The Quebec Conference of 1864: Understanding the Emergence of the Canadian Federation 9780773556041

Table of contents :
Cover
THE QUEBEC CONFERENCE OF 1864
Title
Copyright
Contents
Introduction: 1864, a Pivotal Year in the Advent of the Canadian Confederation
PART ONE
The Fathers of Confederation and the BNA Act: Constitutional Visions and Models
The Making of a Dominion: The Completion of a Conquest
Canadian Constitution-Making in the British World
PART TWO
Avoiding the “iniquitous pit of liberty”: The Centralizing Federalism of Joseph-Édouard Cauchon
The Trustee, the Financier, and the Poet: Cartier, Galt, and D’Arcy McGee
A Big Group in a Small Room: Parties and Coalitions at the Quebec Conference
George Brown and Oliver Mowat on the Quebec Resolutions and Confederation: Reality and Myth
PART THREE
Opponents of the 1864 Confederation Project: Criticism of the Future Regime
Confederation and Corruption: The Republican Critique of the Quebec Resolutions
The Economic Arguments of the Quebec Opponents of Confederation
Papineau and the Refusal of Arrangements (1854–67)
PART FOUR
Is Rejection of the Melting Pot a Rejection of Modernity?
The Quebec Resolutions and the Ideas Left Behind
Principles of the 1864 Quebec Conference, Imperial Context, and Historians Joseph Royal and Alfred Duclos De Celles
Representations of Confederation: Research Prospects
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

the quebec conf e r e n c e o f 1864

The Quebec Conference of 1864 Understanding the Emergence of the Canadian Federation

Edited by Eugénie Brouillet, Alain-G. Gagnon, and Guy Laforest

McGill-Queen’s University Press

Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2018 First published in French as La Conférence de Québec de 1864, 150 ans plus tard: Comprendre l’émergence de la fédération canadienne by Presses de l’Université Laval, 2016 isbn 978-0-7735-5480-1 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-5481-8 (paper) isbn 978-0-7735-5604-1 (epdf) isbn 978-0-7735-5605-8 (epub) Legal deposit fourth quarter 2018 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

The Quebec Conference of 1864 : understanding the emergence of the Canadian federation / edited by Eugénie Brouillet, Alain-G. Gagnon, and Guy Laforest.

Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. isbn 978-0-7735-5480-1 (cloth).–isbn 978-0-7735-5481-8 (paper). –isbn 978-0-7735-5604-1 (epdf).–isbn 978-0-7735-5605-8 (epub)

1. Québec Conference (1864 : Québec, Québec). 2. Fathers of Confederation. 3. Canada – History – Confederation, 1867. I. Brouillet, Eugénie, 1973–, editor II. Gagnon, Alain-G. (Alain-Gustave), 1954–, editor III. Laforest, Guy, 1955–, editor fc476.q84 2018

971.04'9

c2018-904959-6 c2018-904960-x

Contents Introduction: 1864, a Pivotal Year in the Advent of the Canadian Confederation / 3 Eugénie Brouillet, Alain-G. Gagnon, and Guy Laforest

part one

The Fathers of Confederation and the BNA Act: Constitutional Visions and Models / 29 Rachel Chagnon

The Making of a Dominion: The Completion of a Conquest / 49 Marc Chevrier Canadian Constitution-Making in the British World / 70 Phillip Buckner

part two

Avoiding the “iniquitous pit of liberty”: The Centralizing Federalism of Joseph-Édouard Cauchon / 103 Éric Bédard

The Trustee, the Financier, and the Poet: Cartier, Galt, and D’Arcy McGee / 117 Guy Laforest and Félix Mathieu

A Big Group in a Small Room: Parties and Coalitions at the Quebec Conference / 142 Christopher Moore

George Brown and Oliver Mowat on the Quebec Resolutions and Confederation: Reality and Myth / 152 Paul Romney

vi

contents

part three

Opponents of the 1864 Confederation Project: Criticism of the Future Regime / 179 François Rocher

Confederation and Corruption: The Republican Critique of the Quebec Resolutions / 220 Louis-Georges Harvey The Economic Arguments of the Quebec Opponents of Confederation / 233 Stéphane Kelly

Papineau and the Refusal of Arrangements (1854–67) / 252 Yvan Lamonde

part four

Is Rejection of the Melting Pot a Rejection of Modernity? / 265 André Burelle The Quebec Resolutions and the Ideas Left Behind / 282 Robert C. Vipond, Jacqueline D. Krikorian, and David R. Cameron

Principles of the 1864 Quebec Conference, Imperial Context, and Historians Joseph Royal and Alfred Duclos De Celles / 299 Claude Couture Representations of Confederation: Research Prospects / 318 Anne Trépanier Contributors / 355 Index / 357

the quebec conf e r e n c e o f 1864

introduction

1864, a Pivotal Year in the Advent of the Canadian Confederation eugénie brouillet, alain-g. gagnon, and guy laforest The great events of our history merit being remembered and better understood. It seems to us that the academic humanities and social sciences community must feel called to the front line in any great design to revive historical memory. Naturally, such an undertaking can only be multidisciplinary: it has to mobilize law, philosophy, sociology, history, and political science, all equally. In Quebec, and in a bilingual country like Canada, this approach will be expressed with much more legitimacy if it gives roughly equal importance to the French-speaking intellectual milieu and its English-speaking counterpart. These are the principles that have inspired the authors of this introduction from the first moment, when, around five years ago, we decided to join forces and pool ideas to create a research program aimed at interpreting this key period in Canadian political history that spans the formation of an expanded government – the cabinet of the Great Coalition – in United Canada in June 1864 to the entrance into effect of the Constitution Act, 1867 in July 1867. From 16 to 18 October 2014, the Groupe de recherche sur les sociétés plurinationales (grsp) and the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité et la démocratie (cridaq), directed by Alain-G. Gagnon from the Université du Québec à Montréal (uqam), in collaboration with the Université Laval Faculty of Law, directed by Eugénie Brouillet, held a three-day colloquium1 on the 150th anniversary of the October 1864 Quebec Conference to gain a better grasp of and insight into the emergence of the Canadian federation.2 The present work brings together, in a more thoughtful, penetrating manner, the essential points and arguments of the presentations given at the colloquium. To better

4

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

understand the overall methodology of our approach, which aspires to leave its mark on the structure of politico-constitutional hermeneutics in Canada, we refer readers to the introduction of the first volume, which provides the foundations for the present project. It was published in French by the Presses de l’Université Laval and in English by McGillQueen’s University Press.3 In it, we gathered the perspectives of more than fifteen French-speaking and English-speaking intellectuals, most of whom are historians, jurists, and constitutional experts, on the first fundamental constitutions of Quebec and Canada: the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the Quebec Act of 1774, the Constitutional Act of 1791, and the Act of Union, 1840.4 A few words about the transition to the 1867 constitutional order seem essential to understanding the place that French Canadians would come to have in the new political regime. The historian Stanley Ryerson probably best grasped the economic, political, and social stakes involved in this regime change. According to him, “French Canadians’ efforts to keep and strengthen their national identity required official recognition, no matter what form of state one wanted to create. That aspiration, however, clashed with the manoeuvres of certain groups in both London and English Canada, the primary concern of which was to ensure British domination over the French, that conquered people.”5 Moreover, the “fact that since 1840 the territory of the former Lower Canada had been part of the United Province of Canada and had no autonomy, or even any real political identity, deprived the FrenchCanadian nation of any semblance of equality that could have served as a basis for the possible establishment of a new type of union.”6 The proposed new union did not rely on either binationalism or national pluralism. More broadly defined, this means that the First Nations were not given any concrete power. Ryerson was very critical of the advent of the Canadian Confederation in 1867. He was of the opinion that the “mistake of the artisans of federalism in 1867 … was to have set aside the binational reality. Their efforts to reduce the nation to a narrow religious and linguistic particularism, their refusal to consider it as an organic entity in which the cultural element could not be detached from the socio-economic context, prevented them from having to imagine an authentic binational federation founded on both peoples’ rights to complete self-determination.”7 According to Ryerson, the dominant group was interested only in consolidating capitalism and industrial development.8 From this perspective, the new constitutional regime in Canada was not established on some egalitarian foundation, given the long-term

i n t ro d u c t i o n

5

domination to which the French Canadians had been subjected and their lack of a real political status. The same applied to the Maritime provinces, whose leaders were worried about being absorbed into the United States. However, again according to Ryerson, the Maritime provinces’ opposition to the proposed union reflected “both the worries that local capitalists had about the competition threatening them and the populace’s attachment to its regional identity and independence.”9 It is therefore important to introduce a few socio-economic considerations to get a better grasp of the period of transition from the United Province of Canada to the establishment of the British North America Act, and highlight the significance of the economic interests at stake. John A. Macdonald and Alexander Galt, two of the leading figures, represented English-Canadian business communities based in Montreal, while George Brown styled himself the representative of the commercial and industrial interests of Toronto and of reformers from the Canadian West. George-Étienne Cartier’s role flowed more from his ability to gather the support of “the conservative wing of the FrenchCanadian bourgeoisie and the Church, allies of English-Canadian capital.”10 In short, the fact that the political project became concrete depended a great deal on a convergence of economic interests, which were crucial to the new political institutions being adopted. We will not overlook the evolution of the major interpretative trends from 1864 to 1967, that pivotal period in the history of the British North American colonies. For those who would prefer to situate this in broader interpretations of the history of Quebec and Canada, we have a few suggestions for complementary reading below.11 However, we would regret it if we did not draw more attention to a few key aspects of this political history since doing so reveals different visions, as it reveals tension between one approach conducive to the federalization of the Canadian territory, and another approach more inclined to promoting national unity. The dominant vision could at best barely tolerate diversity, whereas this was the cornerstone of the main proponents within the French-Canadian school. The latter was banking on the promotion of differentiated identities within the two main national communities. A review of English-Canadian historiography reveals little interest in recognizing a pact between the founding nations. An illustration of this can be found in Frank Underhill’s description of the pact as a “modern Laurentian fantasy.”12 Toronto historian Donald Creighton thought that Confederation was not an alliance between two peoples or two cultures, but indeed the advent of a “transcontinental country.”13

6

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

Other English-Canadian historians were less resistant to the idea of cultural duality, as long as it did not transform into political duality. This can be seen clearly in the writings of William Morton: “If we are to be Canadian, we must be so together, because in fragments we shall be drawn into the United States by affinities of taste and the imperative of defence, and lose all what the word Canadian now means to all of us.” Morton14 saw the change of regime in 1867 as consecrating political unity. However, that political unity could be preserved only “by the duality of culture but never by the duality of power.”15 This way of seeing and thinking is a dominant feature of EnglishCanadian historiography. Thus, these two historiographies gradually formed in parallel, validating the most distinctive defining features of their respective communities. In The Contested Past: Reading Canada’s History – Selections from the “Canadian Historical Review,” Marlene Gay Shore analyzes the main currents of thought in this crucial vehicle of ideas for English-speaking historians in Canada, and sees a connection with the establishment of a new institute for the history of French America. The author finds that [w]hile English-Canadian historians were congratulating themselves for their contributions to Canada’s national culture, French-Canadian historians were organizing for similarly nationalistic purposes. […] In 1946 the Institut d’histoire de l’Amérique française was created to foster the study of the French presence throughout North America.16

These two schools helped to build parallel historiographical approaches, whose nationalistic features were nonetheless relatively similar. In the mid-1970s, when the Canadian Historical Review was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, its directors – in favour of new research areas in history – wished their journal to take a qualitative step by claiming it was open to historical pluralism. However, this did not translate into greater openness to the scientific work of French-speaking historians in Canada and their stronger sensitivity to the history of ideas. Indeed, the opposite occurred. This helped to further isolate the two schools of thought and affected ways of thinking about both social relationships and power relations in Canada. An illustration of this can be seen in the way the federal compromise was interpreted by the members of the two leading schools. While one side insisted on cultural

i n t ro d u c t i o n

7

duality to cement the new political community formed in 1867, the other side required that political unity be the primary objective of the political undertaking. 1864 and a few signific a n t h i s to r i c a l e v e n t s In October 1864, the population of the city of Quebec hovered between 50,000 and 60,000. People of British origin accounted for nearly 40 per cent of the total. The Irish alone, mainly Catholic but including some Protestants, made up a contingent of some 10,000 inhabitants. At that time, the city of Quebec was the capital of United Canada. The Parliament was located where Montmorency Park is today, which is still home to the monument to George-Étienne Cartier, one of the thirty-three participants in the famous Quebec Conference, which we will discuss in the present volume. In addition to being the seat of Parliament and the government, the city of Quebec was also the place of residence of the governor general and the military capital of British North America. In October 1864, the harrowing American Civil War was continuing to rage in the United States. However, after the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in the summer of 1863, with the entrance onto the scene of great generals such as Grant and Sherman, there was no longer much doubt that the North would be victorious. The leaders of the British North American colonies, who met in Quebec in extremely gloomy weather for a constitutional conference from 10 to 27 October 1864, were certainly motivated by a number of concerns: the desire of the leaders of United Canada to break the political stalemate and government crisis; the economic and political motivations of the Maritime colonies: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island, which had led them to seek ways of joining forces, first by proposing a conference in Charlottetown at the beginning of September 1864; the understanding that the imperial authorities in London would provide benevolent approval; and, of course, for many, the dream of a great country equal to their ambitions, yet maintaining the legal and political autonomy of each of its components. However, fears of the continental, expansionist aims of a United States strengthened in the wake of the Civil War were omnipresent in the minds of all those involved.17 In the world of 1864, Great Britain, over which Queen Victoria had been reigning for nearly thirty years, was at the height of its political,

8

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

strategic, military, and economic power. It had consolidated and transformed its domination of India a few years before. In 1848, it had eliminated without too much difficulty the Young Ireland rebellion. The Fenian movement, founded in 1858 in New York, had not yet started deepening Irish unease and shaking the pillars of British authority, as it would at the turn of 1866–67. Aside from the France of Napoleon III and the Second Empire, the Europe of that time was one of great conservative powers: Franz Joseph I was preparing to redefine himself in 1867 as the dual monarch of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the kingdom of Prussia was in the process of strengthening its control over northern Germany thanks to Bismarck’s genius; and in Russia in 1863–64, Alexander II was using appalling means to crush the largest Polish rebellions since 1831. Some 150 years after the Quebec Conference, the Supreme Court of Canada recalled, in the Reference re Senate Reform, the great importance of history for better understanding the overall structure of Canada’s constitutional framework and how it has evolved. Already, in the Reference re Secession of Québec, the Supreme Court was drawing the underlying principles of constitutional texts from the historical origins of the Canadian federation: “In order to endure over time, a constitution must contain a comprehensive set of rules and principles which are capable of providing an exhaustive legal framework for our system of government. Such principles and rules emerge from an understanding of the constitutional text itself, the historical context, and previous judicial interpretations of constitutional meaning.”18 In 2014, the Supreme Court did a deep analysis of the historical origins of the Canadian Senate to come to a decision on the constitutional validity of federal plans for unilateral federal amendment, including establishing consultative elections in the process to appoint senators. The Court then pointed out that “[t]he rules of constitutional interpretation require that constitutional documents be interpreted in a broad and purposive manner and placed in their proper linguistic, philosophic, and historical contexts” and “that the Constitution should be viewed as having an ‘internal architecture,’ or ‘basic constitutional structure’”19 that can be amended only by complying with the established amending formulas. Thus, the Court concluded that establishing consultative elections for appointing senators would change the Constitution of Canada by fundamentally transforming its architecture, which would “modify the Senate’s role within our constitutional structure as a complementary legislative body of sober second thought.”20

i n t ro d u c t i o n

9

Clearly, we think that better contextualized understanding of the seventy-two Quebec Resolutions of 1864, the results of the work at the Conference, and the structuring draft proposal for the founding act of 1867 is crucial to comprehending the internal architecture of the contemporary Canadian constitutional edifice, as well as to interpreting and implementing it, particularly with respect to everything about the issue of federalism. The present work and the contributions that it brings together are situated in a renewal of historiographical interest in Canada’s constitutional journey and in federalism over the last twenty years.21 In 1997, the historian Christopher Moore published a fundamental work on the origins of the Canadian federation: 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal. In it, he provided meticulous chapters on the primary founders of Canada at the time and on the context of the Quebec Conference.22 Distressed by the consequences of the failure of the Meech Lake Accord in 1990, Moore tried to find, in the constitutionalism at the time of the Quebec Conference, a few lessons for contemporary life in Canada. We should not forget that constitutional reforms can create divisions, that they take time, that all political currents should have places around the negotiating table, and, last, that the merits of representational democracy must not be underestimated, and, indirectly, that we should not be too idealistic about direct democracy and total transparency.23 More recently, in 2015, Moore, some of whose reflections are found in this book, updated his thoughts by publishing an essay that provides a day-by-day analysis of the progress made by the delegates to the Quebec Conference.24 A few years after the publication of Moore’s first book, Janet Ajzenstat and Paul Romney, joining forces with Ian Gentles and William D. Gairdner, published a fundamental work on an intermediate stage between the Quebec Conference, properly speaking, and the advent of a new constitution in 1867. They brought together, with highly useful interpretative notes, excerpts from the principal debates that took place beginning in the winter of 1865 in the parliaments of all of the colonies that participated in the Quebec Conference, including the parliaments of the colonies that, at the time, decided not to join the federal union immediately in 1867: Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island.25 They even included excerpts of parliamentary debates from the assemblies of Red River, the future Manitoba, and British Columbia. In 2004, Stéphane Kelly and Guy Laforest prepared a version of that work in French, to which they added a long chapter with a summary of the

10

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

evolution of readings of Canadian political-constitutional history between 1864 and 1867 in historiography and the French-speaking and English-speaking intellectual milieus in Canada.26 Ajzenstat and her colleagues provide a similar summary for the English-language academic community and historiography.27 When read together, these two summaries reveal shifts between centralizing and decentralizing readings, between periods of interest and lack of interest in these issues, as well as the emergence of the famous theories describing an original pact between provinces and founding peoples. In constitutional law, the latter questions were the subject of an in-depth study in 2005 by Eugénie Brouillet, focusing on the relationships over time between Canadian federalism and cultural identity in Quebec.28 Brouillet’s study contains a wealth of information on the historical and legal context in the nineteenth century. In political science, Brouillet’s work is well complemented by the synthesis prepared under the direction of AlainG. Gagnon in 2006: Le fédéralisme canadien contemporain: Fondements, traditions, institutions.29 This interest in the Quebec Conference and in nineteenth-century constitutionalism more broadly can also be found in Alain-G. Gagnon’s text on the five faces of Quebec, from political nationality to binational community, from province-state to distinct society, to multinational democracy.30 Together, these texts have helped to give Canadian federalism a central place in international historiographical studies. The most often cited works include two co-edited by Michael Burgess and our colleague Alain-G. Gagnon: Comparative Federalism and Federation and Federal Democracies.31 These works have situated Canadian scientific production among comparative studies. To these contributions should be added publications by colleagues in the Groupe de recherche sur les sociétés plurinationales and the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité et la démocratie, which have deepened previous analyses by giving a voice to stakeholders who have too often been overlooked. To begin with, there is the work of James Tully32 on Aboriginal nations. Likewise, there are the studies by Gérard Bouchard, Eugénie Brouillet, Alain-G. Gagnon, Guy Laforest, and Michel Seymour33 on multinational federalism as an institutional mechanism better able to meet the expectations and requirements of political communities called upon to live together in Canada over the long term. According to these authors, such an approach would help to reconcile the nations living within the Canadian whole because it would name the partners at the origin of the confederative pact.

i n t ro d u c t i o n

11

In the present work, and in our overall plan for the present period, between 2014 and 2017, we will deepen the analysis of the debates and events that occurred in Quebec and elsewhere some 150 years ago. We will do this without really knowing how, in fifty years, our successors will evaluate our work. Undoubtedly, thought and the tools available for intellectual work will have progressed even more and our failings and prejudices will stand out more strongly. Such thoughts help us to further admire and be more generous toward our predecessors, who did work similar to ours, for example fifty years ago on the occasion of the commemorations in 1967, and also in 1917–18, when Lionel Groulx and his contemporaries studied the Quebec Conference of 1864 and what followed from it. It is difficult to remain silent, for example, when confronted with the conclusion of a text by a jurist at Université Laval, Jean-Charles Bonenfant, on the spirit of 1867: Confederation came to be in the last century because English Canadians needed us to be in it and because we, French Canadians, could not become independent at the time. Despite appearances, the situation has hardly changed: without us, English Canadians do not have much reason not to turn into Americans and as for us, French Canadians, it seems that, living in an English-speaking America, we have to be bound with our neighbours by some form of federative ties, which are not necessarily those of today. Most nations were formed not by people who intensely wanted to live together, but rather by people who could not live separately. This was the spirit of 1867: it will perhaps again be that of 1967.34

Before stepping aside for the authors of this book, let us note that Canada has undergone relatively radical transformations over the last century and a half, giving the notions of popular sovereignty and the exercise of democracy much depth. As Peter Russell notes: “There was scarcely a whisper of popular sovereignty in Canada’s Confederation movement. This was because the leading politicians in British North America at the time of Confederation were thoroughly counter-revolutionary in their political orientations.”35 According to many stakeholders, to make Canada a success while avoiding excessive uniformity, they had to choose a structure more centralized than that prevailing in the United States. Again, according to Russell:

12

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

Most of the constitutional debate at Quebec – and in Canada ever since – concerned the federal aspects of the Constitution. Here is where the British North Americans had to be creative. They were departing from Britain’s unitary system and, with the United States in the throes of civil war, the only federal system they knew, the American, seemed thoroughly flawed. Their earlier decision to give residual power to the central rather than the local legislatures aimed at reversing what many regarded as the most dangerously decentralizing feature of the American Constitution.36

