensured that the Senate would provide an echo of the House of Commons, rather than a powerful voice for the provinces and regions.
The financial provisions were left much as Galt had outlined them at the Charlottetown Conference. It was not practical for each province to continue collecting customs, so that responsibility was transferred to the central government. Then, as customs had provided the overwhelming majority of revenue for the individual colonies, the central government had to return a large part of its customs revenue to the provinces to finance their continuing responsibilities. Given that the central government would have the more expensive responsibilities, it could collect taxes by any means, and the provinces were limited to the federal transfers, direct taxes, and the royalties from natural resources. These provisions were deemed adequate by most delegates.
The delegates at Quebec dealt quickly with dozens of clauses drafted by John A. Macdonald on issues such as the roles of the governor general, the lieutenant governors, and the courts. Issues crucial to the functioning of government such as political parties or the roles of the cabinet, prime minister, and premiers were not mentioned because these institutions were adopted from Britain, where the constitution was a matter of accepted precedent. It was agreed that the new super-colony would buy Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company. Britain would provide financial support for that purchase and the construction of the Intercolonial Railway connecting Lower Canada and the Maritimes. Building a railway to Red River and perhaps the Pacific was part of the general understanding, but was not mentioned in the BNA Act, although both railways were absolutely essential to Confederation. Finally, the new entity would take the name of the largest colony, Canada.
The delegates finalized their work on November 4 in a document called the Quebec Resolutions, seventy-two clauses that set out how they thought the new federation would be organized. It was a tremendous achievement, but the delegates overestimated what they had accomplished. Those from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were seriously out of touch with their fellow MLAs and constituents, those from PEI and Newfoundland had major reservations about the new constitution, and the opinions of the Canadien Rouges had not even been solicited. Nevertheless, the delegates set off on a tour of the Province of Canada, where they were well received and the Quebec Resolutions were published on November 8.
Throughout the process, no one questioned that Great Britain was sovereign in the colonies and would remain so if they were to unite. It was Britain’s intention that the colonial governments sort out what they wanted to do, then submit their wishes to London for modification, approval, and drafting into British law. To confirm that the Quebec Resolutions reflected the views of the colonies, it was understood that they would be submitted to the five assemblies for approval. There was no intention to submit the resolutions to the people in general elections, as such elections involved many issues and no delegation had obtained all it wanted for its colony. The plan to obtain the approval of the five assemblies ran into immediate difficulty, touching off two and a half years of further debate, elections, crises, and massive British intervention to obtain the necessary level of support.
Nonetheless, by December 1864, the march to Confederation was well underway, and British North America had undergone a remarkable political evolution. Only ten months previous, the Canadian Assembly was in chaos, stable governments could not be formed, decisions could not be taken, and elections had become pointless, while the Atlantic provinces were adrift with growing problems and uncertain futures, and both Canada and the Maritime colonies faced the real possibility of absorption into the United States. It was little wonder that the delegates who produced this remarkable turn-around were sometimes intoxicated with their achievements, with plans for future greatness, and with their own speeches.