At the Quebec Conference of 1864, for nearly three weeks, Macdonald and Brown from Canada West, Tupper and Tilley from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Cartier and Taché from Canada East, and D’Arcy McGee and Galt representing the English-speaking communities of the future province of Quebec, laid down in sometimes abstract and cold legal and political language purposes containing the clash of noble dreams and deep fears: about individual and collective freedom, security, justice and stability; economic ambitions and territorial expansion; identity and brotherhood; the future of a country with British customs next door to the American Leviathan; and also the plan to preserve and promote the identity of a Quebec society, the majority of which was Catholic and French-speaking. The studies gathered in the present work militate for more complete knowledge and greater critical lucidity about that crucial period in Canada’s political and constitutional history. presentation of t h e c h a p t e r s The work begins with contributions that situate the Quebec Conference of 1864 in its political and legal context. Rachel Chagnon strives to highlight a number of ideas of the founding fathers, notably their conceptions of democracy and federalism. She also analyzes the influence of two constitutional systems, namely those of New Zealand and the United States, which were sometimes used as foils, sometimes as models, in the preparation of the Canadian Constitution of 1867. According to Chagnon, the draft constitution prepared in Quebec was a clever blend of British and American inspiration. Marc Chevrier does battle with the idea that the federal union sketched by the Quebec Resolutions served “the political freedom of

i n t ro d u c t i o n

13

French Canada.”37 He recalls the colonial context in which the Dominion of Canada was born, and draws attention to the potential that can be contained in federalism as a tool of expansion for a conqueror. Chevrier acknowledges that, nonetheless, federalism can be a means of emancipating peoples, though this was not the case in Canada. According to him, Canada’s was indeed a case of “colonial federalism” making it possible to “dominate without governing” by strengthening British imperial power over the continent on the territorial and technological levels. Next, he attacks the claimed instability of the Union governments as an explanation for the desire to put an end to the Act of Union and to adopt a new constitution. According to him, it was much more a question of putting an end to the consociational dualism that had developed under the 1840 regime and that had enabled French Canadians to retain a substantial measure of autonomy. In sum, the Quebec Conference put the finishing touches on the British conquest of North America. In his chapter, Phillip Buckner discusses the identity of the British settlers of North America, the “British Americans” of 1860. He shows that there was no doubt they were proud of their British roots and wished to preserve their ties with the extended British world. They also very clearly asserted their own identity as British Americans (and then as Canadians following Confederation) within that same world, and wished to create a nation with “the right to pursue its own political ambitions.”38 Buckner also takes exception to the idea that the delegates from the Maritimes allegedly played less important roles in elaborating the scheme and were confronted with a fait accompli in Charlottetown and Quebec, noting, moreover, that the significance of the first conference should not be overlooked. The first and most important of the resolutions, the one concerning the federal form of the Canadian state and its subjection to the Crown of England, was unanimously adopted in Charlottetown. Buckner defends the thesis that Confederation would never have seen the light of day without lobbying by British investors in Canada. According to him, the British North America Act (bna Act) was written by British Americans to meet British American needs, to fulfill their desire to be an integral part of the British world, certainly, but mainly to fulfill their own desires and ambitions. Part 2 brings together texts dealing with certain proponents of the planned federal union. First, Éric Bédard presents Joseph-Édouard Cauchon, a contemporary of the birth of the Canadian federation, who was one of the only politicians to put his ideas about the planned

14

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

union of the colonies down on paper. Journalist and founder of the Journal de Québec, as well as a leading political player, especially in the area of the city of Quebec, Cauchon was in favour of the planned union of the British colonies of North America as a way of putting the brakes on and countering the expansion of the American republic. According to him, annexation by the United States would lead to the assimilation of French-Canadians, forcing them to adopt democratic and republican principles that they identified with “the reign of disorder and anarchy,” and the contamination of the colonies with that form of “moral degeneration”39 known as love of profit. Cauchon, deeply attached to constitutional monarchy tempered by parliamentarianism, accepted the idea of a federal union of the colonies, on condition, however, that it was as centralized as possible to avoid the pitfalls into which the neighbours to the south had fallen: he considered that they had opted for too decentralized a federation. Guy Laforest and Félix Mathieu provide us with the portraits of three political figures of great importance in the 1860s: George-Étienne Cartier, Alexander Tilloch Galt, and Thomas D’Arcy McGee. Laforest and Mathieu describe their careers and analyze their ideas and principal discourses to gain a better understanding of their respective roles in the advent of the Canadian federation and a better grasp of the nature of how they worked with one another. Laforest and Mathieu describe all three as “trustees of the largest communities in Canada East,”40 namely, the French-speaking Catholic community and the Englishspeaking Protestant and Catholic communities, respectively. A conservative devoted to maintaining the principle of the monarchy, Cartier advocated a union in which there would be no merger of the various races and which would be based essentially on the defence of minority interests, especially those of French-Canadians. Of English-Scottish origin, Galt was the “financial genius” of the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences, who, as early as 1858, sketched the contours of the division of powers established in Quebec City. He gave special attention to the linguistic, religious, and identity stakes in Canada East, and to the relationships between the majority and the minorities within the new province of Quebec. D’Arcy McGee, an author and poet of Irish Catholic origin, could count on his personal experience and vast historical knowledge to extol the originality of the planned union, in particular with respect to the protection of minorities in general and of religious minorities in particular. All three were, in a way, pioneers of pluralism, when they imagined together “at the time of the Quebec Conference

i n t ro d u c t i o n

15

a complex political system in which majorities and minorities were interwoven with one another.”41 The chapter by Christopher Moore examines the way the participation of parliamentary delegations influenced the processes that gave birth to the Canadian federation. At that time, before the 1864 conferences, it seemed accepted everywhere in British North America that decisions on the union of British North America would be the responsibility of the legislative branch, not the executive, and that the negotiations surrounding Confederation had to be entrusted to multi-party legislative delegations. According to an influential parliamentary ideology associated with the principle of responsible government, and broadly shared conviction, it was the parliamentarians’ job to shape policy and constantly hold the executive accountable for its actions. The scope and multi-party nature of the conferences of the 1860s leading up to Confederation are important in what they reveal about the political culture prevailing in British North America at the time. According to Moore, the architects of Confederation were democrats, in that they considered that the people’s elected representatives had the power to make constitutional choices, and that wide legislative participation was an essential condition for holding constitutional negotiations, thus demonstrating their embrace of fundamental principles regarding democratic and constitutional accountability in British North America in the 1860s. Paul Romney situates the positions of the two most important Upper Canada reformers in the planning of the federation, Oliver Mowat and George Brown, in their historical context with respect to the agreement entered into in Quebec City. Romney analyzes the way two Canadian historians – Donald and Maurice – perceived and dealt with Mowat and Brown’s interventions – through “the distorting lens of the centralizing myth,”42 the thesis that the founding fathers’ intention was to create a highly centralized federation. After recalling the reforming tradition of the struggle for the autonomy of Upper Canada, which Mowat and Brown represented at the Quebec Conference, Romney deconstructs Creighton and Careless’s theses. In Creighton’s case, the idea in question was that Mowat allegedly later disavowed the implicit idea prevailing at the Quebec Conference, to which he was supposed to have adhered. According to this idea, local governments would lose importance and become governments at an almost municipal level under the new regime. However, Mowat subsequently became the defender of the “provinces’ rights.”43 Careless also endorsed the idea that

16

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

the founding fathers intended to create a highly centralized federation. This warping of history is what led him to see a “radical change”44 between the thoughts Brown expressed during the reformer convention of 1859 and the ideas he promoted at the Quebec Conference in 1864, thereby painting a portrait of Brown as a politician who took an increasingly centralizing stance. The chapters in the third part of the work investigate the ideas that fuelled the opponents of the planned federal union. François Rocher analyzes criticisms of the federal union, in particular those that emerged during the debates conducted between 1864 and 1867. First, Rocher describes the historiographical context to shed light on the pejorative manner in which Canadian and Quebec historians depicted the debates, and the anecdotal, disparaging treatment they reserved for opponents’ ideas. Next, he brings out the similar and diverging arguments that were promoted by critics of the federal plan in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Canada West, and Canada East. While the conferences were decried in all of the colonies for being elitist and secret, as well as for affecting powers that were supposed to devolve to the provinces, the other objections to the plan – the creation of a new “national policy” on pre-existing identities, and the maintenance of close ties with the mother country – diverged to a certain extent. While the economic consequences of the plan especially fed into the fears of the Maritime colonies, it was more the purposes of the union and the proposed structure that were criticized in United Canada, though for diametrically opposed reasons in Canada West and Canada East. In the former case, the complaint was that the plan was not centralized enough, whereas in the latter it was because it was too centralized. In conclusion, Rocher draws attention to the accuracy of some of the criticism expressed in 1864 about certain dysfunctions in the Canadian federation today. Louis-Georges Harvey focuses on the discourse of the Reds in Canada East to place the spotlight on the republican criticism of the federal plan drawn up in Quebec City. That criticism was structured around the idea of corruption. The Reds first argued that the corruption of Canadian political circles was at the origin of the Confederation plan; several factors made the federation plan suspect in their eyes: political patronage, the increase in the number of appointed positions within the executive, and the noticeable presence of interests related to railway construction, not to mention the very close relationships that some members of government had with the Grand Trunk railroad. Ac-

i n t ro d u c t i o n

17

cording to them, the plan perfectly complemented the policy developed by Durham, implemented under the Union regime, which had made it possible for certain elite groups to further consolidate their domination at the people’s expense, and was consistent with the purest compliance with the assimilating practices associated with the British Empire. Moreover, according to these critics, the institutions that would be created following adoption of the plan would simply allow Canadian political corruption to grow long-lasting roots, in particular owing to the aristocratic, monarchical nature of the Senate and the office of the lieutenant-governor. Harvey considers these Red criticisms of the 1864 plan to have been a turning point, both in their definition of corruption and in their edification of republican thought sensitive to the pressure of private interests on public life. Stéphane Kelly looks more broadly at Quebec opponents among the parliamentarians, but also those who expressed themselves in the public sphere, focusing more specifically on economic arguments. After describing the economic context that led to the establishment of the Great Coalition in 1864 – a crisis in British investment in North America that led the most powerful British financiers with investments in Canada to support the unification of British North America – Kelly describes the economic arguments advanced by the opponents, situating them in three distinct regional cultures: the clearly republican French-speaking Greater Montreal and the border counties near the United States, the rather conservative rural Quebec, and the very liberal Montreal on its own. He dissects the composition of the parliamentary opposition movement, and describes the economic arguments supporting that position. The opponents were notably of the opinion that the Quebec Resolutions represented a step backwards in democratic life and could aggravate national quarrels. There was a strong consensus among opponents in their criticism of the economics of the plan: the lack of any need to raise a standing army and to build an intercolonial railway, the danger of excessive public debt, and the impoverishment of the working classes against a background of accusations of conflict of interest and corruption owing to ties between certain members of government and the Grand Trunk Railway Company. Historian Yvan Lamonde explains Louis-Joseph Papineau’s firm opposition to the proposals that were to be discussed at the Quebec Conference, and establishes the principal reasons for his disfavour: Papineau’s attachment to republican values. His stance took root much further back in the past because, as early as 1820, Papineau had felt

18

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

the need to express his support for the American republic’s plans. According to Papineau, what needed to be established was government of the people, by the people, for the people. Papineau was well informed about the debates going on in Europe at the time, especially of the advances made by the nationality principle with respect to emerging political classes. Recognizing that principle was part of an important process of political emancipation at the national level, and corresponds to the inspirations behind the aspirations of the Patriote movement. Yet Papineau’s vision of the steps to emancipation was different from both the trajectory of Europe, which was based on the principle of nationalities, and the trajectory of the freed colonies, which was based on political emancipation, in that the steps required the creation of a continental federation that respected the autonomy of the constitutive states. The fourth part provides a set of political considerations related to the moral foundations at the origin of the confederating pact. First, André Burelle recalls the true meaning that has to be given to the Quebec Conference in the emergence of a new political project. According to Burelle, the Quebec Conference has symbolic value because it led the Fathers of Confederation to determine the terms of a new social contract that relied on the idea of a federal regime rather than on that of a unitary country. It meant aiming for a federal union respectful of the “founding peoples” of North America. To express the idea, Burelle says that the new Canada would foster “conviviality within a ‘political nation’ giving access to shared British supranational citizenship.”45 Burelle shows that none of the seventy-two resolutions unanimously adopted by the represented parties contains a single mention of the opposing views on the constitution. He suggests replacing discussions on these distinct visions on the agenda, and especially finding a way to expand them while maintaining mutual respect. Robert Vipond, Jacqueline D. Krikorian, and David R. Cameron complete this part by showing that, in the seventy-two resolutions, no allusion was made to the idea that the Canadian constitution should be written “according to the same principles as that of the United Kingdom.”46 Yet that is what was done. That made it possible to affirm the force of the principle of responsible government, thereby acknowledging that the legislative assembly had determining power in the democratic exercise. As Vipond, Krikorian, and Cameron point out, the Resolutions insisted on the obligation to give the legislative branch greater weight than the others. Through a very meticulous analysis of the evolution of the various propositions debated at the Quebec Con-

i n t ro d u c t i o n

19

ference, the authors draw attention to the fact that certain passages were shortened to give the greatest possible scope to the legislative branch: “There shall be a General Legislature or Parliament for the Federated Provinces composed of a Legislative Council and a House of Commons” – eventually known as the Senate and the House of Commons. Last, the authors establish that the Resolutions of 1865 were, in constitutional terms, much richer, more flexible politically, and more apt to provide pragmatic responses to the conflicts between orders of government that would inevitably emerge under a federal regime. The book closes with two historiographical analyses. First, Claude Couture offers us an enlightening exploration of the work of two historians, Joseph Royal and Alfred Duclos De Celles, placing the Quebec Conference back in the imperial context of the time. Couture is most interested in the historical context because he wants to remind us that the Quebec Conference was held at a time when the British colonial order in Canada was imposed and the “English-language and Protestant community spread around the world in the nineteenth century and characterized by a strong collective imagination of cultural superiority and domination”47 was doing very well for itself. In this respect, Couture is in line with the work he did with his colleague David Chandonnet on the worldwide British colonial order in Vingt ans après Charlottetown: L’ordre libéral au Canada (2013). Finally, the author points out that Cartier was ahead of his time when he adopted a stance more sensitive to ethnic diversity while Canada was part of an empire seeking to impose an overarching idea: “the ethnic monopolization of modernity and ‘progress’ by a Protestant, English-speaking group.”48 In her chapter, Anne Trépanier’s innovative treatment of the Confederation explores various representations through a selection of caricatures that she uses as expressions of the social discourse prevailing at the time. The chapter’s strength lies in its capacity to recreate the political and social debates of the time out of opinion pieces, representations of women, satirical pictures, symbols, and even monsters. The collective imagination is thus revealed based on well-established themes, including those of danger, calculated risk, hope, and political virtue. Trépanier’s analysis transports us into the world of identity construction and national awareness-raising. In the author’s words: “tentacular and petrifying, rhetorical seduction and predation took part in the desire to establish contradictions and create something new: a unified nation, a continental race, a supra-nation.”49 All of that contributes to generating a new political belonging. The reader will be seized by the analytical

20

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

and interpretive wealth in her writing, which teaches us how public opinion is formed and how, based on various metaphors, state and society are constructed. This new interpretative review is essential for assessing the advances that Canada has made over the last 150 years in establishing a form of federalism that is in constant transition and carrying out national projects in tension within the federation. Special thanks go to Mary Baker and Benjamin Waterhouse, who have translated contributions that were originally written in French. At McGill-Queen’s University Press, we would like to express our gratitude to Philip Cercone, Jacqueline Mason, Kathleen Anne Kearns, and Kathleen Fraser. Thanks also to Olivier De Champlain at Université du Québec à Montréal for his continued support. In addition, we wish to acknowledge research grants received from both the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (sshrc) and the Quebec Research Fund for Society and Culture (frqsc) for the period stretching from 2014 to 2020. notes 1 This event could not have been held without the financial contribution of the Government of Quebec’s Secrétariat aux Affaires intergouvernementales canadiennes (saic), headed by the Honourable Jean-Marc Fournier. We are very grateful for the support we received from the whole saic team. 2 For a more detailed presentation of the program, go to: http://www. fulaval.ca/vie-facultaire/nouvelles/toutes-les-nouvelles/nouvelle-singleview/article/colloque-nbspemla-conference-de-quebec-1864-150-ans-plustardem-comprendre-la-feder/. At the colloquium, speeches were given by the Honourable Jean-Marc Fournier; the Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada; and the Honourable Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages. These three speeches can be found through the following links: http://www.saic.gouv.qc.ca/secretariat/salle-denouvelles/discours/details.asp?id=93; https://www.gg.ca/document.aspx ?id=15798&lan=fra; http://www.officiallanguages.gc.ca/fr/nouvelles/ discours/2014/10/16/notes-allocution-a-loccasion-du-colloque-confer ence-quebec-1864-150. 3 Guy Laforest, Eugénie Brouillet, Alain-G. Gagnon, and Yves Tanguay, eds., Ces constitutions qui nous ont façonnés: Anthologie historique des lois constitutionnelles antérieures à 1867 (Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2014), 1–19; see also Guy Laforest, Eugénie Brouillet, Alain-G. Gagnon, and Yves Tanguay, eds., The Constitutions that Shaped Us: A Historical Anthology of Pre-1867 Canadian

i n t ro d u c t i o n

4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

21

Constitutions (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 3–21. The following thinkers provided the raw material for this introductory work, which is composed in part of excerpts from their crucial writings: George Bourinot, Thomas Chapais, François-Xavier Garneau, Lionel Groulx, W.M. Kennedy, Adam Shortt, Arthur G. Doughty, Alfred Leroy Burt, Michel Brunet, Séraphin Marion, Hilda Neatby, Mason Wade, Pierre Tousignant, Arthur R.M. Lower, Denis Vaugeois, J.M.S. Careless and Maurice Séguin. We have intentionally given precedence to historians who wrote before 1975. Once again, many thanks to Denis Vaugeois for allowing us to use a text from his early days as a historian. Stanley Bréhaut Ryerson, Capitalisme et Confédération (Montreal: Parti Pris, 1978), 243. Our translation. Ibid., 243–4. Our translation. Ibid., 289–90. Our translation. Ibid., 277. Ibid., 267. Ibid., 262. Our translation. Margaret Conrad, Alvin Finkel and Donald Fyson, Canada: A History (Toronto: Pearson, 2013); Francis, R. Douglas, Richard Jones, Donald B. Smith and Robert Wardbaugh, Origins: Canadian History to Confederation (Toronto: Nelson College Indigenous, 12th ed., 2012). In French, see in particular Craig Brown, Histoire générale du Canada (Montreal: Boréal, 1990); Paul-André Linteau, Histoire du Canada (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2011); Jean-Pierre Charland, Une histoire du Canada contemporain: de 1850 à nos jours (Quebec: Septentrion, 2007); Éric Bédard, Les réformistes: une génération canadienne-française au XIXe siècle (Montreal: Boréal, 2009); Henri Brun, Guy Tremblay and Eugénie Brouillet, Droit constitutionnel (Cowansville: Les Éditions Yvon Blais, 6th ed., 2014); Jacques-Yvan Morin and José Woehrling, Les constitutions du Canada et du Québec du régime français à nos jours, Volume 1, Étude (Montreal: Les Éditions Thémis, 1994). Coincidence or not, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, who was, with Cartier, the most influential of the French-Canadian reformers before the 1867 constitution, passed away on 26 February 1864, a few months before the famous Quebec Conference. While Bédard’s work brings out clearly the primary principles and political contests of that generation, Yvan Lamonde provides a finely tuned understanding of the social context in what was to become the Province of Quebec, both before and after the events of October 1864. See his book, Yvan Lamonde, Histoire sociale des idées au Québec: 1760–1896 (Montreal: Fides, 2000). For a criticism of the monarchist and conservative ideas of the founders of the Canadian federation between

22

12

13 14

15 16

17

18 19 20 21

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

1864 and 1867, in particular, the leading figures in French Canada, see Marc Chevrier, La république québécoise: Hommages à une idée suspecte (Montreal: Boréal, 2012), 218ff. Finally, note that thirty-three men worked together for over two weeks to agree upon the seventy-two Quebec Resolutions, which were used to lay the groundwork for the draft constitution act enacted in London in March 1867. They came into effect in July of the same year. For the text of the seventy-two Quebec Resolutions, see: https://www.collections canada.gc.ca/confederation/023001-7104-f.html. For the biographies of the participants in the Quebec Conference, including those of key players, such as the leading opponent in French Canada, Antoine-Aimé Dorion, and the very influential Ontario reformer, Oliver Mowat, consult the indispensable Dictionary of Canadian Biography, www.biographi.ca. Frank Underhill, The Image of Confederation, cbc Publications, 1964, 9–10, cited in Laurence Cros, La représentation du Canada dans les récits des historiens anglophones canadiens, de la Confédération à nos jours (Paris: Centre d’études canadiennes de l’Université de Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2000), 407. Donald Creighton, The Myth of Biculturalism (Toronto: Macmillan, 1977 [1966]), 265 cited in Cros. William Morton, “The dualism of culture and the federalism of power,” in Context of Canada’s Past, ed. A.B. McKillop (Toronto: Macmillan, 1980 [1964]), 254–5. Morton, 265. Marlene Gay Shore, The Contested Past: Reading Canada’s History – Selections from the “Canadian Historical Review” (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 19–20. Few authors reject this interpretation, but those who do include William Bennett Monroe, according to whom the political system specific to the Canadian dominion resembled that of the American system in that it was a by-product. He noted: “It is not too much to say that the Canadian Federation of 1867 was both inspired by the American example and dictated by the fear of American aggression.” American Influences on Canadian Government (Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada, 1929), 8. Reference re Secession of Québec, para. 32 (our emphasis). Reference re Senate Reform, 2014 SCC 32, paras. 25 and 26. See also the Reference re Supreme Court Act, para. 19. Reference re Senate Reform, para. 54. In this respect, see the valuable research by Jacques-Yvan Morin and José Woehrling in this area, including their work Les constitutions du Canada et du Québec du régime français à nos jours (Montreal: Les Éditions Thémis, 1992). That publication, along with those by Gérald A. Beaudoin (La Constitution du

i n t ro d u c t i o n

22 23 24 25

26

27 28 29

30

23

Canada [Montreal: Wilson & Lafleur, 1990]) and Henri Brun, Guy Tremblay, and Eugénie Brouillet (Droit constitutionnel, 6th ed. [Cowansville: Éditions Yvon Blais, 2014]), is one of the three most important treatises on constitutional law published in French in Canada in recent years. In the English-speaking world, the most outstanding work is that by Peter Hogg, Constitutional Law, 5th ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 2007). Christopher Moore, 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997). Ibid., xii–xiii. Christopher Moore, Three Weeks in Quebec City: The Meeting that Made Canada (London and Toronto: Allen Lane, 2015). Janet Ajzenstat, Paul Romney, Ian Gentles, and William D. Gairdner, Canada’s Founding Debates (Toronto: Stoddart, 1999). In English-speaking Canada, Janet Ajzenstat’s contribution to study of the genesis of the federation in political science and political thought is unequalled. For an autobiographical view of her career, see Janet Ajzenstat, Discovering Confederation: A Canadian’s Story (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014). Stéphane Kelly and Guy Laforest, “Aux sources d’une tradition politique: les travaux en langue française,” in Janet Ajzenstat, Paul Romney, Ian Gentles and William D. Gairdner, Débats sur la fondation du Canada, French edition prepared by Stéphane Kelly and Guy Laforest (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2004), 527–46. Ajzenstat, Romney, Gentles and Gairdner, Débats sur la fondation du Canada, 521–6. Eugénie Brouillet, La négation de la nation: L’identité culturelle québécoise et le fédéralisme canadien (Quebec: Septentrion, 2005). Alain-G. Gagnon, ed., Le fédéralisme canadien contemporain: Fondements, traditions, institutions (Montreal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2006). This work became known quickly in international networks thanks to translations into English, Catalan, and Spanish. A revised version was also published in German. See Alain-G. Gagnon, “Les cinq visages du Québec,” in La politique québécoise et canadienne: une approche pluraliste, ed. Alain-G. Gagnon with David Sanschagrin (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2014), 87–107. See also, in the same vein, Alain-G. Gagnon and Guy Laforest, “Comprendre la vie politique au Canada et au Québec,” in Le parlementarisme canadien, ed. Réjean Pelletier and Manon Tremblay, 5th ed. (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2013), 9–39. Kelly and Laforest, in a text cited above, summarized the evolution of the constitutional interpretation of the texts

24

31

32 33

34

b ro uillet, gagnon, and laforest

and events of 1864–67 as having three periods: the primacy of provincialism (1867–1937); the growth of centralism (1937–87); and, last, the rediscovery of a tradition (1987–2003). Readers interested in the principal intellectual debates in Quebec in the twenty-first century will find the last section especially useful, as it reveals republican, conservative, communitarian and canadianist interpretative approaches. For an update of this work taking into account the production over the last twelve years in history, political science, law, and philosophy, see Guy Laforest, “What Canadian federalism means in Quebec,” in Interpreting Quebec’s Exile within the Federation: Selected Political Essays, Guy Laforest, with the collaboration of Oscar Mejia Mesa (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2014), 67–89. Michael Burgess and Alain-G. Gagnon, eds., Comparative Federalism and Federation: Competing Traditions and Future Directions (London: Harvester and Wheatsheaf and Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993) and Federal Democracies (London: Routledge, 2010). James Tully, Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Gérard Bouchard, Genèse des nations et cultures du Nouveau Monde (Montreal: Boréal, 2001); Brouillet, La négation de la nation; Gagnon, L’Âge des incertitudes: Essais sur le fédéralisme et la diversité nationale (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2011) – English edition published by University of Toronto Press under the title Minority Nations in the Age of Uncertainty, Toronto, 2014; Michel Seymour and Guy Laforest, eds., Le fédéralisme multinational (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2011). Jean-Charles Bonenfant, “L’esprit de 1867,” Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, XVII (1), 1963, 37–8 [our translation]. Bonenfant wrote a great deal about the 1864–67 period. Read in particular Jean-Charles Bonenfant, Naissance de la Confédération (Montreal: Leméac, 1969). See also Jean-Charles Bonenfant, “Le Canada et les hommes politiques de 1867,” Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, XXI (3a), 1967, 567–96. That article by Bonenfant is devoted to the four French Canadian founders who were full participants in the Quebec Conference: Étienne-Paschal Taché, George-Étienne Cartier, Hector Langevin and Jean-Charles Chapais. The whole issue of the journal is in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the events of 1864–67, with a nod to the texts that were written by Lionel Groulx in 1917–18. At the time of the Quebec Conference, in what was called Canada East, that is, the former Lower Canada soon to be reborn as the Province of Quebec, the Quebec Resolutions and their transformation into a constitutional text were received as a form of sovereignty-association in the newspapers and educated circles of French Canada in the Saint-Lawrence Valley. The research by the

i n t ro d u c t i o n

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

25

historian Arthur Silver does not really leave any room for doubt on this subject. See Arthur Silver, The French Canadian Idea of Confederation 1864–1900, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 50. A number of the chapters of the present work investigate this idea more deeply. It remains important even though we know, since Bonenfant, that during the formal part of the Quebec Conference, other than Taché, who chaired the conference, French-speakers were generally not very active. Cartier preferred to express his opinions during cabinet sessions of the government of United Canada, which took place at the end of the day. Was Bonenfant too severe in this respect? Here is an excerpt of what he wrote in a study for the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1963: “The genesis of the Confederation at the Québec Conference was thus an essentially AngloSaxon phenomenon, a phenomenon of English thought and expression. Although it may seem paradoxical, the American constitution was born in an atmosphere that was much more French; the politicians who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 were much more the products of the writings of eighteenth century French philosophers than were the Fathers of Confederation, including the four French Canadians.” [Our translation.] See Jean-Charles Bonenfant, “Les Canadiens français et la Confédération,” Étude préparée pour la Commission royale d’enquête sur le bilinguisme et le biculturalisme (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1963), 19. Thinking of the constitutional reform of 1982, we are tempted to add that French Cartesianism in a constitutional text would not necessarily provide guarantees for Quebec’s thirst for autonomy and its desire to protect its distinctive features of identity. Peter Russell, Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People?, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 12. Ibid., 23. Our translation. Our translation. Our translations. Our translation. Our translation. Our translation. Our translation. Our translation. Our translation. Our translation. Our translation. Our translation. Our translation.

part one

The Fathers of Confederation and the BNA Act: Constitutional Visions and Models rachel chagnon

introdu c t i o n The Fathers of Confederation have been criticized for their lack of ideological depth and for their almost servile attachment to British political institutions.1 Clearly, the Federalist Papers2 of the Founding Fathers who drafted the Constitution of the United States have no equivalent in Canada. Does this mean that no thought was given to the political and ideological issues underlying the federal union project? Of course not – in fact, the Fathers of Confederation reflected deeply on the project, some addressed the topic in writing, and most had an opportunity to express their point of view during parliamentary debates. As a result, their thoughts are scattered and even fragmented, but we will attempt to bring them together in the following pages. As pointed out by D.G. Lavroff, the notion of political ideas must be considered in the broad sense. “To analyze political ideas, one must take into consideration not only the written reflections of authors, but also the way in which ordinary citizens view the political situation or deal with it in practical terms. Everyone has political ideas, while political theorists remain a rarity.”3 As a result, the ideas of the Fathers of Confederation must be assessed by taking into account the dialectic between the intellectual construct of the political idea and the social, political, economic, and legal constraints affecting them as the representatives of a constantly evolving electorate. The political project to unite the British colonies in North America was marked, above all, by the context of the period and driven by the political ambitions of its promoters. The political aspirations of men

30

rachel chagnon

such as John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier required a vehicle, and this was provided by the project for a political union of the colonies. In their eyes, the new constitution was far more than just a British statute: it was a founding document. In addition, it was a document that would give them a degree of freedom from the United Kingdom while still allowing them to claim their British heritage. By examining what they wrote themselves and the various other documents in which their thoughts have been recorded, we will be able to illuminate some of their vision for the country they were building. We will first look to see where their analyses are available, before reviewing what they reveal about their vision for the court system, democracy, and the federal model. Last, we will examine the constitutional model they selected to give their vision a concrete shape. 1 the confederation p ro j e c t a s s e e n b y its creato r s Confederation was an ambitious project that did not have the support of all the colonies. It is important to note that Prince Edward Island rejected it, while Nova Scotia attempted to reverse its decision to join when the ink on the bna Act was barely dry. All the politicians who took part in the various discussions saw clearly that the Confederation project was far more than a mere administrative and commercial agreement. In this section, we will provide a broad overview of their thoughts about the project. 1.1 Analyses by the Fathers of Confederation

First, some of the Fathers of Confederation left written testimony setting out their own vision. Several prominent politicians of the time actively promoted their own model for a union of the British colonies, such as Joseph Cauchon in Étude sur l’union projetée des provinces britanniques de l’Amérique du Nord4 and L’union des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord,5 Thomas D’Arcy McGee in Notes on Federal Governments, Past and Present,6 and Joseph-Charles Taché in Des provinces de l’Amérique du Nord et d’une union fédérale.7 All these publications gave these men, as supporters of the project, an opportunity to make their vision better known to the general public. Cauchon is clearly one of the most inspired supporters. He published two works on the topic, one in 1858 and one in 1865. In them he de-

t h e fat h e r s o f c o n f e d e r at i o n and the bna act

31

fends the federal model, regretfully, it is true, after rejecting the proposal for a simple union of the colonies. In his 1865 book, he expresses his regret at the inevitable prospect of a federal system, which he believed held less promise than a true union, in his view a more “logical” system “for several reasons: 1st – The budget; 2nd – Our Colonial system; 3rd – American counterpoise and equilibrium; 4th – The immediate results of a union under its different aspects.”8 Cauchon, like Taché and McGee, was looking for a reference to use as a model for the Confederation project. Of these three men, McGee was the one who concentrated the most on finding a model that would be “truly” British, and he turned to another British colony, New Zealand, to present a comparison of federal regimes that could serve as an inspiration for the Fathers of Confederation.9 McGee considered that the New Zealand model was the best example of a centralized federal system.10 We will come back to it later. Other politicians, like Alexander T. Galt, gave speeches that were transcribed, and in a speech in his riding of Sherbrooke the great conservative financier set out his vision for the future federation in great detail. The speech was later published as Speech on the Proposed Union of the British North American Provinces Delivered at Sherbrooke, C.E.11 The focus on the question of denominational schools is striking: “There could be no greater injustice to a population than to compel them to have their children educated in a manner contrary to their own religious belief.”12 A discordant note in this symphony of authors favourable to the Confederation project was struck by Antoine-Aimé Dorion, a member from Lower Canada and leader of the coalition of the Rouges, who spoke out against the promised benefits of the future union of the colonies. Dorion’s main grudge was against the plan for the sharing of legislative powers, but more generally he found the proposed system to be a poor compromise between a true federation and a union of the colonies: “Each system has its own advantages and disadvantages, but the project of the [Quebec] Conference unites the disadvantages of both, without providing either the simplicity and effectiveness of the legislative union or the guarantees for the institutions of each province offered by the federal system.”13 Other traces of the thoughts of the Fathers of Confederation survive. One of the most important is clearly the verbatim report on the parliamentary debates held in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada.14 In addition to this imposing volume of over 1,000 pages, three documents record the debates held in the Nova Scotia House of

32

rachel chagnon

Assembly.15 This makes it possible to discern how these politicians envisaged the Canadian confederation. 1.2 Key Ideas

Although the federal system was the main focus of the politicians’ reflections, it is important to note that the debates were mainly about other issues. For example, also discussed were conflict resolution and the elected members’ representations of the democratic system. In this section we will look at the debates on two questions: the role of the courts in the future federation, and the politicians’ vision of the role to be played by elected members and, more generally, of democracy itself.

The Courts As early as the 1860s, pamphleteer P.S. Hamilton raised the problem of how to arbitrate disputes between the federal government and the provinces, or between two provinces. Pointing out that in the United States disputes were arbitrated by the Supreme Court, he wrote that “the vesting of such a power in a civil judicial body would be another sweeping innovation upon the British Constitution, which recognises no higher authority than Parliament as entitled to deal with questions strictly constitutional.”16 It is important to note that behind the management of disputes between levels of government lay the more fundamental question of constitutional review for legislative validity. Clearly, the role that would be played by the courts in the event of a jurisdictional conflict had not escaped the attention of the colony’s politicians. In John A. Macdonald’s opinion, it was essential that the constitution of the future Dominion be an act of the Imperial Parliament, and that questions relating to its interpretation be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (jcpc) in London,17 created specifically to hear appeals from the colonies. In this way, the task of managing problems with the interpretation of the bna Act and, specifically, the sharing of powers, would not be assigned to the colony’s own politicians but to an apparently more neutral arbitrator, in this case a court of British judges. More generally, George Brown, the Reform leader and a delegate of the Province of Canada, believed that it was up to the courts of each province to settle conflicts in the laws resulting from the sharing of jurisdiction.18 In fact, the decision to give the federal government

t h e fat h e r s o f c o n f e d e r at i o n and the bna act

33

the power to appoint judges to the superior courts19 was not selfevident, and encountered resistance from the delegates at the Charlottetown Conference. Not everyone agreed with the principle that the judges of the courts in each province should be appointed by the federal government. E.B. Chandler, a delegate from New Brunswick, managed to convince his fellow delegates of the danger of letting the provinces appoint their own judges. In his view, the local legislatures would not have the necessary stature to attract high-quality candidates, since the leading members of each bar would turn to the more interesting employment opportunities offered by the federal government.20 Later, A.-A. Dorion saw this mode of appointment as proof that the federation was merely a “disguised” legislative union.21 Another topic of debate was the establishment of the future Supreme Court. The decision of the Fathers of Confederation to allow the Dominion’s highest court to be created by a simple statute was criticized. In this way, the Supreme Court, which would hear cases from the courts of appeal of all the provinces, could be created without their assent. In addition, its judges would be appointed unilaterally and at the discretion of the prime minister of Canada. While still existing only as a section22 in the bna Act, the Supreme Court was already viewed with scepticism. Taschereau, a Province of Canada member, saw no use for a court that could offer no guarantees of impartiality, especially if appeals to England were not abolished. “Lower Canadians will assuredly be less satisfied with the decisions of a Federal Court of Appeals than with those of Her Majesty’s Privy Council.”23 Last, although judges would have the power to arbitrate in cases where one level of government overstepped its powers, they would be powerless to act if the powers concerned were exercised in a manner consistent with the Constitution. Each level of government enjoyed a wide margin of latitude within its own jurisdiction. As a result, and as pointed out bitterly by A.J. Smith, a member from New Brunswick, the provinces would have no recourse if the federal government decided to disallow one of their statutes.24 Democracy Democracy was an underlying theme at two major debates held, for the most part, at the Parliament of the United Canadas. The most important of the two followed a decision to create a senate with members appointed by the federal government. The Legislative Council of the

34

rachel chagnon

Province of Canada, whose members had been elected since 1856, was asked to vote on a bill that would abolish the electoral process but give existing members seats for life in the future Senate of the Parliament of Canada. This situation was uncomfortable for many, especially for those who had been elected to their position. Had they been sent to the Legislative Council by their electors to bring the electoral process to an end? The debate crystallized around the mode of appointment, and legislative councillor Reesor highlighted the possibility of partisan appointments.25 At the same time, the question of popular consent roused passions in the upper chamber that had not been seen in the legislative assembly26 – a situation that was a little ironic given that twothirds of the Council’s members had been appointed by the various successive governments of the Province of Canada.27 However, the mode of appointment of the future senators did attract some criticism from the members of the legislative assembly,28 who considered that it went against the principles set out by John Stuart Mill to combat the concentration of power in a single institution, in this case the government.29 The government would control the House of Commons, through its majority, and the Senate, through the appointment of its members. Their concerns were legitimate, but assumed that senators would hesitate to block the plans of the government by which they had been appointed. Would they have any choice in the matter? As the debate shows, the republican principle of an elected senate was not rejected unanimously; nor can it be said that the choice made reflected an obsessive need not to follow the lead of the United States to the south, or to adopt the British model. The creation of an unelected senate had a liberal origin, in the Whig sense of the term. The role of the senators was to protect the interests of minorities that ran counter to the wishes of the majority. The majority, of course, had control over the elected members of the Assembly. A partisan appointment process matched the clientelism that went hand in hand with a utilitarian conception of the state, by rewarding friends and creating a network of influence. On the other hand, the two approaches were mutually contradictory. To represent minority interests effectively, the senators had to have the political legitimacy to oppose an elected Assembly without incurring the public’s wrath. But how could they retain their credibility compared with the members when they had been appointed by a small fraction of the same members who were members of cabinet? The debate on senate appointments gave the Fathers of Confederation an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between democracy

t h e fat h e r s o f c o n f e d e r at i o n and the bna act

35

and the role of an elected member. Was a member a representative or a delegate of his constituents? In the eyes of John A. Macdonald, “But if the other doctrine obtains, that we are not representatives but delegates, we might as well meet here and pass measures without any discussion whatever, every man voting according to the instructions of the commission which he holds in his pocket from his constituents.”30 This vision resembles that of Irish philosopher Edmund Burke, who developed a trustee model of representation in which the representative must be aware of his electors to interpret their wishes, but “must be only an interpreter and not a delegate bound by instructions or an interpretative mandate.”31 John M. Johnson, who represented New Brunswick in the three conferences that led up to Confederation, went even further. In his view, parliamentarians “are the people for all legislative purposes, and they have the power to change the Constitution when they think the country requires it.”32 Not everyone shared this view of the role of parliamentarians. Some saw themselves as the delegates of their constituents, such as one member, Huntington, who, after consulting his constituents, announced that he would be voting against the project at their request.33 Other Province of Canada members – Ross, Walch, Pouliot, and Biggar – stated that they would do likewise. These members shared a more fundamentally democratic and egalitarian view of their role as parliamentarians. This position as the guardian of the popular will was generally expressed by politicians opposed to the Confederation project. They used the argument to promote their position but, in some cases, chose to oppose the project because they considered that this was the mandate they had been given. There were therefore two visions for the role of the parliamentarian: one close to the British idea of parliament as an institution that had an undeniably elitist origin; and the other based in an egalitarian reality where there was little to differentiate a parliamentarian from his electors.

Federalism The characteristic feature of the debate about the federal model was its fuzzy, imprecise nature, revealed in both the semantic choices made and in the actual debates. First, let us look at the terminological choice inherent in the word “confederation.” One would have thought that the need to establish a clear terminology would have been one of the concerns of the Fathers of Confederation. Of the thirty-six politicians who were delegates to one or more of the pre-Confederation confer-

36

rachel chagnon

ence, twenty-two had legal training.34 Of these, eighteen belonged to the delegations from either the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, or Nova Scotia. Although not all practised law, some were recognized for their legal skills, including John A. Macdonald; Oliver Mowat, who had articled in Macdonald’s office; and William Alexander Henry, the Nova Scotia delegate, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1875 and also helped draft the bna Act, mainly to clarify some key terms. Thanks to their training, these politicians would have been aware of the problems created by a lack of terminological clarity in a legislative document. Nevertheless, a clear definition of federalism proved impossible to formulate during the debates even when the definitive version of the project was drawn up in London. The terms federation, confederation, or federal union, apparently squaring the circle, were used indiscriminately.35 As a result, the colony’s politicians cannot be said to have understood the meaning of federation in the same way. And they were not alone – the British administrators found it just as hard to define the concept. In notes presented to the British administration about the Quebec Resolution, Lord Monck stated that the term confederation was misused, leading to the type of union under consideration being falsely represented. Monck had envisaged a union in which the provinces were treated almost as municipalities,36 a type of union that did not match the use of either the term confederation or federation. At the London Conference, one of the first drafts of the bna Act given to the delegates omitted the term confederation and referred instead to a United Colony. This term disappeared in later versions. At the same conference, the term federation, as found in the Quebec Resolutions, was replaced by confederation at the request of H.W. Henry, who wanted to settle once and for all the term used to identify the model chosen for the new state. Charles Tupper and John A. Macdonald agreed, and the whole document was standardized to use only the term confederation, instead of mixing federation and confederation. In the documents we have seen, there was no clue to help us understand why confederation was preferred to federation. This imprecision concerning the project’s form extended to its substance. Lieutenant-Governor Gordon noted in a letter written shortly after the Charlottetown Conference that the term federal union appeared to have different meanings for different delegates. For the representatives from Lower Canada, it was a way to protect the future province

t h e fat h e r s o f c o n f e d e r at i o n and the bna act

37

from Anglo-Protestant influences; whereas for those from the Maritimes, the preservation of the structure of the former colonies guaranteed that the revenues generated by a given province would remain for the most part under its control.37 This terminological laxity appears to reflect a degree of confusion about the place of the future provinces in the Dominion of Canada. Would the provinces, in their own areas of jurisdiction, have the same powers and privileges as the federal government? This question was the source of several requests for clarification from Province of Canada Members during debates on the Confederation project. Cauchon responded by stating, “Is it not sufficient to open the first dictionary at hand to know that the word ‘confederation’ means simply ‘league,’ union of states or sovereigns, of nations, or even of armies for a common object.”38 Obviously, this definition did not explain how the union would operate or if its component entities would preserve a degree of autonomy once united. Besides their autonomy, there was the problem of the legislative sovereignty of the provincial parliaments. Recognition for their sovereignty, essential to the existence of a federation, was never addressed explicitly in the negotiations concerning the sharing of powers. 2 mo d e l s After the vision came the drafting of the Act. Since this was no ordinary piece of legislation, the form of the bna Act was extensively discussed, and a search was launched for the best model to use as a template. 2.1 Models from the United Kingdom

In their search to identify a reference model that was “truly” British, some colonial politicians turned to another British colony, New Zealand. As mentioned above, McGee had already used New Zealand as a comparison in his presentation of the federal regimes that could be used to inspire the Fathers of Confederation.39 He was not the only one to follow this lead. New Zealand was also suggested as a model by the librarian of the Legislative Assembly of the United Canadas, Alpheus Todd,40 in his book Brief Suggestions in Regard to the Formation of Local Governments in Upper and Lower Canada.41 The Fathers of Confederation often referred to New Zealand during the Quebec Conference. On the other hand, John A. Macdonald considered New Zealand to

38

rachel chagnon

be a legislative, rather than a federal, union42 and in fact the federal system was eventually abolished in New Zealand in 1876 and replaced by a legislative union. New Zealand had a political and administrative organization in 1867 similar to the North American colonies. The islands became a British colony in 1840 following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between the Maori and the British. To forestall French claims to the land, the British had persuaded the Maori to recognize the sovereignty of the British Crown. After this, the management of New Zealand proved to be a difficult task, as the colonists repeatedly demanded more autonomy. These demands led London to separate the colony of New Zealand from Australia in 1841 and to adopt New Zealand’s constitution in 1852. The bna Act has several points in common with the constitution granted to New Zealand in 1852. For example, as happened later in the Dominion of Canada, New Zealand’s federal government was given a dominant role compared with the local legislatures and its laws took precedence in the case of conflicting legislation.43 In general, the New Zealand federal government was given the same powers as those granted to the Canadian federal government in 1867.44 As in Canada, the head of state was a governor appointed by London. Last, the power to reserve and disallow legislation was given to New Zealand’s governor in the case of federal laws and to the superintendents and the governor for provincial laws.45 This allowed London to disallow and strike out any law that went against its interests; the federal government had the same power with respect to the local legislatures. However, there were still some differences between the New Zealand and Canadian systems. First, New Zealand superintendents, equivalent to lieutenantgovernors in Canada, were not appointed by the central government but chosen by the local legislatures, unlike their counterparts in Canada. In addition, a superintendent could only be dismissed at the request of the provincial council (the legislative assembly). The New Zealand Constitutional Act46 defined only the powers of the federal government, while the provinces were given the power to make laws for “peace, order and good government.”47 This classic formula allowed the provinces to legislate in areas that were not listed, and whose existence was possibly not suspected in 1852, using what was known as a residual power. The formula also granted a power to pass laws to manage emergencies, such as natural disasters. This was a paradoxical choice since the federal government was also given a power to legislate for “peace, order and

t h e fat h e r s o f c o n f e d e r at i o n and the bna act

39

good government.”48 In the event of a conflict between laws, the federal law took precedence. The paradox was not carried over to the bna Act, in which only the federal government enjoyed the benefit of a “peace, order and good government” clause. Last, unlike the New Zealand Constitutional Act (nzc Act), the bna Act makes no provision for the creation of new provinces. The nzc Act gives the power to the General Assembly, in other words the federal authority.49 It is important to note that unlike Canada, New Zealand was an island nation entirely divided into local provinces, except for the areas reserved for the Maori. In North America at the time, a large part of the area under British control was administered by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Fathers of Confederation clearly decided to distance themselves from the nzc Act on several points. First, they defined the legislative powers of the two levels of government more precisely, and gave the residual power to the federal government, although the provincial legislatures were given a residual power limited to local matters. In addition, the bna Act is more clearly drafted than the nzc Act and draws inspiration from the United States constitution by dealing separately with the executive, legislative, and judicial powers. The bna Act is therefore not a replica of the New Zealand constitution. The Canada imagined by John A. Macdonald was, in contrast, based on the imperial model. “The General Government assumes toward the local governments precisely the same position as the Imperial Government holds with respect to each of the colonies now.”50 This opinion was shared by some of the most influential politicians of the day, including Cartier, Tupper, and Galt. They stated that they wanted above all to retain the right of control and oversight over its colonies that the empire had kept for itself. However, the way in which they articulated the link of subordination between the central power and the local legislatures went beyond their model. The subordination of the provinces to the central power, as conceived by John A. Macdonald, was in fact greater than that of the colonies to the imperial government. Over the years, the colonies had gained a degree of autonomy from the home country. They controlled the courts and appointed their own judges – the lieutenant-governor’s assent had become a mere formality since the emergence of responsible government. The colonies also controlled legislation in all areas, provided that the laws passed did not interfere with British interests. This gave them the freedom to legislate in commercial and criminal matters. Not only did they lose all these attributions under Confederation, they also lost their direct link with

40

rachel chagnon

London. The comparison drawn by Macdonald is thus not entirely accurate, since the colonies under the imperial regime had more powers than the provinces under the new federal regime. The objective of Macdonald’s speeches appears to have been to win over audiences that were more concerned with the symbolism of the empire than aware of its actual mode of operation. He probably also wanted to transfer some of the empire’s symbolic capital to the future federal Parliament. Could the federal state, though, inspire the same degree of consideration as the British Empire? No one model stands out clearly as the reference for combining British constitutionalism with the realities faced by the colonies. Innovation and compromise were needed while attempting to smooth over any divisive issues. In addition to the changes needed to adapt the English system to Canada, tensions arose between the supporters of a federal system and those who preferred a more unified, more British approach. These tensions were carefully swept under the carpet of the consensus position, but are reflected in the differing visions that the politicians of the time had of the federal system. 2.2 Discussions about the United States Constitution

Although the United States Constitution was not seriously considered as a potential model, it would be wrong to think that it had no influence over the Fathers of Confederation. For Macdonald, the key lesson to be drawn from the US experience was not to give too much independence to the federated states and to preserve a degree of centralization. “Here we have adopted a different system. We have strengthened the General Government. We have given the General Legislature all the great subjects of legislation.”51 A strong central government is also better able to protect the rights of minorities, since it can control local interests and prejudice more easily.52 In the view of other politicians, the Fathers of Confederation managed to avoid the mistake made by the drafters of the US Constitution, by creating a central power whose freedom to act did not depend on the assent of the future provinces.53 Even the decision to preserve a parliamentary monarchy in the colonies was seen as an improvement on the mechanism for electing the president of the United States. In fact, the bna Act seems to be a counterpoint to the US model. The Canadian Constitution can be compared to a US Constitution in which the centralizing vision of the federalists, the Founding Fathers, led by Madison and Hamilton, had triumphed. Like

t h e fat h e r s o f c o n f e d e r at i o n and the bna act

41

the Fathers of Confederation, they mistrusted the effects of a decentralized federal system because it gave too much power to the federated states and local interests. Joseph Cauchon, in a speech to the Parliament of the United Canadas, took as his reference, rather than a politician, the legal expert54 Joseph Story,55 whose book Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States56 appears to have been an important influence. The book was found in the private collections of both Cauchon and Cartier57 and in the library of the Parliament of the United Canadas, which owned both English and French copies.58 Story provided ammunition for the supporters of a strong central government, describing the Constitution of the United States as “an original, written, federal and social compact, freely, voluntarily, and solemnly entered into by the several states, and ratified by the people thereof respectively.”59 He criticized the US federal system for failing to give enough power to the federal government, which found itself at the mercy of the constituent states. In his view, a legislative union would have been preferable to a federation for the United States. However, when the Canadian union was being planned, he was disinclined to consider a more “fusional” union of the colonies. The leaders of the less populous colonies were wary, and in general each colony wanted to preserve as much latitude as possible. There can be no doubt that the Fathers of Confederation paid attention to the criticism directed at the US Constitution. The list of failings identified by Story explains some of the choices later made by the Canadian Fathers of Confederation. Story pointed out that the US central government did not have enough coercive powers to implement its policies, had limited powers in the area of taxation, and did not have the necessary jurisdiction to unify trade measures.60 In Canada, on the other hand, the central government received the power to tax directly and indirectly. In addition, its legislation was recognized as taking precedence over provincial laws in the event of a conflict, and it had exclusive jurisdiction over banks and commerce. The federal state’s jurisdiction over commerce61 is, in fact, very broadly defined, in contrast to the situation in the United States.62 Last, we can add the fact, one that Story did not consider to be an issue in the sharing of powers between the federal and federated levels, that in Canada the federal power is given jurisdiction in the field of criminal law,63 whereas in the US this power belongs to the federated states.

42

rachel chagnon

conclus i o n The aspirations of the Fathers of Confederation for the bna Act are hard for us to understand completely. Their speeches contain clues as to their actual intentions, but also include vain promises intended simply to win over their audience. For example, despite all the assurances given by the Fathers of Confederation, it was impossible for Canada to have a constitution that mirrored that of the home country. Instead, the Fathers of Confederation attempted to design a system that was both British and federal. The resulting constitution contains deficiencies that can be traced to this attempt to adjust federalism to the British model. Nothing was expressly provided to resolve possible jurisdictional conflicts between the federal government and the provinces. This type of conflict was in fact unknown in English law, which was most accustomed to managing disputes with colonial legislation. These disputes were easy to resolve, especially after the passage of the Colonial Laws Validity Act in 1864, which specified when such matters were to be referred to the courts. Imperial legislation thus took precedence over colonial law.64 The British inspiration for the Canadian constitution is clear in the type of structure chosen for the state itself, a parliamentary monarchy. This perpetuates the colonial heritage and creates an imbalance between the executive power, which is predominant, and the legislative power. While the executive power assumes all the powers of the Crown, including pardons, the appointment of lieutenant-governors, and the disallowance of legislation, the legislative power was bound by party discipline. The same heritage can be seen in the transformation of the Legislative Council into the Senate, where partisan politics continued thanks to the system of appointment by the governor general in council. In addition, the lack of power to remove Canadian senators is reminiscent of the British House of Lords. However, the federal model appeared to be better suited to the realities of the colonies than the English system and, of course, to the question of the Catholic, Frenchspeaking minority in Lower Canada. The federal model was also the main source of inspiration for the Fathers of Confederation came from the United States. On this point the bna Act is truly an American project. We believe that neither John A. Macdonald nor Mowat really considered the bna Act to be a “British” law even if, in conceptual terms, they could not ignore its source. Macdonald, especially, had perhaps not considered

t h e fat h e r s o f c o n f e d e r at i o n and the bna act

43

that it would be dealt with as such over time by the lords who made up the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. We believe that, when Macdonald complained that the lords understood nothing of the approach in Canada, he was berating their failure to read the Act as a constitutional document, and above all to read it in his terms. For Macdonald, the bna Act was Canadian, and reflected the wishes of the founders of the Dominion. More generally, it is hard to deny that these politicians, who had devoted a large part of their careers to the project, had come to believe over time that it was their own. In the final analysis, Confederation was a project promoted by men who were proud to be subjects of Her Majesty but pleased to have the room to manoeuvre created by their geopolitical position. They can be described as British at heart, but American in their political aspirations, especially in connection with the federal model. Maybe the conclusion that can be drawn is that the Canadian identity is, in the end, a paradoxical combination of two visions. notes

1

2

3 4

This chapter is an excerpt from the author’s doctoral thesis: Rachel Chagnon, “De la volonté politique à l’interprétation judiciaire: La genèse et la mise en oeuvre du British North America Act de 1867,” thesis presented to the Faculty of Human Sciences at the University of Quebec at Montreal, June 2009, for a PhD in history. Marc Chevrier, “La genèse de l’idée fédérale chez les Pères fondateurs américains et canadiens,” in Le fédéralisme canadien contemporain: Fondements, traditions, institutions, ed. Alain-G. Gagnon (Montreal: pum, 2006), 19–61. A series of publications that emerged from the Philadelphia Conference, under the guidance of Alexander Hamilton. The main goal of the series was to persuade the inhabitants of New York to elect congressional delegates favourable to the constitutional project. Although they did not have the desired effect on their contemporary audience, the Federalist Papers give us the interpretational keys needed to understand US constitutionalism. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, with an introduction and commentary by Garry Wills (New York: Bantam Classics, 1982). Dmitri Georges Lavroff, Histoire des idées politiques depuis le XIXe siècle, 7th ed. (Paris: Dalloz, 1998), 11. Translation. Quebec, Impr. de A. Cote et Cie, 1858.

44

rachel chagnon

5 Ibid., 1865. 6 Notes on federal governments, past and present with an appendix containing the federal constitution of the New Zealand colonies (Montreal: Dawson Bros., 1865), 75 In French: Thomas D’Arcy McGee, trans. L.S.G. Gladu (St Hyacinthe: les Presses du Courrier de St-Hyacinthe, 1865). Interestingly, the appendix containing the New Zealand constitution was not included in the French version. 7 Quebec, J.T. Brousseau, 1858. 8 L’union des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord, 37. English translation by George Henry Macaulay (1865), https://archive.org/details/unionpro vincesb00macagoog. 9 Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Notes on federal governments, past and present with an appendix containing the federal constitution of the New Zealand colonies. 10 To support his demonstration, he cited one of the instigators of the confederative project for New Zealand, John Robert Godley. See: ibid., 46. 11 23 November 1864 (Montreal: M. Longmoore & Co., 1864). 12 Ibid., 14. 13 “Manifeste contre le projet de Confédération,” 7 November 1864 “in T. Chapais, Cours d’Histoire du Canada, vol 8, (Québec: Librairie Garneau, 1934), t. VIII, 224–36. [translation] 14 Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique Britannique du Nord, 3rd session, Parlement provincial du Canada (Quebec: Hunter, Rose et Lemieux, 1865). In English: Provincial Parliament of Canada, Parliamentary debates on the subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces: 3rd Session, 8th Provincial Parliament of Canada (Quebec: Hunter, Rose & Co., 1865). 15 Debates and Proceedings of the House of Assembly during the second session of the Twenty-Third Parliament of the Province of Nova Scotia (1865) (Halifax, J.G. Bourinot, 1865); Debates and Proceeding of the House of Assembly During the Third Session of the Twenty-third Parliament of Nova-Scotia, 1866 (Halifax, J.G. Bourinot, 1866); Debates on the Union of the Provinces, in the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia, March 16th, 18th and 19th 1867, Colonial Governments Journals, cihm/icmh 67163. 16 S. Hamilton, Union of the Colonies of British North America: Being Three Papers upon the Subject, originally Published Between the Years 1854 and 1861 (Montreal: John Lovell, 1864), 40. 17 “Report on discussions in the Quebec Conference, October 1864” in J. Pope, Confederation Documents Hitherto Unpublished (Toronto: Carswell, 1895), 55.

t h e fat h e r s o f c o n f e d e r at i o n and the bna act

45

18 Ibid., 85. 19 In other words, the Superior Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court. 20 As reported by the Lieutenant-Governor Arthur Gordon in a letter of 26 September 1864 to Cardwell, in: G. Browne, Documents on the Confederation of British North America, a Compilation Based on Sir Joseph Pope’s Confederation Documents Supplemented by Other Official Material (Toronto: McClelland & Stuart, 1969), 44–9. 21 A.-A. Dorion, in Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique Britannique du Nord, 229. 22 S. 101, bna Act: “The Parliament of Canada may, notwithstanding anything in this Act, from Time to Time, provide for the Constitution, Maintenance, and Organization of a General Court of Appeal for Canada, and for the Establishment of any additional Courts for the better Administration of the Laws of Canada.” We take this opportunity to point out that the French version of the bna Act included in the Constitution Act, 1982 has never been officially adopted. A French constitutional drafting committee was set up to finalize another version: http://canada.justice.gc.ca/fra/pr-rp/sjc-csj/ constitution/loireg-lawreg/p1t14.html). It is interesting to note here the difference between the version of section 101 proposed by the committee and the version finally used by the Department of Justice. 23 Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique Britannique du Nord, 898 (896–7 in English). 24 “Should we submit that Canada should have the power to abrogate and nullify all or any of our legislation, with no power to which appeal?” House of Assembly, New Brunswick, 27 June 1866, reproduced in Canada’s Founding Debates, ed. Janet Ajzenstat, Paul Romney, Ian Gentles, and William D. Gairdner, reprint (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 272. 25 Legislative Councillor Reesor in Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord, 168. 26 Ibid., 158–63. 27 The remaining third consisted of elected legislative councillors. 28 Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord. See, for example, Member Burwell, 451. 29 Ibid., Legislative Councillor Reesor, 345. 30 Ibid., 1009 (1005 in English). 31 M. Ganzin, La pensée politique d’Edmund Burke (Paris: Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, 1972), 67. Translation. 32 “They are the people for all legislative purposes, and they have the power

46

33 34

35

36

37 38

39 40

41 42 43 44

45

rachel chagnon

to change the Constitution when they think the country requires it.” House of Assembly, 2 July 1866, in Canada’s Founding Debates ed. J. Ajzenstat, P. Romney, I. Gentles, and W.D. Gairdner, 411 (our italics). Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord, 954. Nelson Martin Dawson, La finance: Un monde connu des pères de la confédération, Groupe de recherche sur les institutions financières (Sherbrooke: Université de Sherbrooke, 2002), table 9, 49. J. Pope, Confederation Documents, 141. In fact, two of the projects listed in Pope’s book avoid the terms federation and confederation altogether. Another refers to a federal union, and The Kingdom of Canada, an idea dear to J.A. Macdonald, even makes an appearance. Ibid., 186. “Observations and Notes on the Quebec Resolution,” Anonymous, 24 July 1866; letter from Monck to Carswell. anc, Governor General fonds, rg7 g10, Confidential dispatches vol 2 (1857–1866), no 60, 139 (November 1864). Ibid., letter from A.H. Gordon to Edward Cardwell, 12 September 1864, 40–4. Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique Britannique du Nord, 567. This is the definition given in Dictionary of the English Language (London: T. Legg, 1832), which was available in the library of the Canadian parliament. Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Notes on federal governments, past and present with an appendix containing the federal constitution of the New Zealand colonies. Todd, a professional librarian, began to draft a treatise on parliamentarism in Great Britain in 1867, earning a reputation throughout the Empire. He was also attached to the British Crown and was a personal advisor to Dufferin, whose powers he attempted to increase. Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, http://www.biographi.ca/fr/bio/todd_alpheus_11F.html, accessed 25 April 2015. Todd, Brief Suggestions in regard to the formation of Local Governments in Upper and Lower Canada (Ottawa: G.E. Desbarats, 1866). “Rapport of discussions in the Quebec Conference, October 1864” in Confederation Documents Hitherto Unpublished, ed. J. Pope, 86. The New Zealand Constitutional Act ( NZC Act), 1853–54 (U.K.) 15 & 16 Vic. c. 72, art. 53. Ibid., s. 19 – among other things, the power to appoint judges under federal jurisdiction, the power to legislate in matters of bankruptcy, and jurisdiction over Indigenous affairs. Ibid., ss. 27 to 29 (provinces) 56 to 58 (federal).

t h e fat h e r s o f c o n f e d e r at i o n and the bna act

46 47 48 49 50

51 52

53 54

55

56

57

58

59

60 61

47

Ibid. Ibid., s. 18–19. Ibid., s. 53. Ibid., art. 69. J.A. Macdonald in Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique Britannique du Nord, 42. The same vision was promoted by Galt: A.T. Galt, Speech on the Proposed Union of the British North American Provinces Delivered at Sherbroock C.E. 23rd November 1864, 13 (page 42 in English). Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique Britannique du Nord, 34. “Thus we shall have a strong and lasting government under which we can work out constitutional liberty as opposed to democracy.” J.A. Macdonald: “Report of discussions in the Quebec Conference, October 1864,” in J. Pope, Confederation Documents, 55. Member Rose, in Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique Britannique du Nord, 410. “In order to prove this statement, I shall call to my assistance words of greater weight than my own – those of Joseph Story, probably the greatest constitutional authority of the United States,” ibid., 569. Story worked as an assistant justice at the United States Supreme Court from 1811 to 1829, playing a role in several of the court’s key judgments. His book on the Constitution of the United States was translated into French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, with a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States Before the Adoption of the Constitution, vol. 1 (1833), reprint of the first publication (New York: Di Capo Press, 1970). Catalogue de la bibliothèque de l’honorable Joseph Cauchon, Mai 1866 (Quebec: A. Côté et cie, 1866), 3; Catalogue de la bibliothèque de feu l’hon. sir G.E. Cartier, Baronet, pour être vendue Mercredi, le 24 septembre 1873 (Montreal: La Minerve, 1873), 7. Catalogue alphabétique de la bibliothèque du Parlement, Comprenant l’index des Catalogues méthodiques publiés en 1857 et 1858 et des livres ajoutés à la bibliothèque depuis cette époque jusqu’au 1er mars 1862 (Quebec: Hunter Rose et cie, 1862), 277. J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, with a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States Before the Adoption of the Constitution, vol. 1, 281. Ibid., 231–3. Art. 91(2) bna Act (now known as the Constitution Act, 1867, R.S.C. 1985, Ap II, no. 5).

48

rachel chagnon

62 See, on this topic, Alexander Smith, The Commerce Power in Canada and the United States (Toronto: Butterworths, 1963). The author conducts a comparative analysis of Canadian and American “trade clauses,” and a critical analysis of Supreme Court and jcpc decisions involving s. 91(2). Although broadly worded, the section’s scope was later reduced by the jcpc’s interpretation. 63 S. 91(27) bna Act. 64 Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865, 28–9 Vict., c. 63, art. II: “Any colonial law, which is, or shall be in any respect repugnant to the provisions of any Act of Parliament extending to the colony to which such law may relate, or repugnant to any order of regulation made under authority of such Act of Parliament, or having in the colony the force and effect of such Act, shall be read subject to such Act, order, or regulation, and shall, to the extent of such repugnancy but not otherwise, be and remain absolutely void and inoperative.”

The Making of a Dominion: The Completion of a Conquest marc chevrier

Some historians have seen the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences of 1864 as a commendable exercise in colonial freedom that gave French Canada an unprecedented degree of autonomy within a federal union, which they consider to be more advantageous than the colonial regimes of 1791 and 1840. I will examine another view of the matter, less well-known and generally neglected. This is an idea that the Rouges, led by Antoine-Aimé Dorion, eventually came to defend after ferociously opposing the Union imposed in 1840: that the federal union outlined in the Quebec Resolutions did not support the political freedom of French Canada, and that, overall, French Canada would have done better to remain within the Union, which better served its interests.1 This thesis, founded on clear evidence accepted by historical players, but today obliterated by the collective amnesia that appears to have followed the creation of the Dominion of Canada, will be reexamined here from two viewpoints. The first is the viewpoint of the Empire, in other words the vast British Empire of which this colonial creation formed a part. Although in English Canada it is not unusual to consider the genesis of Confederation from the stance of the central power, the interests of the Colonial Office, and the British ruling class, it is less common in Quebec, where it is more common to emphasize the grievances and expectations of the minority. My second viewpoint examines the Union regime itself. It has received little attention in the literature and has been described, often with no critical review, as chronically unstable and dysfunctional, and in fact one of the deter mining causes for the creation of the Dominion. However, as we will see, the political system of the Union had a consociational basis not unlike

50

marc chevrier

the democracy of concordance that can be observed today in democracies governed by multi-party coalitions, which Arend Lijphart refers to as the “consensus model of democracy.”2 The practices involved in this consociational dualism became a hindrance over time, and came to an end with the creation of the Dominion in 1867. the dominion of c a n a da , a m o d e l of colonial f e d e r a l i s m It is probably an exaggeration to say that the Canada of 1867 resulted from an imperial fiat.3 On the other hand, to consider its creation as having emerged solely from the initiative and overflowing imagination of the elites living in the colonies of British North America (as suggested by the Supreme Court in its reference on secession)4 appears to me something of a fairy story. A romantic vein in the literature on Canadian federalism likes to view the Dominion in the same light as the American federation of 1787 or the Swiss federation of 1848.5 This comparison, however, is misleading, since it overlooks a fundamental historical fact. Federalism – in the broadest sense, including confederal arrangements – has been, since the time of Ancient Rome and even since Greece in the fifth century bc, a well-known technique of domination. One simply has to recall the Peloponnesian and Delian leagues that gave Sparta and Athens, respectively, hegemony over numerous other cities and enabled them to build competing maritime empires.6 The Romans, too, expanded in the Latium region after founding a Latin league under their overarching control, which they later dismantled to colonize the entire Italian peninsula.7 In fact, the Roman Empire was built on the basis of a federal principle that allowed Rome to impose on conquered and allied cities alike a subtle system of unequal treaties that guaranteed them a large degree of municipal autonomy.8 This is why Machiavelli, in his Discourses on Livy, saw federalism as a means of expansion for a conquering city.9 Even Montesquieu, well-known as the inventor of the federative republic in The Spirit of the Laws, associated federation, in some unpublished fragments of his treaty, with various forms of inter-state domination and envisaged the creation of colonial empires on a federal basis.10 It is true that, in some circumstances, the purpose of federalism may be to emancipate a people. The most striking examples are the United Provinces of Holland and, in particular, the United States of America.

the making of a dominion

51

There are also a few ephemeral and unfortunate examples of free federal leagues. They include the Confederation of Kilkenny, which emerged from the great Irish rebellion of the seventeenth century only to be swept away by Anglo-Protestant repression,11 after a civil war that lasted eleven years and killed half a million Irish people.12 It is clear that the creation of Canada in 1867 did not result from the federalism of emancipation, but rather from the federalism of colonialism. In the second half of the nineteenth century, several European nations used federalism to consolidate and rationalize their colonial possessions scattered across several continents. Great Britain was quick to discover the virtues of this approach, applying it first in New Zealand for a few years until it brought the experiment to an end, sending an army of 18,000 soldiers to put down a major Maori uprising.13 North America was the setting for its second attempt. It then extended the formula to several other colonies, including Malaysia in 1891, Australia in 1901, Nigeria in 1914, India in 1935, Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953, and the West Indies in 1958. Even the French used the federal formula to structure their possessions in a new way, for example in Indochina in 1887, in West Africa in 1895, and in Equatorial Africa in 1910.14 The two great European empires faced the same question: how to rule without administering, in other words how to pass on a bunch of administrative tasks to local officials while imposing a uniform system of government that continued to serve their own interests. From this perspective, colonial federalism appears to have been a form of indirect rule used to achieve a new imperial aim: to govern the colonies at no cost. Federalism offered several advantages: it introduced an intermediate level of government between the colonial administration and the European power, one that took responsibility for the most arduous tasks and financed them through taxes and borrowing. This new federal level set up communications and transportation systems that united scattered settlements and ensured that information, and raw materials, could be quickly conveyed to the home country. As stated by Arnold Toynbee, “[c]ommunications . . . are the master-institution on which a universal state [i.e., empire] depends for its very existence. They are the instruments not only of military command over its dominions, but also of political control.”15 Another advantage of federalism was to unite the often disparate laws governing colonies that were not geographically adjacent to each other, and to give them the same general objectives, consistent with the imperial plans.

52

marc chevrier

When we look in more detail at the reasons the British elite were persuaded to introduce the federal formula in North America, the guiding necessities are not hard to discern. In light of the Civil War raging in America, the British authorities hesitated before applying the formula, but as early as the 1840s, the idea had been accepted by leading figures in the Colonial Office and the British government. By the end of the 1850s, scenarios involving the federalization of the Canadian, South African, and Australian colonies were being freely discussed in London. The last British resistance to the idea was overcome by 1858–59.16 Federalism strengthened the imperial hold over the continent in several ways. First, the partial federalization of a few British colonies in North America laid the foundations for a process to consolidate all British possessions on the continent, eventually to be placed under the responsibility of a single, intermediate federal authority. Although only three colonies were united as a single dominion in 1867, London nevertheless gave the new government all the legal tools it needed to absorb the remaining colonies over time, in order to create a great, continuous belt of land north of the 45th parallel, from the Pacific to the Atlantic and from the Prairies to the Arctic.17 In fact, the United Kingdom, like France, modernized the administration of its colonies by replacing the system of chartered companies, such as the Hudson’s Bay Company, which managed the Canadian Far North. Shortly after being created, the Dominion became the Company’s successor and inherited its vast territory in 1870. This territorial expansion was accompanied by increasing technical control of the land, thanks to the construction of a continent-wide railway that gave the United Kingdom greater access to natural resources and offered the prospect of higher returns on British capital, which could be invested in the debt issued by the Canadian federal government.18 Although the British Isles sent a considerable portion of their surplus population onto their Canadian possessions, in particular to increase the size of the exploitable working class,19 settlement was in fact a secondary concern behind access to natural resources. Based on the type of land occupancy, the Canadian possessions resembled commercial colonies, dedicated to resource extraction, with a minimum of land development by the central power, rather than settlement colonies with a more intensive development pattern.20 This is why the sharing of powers between the Dominion and its federated entities was designed to ensure that the Dominion had the legislative powers needed to regulate and finance communications and transportation networks and, if needed, establish

the making of a dominion

53

territorial enclaves under exclusive federal jurisdiction to ensure that natural resources could be shipped to major world markets.21 In addition, the creation of the Dominion relieved London, already faced with the need to rationalize the defence of its empire against the threat of Germany under Bismarck, of the expense of defending an overly long border with the United States.22 Similarly, Great Britain handed over the time-consuming tutorship of the Aboriginal nations to the new Dominion. Last, the federal union of its Canadian possessions gave the Empire a way to solve the thorny problem of an intermittently rebellious and overly fecund French-Canadian population, which became a permanent minority under the new system of government. In addition, the French Canadians no longer had a veto over the issues of most strategic interest for the Empire: control over sea and land communications, defence, trade and finance, settlement policy, and the reform of the colonial constitution. Consent to minority status had been skillfully obtained from most sections of the French-Canadian elite even before the Quebec Conference of October 1864, and formal approval materialized in February 1865 when a small majority of the FrenchCanadian parliamentarians in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada gave formal approval to the Conference’s resolutions in February 1865. The British used the tried-and-true methods admirably described by Benjamin Disraeli for governing the kingdom in the Whig and Tory spirit: it was important to flatter the religious feelings, rather than the democratic ambitions, of the people and to incorporate into the government the leading figures of emerging classes, by showering them with honours and privilege.23 the double death o f a m i s u n d e r s to o d politic al regime: the b l ata n t s a b o ta g i n g of the legislativ e u n i o n o f 1840 One question remains: how could a national minority, one that had survived the Conquest and several changes of colonial regime, resign itself to being made into a minority under a supposedly federal union? This requires us to examine the issues brought up at the Quebec Conference of October 1864 from an internal standpoint, that of the French Canadians. The underlying aim of the conference was, in fact, to dismantle the Union regime, with its dual-majority, dual-nation government that made possible a degree of concerted action by the elites from each of the two national groups.24 The regime was imposed

54

marc chevrier

on French Canada in 1840 to artificially make it a minority in a legislative union with Upper Canada, populated by Loyalists and British immigrants. The goal, over time, was to assimilate French Canada, as suggested by the radical Whig, Lord Durham, who came to Canada to investigate the causes of the 1837–38 rebellions, and by Adam Thom, the famous author of the Anti-Gallic Letters. However, the Union regime had several surprising results. The hoped-for assimilation and political marginalization of French Canada hardly occurred. The French Canadians, instead of melting into British Canada, whose growing population surpassed that of French Canada around 1850, actually maintained their status and were able to negotiate a considerable degree of autonomy within a unique form of parliamentary government, as part of a dual-community system with a double veto and a twin-headed executive. Upper and Lower Canada, expected to disappear in 1840, continued to exist de facto. The Province of Canada was divided into two sections, West and East, each with its own legislation and administration. The Union’s dual nature influenced its political parties and its school and municipal systems, as well as the allocation of ministerial portfolios. After 1850, French Canada, initially underrepresented in the legislative assembly of 1840, found itself in a unique situation for a national minority under colonial rule: it enjoyed near-equality with the British section of the Province of Canada in the government of a quasi-country, already autonomous from the home country in numerous domains. This near-equality is even more sur prising given that the British section in the West itself became underrepresented in the assembly after 1850 as its population swelled. However, this dual-community system of government has never been the subject of an in-depth study to identify all its original aspects. In fact, it is generally condemned, often out of hand, by historians and jurists from both linguistic communities.25 History books repeat, ad nauseam, that the Union regime, which eventually adopted the principle of responsible government in 1848, was chronically unstable and helped make the colony ungovernable;26 instability is listed as one of the causes for the creation of the federal union in 1867,27 allegedly designed to bring a flawed system of government to an end. The prize for blackening the name of the Union regime should probably go to historian Lionel Groulx. In his Histoire du Canada français, Groulx describes a regime subject to “governmental instability” that had become “chronic,” a wedding of “factions,” and an “unceasing cascade” of ministries, besides “death throes,” “decomposing regimes,” and the

the making of a dominion

55

“Union disease.”28 He describes the dual-majority system as being “confused and multi-formed,” “capricious and complicated,” or “absurd.” In short, it was not purgatory, but simply hell itself. To convince us of the decrepitude of the Union regime, Father Groulx compares it to France’s Third or Fourth Republic – no less. This comparison with the ill-fated Third Republic was made not only by Lionel Groulx, but also by Arthur R.M. Lower: This analysis of the political situation under the Union brings to mind the France of the Third Republic, with its ministries formed by powerful personalities out of the circle of ministrables and drawn from the party groups in such a way as to command an immediate though precarious, majority on a vote of confidence. The Third Republic, like Canada under the Union, was in a constant political crisis because it could get no government with a chance to endure until it had worked out policies. In the twenty-seven years of the Union, there were eight parliaments, innumerable ministries or re-constructions of ministries, and some ten persons who could have been designated “premier.”29

Raising the spectre of the Third Republic was, for many historians who examined the political system of the Union, part of their arsenal of anti-republican rhetoric. In this sea of approximation and hasty generalization, one study of the Union’s political system stands out, the only one of its kind in French. It was written by La Presse journalist Maurice Giroux and published under the title Essai politique sur la crise des deux nations canadiennes, with the subtitle La pyramide de Babel.30 It includes an extremely precise empirical description of the electoral system, the political and linguistic makeup of the assembly of members and ministerial cabinets, and the legislative practices of the period. It also contains some key insights. Giroux highlights the effects of the electoral map introduced at the start of the Union. Although the map was designed to place the French-Canadian population in a minority position compared with Upper Canada, it had an even more drastic effect on the English-speaking population in Lower Canada, which controlled a number of ridings well below its demographic weight. For example, in 1840–41, 9 ridings out of 42, a proportion of 21 per cent, had an English-speaking majority, whereas English-speakers made up roughly 25 per cent of the population in Lower Canada. This under-representation of English-speakers in Lower Canada continued throughout the

56

marc chevrier

Union period. However, as Giroux points out, it was largely compensated by the fact that in many ridings with a French-speaking majority, the voters opted for an English-speaking candidate. “In fact,” writes Giroux, “except for the elections of 1841 and 1851, the general rule was that the number of English-speaking members was roughly double that of the number of ridings with an English majority.”31 Despite being disadvantaged by the electoral map, the English-speaking community was able to play a parliamentary role that exceeded its actual electoral presence in Canada East. The composition of cabinets under the Union reflected the underlying dual-nation logic. With some exceptions, each section had an equal number of ministers in cabinet, and generally the French Canadians held four out of ten portfolios. Although governments appeared to give the ministers from French Canada equal status from 1842, some portfolios were clearly reserved for members from Canada West or English speakers, such as the position of president of the Executive Council, along with Agriculture, Post, and Finance. French-Canadian ministers were more likely to be found in departments “suitable for investment and patronage.”32 This dual-nation cabinet composition was based on the double-majority rule. Without being verified by a specific procedure, it required the government of the day to attempt to obtain support in the Assembly in the same proportion from both linguistic communities.33 The doublemajority custom was also observed for the passage of legislation. The Assembly did not take all its votes twice, once for each community – instead, an informal check was made in the special committees of parliament where government ministers and opposition members were represented that a bill affecting the interest of either section of United Canada obtained “the support of a sufficient majority in the part of the Province concerned by the legislation.” And Giroux adds, “Because of this ingenious method, it is possible to state that Lower Canada and Upper Canada, during the Union period, exercised full sovereignty over legislation that concerned them exclusively. This was bi-national legislation.”34 Let us now turn to the question of the alleged instability of the governments in power under the Union. Despite appearances, in the midnineteenth century and in fact until the second major law extending suffrage was passed in 1867 in the United Kingdom, the British world did not yet have a form of majority parliamentary rule that was stable and supported by strong party discipline. It was only around 1834–35 that the sovereign ceased interfering in the formation of the British cabinet, and it was only following the election of 1831 that the House

Composition of Union cabinets, 1841– 67 Lower Canada

Upper Canada

Ministers (French/English speaking)

Premier

Deputy Premier

Ministers

Duration

2 Fr., 2 Eng.

William Draper

Robert Baldwin

Charles R. Ogden

6 Eng.

1 Fr., 3 Eng.

William Draper

13 Feb. 41 to 15 Sep. 42 16 Sep. 42 to 11 Dec. 43 12 Dec. 43 to 17 June 46 18 June 46 to 28 May 47 29 May to 7 Dec. 47 8 Dec. 47 to 10 March 48 11 March 48 to 27 Oct. 51 28 Oct. 51 to 10 Sep. 54 11 Sep. 54 to 26 Jan. 55 27 Jan. 55 to 23 May 56 24 May 56 to 25 Nov. 57 26 Nov. 57 to 1 Aug. 58 2 to 5 Aug. 58 6 Aug. 58 to 23 May 62 24 May 62 to 15 May 63 16 May 63 to 29 March 64 30 March 64 to 6 Aug. 65 7 Aug. 65 to 1 July 67

3 Eng.

2 Fr., 2 Eng.

1 Fr., 3 Eng. 1 Fr., 3 Eng. 4 Fr., 1 Eng. 3 to 4 Fr.,. 1 to 2 Eng 4 Fr., 1 Eng. 4 Fr., 1 Eng. 4 Fr., 1 Eng. 4 Fr., 1 Eng.

Louis-H. Lafontaine

6 Eng.

Denis-B. Papineau

4 Eng.

Denis-B. Viger

William Draper

Henry Sherwood

Denis-B.Papineau

5 Eng.

Louis-H. Lafontaine

Robert Baldwin

4 Eng.

Henry Sherwood

3 Eng.

5 Eng.

Francis Hincks

Augustin-N. Morin

5 Eng.

Allan N. MacNab

Étienne-P. Taché

5 Eng.

George-É. Cartier

5 Eng.

Augustin-N. Morin

Allan N. MacNab

Étienne-P. Taché

Allan N. MacNab

George Brown George-É. Cartier

Antoine-A. Dorion John A. MacDonald

John A. MacDonald

5 Eng.

5 Eng.

3 Fr., 2 Eng. 2 to 3 Fr. 2 to 3 Eng. 4 Fr.2 Eng.

John S. MacDonald

Louis-V. Sicotte

6 Eng.

4 Fr.2 Eng.

Étienne-P. Taché

John A. MacDonald

6 Eng.

4 Fr.2 Eng.

4 Fr.1 to 2 Eng.

John S. MacDonald

Narcisse-F. Belleau

Antoine-A. Dorion

John A. MacDonald

5 Eng. 5 to 6 Eng.

6 Eng.

6 Eng.

Source: Data taken from Maurice Giroux, Essai politique sur la crise des deux nations canadiennes (Montreal: Les éditions de Sainte-Marie, 1967), 48–9.

58

marc chevrier

of Commons took precedence over the House of Lords. Between 1832 and 1867, various governments succeeded each other in London, and thirteen prime ministers governed the country. The government led by George Hamilton-Gordon (Lord Aberdeen) even had to share power in a coalition from 1852 to 1855.35 Between 1834 and 1868, seven British administrations were minority governments and several others were formed after 1867 because of an Irish party holding the balance of power. Until 1874, British governments were not in total control of the House of Commons, and lost many votes: 59 between 1851 and 1855, 52 between 1856 and 1861, 60 between 1861 and 1867, and 50 between 1868 and 1873.36 In Australia, minority governments were the rule in the assemblies of the colonies before they joined to form the Commonwealth in 1901. Minority governments were also common in New Zealand until 1890.37 The distinguishing feature of the Union regime was that it was based on a succession of majority coalitions, supported by separate majorities in each of the two sections of the colony.38 The sole exception was the minority Brown-Dorion government of 2 August 1858, which lasted barely two or three days. Between 1840 and 1867, eight general elections were called by the governor of the Province of Canada, in other words one every 4.6 years. Over the same period, eighteen governments were formed and, curiously, the instability was found mainly on the French-speaking side. French-speakers alternated most often in the positions of premier and deputy premier. However, several key players returned frequently to positions of power with the result that the executive power was shared, on the English side, by nine individuals between 1840 and 1867 and, on the French side, by nine other individuals. In short, the regime’s alleged agitation was in fact apparent; its distinguishing feature was the ability to form coalitions from among a small number of players. Last, if the Union governments are compared with those of the French Third Republic, they lasted for an average of almost 17.5 months against 7 months for the 101 French governments between 1876 and 1940. If only the governments formed after the granting of responsible government in 1848 are taken into account, their average duration reaches a little over 19 months (see the appended table of Union governments). This average is, in fact, very close to that of the minority federal governments in Canada since 1867, which is close to 20 months.39 As this shows, the chronic instability claimed for the Union, as a patent sign of ungovernability, has been greatly exaggerated. The regime saw its share of tension and upset, illustrated by the peripatetic nature of the

the making of a dominion

59

capital, which moved from city to city after the Parliament building in Montreal was burned down by a mob of English Montrealers. They were protesting against the law passed by the LaFontaine-Baldwin government to compensate the material damage resulting from the repression of the “revolution” of the Patriots, which was both national and democratic. Even the principle of the double majority was, apparently, not always applied.40 These were real difficulties, but is it not a feature of any parliamentary democracy to have to overcome the permanent tension between parties and between religious, linguistic, or national interests and allegiances? The British element in the colony was the most vocal in decrying the Union regime. The double-majority system, which required two separate nations or polities to coexist in a single state and single legislature, had completely undermined the initial goal of the Union, which was to assimilate French Canada. However, the price paid for this system by French Canada was the renouncement of the hope of self-government promoted by the Patriote party before 1840 and its replacement by a policy of collaboration with the English authorities. This involved choosing English-style freedom over republican liberty and ignoring its open injustice. Equality within the Assembly between the two sections of the Union was not the same as national equality – French-Canadian ministers always formed a minority contingent in each Union cabinet and were confined to certain portfolios. The French-speaking electorate in Lower Canada did not occupy all its representative space in the Assembly and, in addition, the upper chamber, all of whose members were appointed by the executive until 1856, simply relayed British interests. A manifesto, published in October 1859 in the newspaper Le Pays, gives some idea of what the Rouge opposition in Canada East thought of the double-majority practice. It was signed by Antoine-Aimé Dorion, Louis-Antoine Dessaulles, and two Irishmen, Lewis Thomas Drummond and Thomas D’Arcy McGee: It is difficult to conceive of a legislature composed of two majorities and two minorities, the two majorities having no principles in common, but still acting always in concert, never imposing on each other, with the result that each section of the province is always governed by a majority of its representatives […] The complication of such a system, which would, in fact, be only the application of the federative principle to a single legislature, makes it impractical.41

60

marc chevrier

However, faced with the inevitability of the federal project promoted by the Great Coalition of Brown, Macdonald, and Cartier, some Rouge activists, who would have preferred to replace the Union with a federation limited to Upper and Lower Canada, eventually came round to the idea of maintaining the Union, the least bad of the options available, even if that meant, as proposed by Antoine-Aimé Dorion, granting Upper Canada proportional representation in the House of Assembly while maintaining equality in the Legislative Council.42 All of which leads us to make a comprehensive judgment about the Union regime, often caricatured by historians and condemned out of hand for its alleged instability. Among contemporary commentators, it is doubtless Garth Stevenson who has approached the regime in the most original way. Based on the work of Dutch political scientist Arend Lijphart (1975),43 Stevenson sees the Union regime as a perfect and complete example of a consociational democracy.44 According to Stevenson, it was even the world’s first example of such a democracy.45 The regime met all seven of the criteria identified by Lijphart to describe a democracy in which political divides are superimposed on ethno-cultural, religious, and linguistic divides, requiring the elite to accept numerous compromises, in particular by sharing the positions available in the executive and the administration. From this point of view, the Union regime prefigured the type of politics that would later develop in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Finland and, since the Good Friday agreement of 1998, in Northern Ireland.46 In both Belgium and Northern Ireland, the compromises agreed on by the communities overprotect the weakest, which enjoys equality in the awarding of ministerial portfolios. In addition, the Union regime was similar to these consociational democracies in the sense that despite the use of the firstpast-the-post system, it led to the formation of majority government coalitions, typical of what Daniel Louis Seiler calls democracies of concordance,47 where polls are proportional, and the formation of coalitions that are as representative as possible of the democratic forces present takes precedence over the establishment of stable government majorities. When all these factors are taken into consideration, the Union regime was unique, unclassifiable, and probably disconcerting for the British minds of the time. In addition, the regime acquired a considerable degree of autonomy from London. It was already, when the Great Coalition was formed to launch the project for the federation of the colonies, a “self-governing colony,”48 in other words a quasi-autonomous country, although one

the making of a dominion

61

still subject to imperial authority.49 Its assembly legislated in virtually all areas, from the militia to criminal law. The Province of Canada was responsible for trade policy, had the power to borrow funds, and had received the power to amend its own internal constitution, a power that was not available to the Dominion of Canada from 1867 to 1982, with the result that roughly thirty of the sixty-two sections in the original Act of Union were amended or eliminated.50 The granting of this privilege to the Province of Canada was, in the words of Ludovic Brunet, “to recognize the country’s right to govern itself.”51 Nor can the Union be accused of legislative paralysis. During the 1850 legislature, it passed 145 laws. The Union introduced major legislative reforms, founded the municipal and school systems still in force today, abolished Anglican clergy and seigneurial reserves, provided in 1856 for the election of senators – abolished in 1867 – codified civil law in 1866, and even, as we too often forget, created the Dominion of Canada, thanks to a majority coalition typical of the Union regime.52 In short, the Union was a form of intra-state sovereignty-association, operating within a colonial framework, using a consociational mode. Why did this unique regime come to such an abrupt end? There are many possible explanations, but we will concentrate here on three elements. First, as pointed out by Stevenson, the Anglo-Canadian elites under the Union gradually lost their willingness to make the compromises required by a consociational policy. They called continuously for the strict application of the principle of proportional representation in the Assembly, as soon as the population of Upper Canada began to surpass that of Lower Canada in 1850. George Brown, in particular, wanted to do away with the double-majority principle. The desire to end the consociational practices of the Union, especially the composition of the executive, was clearly important for the historical players, as reported by Donald Creighton: Still another distinctive feature of the first Canadian federal cabinet signified, with even sharper clarity, the radical nature of its departure from the past. In the Province of Canada the duality that prevailed in both the legislature and the cabinet had had its crowning expression in the dual premiership. There had been a long succession of “double-headed” premiers; Baldwin-LaFontaine, Macdonald-Cartier, Brown-Dorion, Taché-Macdonald – the hyphenated leadership had been unbroken. But now this, like all the other conventions of dualism,

62

marc chevrier

was to be ended deliberately. By the time the delegates were ready to leave London it was known that Macdonald was to be the first Prime Minister of the new union.53

Creighton then quotes from a letter from Governor General Monck to Macdonald, setting out clear guidelines: In authorizing you to undertake the duty of forming an administration for the Dominion of Canada, I desire to express my strong opinion that, in future, it shall be distinctly understood that the position of First Minister shall be held by one person, who shall be responsible to the Governor General for the appointment of the other ministers, and that the system of dual First Ministers, which has hitherto prevailed, shall be put an end to.54

The importance of the radical break that the 1867 Confederation marked with the consociational dualism of the 1840 Union has been ignored. Consociational dualism could have been preserved. For example, it would have been conceivable to reform the Union of 1840 instead of dissolving it, in order to introduce proportional representation in the assembly while preserving several consociational elements: a dual executive: linguistic parity in the division of ministerial portfolios; legislative duality via the committee system; and parity on the Legislative Council. Similarly, the Dominion of Canada could have been created while retaining some or all of these parity elements. But no – from its inception, the Victorian Dominion was cleansed of all these cumbersome details. Curiously, some concessions to consociationism emerged at the Parliament of Westminster in the twentieth century, when two grand committees (the Welsh Grand Committee and Scottish Grand Committee) were dedicated to the affairs and legislation of Wales and Scotland;55 Scottish devolution in 1998 also gave rise to the convention that the central parliament would not legislate on a matter devolved to Scotland, and would not amend the laws on devolution, without Scotland’s consent.56 This, in fact, resembles a Scottish veto on constitutional reform that Quebec claimed for itself, in vain, after 1867, which was formally denied by the Supreme Court in 1982.57 Besides the goal of bringing its consociational dualism to an end, there was also the fact that the Union established a dangerous precedent for the whole of the British Empire. How could domination over different peoples be established if each had to be given the right to

the making of a dominion

63

govern itself on a quasi-equal footing with British settlers, on a similar basis to the consociational policy applied in the Province of Canada? By this precedent, an Indigenous people took an unexpected revenge on the colonizing power, and it showed a little too clearly how imperial domination could, in reality, be neutralized by the art of democratic compromise. Consociational dualism, as a way of sharing power between the elites representing various communities or nations, presupposed a degree of equality between them, since each was recognized as being able to govern within shared institutions. This equality was hard to reconcile with the philosophy of British imperial politics, which, as highlighted by Hubert Guindon when comparing Hannah Arendt and Lord Acton’s points of view on the question, presupposed that the people colonized by Great Britain were intrinsically inferior and unfit for self-government and that the rights of the English settlers who moved there were not universal.58 It therefore comes as no surprise that the majority-government model became the norm in the British colonies, except for a few transitional experiments with consociationism in Malaysia, the Fiji Islands, Cyprus, and Northern Ireland before 1998.59 In short, the problem with the Union of 1840 was not its alleged dysfunction, but the fact that it functioned too effectively. As a result, the regime was abolished, first in law and then in the collective memory, with historians in both of Canada’s communities of learning participating in its symbolic burial.60 This lack of curiosity about the consociational regime of the Union went hand in hand with a strong disaffection within the political class in Canada and Quebec for minority and coalition governments, which were supposedly unsuited to the task of good governance.61 Another possible explanation is fear: the fear felt by the Canadian elite, most of whose members experienced the repression that followed the Patriote rebellion and the forced union of 1840. They saw violence against French Canada unleashed again when the parliament in Montreal was set alight in 1849; they heard about uprisings put down by the mighty British army in outlying regions of the Empire, such as the Indian Rebellion of 1857. French Canada had seen enough unilateral changes to its status since the Conquest of 1763 to be aware that whatever it had gained under the Union regime could be taken away from it at any time. Fear, writes historian Guglielmo Ferrero, is a fundamental element in understanding European policy following the French revolution; every new power is undermined by the fear of being challenged or overthrown by the principle of legitimacy, old or new.62 French Canada, isolated from the rest of the western world with support from

64

marc chevrier

neither France nor the United States, with only the ambiguous supervision of a church divided between its Canadian clergy and its Vatican leadership, was haunted by the fear that it would once again incur the wrath of the Empire and lose the safeguards of the Union it had so perilously won. Fear probably pushed many members of the elite to consent to the changes dictated by the Empire and by British Canada; other members attempted to save the Union, but in vain. The last element was the nature of the pact between elites crystallized in the Quebec Conference of October 1864. Why did the French-Canadian parliamentarians consent, apparently so readily, to place French Canada in even more of a minority situation within the confederation, where the members from Quebec would only have 35 per cent of the seats in a new federal parliament and one-third of federal senators? The beauty of a federation is that it creates two classes of officials, both holding a degree of prestige and the attributes of state power. The switch from a legislative union to a federative union doubled the arena of power in which the elite could circulate and accumulate positions. At the end of the Union, Lower Canada had sixtyfive members in the lower chamber and thirty-six senators, elected since 1856. In the 1867 Dominion, the newly created Quebec obtained sixty-four seats in the federal House of Commons, in addition to its own sixty-five-seat legislative assembly. Quebec also had twentyfour senators in the federal senate, and the same number of members, appointed by the executive, in the legislative council that was its counterpart in Quebec. Clearly, the advent of the Dominion of Canada multiplied the number of attractive positions for French-Canadian parliamentarians, who now had two stages to play on and could even accumulate federal and provincial functions. In addition, by reintroducing the need to appoint senators and legislative councillors, the executive was given new scope for patronage and the appointment of partisans who enjoyed the government’s good graces. The dual-court system, with the creation of federal courts that offered more prestige and better pay for their judges than the provincial courts, increased the possibility for members of the elite, essentially drawn from lawyers to rise to the bench. In other words, they made sure they had an honourable way out. Historian Arthur R.M. Lower said that “Confederation obliterated the English conquest”;63 in fact, it brought the finishing touch to the Conquest as the Empire reached its zenith.

the making of a dominion

65

notes 1 See, in particular, the speech by Antoine-Aimé Dorion during a debate in February 1865 on the Quebec Resolutions, and the speech by JosephFrançois-Xavier Perreault, in Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 3rd Session, 8th Provincial Parliament of Canada (Quebec: Hunter, Rose & Co., Parliamentary Printers, 1865), 248–69, 602–05. 2 Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 31–47. 3 See D.G. Creighton: “The new Canada was not the result of a compact or treaty between free and autonomous provinces; it was the creation of the Imperial Parliament.” Quoted in Stanley Bréhaut Ryerson, Unequal Union (Toronto: Progress Books, 1968), 360. 4 Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217, par. 35. 5 See, for example, Ronald L. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems, 3rd ed. (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008), 3; George Anderson, Federalism: An Introduction (Don Mills, on: Oxford University Press, 2008), 8–9. 6 Concerning the theory and practice of empire at the time of the Delian League, see, Jean-Marie Bertrand, Cités et royaumes du monde grec: Espace et politique (Paris: Hachette, 1992), 110–27; see also Patrice Backer, “La force et le verbe: Aux origines des relations internationales en Occident ou de la réconciliation des conflits en Grèce ancienne, des héros homériques aux cités hellénistiques,” in Vivre ensemble, vivre avec les autres, ed. Stephan Martens and Michael de Waele (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2012), 29–49. See also, in German, Föderalismus in der grischiechen und römischen Antike, ed. Peter Siewert and Luciana Aigner-Foresti (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005). 7 Theodor Mommsen, Histoire romaine, tome 2 (Paris: C. Mapon et E. Flammarion éditeurs, 1882), 3 ff. Mommsen writes on page 3–4: “It is in the nature of hegemony to change gradually into sovereignty by necessity: Rome’s hegemony was no exception to this rule.” 8 Theodor Mommsen, Manuel des antiquités romaines, Tome 5, trans. Joachim Marquardt (Paris: Diffusion du Raccord, 1985), 227. 9 Machiavelli, Œuvres (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1996), 302–05. 10 See the chapter “Confédérations et colonies” in the unpublished fragments from Esprit des lois, in Montesquieu, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Seuil, 1964), 797–9.

66

marc chevrier

11 J.C. Beckett, “The Confederation of Kilkenny Reviewed,” in Historical Studies, ed. Michael Roberts (London: Bowes & Bowes, 1959), 29–41. 12 Pierre Joannon, Histoire de l’Irlande et des Irlandais (Paris: Perrin, 2006), 111. 13 Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781–1997 (London: Vintage Books, 2008), 91. 14 Hélène Blais et al., Les sociétés coloniales à l’âge des Empires 1850–1960 (Neuilly: Atlande, 2012), 107. 15 Cited in Alexander J. Motyl, Imperial Ends (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 17. 16 Bruce A. Knox, “The Rise of Colonial Federation as an Object of British Policy, 1850–1870,” Journal of British Studies 11, no. 1 (1971), 92–112. 17 See section 146, Constitution Act, 1867, R.S.C. 1985, Ap II, no. 5. 18 This is recognized implicitly in the Rowell-Sirois report, which noted that the new Dominion government took the place of the government of United Canada, 60 per cent of whose total debt (provincial and municipal) was related to investment in transportation infrastructures, and ensured that it supported the colony’s territorial and infrastructure expansion through better credit. See Report of the Royal Commission on Dominion–Provincial Relations, vol. 1, Canada: 1867 –1939, 26–9 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1940). 19 Concerning English colonial policy inspired by the ideas of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, see Stéphane Kelly, La petite loterie (Montreal: Boréal, 1997), 138–44. 20 On this distinction and the study of Canada as a commercial colony, see François Dufaux, “Affirmer son existence: l’architecture comme projet politique,” Argument 13, no. 2 (2011). 21 For an analysis of this question, see my text, “La constitution ferroviaire,” Encyclopédie de l’Agora (13 August 2013): http://agora.qc.ca/documents/ la_constitution_ferroviaire. On these enclaves or what Henri Dorion and Jean-Paul Lacasse called “territorial reserves,” see their excellent Le Québec: Territoire incertain (Quebec City: Septentrion, 2011). 22 See C. Stacey, “Britain’s Withdrawal from North America 1864–1871,” in Confederation, ed. D.G. Creighton et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), 9–22. 23 See the text by Benjamin Disraeli, “The Spirit of Whiggism,” in The Runnymede Letters (London: Bentley and Son Limited, 1885). 24 Garth Stevenson, Ex Uno Plures (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993), 9. 25 See, in particular, the discussion by Claude Charron of Creighton’s ideas about the 1840–67 union, La partition du Québec (Montreal: vlb éditeur, 1996), 78.

the making of a dominion

67

26 See, for example, Anatole, Évolution des Partis (Quebec: L’imprimerie nationale, 1920), 11; Jean-François Cardin and Claude Couture, Histoire du Canada (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1997), 57; Rosario Bilodeau, Robert Comeau, André Gosselin, and Denise Julien, Histoire des Canadas (Montreal: Éditions Hurtubise hmh, 1971), 410; Éric Bédard, Histoire du Québec pour les nuls (Paris: Éditions First-Gründ, 2012), 148. 27 Jacques-Yvan Morin and José Woehrling, Les constitutions du Canada et du Québec du régime français à nos jours (Montreal: Les éditions Thémis, 1992), 149. 28 Lionel Groulx, Histoire du Canada français depuis la découverte, Tome II (Montreal: Éditions Fides, 1960), 250 ff. 29 Arthur R.M. Lower, Colony to Nation (Toronto: Longmans, Green & Company, 1946), 304. 30 It appears to be a study published during a political science research trip to Paris, completed with support from Jean-Charles Bonenfant, Jean Hamelin, and Vincent Lemieux (Montreal: Les éditions Sainte-Marie, 1967). 31 Ibid., 27. 32 Ibid., 50. 33 Ibid., 56. 34 Ibid., 70. The emphasis is by Giroux. 35 Ivor Jennings, Cabinet Governments, 3rd ed. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 512–13. 36 A.H. Birch, The British System of Government, 3rd ed. (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1973, 51. 37 Eugene Forsey, “The Problem of Minority Government in Canada,” The Canadian Journal of Economics and Science 30, no. 1 (1964), 2. 38 The cabinets formed under the Union are listed in Part III of The Canadian Parliamentary Companion and Annual Register, 1879, ed. C.H. Mackintosh (Ottawa: Citizen Printing and Publishing Company, 1879). 39 Or 602 days, according to the Canadian federal parliament website: https://lop.parl.ca/sites/ParlInfo/default/en_CA/ElectionsRidings/ electionTrivia#fetMinorityAvg. 40 Claude G. Charron, “La déconstruction du mythe de deux peuples fondateurs,” 13 March 1999. https://vigile.quebec/archives/avant-garde/ charronmythe2.html. 41 Cited in Jean-Paul Bernard, Les Rouges, Libéralisme, nationalisme et anticléricalisme au milieu du XIXe siècle (Montreal: Les Presses de l’Université du Québec, 1971), 173. 42 See Antoine-Aimé Dorion, Un manifeste de M. Antoine-Aimé Dorion, reproduced in Thomas Chapais, Cours d’histoire du Canada, Tome VIII, 1861–1867 (Quebec: Librairie Garneau, 1934), 230.

68

m a rc c h e vrier

43 See Arend Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975). 44 Garth Stevenson, Ex Uno Plures, 8. Eugénie Brouillet echoes Stevenson’s ideas in Brouillet, La négation de la nation (Quebec: Septentrion, 2005), 121. See also the analysis of S.T. Stevenson, who sees the precursor elements of consociationalism in the Union regime: S.T. Stevenson, “Consociationalist models for Canada,” in La confédération canadienne: Qu’en pensent les philosophes? ed. Stanley G. French (Montreal: L’Association canadienne de philosophie, 1979), 249. 45 See also John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary, “The Political Regulation of National and Ethnic Conflict,” Parliamentary Affairs 47, no. 1 (1994), 113. 46 For a comparison between Canada after the reform of 1982 and Northern Ireland after the Good Friday agreement of 1998, see Garth Stevenson, “Le Canada en 1982 et l’Irlande en 1998,” in Le nouvel ordre constitutionnel canadien du rapatriement de 1982 à nos jours, ed. François Rocher and Benoit Pelletier (Quebec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2013), 315–30. 47 Daniel Louis Seiler, “Les parlements entre gouvernements et concordance,” in Vers un renouveau du parlementarisme en Europe? ed. Oliver Costa, Éric Kerrouche, and Paul Magnette (Brussels: Éditions de l’université de Bruxelles, 2004), 57–72. 48 George F.G. Stanley, A Short History of the Canadian Constitution (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1969), 51–80. 49 According to Archibald MacMechan, as early as 1849–50 United Canada “was now entirely free to manage its own affairs, well or ill, to misgovern itself if it choose to do so,” Chronicles of Canada, vol. 27, The Winning of Popular Government (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 138–9. 50 See Giroux, Essai sur la crise des Deux nations canadiennes, 80. 51 Ludovic Brunet, La province du Canada: Histoire politique de 1840 à 1867 (Quebec: Ty Laflamme & Proulx, 1908), 200. 52 See James Muir, “Canada’s Neglected Tradition of Coalition Government,” Forum constitutionnel 18, no. 1 (2009), 33–6. 53 Donald Creighton, The Road to Confederation (Toronto: MacMillan of Canada, 1964), 432. 54 Ibid. 55 Monica Charlot, Le pouvoir politique en Grande-Bretagne, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998), 7 and 10. 56 See the “Sewel” convention explained in this note from the Scottish Parliament: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/16751.aspx. 57 Re: Objection by Quebec to a Resolution to amend the Constitution, [1982] 2 S.C.R. 793.

t h e m a k i n g of a dominion

69

58 Hubert Guindon, “Nationalisme et totalitarisme: un réexamen,” in Hannah Arendt, le totalitarisme et le monde contemporain, ed. Daniel Dagenais (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2003), 103–34. 59 McGarry and O’Leary, “The Political Regulation of National and Ethnic Conflict,”113. 60 Some attempts to rehabilitate the achievements of the Union can be found in recent historic studies. See John Saul, Louis-Hippolite Lafontaine et Robert Baldwin (Montreal: Boréal, 2011); Éric Bédard, Les réformistes (Montreal: Boréal, 2009). 61 On the attitude of the political class to minority or coalition governments, see Peter H. Russell, Two Cheers for Minority Government (Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2008); Pier-Luc Migneault, Les gouvernements minoritaires au Canada et au Québec (Quebec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2010). 62 Guglielmo Ferrero, Pouvoir: Les génies invisibles de la cité (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1988). 63 In Colony to Nation, 333.

Canadian Constitution-Making in the British World phillip buckner

In an article published in 1968, W.L. Morton wrote that “the great political decision of Canadian politics in the Victorian Age was not to confederate but to be British rather than American. The decision was made at bottom in the crushing of the rebellions of 1837, and in the Colonial Office’s resolution to give Canada, as Simcoe had not, a ‘very image and transcript’ of the British constitution, the most efficient, modern and prestigious of the day.”1 I would agree with Morton that the crushing of the rebellions of 1837–38 and the decision to concede the principle of responsible government were critical points in establishing Britain’s hold over its Canadian colonies: the first because it made clear that rebellion was not an option, forced into exile most of those committed to any kind of independent republic, and placed the French Canadians who formed a majority in Lower Canada into a minority in the United Province of Canada; and the second because the acceptance of the principle of responsible government offered a way to reconcile the theory of imperial sovereignty with the concession of the right of overseas settler communities to a large degree of colonial self-government. Yet I do not think that this is an entirely adequate explanation of why by the 1860s British Americans had indeed decided to remain British rather than become American. And why they drafted at Quebec in 1864 a system of government to establish what Frederick Vaughan has called a “Defiant Monarchy.”2 What Morton – like most Canadian historians – ignored was the impact of large-scale British migration to British North America between 1815 and the 1860s. Before 1815 the non-francophone population of British North America had come predominantly from the United

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

71

States, but after 1815 this source of immigration virtually dried up as Americans headed west into the new states carved out of the Indian territories opened to settlement in the aftermath of the War of 1812. Between 1815 and Confederation, well over a million people crossed the Atlantic from Britain to British North America. A small number were Germans, and even smaller numbers came from other parts of Europe, but the vast majority came from the British Isles. In 1815, the population of British North America numbered just over 500,000, of whom nearly 300,000 were francophones. Without further immigration after 1815 the population of the British North American colonies would not have exceeded 1,500,000 by 1861, nearly 1,000,000 of whom would have been francophones. In fact, the francophone population had increased to just under 1,000,000 by 1861, but the total population of British North America now numbered well over 3,000,000. In other words, the francophone population had increased about threefold, almost entirely through natural increase, but the nonfrancophone population had increased nearly tenfold, largely because of the massive influx of British immigrants. Upper Canada experienced the greatest growth, from around 80,000 in 1815 to nearly 1,400,000 in 1861. In Lower Canada the population grew from around 300,000 in 1815 to over 1,100,000 in 1861 but the proportion of non-francophones increased from just under 10 per cent to over 22 per cent. In the Maritimes, population growth was smaller but still substantial from around 130,000, to over 660,000 in 1861.3 The United States received even larger numbers of British immigrants during this period, but there the British immigrants have aptly been described as “invisible immigrants,” forced to adapt to the social, cultural, and political values of the host society.4 In British North America, however, the British came in such large numbers that the host societies had to adjust to them. Even before mass migration from Britain began in the 1830s there was a substantial number of people of Loyalist descent in the Maritimes and a much smaller number in the Canadas. In the Canadas there was also a substantial American-born population that was not of Loyalist descent and that continued even after the War of 1812 to be influenced by American political ideals. The arrival of vast numbers of British immigrants completely altered the balance of power and transformed the cultural landscape of British North America, solidifying the loyalty of the British North American colonies to the British Empire and the identity of the colonists as members of a broader, global British civilization. By the 1860s, except in

72

phillip buckner

francophone communities, British emigrants and their descendants were disproportionately represented in the colonial elites, providing the leadership in the colonial churches; in the institutions of higher education; in the colonial press; and in the legal, medical, and business professions. Six of the eight anglophone delegates from the United Province of Canada at the Quebec Conference had been born within the United Kingdom and a seventh was the son of a British immigrant. Although the majority of the Maritime delegates were native-born, with Loyalist or pre-Loyalist ancestors, they identified themselves as British, playing down their American roots. Between 1815 and 1864, the distance between British North America and Britain had shrunk, thanks to steamships and an evergrowing volume of transatlantic mail. Literate anglophones devoured pirated editions of British books and flocked to hear British itinerant lecturers, while colonial newspapers carried lengthy reports on events in Britain and the Empire. When travellers dined at the Victoria Hotel in Windsor, Nova Scotia, they were confronted by a panorama of British India.5 When they crossed Lake Ontario in a steamboat they were surrounded by “portraits of Wellington, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, and the whole royal family.”6 In their efforts to replicate British culture, the colonials often incurred the scorn of British visitors to the colonies. One British visitor to London, Canada West, in 1864 noted: “There is an Oxford Street, a Regent Street, a Holborn (with an ‘H’), a Bond Street, Picadilly and Pall Mall too” but “it is all on such a diminutive scale that the comparison is ludicrous” and “I could scarce restrain my laughter.”7 But to the colonials there was nothing ludicrous about their desire to show their loyalty and attachment to the Empire. Like Britons at home, they gloried in the military achievements of British troops overseas, particularly when British Americans were involved. Halifax’s first public memorial was erected in 1860 to two Nova Scotians killed fighting for the Empire in the Crimea, and Henry J. Morgan proudly noted in a lecture in Montreal in 1866 on “the place British Americans have won in history” that the first recipient of the Victoria Cross, Lieutenant-Colonel A. R. Dunn, had been a native of Toronto, and that in India and the Crimea one can find “the tombs of a number of our countrymen, who sacrificed their lives for England’s glory.”8 John A. Macdonald was exaggerating, but not by much, when he declared in a toast at Charlottetown on 8 September 1864 that British Americans felt themselves to be of “one ancestry – except a portion of Canada.”9

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

73

In 1860, the Prince of Wales toured British North America and was met everywhere by huge and enthusiastic crowds. The somewhat cynical correspondent for the London Times, with “a good deal of experience of these royal progresses,” admitted that he had “never seen anything” to surpass the reception of the prince.10 The even more cynical correspondent for the New York Herald admitted: “Wherever I went there was but one sentiment distinguishing the people with respect to their royal visitor, and that was of admiration for the man, and loyalty to the throne.”11 In fact, by the 1860s there was little support for republicanism throughout British North America, and British American politicians were eager to appear on the platform alongside the prince and to bathe in his glory and popularity. Even ethnic origin was no barrier to a commitment to the monarchy and membership in the Empire. George-Étienne Cartier was outspoken in his defence of the monarchy and was one of the “chief promoters” of the 1860 tour.12 Cartier was not typical of all French Canadians in the degree of his Anglophilia, but his monarchism was shared by most of the French-Canadian elite, both secular and clerical.13 David Cannadine has argued that in Canada and the other Old Dominions, a royal visit was “a visible affirmation of the continuing Britishness of the sovereign’s overseas subjects and of their place in the metropolitan social order.”14 Viewed from a metropolitan perspective, colonial loyalty may indeed have appeared as a form of deference to the metropolitan social order but the truth is rather more complex. Undeniably, in 1860 anglophone British Americans were proud of their British roots (regardless of how remote they were) and were eager to remain part of a larger British world. But they were also determined to assert their own identity within that world as British Americans (and after Confederation as Canadians). Even in 1860 they were quick to react to any implication that they were lesser Britons. The Duke of Newcastle, the secretary of state for the colonies, accompanied the Prince of Wales on his 1860 tour and effectively controlled the prince’s agenda but he aroused the anger of Orangemen throughout British North America when he prohibited the members of the Orange Lodge from wearing their regalia or erecting arches decorated with Orange symbols. The duke justified this decision on the grounds that the Orange Lodge was a banned organization in the “mother country,” but this justification only antagonized the government of the United Province of Canada which felt that Newcastle was motivated by his own United Kingdom agenda, an agenda that was irrelevant in British North America where the Orange Lodge was not

74

phillip buckner

an illegal organization.15 Indeed, the royal tour of 1860 not only strengthened monarchical sentiment in British North America, it made many of the leading colonial politicians increasingly keen to affirm their equality as a British “people” within the British Empire with the right to pursue their own political agenda. That political agenda did not mean accepting the mother county’s social order as the norm in British North America. What most British Americans sought to recreate was not simply a neo-Britain but a better Britain, without the rigid class distinctions and dire poverty of the mother country. In the Legislative Assembly of the United Province of Canada in 1865, Richard Cartwright declared that what Confederation would establish was a “kingdom, on the banks of the St Lawrence, which, without binding itself to a slavish adherence to the customs of the Old World, would yet cherish and preserve those time-honoured associations our American neighbours have seen fit so recklessly to cast away.”16 To a considerable extent, Confederation was born out of this desire to create out of the British North American colonies a larger British nation, one that would that not only continue to attract British immigrants and British capital but that would also play an increasingly important role in the wider British world of which it was a part. As John Darwin notes in The Rise and Fall of the British World System, “A reformed and purified local Britishness went hand in hand with – was the domestic counterpart to – a grander role as ‘British nations,’ partners, not subjects of imperial Britain.”17 To argue that the post-1815 British immigrants had succeeded in establishing British culture as the norm throughout British North America is not to deny that there was much that was “American” in the culture of British North America. The material culture of both the United States and British North America was shaped by many of the same geographical and material imperatives and the border remained remarkably porous, though from the 1830s to the 1860s the flow of immigrants was largely one way, from British North America to the United States. British Americans wanted access to the larger United States market and frequently borrowed their technology and even some cultural models from the United States. But those who see the border as virtually meaningless ignore the selectivity with which British Americans chose to adopt American culture, and what is sometimes seen as American culture was in fact frequently part of a shared Anglo-American culture. The anti-slavery movement and the temperance movement flourished on both sides of the Atlantic but in British North

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

75

America these movements tended to be led by British immigrants with strong ties to the movements in Britain. By the 1860s, British North American churches – even the Methodists – had stronger ties with British churches than with American. Moreover, historians have too long fallen into the trap of assuming a crude dichotomy between liberal and radical influences emanating from the United States and conservative influences emanating from Britain. There were radicals and conservatives in both societies and anglophone radicals as well as anglophone conservatives drew their inspiration from Britain. Upper Canada’s most radical political formation in the 1850s and 1860s, the Clear Grits, often cited American experience for examples of democracy, but its ideology also drew upon British radical traditions and a majority of its activists were immigrant Britons. As Jeffrey McNairn has perceptively pointed out, colonial conservatives tended to talk of the British constitution as something to be preserved, whereas reformers talked of it as something to be restored or purified, but both “spoke the same constitutionalist idiom and could, when occasion demanded, switch sides.”18 In the 1960s Donald Creighton, George Grant, Syd Wise, and many other Canadian historians and political scientists argued that Canada was created to be a more conservative and more stable society than the United States, a society less individualistic and more corporatist than the American. There is some truth in this stereotype but it ignores the fact that British Canadians also believed that what they were creating in 1867 was a society in which individual rights were better protected than in the United States. Under British institutions, Charles Tupper proclaimed, “the people have an amount of personal security for life, property and, liberty not enjoyed by any other Government in the World.”19 During the debate over Confederation, both the pro-Confederates and the anti-Confederates justified their position with appeals to the British constitution, to British liberty and justice, to British history and to British traditions. They were also united in their commitment to remain part of the British Empire. Regardless of their position on Confederation, British Americans had little sympathy with those in Britain who wished to “emancipate” the colonies: that would be, Egerton Ryerson proclaimed in 1866, “the retracing of the policy by which Great Britain had become the greatest national power of the globe, the reduction of an empire over hundreds of millions to a kingdom including thirty millions, the shrivelling of an empire on which the sun never sets to a minor island of Europe.” Indeed, Ryerson denounced the term “emancipation” with its implication that “Canadians

76

phillip buckner

are in state of enslavement.” They were, he proclaimed, “not slaves, nor even colonists in the old and popular sense of that term, but freemen and an integral part of a nation whose liberty, science, wealth and power are pre-eminent among the nations of the world.”20 Allan Smith has persuasively argued that “as early as the 1820s Upper Canadians had begun to think of their province, and of the larger British North American society of which it was a part, as potentially a great nation within the Empire.” This conviction, he maintains, “within forty years, matured into the belief that the territory Upper Canadians inhabited might function as the centre of a British North American civilization ripe for union within one political framework.”21 Until the 1980s (and the debate over the patriation of the Canadian constitution) most Canadian historians would have agreed that Confederation resulted from what John A. Macdonald described as the desire to create “a great nationality, commanding the respect of the world.”22 Since the 1980s, a new consensus has emerged that sees the Fathers of Confederation motivated not by a sense of nationalism but by more immediate political objectives. As John Saywell puts it: “Whatever other purposes it served, the federal constitution of 1867 was not the product of a grand dream of British North American nationality inhabiting a transcontinental state. Paradoxically, it was driven and drawn by the inability of French and English to live together in the unitary state imposed by the British a quarter of a century earlier.”23 There is no doubt that the desire of Upper Canadians to break up the United Province of Canada and thus put an end to what they saw as French-Canadian domination was the immediate pressure behind the formation of the Great Coalition in 1864 and that one crucial difference between the events of 1864–67 and earlier attempts at union was that the 1864 initiative originated in a desire (as Paul Romney declares) “to federalize the Canadian Union of 1841.”24 Yet it was not the only difference, and this argument does not explain why the majority of Upper Canadian politicians supported the proposal to give priority in 1864 to an attempt to create a larger federal union of the whole of British North America rather than a smaller federal union of the two Canadas nor why fifty-four of the sixty-two members from Canada West in the Assembly of the United Province of Canada voted in 1865 to accept the Quebec Resolutions. A variety of factors explain this high level of support but surely the most important were a fear of the implications of the Northern victory in the American Civil War and a feeling that there

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

77

was an opportunity to create what Smith calls “a great nation within the Empire” and thus preserve both the connection with Britain and the essentially British character of British North America in the face of a resurgent American Empire. In much of the recent literature George Brown has come to be seen as a man dominated by provincialism and a concern to obtain justice for Upper Canada. It is certainly true that George Brown initially wished to give priority in 1864 to the creation of a decentralized federation of the two Canadas, but this was primarily because he thought the smaller union would be easier to obtain than a larger federation of all British North America, not because he had any doubts about the need for the larger union, which he insisted in 1865 was “the best and almost certain future destiny of these colonies.”25 As Peter Waite shows so clearly in his volume The Life and Times of Confederation (which remains the best study of public opinion in British North America in the 1860s), the sense that it was time “to rise to the level of the occasion – to settle now the destiny of this northern country” was the driving force behind the Confederation movement.26 My only problem with Smith’s analysis is that, like many Canadian historians, he accepts as a given that “the national idea after 1867 was largely Ontario-created.”27 This Ontario myopia (shared by Romney and Saywell) blinds him to the fact that while the process he is describing was certainly strongest in Canada West, which had the most to gain from Confederation, support for the idea of a larger British American union was growing throughout all the British North American colonies in the 1860s. Confederation, Charles Tupper proclaimed in 1860, held out the promise that “British America, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, would in a few years exhibit to the world a great and powerful organization, with British Institutions, British sympathies, and British feelings, bound indissolubly to the throne of England.”28 At a public dinner in 1864, Leonard Tilley argued that the Atlantic and Pacific should be bound together “by a continuous chain of settlements and line of communications for that [was] the destiny of this country, and the race which inhabited it.”29 Indeed, one of the weaknesses of the anti-Confederates’ position in the Maritimes was that while they denounced the terms being offered and argued that the time was not yet right, few of them denied that in the long run British North American union was both inevitable and desirable.30 As I have argued elsewhere, what is surely surprising is not that there was so much opposition to the Quebec Resolutions in the Maritimes but so much support for

78

phillip buckner

them, given the fact that at the Quebec Conference the Maritime delegations received relatively few guarantees that their local and regional interests would be protected in a continental union inevitably dominated by their larger Canadian neighbour.31 Canadian historians have always had a simple explanation for the decision of so many Maritimers to support Confederation on these terms: they were bribed with the promise of an intercolonial railway and with generous Canadian donations to the pro-Confederation campaign. Indeed, the Maritimers are still treated by most Canadian historians as if they lived on a different continent from the more intelligent and enlightened inhabitants of the United Province of Canada. In preparing this chapter I read over all of the secondary literature that has been written about Confederation over the past forty years. With few exceptions, the literature reflects a very clear assumption that the Maritime contribution to the making of Confederation agreement was insignificant and that the Maritime delegations to the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences simply followed the leadership of the smoothtalking Canadians, an argument that was central in the writing about Confederation that was produced during the centenary of Confederation in the 1960s by historians like Peter Waite, Donald Creighton, and W.L. Morton and that still sets much of the tone of the historical treatment of the Confederation movement. Even those who are more sympathetic to the importance of the Maritimes tend to focus on the opponents of Confederation as the true voice of the Maritimes and the Maritime pro-Confederates as men more interested in their own selfinterest than the interests of the Maritimes (an argument that is also found in the history of the Confederation movement in Quebec). Now it is true that the leading Maritime Confederates accepted that Canada was absolutely essential to any scheme of union since, as Tupper put it, the Maritimes “could never hope to occupy a position of influence or importance except in connection with their larger sister Canada.”32 But it is time to put an end to the myth that the Maritimers were blindsided at Charlottetown and allowed the Canadians to hijack and dominate the agenda.33 In fact, the Maritime delegates at Charlottetown were aware that the Canadians were coming and were more than willing to discuss the larger union the Canadians proposed rather than the more limited union of the Maritimes that few of them saw as either necessary or desirable. The idea of a general federation of British North America had been floating around for decades and the general scheme of union presented at Charlottetown would not have been accepted by the Mar-

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

79

itime delegates if it had not come at the right moment, when Maritimers too were increasingly afraid of the growing power of the American North. It is also worth noting that the Charlottetown Conference was not as unimportant as it is sometimes portrayed. The official Canadian account may have declared that “nothing definite as to the details of the scheme [for Confederation] has been agreed upon,”34 but the broad guidelines of Confederation had been worked out at Charlottetown and any departure from those guidelines had to be justified at Quebec. The Maritime delegates were therefore not, as is sometimes implied, faced at Quebec with a set of proposals from the Canadians of which they had little or no warning. Indeed, the first and most important resolution, that the new union would be “a Federal Union under the Crown of Great Britain,” was approved unanimously since this is what had been agreed at Charlottetown.35 The devil, of course, was in the details. But the Canadians were only able to pass the plan they outlined at the Quebec Conference because they were supported on most issues by the majority of the delegates from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The real division at Quebec was not between the Maritimes and Canada but between the delegates from the mainland colonies and the delegates from Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, who were the most dissatisfied with the terms they were being offered for entering what would quite clearly be a continental union. It is also true that most of the Quebec Resolutions were drafted by John A. Macdonald, assisted by Oliver Mowat. But while neither Leonard Tilley nor Charles Tupper was a lawyer, they were very astute politicians and they understood very clearly that what they were creating was a strong national government with the authority and the resources to create a transcontinental state, one that could withstand, with British support, annexationist pressures from the United States. For this reason, the British North America Act would give the federal government the authority to negotiate the entry of new provinces into the Dominion without consulting the existing provinces and implicitly without interference from London (though it would require imperial legislation to alter the British North America Act). And since it was understood that in due course Canada would acquire the vast territories governed by the Hudson’s Bay Company, the new federal government was also given responsibility for Canada’s Indigenous peoples and the ability to negotiate treaties, implicitly again, with only minimal reference to London. Of course, the Fathers of Confederation were also responding to more immediate pressures, including the need to find some solution

80

phillip buckner

to the deadlock that increasingly made the Union of the Canadas unworkable. But they were also men motivated by a desire to create a British nation that encompassed the northern half of the North American continent and the pro-Confederates were agreed that for this purpose a strong national government would be required. What is less certain is how much agreement there was over the role of the provincial governments. The French-Canadian Fathers of Confederation were committed to ensuring that the government of Quebec would have sufficient power to protect French-Canadian culture, but only Cartier and the Bleus were represented at Quebec and they were prepared to make concessions limiting the autonomy of the provinces that more radical nationalists would probably never have accepted. Cartier was willing to make these compromises in the hope that the questions of nationality that had bedevilled the United Province would be removed from the central legislature and that French and English Canadians could evolve a “new political nationality” based on the ideal of a culturally pluralist nation.36 Unfortunately, few English Canadians shared this ideal. They were prepared to give limited guarantees to the French Canadians for the protection of their “racial” identity but they assumed that outside Quebec (and even to some extent within Quebec) the English language and British culture would be the defining characteristics of the new nation. The English-Canadian delegates to the Quebec Conference were deeply divided over the federal issue. All of the pro-Confederates had come to accept (some reluctantly) the need for a federal system, including even the most extreme centralists. When the model of the New Zealand constitution was raised at the Quebec Conference, Macdonald dismissed it as inappropriate because it had created a legislative union rather than a federal union: “This is just what we do not want. Lower Canada and the Lower Provinces would not have such a thing.”37 At the London Conference both Tilley and Tupper pointed out forcefully to the representatives of the Colonial Office that their intention was not to create a “Legislative Union.”38 But the Fathers of Confederation did not entirely agree about the implications of that decision. Among the anglophones the disagreements were not between the Maritimers and the Upper Canadians, but between reformers like Tilley and Brown and conservatives like Tupper and Macdonald. Tilley and Brown appear to have believed that the provincial legislatures should continue to play an important role in Canadian politics (though it is not clear whether they agreed on how important). Tupper and Macdonald had reluctantly come to accept a federal union

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

81

as essential to gain support for Confederation but still hoped the provincial legislatures would have restricted powers and could be controlled by the new federal government. Even George Brown, who has come to be seen as the champion of a decentralized federation, was somewhat “ambiguous” about what was being created: On the one hand, he asserted, “the very essence of our compact is that the union shall be federal and not legislative,” and on the other, he said, “but in truth the scheme now before us has all the advantages of a legislative union and a federal one was well.”39 The end result was a series of compromises that enabled both groups to claim victory. In reality, it is hard not to see the centralists as winning most of the battles.40 Not only would the bna Act confer on the national government extensive powers and the sole right to levy indirect taxation but it gave the national government the right to appoint the lieutenantgovernors of the provinces and to disallow provincial legislation. At the Quebec Conference, Tilley persuaded the delegates to give control over roads and bridges to the provinces. Upon returning to New Brunswick he pointed out that only five of the fifty-nine acts passed by the New Brunswick legislature in the previous session would be found beyond the power of the provincial government under the proposed division of powers. Yet only in retrospect does it seem clear that the “property and civil rights” clause would become the residual clause in the British North Act. Indeed, when E.B. Chandler from New Brunswick suggested at the Quebec Conference that the provinces should be given the residual power, Charles Tupper protested that “Those who were at Charlottetown will remember that those it was fully specified that all powers not given to the Local should be reserved to the Federal Government. This was stated as being a prominent feature of the Canadian scheme, and it was stated then that it was desirable to have a plan contrary to that adopted by the United States.”41 Indeed, if the Fathers of Confederation intended the provinces to have the expanded powers that they would later acquire, it is difficult to see why they agreed on a set of financial arrangements that would leave the provinces dependent on inadequate grants from the national government, a decision whose implications Tilley and Brown must surely have understood. There were, of course, good political reasons in 1864 for not being too clear about the powers of the provincial governments. It is also possible, as Marc Chevrier has argued, that the Fathers of Confederation were creating a “strange political structure that they may not have completely understood.” The only precedent within the Empire of a

82

phillip buckner

political union was the 1852 constitution for New Zealand, but it had been written in London and was essentially a legislative union with some quasi-federal features, and the Fathers of Confederation had no interest in copying its features, even when pressed to do so by the Colonial Office at the London Conference. The only real model for a federal union to which they could turn was of course the American one, but if there was one thing most of the Fathers of Confederation were agreed upon, it was that this was a model they did not want to emulate. The result was, Chevrier declares, a British North American constitution that combined “federalism and English-style monarchy, a symmetrical division of powers and a Scottish-style asymmetrical arrangement to establish a new ‘empire.’ It is a polyhedron with facets that sometimes reflect confederalism, sometimes federalism, and sometimes legislative union.”42 Whatever their intentions, by allowing the provinces to continue with a system of responsible government, the Fathers virtually ensured that the provincial governments would challenge the efforts of the federal government to supervise their activities, appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to expand the areas of provincial jurisdiction, and demand more substantial financial grants from Ottawa. Most of these battles they would win and the centralized constitution embodied in the bna Act gradually unravelled. This was probably inevitable. The constitutional agreement thrashed out at Quebec had reflected the sense of urgency inspired by the pending victory of the North in the American Civil War. As the crisis passed, the more limited provincial identities of Canadians would reassert themselves. This was not as tragic as is sometimes claimed, for it helped to undermine the sometimes bitter opposition to Confederation that lingered after 1867, particularly in Nova Scotia. Only in the 1930s would decentalization come to be seen as a disaster, because it limited the power of the federal government to deal with the economic and social problems of the Great Depression and to interfere in people’s lives to a degree that the Fathers of Confederation would certainly have rejected as undesirable. One thing is clear: this was a constitution that was made by British Americans to meet British American needs.43 Imperial historians still have trouble coming to grips with the fact that the role of the British government in the whole process was essentially limited to assisting the pro-Confederates. This is the problem I have with Ged Martin’s stimulating and provocative book, Britain and the Origins of Canadian Confederation. Dismissing the belief that Confederation was the answer

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

83

to continental defence as “implausible” and the desire to create a transcontinental nation as unimportant because “westward expansion was not envisaged as a major immediate task for the the New Dominion,” Martin concludes that Confederation was perhaps the least pertinent response to the continental challenges of 1864. Given that the overwhelming priorities were the need to secure a larger market, to establish better communications, and to put an end to the threat of American invasion, the obvious solution – by 1865 – would most certainly have been to seek annexation by the United States. Thus, even if the provinces preferred union among themselves, the United States’ overwhelming economic and military power logically pointed to establishing Confederation on American terms, under American protection.44 But is it not somewhat bizarre to argue that the logical solution to the continental challenges of the 1860s was the one solution that British Americans were determined above all to avoid? If one accepts as a given that the primary concern of most British Americans was to ensure Canada’s survival as a British colony in the face of the threat of American expansionism – what Macdonald described in 1865 as “a unanimous feeling of willingness to run all the hazards of war, if war must come, rather than lose the connection between the Mother Country and these colonies” – then the commitment to relieve Britain of some of the costs of colonial defence and to expand west as soon as possible make the arguments for Confederation look both plausible and necessary as a solution to the changing balance of power on the North American continent.45 In fact, virtually everything that the pro-Confederates predicted did come to pass. The new Dominion of Canada was able to create a single trading unit possessing a sufficiently large revenue base to be able to finance policies of continental expansion either through its own resources or through its ability to borrow money in Britain. Far from becoming an economic satellite of the United States, the Dominion evolved its own national economy and industrialized. Moreover, after 1867, the threat of war with the United States quickly receded and annexation ceased to be a real threat, while the tie with Britain became stronger. It seems odd to dismiss as illogical policies that worked. Martin’s real motivation in dismissing the logic of the arguments of the pro-Confederates is to show that historians have underestimated the importance of the British government and British public opinion in bringing about Confederation: “In order to explain why Confeder-

84

phillip buckner

ation happened in 1867,” he writes, “we need to shift emphasis away from its abstract merits as a solution … toward the crucial context of pre-existing British support.” Certainly British support was a necessary precondition for Confederation; without it Confederation could not have taken place in the 1860s. But the British had to have something to support and Martin never does show that it was the support of the British government and British public opinion rather than events in British North America that created the “crucial context” in which the decision to confederate was taken. Indeed, to inflate the influence of the Westminster political elite, Martin falls back on an old stereotype – its ability to use “intangible” social influence to persuade visiting colonials to support Confederation by wining and dining them. The problem is that Martin cannot show a single case where these efforts changed any colonist’s opinion. Martin himself admits that these techniques had greater success with the pro-Confederates than the antiConfederates, which is hardly surprising since in the case of the pro-Confederates the British elite were preaching to the already converted. Ironically, Martin downplays the more convincing argument, that one of the reasons why many prominent British Americans supported Confederation was that they were aware of the disdain in which they were held by the British political elite and saw Confederation as a measure that would increase their status and their influence in London. The pro-Confederates did want to reassure the imperial government that Confederation – in the words of Galt in 1865 – was not designed “in any way to weaken the connection with the Mother Country, but rather to remove those causes which now afforded many parties in England arguments for asserting that the connection was mutually disadvantageous.” But this hardly justifies Martin’s conclusion that “In a sense Confederation itself was a form of sacrificial gesture to British opinion.”46 I find even more problematic Andrew Smith’s British Businessmen and Canadian Confederation: Constitution-Making in an Era of Anglo-Globalization. Smith accepts Martin’s argument that Confederation was “not an inevitable or even a logical response to the problems facing British North America.” But he goes far beyond Martin, arguing that Confederation “would not have occurred in 1867, if at all,” if it had not been for the lobbying efforts of British investors in Canada and that Confederation “was implemented in the 1860s because it suited the interests of British investors at that point.” Smith believes that there is a “straightforward materialist explanation” of why “the Fathers of Confederation were so

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

85

determined to remain part of the empire,” the fact that “many” of them were “personally involved in projects that were dependent on the continued inflow of British capital.” Part of the problem is with those words “many” and “dependent”: of course, many of the Fathers of Confederation were supporters of the Grand Trunk Railway and/or proponents of the Intercolonial Railway, but many were not and it does not follow that the proponents of those railway lines, particularly the yet to be built Intercolonial, were motivated by simple self-interest. In any event, to believe that a handful of speculators had the power to manipulate the political process throughout British North America is nonsensical. Smith repeatedly falls into the post hoc, propter hoc fallacy, declaring: “Vague ideas of British North American federation had been discussed for decades, but it only became practical politics after a powerful interest group, the investors in the Grand Trunk, came to favour it.” In fact, the pressure from the British-based investors in the Grand Trunk was at best a very minor factor in putting Confederation on the political agenda in British North America in the mid-1860s, compared with the fears aroused by the American Civil War and the gradual collapse of any political consensus within the United Province of Canada. Nor is Smith’s argument that the “turbulence created by the parliamentary reform debate in Britain made the passage of the British North American bill uncertain” backed by any convincing evidence. He concludes that the failure of Lord Carnarvon to make any headway with the projected Australian and South African federations “suggests the importance of interest groups such as the bnaa [British North American Association] in converting proposed colonial federations into reality. Put simply, there was a group of financiers who wanted British North America federated, but there were no equivalent groups pushing for the other federations Carnarvon supported.” That puts it simply but ignores the fact that the pressure for British North American union came from the colonials whereas the pressure for the other colonial unions came from London. When the Australians finally decided that they too wanted to create a union, the legislation would sail through the Imperial Parliament, just as the Canadian union had thirty-three years earlier.47 Indeed, it is time that imperial historians accepted that Confederation came about because British Americans felt the time was right for it and that the bna Act “reflected their aspirations and wishes.”48 This is not to deny that the constitution crafted at the Quebec Conference was greatly influenced by cultural models and values derived from

86

phillip buckner

Britain. British North American politicians sincerely believed that Britain possessed what Morton described as “the most efficient, modern and prestigious” constitution in the world, one that protected individual liberty while ensuring effective government.49 No one at Quebec doubted that Canada must be a constitutional monarchy and that the head of state must be the British monarch. No one at Quebec doubted that Canada should have a popularly elected House of Commons to which the monarch’s Canadian advisors would be responsible. This system of responsible government, or parliamentary government as it was called in Britain, was the essential tool for reconciling imperial authority with local self-government and would gradually be introduced across the Empire into all the colonies where British settlers formed the effective political majority. Indeed, British North Americans looked with pride upon the fact that responsible government had been established first in their colonies under pressure from their politicians. There are, however, three important points that should be made about the responsible government system. The first is that the introduction of responsible government did not imply that Britain had agreed to abandon any influence over the evolution of its colonies of settlement. Those who argue that the role of the monarchy in the British North American colonies was basically “dignified” and that the British North American colonies were “disguised” republics are only partly right.50 After the introduction of responsible government in the 1840s and 1850s, Queen Victoria played no direct role in the British North American colonies (unless invited to do so) and on most domestic matters her vice-regal representatives in those colonies were expected to act the part of a constitutional monarch and follow the advice they were given by the leaders of the party that controlled the popularlyelected assembly. But the governors were more than representatives of the Crown; they were also representatives of the imperial government. That gave them considerable influence, even if that influence was gradually diminishing as it became clear that a governor’s primary responsibility was to remain neutral in local politics except when some vital imperial issue was at stake. By the 1860s, the imperial government had effectively abandoned its theoretical power to disallow colonial laws. In 1865 it passed the Colonial Laws Validity Act, which declared that any colonial legislation was to have full effect within the colony, limited only to the extent that it was not “repugnant to” any act of the Imperial Parliament that specifically extended beyond the boundaries of the United Kingdom to include that

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

87

colony. Since the imperial government had come to accept that, except in the area of foreign policy, the Imperial Parliament would normally only pass legislation affecting the colonies with responsible government with the consent of the colonial government, the effect of the Colonial Laws Validity Act, while restating the ultimate subordination of the colonies to the Imperial Parliament, was to strengthen the position of the colonial legislatures, in line with what had long been “the Colonial Office policy of devolving upon the colonial legislatures the responsibility for managing their own affairs.”51 Indeed, no prominent British American politician doubted that the imperial government and Parliament would only pass legislation affecting the self-governing colonies when requested to do so. John A. Macdonald even claimed during the Confederation debates that “if the people of British North America after full deliberation had stated that they considered it was for their interest, for the advantage of the future of British North America to sever the tie, such is the generosity of the people of England, that, whatever their desire to keep these colonies, they would not seek to compel us to remain unwilling subjects of the British Crown.”52 The Fathers of Confederation were, however, aware of the revolutionary implications of what they were doing. As George Brown pointed out in a letter on 26 August 1864: “There is no instance on record of a colony peacefully remodelling its own constitution, such changes having been always the work of the parent state and not of the colonists themselves. Canada is rightly setting the example of a new and better state of things.”53 Nonetheless, the Fathers of Confederation were confident that while the imperial government would have to draft the act of union to be presented to the Imperial Parliament, it would basically reflect what the colonists wanted. In December 1864, George Brown wrote from London that “if we insist on it, they will put though the scheme just as we ask it.”54 Yet neither Macdonald nor Brown meant to imply that the imperial government would agree to any measure presented to it. The Fathers of Confederation accepted as a given not only that the British monarch would be the head of state of the new country and that the monarch’s representative in the new Dominion would be a governor general appointed by and responsible to the British government as well as the Canadian Parliament, but also that since the constitution of Canada would be created by an act of the Imperial Parliament, any future amendments to that constitution would have to be approved by the Imperial Parliament. They also accepted that the final court of appeal in legal disputes would be the Judicial Committee of the Privy

88

phillip buckner

Council,55 and that the imperial government would continue to be responsible for all foreign negotiations, including trade negotiations, and for coordinating the defence of the Empire, including the declaration of war. There was a price to be paid for remaining within the Empire but it was a price British Americans were more than willing to pay. Second, responsible government is usually seen as a measure that ensured greater popular and parliamentary control over the executive and indeed it did. But it was also, as Durham had stressed in his report, a measure designed to ensure that the executive government would have much greater power than had been possible under the old representative system.56 Responsible government fused executive and legislative authority and required political parties if it was to function effectively. In Britain the personal influence of the monarch and the vast political influence of the British aristocrats who controlled the House of Lords could act as a check on the power of the dominant party in the House of Commons, albeit a limited one if that party had a clear and substantial majority. But in the British North American colonies, these checks were less effective. No colonial governor could have anything like the personal or social influence of the monarch and although all of the British North American colonies were given bicameral legislatures, the members of the second chamber were appointed by the government and had little authority, which is why the United Province of Canada experimented with the creation of an elected upper house. This decision was not taken because Canada sought to follow an American model; it was taken because of what was clearly seen as a weakness in the British constitution when it was transplanted overseas in colonies lacking a hereditary aristocracy. Ironically the experiment was short-lived because of Confederation. The upper chamber of the new Dominion was given an American name – the senate – but its members were to be appointed for life by the Government of Canada, partly because of fears that an elective chamber might challenge the authority of the elected House of Commons and partly because the experiment of an elected upper house had not proven all that successful.57 The composition of the Senate occupied a disproportionate amount of the delegates’ time at the Quebec Conference, partly because it was a body designed to fulfill several objectives. For many of the delegates, particularly conservative ones, the Senate was to perform the same function as the House of Lords, on which it was clearly modelled, that is, to protect the interest of minorities, especially wealthy minorities. For this reason the property requirement for a senator was set quite high. But the Senate was also supposed to protect the geograph-

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

89

ical, sectional, and provincial interests of the component parts of the new Dominion. In this sense the model was the American Senate, but it was a model the delegates at Quebec altered substantially: members of the Canadian Senate were to be appointed (not elected, as was increasingly the case in the United States), appointed for life (not for fixed terms), and appointed by the federal government (not by the provincial governments). A cynical observer might assume that this was an experiment designed to fail, given the fact that the political history of the British North American colonies had shown that appointed upper chambers had never been able to exercise effective control over an executive that could count on a majority in the popularly elected assembly. At the very least, it shows the powerful appeal of the British model over the American. Of course, what this model meant was that the Senate lacked any real political authority and was marginalized from the very beginning. The only effective control over the executive government was the fact that the party structures in late Victorian Canada were unstable, therefore very few governments could count on a majority that would follow wherever they sought to lead. Nonetheless, in the longer term, parliamentary government would lead to legislative majoritarianism and, given growing party discipline, to executive dominance. Indeed, the notion that the mixed constitution of the eighteenth and nineteenth century remains “in essence the system of cabinet government that Canadians know today” is patently untrue.58 Third, one should not confuse responsible government with democratic government. It is true that Britain had a form of responsible government after 1688–89 and a fully developed form of parliamentary government by the 1840s, but I do not know of anyone who would argue that Britain was a true democracy in the early nineteenth century. Even after the Great Reform Bill of 1832 cleared away many of the rotten boroughs and made the House of Commons more responsive to public opinion, the franchise was limited to a comparatively small number of adult males. In fact, the 1832 bill actually reduced the number of males who could vote in parliamentary elections. In 1867 and 1885 the electorate was gradually expanded but even under the 1885 act only around 60 per cent of the male population had sufficient property to qualify. The electorate was larger in the British North American colonies but this had nothing to do with responsible government. It simply reflected the fact that, when they were founded, the colonies had introduced franchise acts modelled on that of Britain. Since property was more widely distributed in the colonies, a growing number of people had the vote, particularly during the early years of settlement.

90

phillip buckner

But as the supply of free land diminished, the property qualification created a growing and sizeable class of non-freeholders who lacked the vote. Each immigrant season made the franchise more restrictive, favouring native-born men over immigrants and rural areas over urban. As George Emery has pointed out in his study of elections in Oxford County, during the 1840s the population of Oxford County quadrupled because of heavy immigration but the percentage of males who had the vote shrank, from near-universal male suffrage to about 60 per cent of adult males. The Franchise Act of 1855 extended the franchise to more tenants but still imposed a restrictive property franchise and retained a substantial property qualification for those who wished to run for election to the colonial assembly.59 Nova Scotia was more radical. It abandoned the property qualification for office and briefly flirted with universal male suffrage, though the experiment was abandoned before Confederation. Prince Edward Island, with a small electorate composed overwhelmingly of tenant farmers, was the only province to introduce and retain universal male suffrage before Confederation and one of the arguments of the anti-Confederates on the Island against entering the proposed union was that “we would be at the mercy of those who do not think as we do on the subject of parliamentary representation. We have universal manhood suffrage and an elective legislative council; but they have neither.”60 Across British North America, women, even those who owned property and had previously had the right to vote, were disenfranchised in the 1840s, and most native peoples and Blacks were denied the right to vote. There is a tendency in the recent literature to see the Fathers of Confederation as virtual democrats, who were quite happy to see universal male suffrage introduced by stealth. If so, why did Nova Scotia reintroduce a property qualification after flirting with universal male suffrage and how does one explain the fact that one of the last acts of the legislature of the United Province of Canada was to raise the qualifications for voting? Since the provincial franchise became the basis of the new federal franchise, this resulted in a substantial reduction in the electorate.61 The electoral officer of Canada has recently published History of the Vote in Canada, which estimates that in 1867 the electorate represented about 11 per cent of the population; that is, there were approximately 362,000 males qualified to vote out of a total population of 3,230,000.62 George Emery notes that democracy in mid-nineteenthcentury Canada was “less accepted, less developed and different in

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

91

form and practice” than it is today. Many Canadians (and not just Conservatives) “viewed democracy as risky and experimental, with mob violence, disorder, corruption, and disloyalty to the Crown as its possible outcomes.”63 Indeed, the idea that Canada was marching in evolutionary fashion steadily toward democracy is a myth. In 1885, the federal government (temporarily) established a national franchise but reduced the number of eligible voters. Not until 1920 – nearly a hundred years after most American states – was universal male (and by this time female) suffrage introduced into Canada. If democracy means government by the people – the whole population in a given jurisdiction – Canada was a long way from being a true democracy in 1867 and for many years thereafter. In a recent study, Janet Ajzenstat has argued that the “founders” (as she prefers to call them) of Confederation intended to create a parliament, which, even if it was elected on a limited franchise, was charged with the task of representing everyone within Canada’s boundaries, “regardless of gender, class, minority nationality and similar distinctions.”64 This interpretation has not gone unchallenged. Describing Ajzenstat as part of a New Whig interpretation, Ian McKay has directly attacked the idea that the Fathers of Confederation were “revolutionary egalitarians.”65 In fact, the notion that the political system in Canada in 1867 or for many years after was truly “inclusive” is risible. Whatever the theory of virtual representation – a theory that the Thirteen Colonists had rejected in the 1770s and the British North American colonies during the struggle over responsible government – the reality was that women, Native peoples, Blacks, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants, and until the twentieth century even males who held no property, had little or no direct representation and little or no political influence and were all systematically discriminated against by a white property-owning elite, both in English Canada and in French Canada. This is hardly surprising, for the Fathers of Confederation were not democrats and did not claim to be. They were mid-Victorian British liberals who drew their inspiration from the constitution of the United Kingdom. They were also what Peter Russell has described as “happy colonials,”66 who neither wanted nor sought full independence from the British Empire. For this reason they could hardly be unqualified and enthusiastic Lockeans, as they have been portrayed in some of the recent literature. They believed in a form of popular sovereignty but only as reflected in parliaments selected on a restricted basis and

92

phillip buckner

checked by some kind of second chamber. Indeed, unlike the American Fathers of Confederation in the 1780s and the Australian Fathers of Confederation in the 1890s, the Canadian Fathers of Confederation did not feel the need to submit the Quebec Resolutions to any form of popular referendum. They did accept that Confederation was a measure that could only come into effect when the existing colonial assemblies in British North America consented to it. Actually they had little choice in this requirement since the imperial government had made clear that it would only agree to draft a bill for the Imperial Parliament if the provinces involved had indicated their support for union. As it turned out, getting this approval was a near run thing. The government of the United Province of Canada did not want to hold an election since it feared the result in French Canada but it did at least pass the Quebec Resolutions.67 In New Brunswick it took two elections, and the best Tilley could get was a general resolution in favour of Confederation, not an endorsement of the unpopular Quebec Resolutions. And because it was obvious that if an election were held in Nova Scotia, the new Assembly would not approve of the Quebec Resolutions, Tupper pushed through a general resolution allowing Nova Scotia to send delegates to the London Conference. Indeed, the major contribution that the imperial government made to the creation of Confederation was to throw its weight behind the model for Confederation “laid before them in the Quebec scheme,”68 and to pretend that Nova Scotia had consented to that scheme, even insisting that the colony could not change its mind when the pro-Confederates went down to a disastrous defeat in the provincial election of 1866. Legally, of course, there was little the Nova Scotians could do since the Imperial Parliament retained the right to legislate and to decide what constituted colonial consent. But if the Fathers of Confederation really believed in democracy and local self-government as their guiding principles they had a funny way of showing it.69 Too much of what has recently been written about the Fathers of Confederation treats them as if they were embryonic late-twentiethcentury Canadian nationalists rather than mid-nineteenth-century British Americans. The impression that is given is that English-speaking Canadians only retained their commitment to the Empire as long as it was convenient to do so; as long as the Empire provided them with access to British capital, British markets, and British immigrants, and protected them against the Americans. This ignores the depth of the

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

93

emotional commitment that British Americans (and anglophone Canadians after 1867) had to the British Empire, to preserving their British identity and the connection to the “mother country.” The purpose of Confederation, George Brown declared during the Confederation Debates in the United Province of Canada, was to “draw closer the bonds that unite us to Great Britain,” not to weaken them.70 Of course, the Fathers of Confederation assumed that over time the new nation that they were creating would gradually acquire greater autonomy; they saw the imperial relationship as a flexible one that would change over time. Many (probably most) French Canadians undoubtedly assumed that Canada would eventually become a completely independent nation. But this was not the dream of the anglophone Fathers of Confederation nor of their successors whose Canadianness overlapped with a continuing sense of Britishness and a sense of a composite British-Canadian identity that few French Canadians shared.71 If any of the anglophone Fathers had been alive in the 1920s I suspect that they would not have been unhappy with the changes that took place in the imperial relationship when Canada emerged as a British dominion, effectively autonomous but still committed to close ties to Britain and proud of its membership in the British Empire. In 1929, in an address in Quebec city to the Canadian Bar Association, W.P.M. Kennedy, law professor at the University of Toronto, praised the Fathers of Confederation for preserving the Empire: “Here in this historic city were laid not merely the foundations of this nation, but those of a new empire and the Quebec conference and debates may well one day assume a place of deeper import in imperial history.” Kennedy denied that the terms “Canadian” and “British Subject” were “two exclusive categories: rather are they two aspects of an indivisible legal fact. I believe it is not impossible to combine the fullest and most complete autonomy with the deepest and most profound imperial unity: and I want neither if I cannot have both.”72 When Macdonald declared in 1891, “A British subject I was born, a British subject I will die,” he may have been using the “loyalty cry” for partisan purposes but it does not mean that he was not sincere in his commitment to remain British, a commitment that was shared by his children and his grandchildren and probably even his great-grandchildren. Not until 1946 did Canada pass a citizenship act that created the category of Canadian citizen. Under the terms of that act Canadian citizens remained British subjects, while British subjects who immigrated to Canada did not have to

94

phillip buckner

be naturalized to possess all the rights of Canadian citizens. The equation between Canadian citizen and British subject was not broken until the citizenship act of 1977 finally ended the transnational definition of the Canadian community as including kin in the United Kingdom. Moreover, although Canada had become effectively an independent country with the passing of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, the location of sovereign authority remained in the British Parliament until 1982. Indeed, the constitutional structure hammered out at the Quebec Conference remains the basis of our modern constitution, for the 1982 additions, as Alan Cairns has pointed out, “rearranged or supplemented a historic system, rather than repudiating it.”73 For nearly a century, the majority of English-speaking Canadians (for most of this period the vast majority) happily remained British subjects, happily accepted the Union Jack as their national flag, and happily sang “God Save the King” as their national anthem.74 To paraphrase Henry J. Morgan, the tombs in Europe of Canadians who fought in two world wars testify to the depth and longevity of the English-Canadian commitment to remaining British. Canadians in the twenty-first century may regret that the majority of English Canadians clung for so long to their commitment to the Empire but a sense of being part of a larger British world was an essential ingredient in the creation of the Canadian national identity after 1867. In any event, we cannot always have the ancestors we would like. notes 1 W.L. Morton, “Victorian Canada,” in The Shield of Achilles: Aspects of Canada in the Victorian Era (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968), 317. 2 Frederick Vaughan, The Canadian Federalist Experiment: From Defiant Monarchy to Reluctant Republic (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003). 3 For general studies of the impact of British migration on British North America, see Phillip Buckner, “Making British North America British, 1815–1860,” in Kith and Kin: Canada, Britain and the United States from the Revolution to the Cold War, ed. C.C. Eldridge (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), chap. 2, and Elizabeth Jane Errington, “British Migration and British America, 1783–1867,” in Canada and the British Empire, ed. Phillip Buckner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), chap. 8. The numbers

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12

13

14 15

95

given in the paper are very rough population estimates. Newfoundland is not included because it had a very different emigration pattern from the other colonies in British North America and the francophone numbers include the Acadians. On the Maritimes, see Phillip Buckner, “The Transformation of the Maritimes: 1815–1860,” London Journal of Canadian Studies 9 (1993), 13–30. See Charlotte Erickson, Invisible Immigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in 19th-Century America (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 1972). John MacGregor, Our Brothers and Cousins: A Summer Tour in Canada and the States (London: Seeley, Jackson and Halliday, 1859), 13. J.G. Kohl, Travels in Canada, and through the States of New York and Pennsylvania, vol. 1 (London: G. Manwaring, 1861), 115. George Tuthill Borrett, Out West: A Series of Letters from Canada and the United States (London: Groombridge and Sons, 1866), 169. Henry J. Morgan, The Place British Americans Have Won in History: A Lecture (Ottawa,: Hunter, Rose, 1866), 10. Edward Whelan, ed., The Union of the British Provinces (Charlottetown: G.T. Haszard, 1865), 8. N.A. Woods, The Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States (London: Bradbury & Evans, 1861), 24, 92, 251. Kinahan Cornwallis, Royalty in the New World: Or, the Prince of Wales in America (New York: M. Doolady, 1860), 47. See also Phillip Buckner, “The Invention of Tradition: The Royal Tours of 1860 and 1901 to Canada,” in Majesty in Canada: Essays on the Role of Royalty, ed. Colin M. Coates (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2006), 18–43, and Ian Radforth, Royal Spectacle: The 1860 Visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004). A British Canadian [Henry James Morgan], The Tour of H.R.H. The Prince of Wales through British America and the United States (Montreal: J. Lovell, 1860), 33–4. Cartier’s anglophilia and monarchism is brilliantly (if unsympathetically) analyzed in Brian Young, George-Etienne: Montreal Bourgeois (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1981) and even less sympathetically in Stéphane Kelly, Comment la Couronne a obtenu la collaboration du Canada français après 1837 (Montreal: Les Éditions du Boréal, 1997), 199–216. David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 118. See Buckner, “The Invention of Tradition,” 25–6.

96

phillip buckner

16 Richard Cartwright, “9 March 1865 in Canada. Parliament,” in Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces (Quebec: Hunter Rose & Co., 1865), 824. 17 John Darwin, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System 1830–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 147–8. 18 Jeffrey L. McNairn, The Capacity to Judge: Public Opinion and Deliberative Democracy in Upper Canada, 1791–1854 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 39. 19 British North-American Association, Confederation of the British North-American Provinces being Extracts of the Speeches Recently Delivered on this Subject in Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (London: F. Algar, 1865), 91. 20 [Egerton Ryerson], Remarks on Historical Mis-statements and Fallacies of Mr. Goldwin Smith (Toronto: Leader Steam Press, 1866), 3, 12, 15. 21 Allan Smith, “Old Ontario and the Emergence of a National Frame of Mind,” in Aspects of Nineteenth-Century Ontario: Essays Presented to James J. Talman, ed. F.H. Armstrong, H.A. Stevenson, and J.D. Wilson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), 194. 22 Macdonald, 6 February 1865 in Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 27. 23 John T. Saywell, The Lawmakers: Judicial Power and the Shaping of Canadian Federalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 4. 24 Janet Ajzenstat, Paul Romney, Ian Gentles, and William D. Gairdner, eds., Canada’s Founding Debates (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), note 239. 25 George Brown, 8 February 1865 in Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 97. 26 Montreal Gazette, 31 October 1864, quoted in Peter B. Waite, The Life and Times of Confederation, 1864–1867: Politics, Newspapers and the Union of British North America (1962, reprinted, Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 2001), 113. 27 Smith, “Old Ontario and the Emergence of a National Frame of Mind,” 194. 28 Quoted in Phillip Buckner, “Sir Charles Tupper,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 1016. 29 Carl Wallace, “Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12, 1054. 30 In his brief study of “The Halifax Press and B.N.A. Union, 1856–1864,” Dalhousie Review 30, no. 1 (April 1950), John Heisler points out that by 1864 both Liberal and Conservative newspapers in Halifax “favoured the scheme [of British North American Union] in principle,” 194. 31 See Phillip Buckner, “The Maritimes and Confederation,” Canadian Historical Review 71, no. 1 (1990), 1–30.

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

97

32 Quoted in Buckner, “Sir Charles Tupper,” 1016. 33 For example, see Frederick Vaughan, The Canadian Federalist Experiment, 53; Peter H. Russell, Constitutional Odyssey, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 22. 34 Quoted in Vaughan, The Canadian Federalist Experiment, 53. 35 The text of the Quebec Resolutions can be found in a variety of places, including Appendix A in Ajzenstat et al., Canada’s Founding Debates, 465–72. 36 Of all the Fathers of Confederation, Cartier is undoubtedly the most controversial. In The Moral Foundations of Canadian Federalism (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996), Samuel V. LaSelva sees Cartier as motivated by a desire to create a Canada that “would stand for a new kind of nationality and a new kind of fraternity,” 25. 37 Quoted in Jennifer Smith, “Origins of the Canadian Amendment Dilemma,” Dalhousie Review 61, no. 2, (Summer 1981), 305. 38 G. Browne, ed., Documents on the Confederation of British North America (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1969), 211. 39 Marc Chevrier, “The Idea of Federalism among the Founding Fathers of the United States and Canada” in Contemporary Canadian Federalism: Foundations, Traditions, Institutions, ed. Alain-G. Gagnon (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 23. 40 From the 1960s to the 1980s, the majority of anglophone Canadian historians accepted that the intention of the Fathers of Confederation was to create a highly centralized union, but since the 1980s the consensus has moved in the other direction, toward emphasizing the importance of provincial autonomy. Yet, as Vaughan points out in The Canadian Federalist Experiment, one of the most striking features of the 29th resolution adopted at Quebec enumerating the areas of federal responsibility “is the depth to which the delegates were prepared to allow Parliament to penetrate into the legislative life of the provinces of the new nation,” 59. A counter-argument about the intent of the Resolutions is advanced by Paul Romney in Getting It Wrong: How Canadians Forgot Their Past and Imperilled Confederation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999). But as Vaughan points out, Romney rarely cites the actual Quebec Resolutions in support of his thesis (187, note 41), presumably because it is hard to read the Resolutions without coming away with the sense that what was intended was to create a highly centralized union. 41 Browne, Documents on the Confederation of British North America, 77–8, 211. 42 Chevrier, “The Idea of Federalism among the Founding Fathers of the United States and Canada,” 41. 43 For the opposite view by a Canadian scholar, one which inflates the importance of the British support for Confederation, see R. Blake Brown, “One Version of History: The Supreme Court of Canada’s Use of History in the

98

44 45 46 47

48

49

50 51

52 53

54 55

phillip buckner

Quebec Secession Reference,” in Framing Canadian Federalism: Historical Essays in Honour of John T. Saywell (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 30. Ged Martin, Britain and the Origins of Canadian Confederation, 1837–1867 (Houndmills and London: Macmillan Press, 1995), 40, 70, 73–4. John A. Macdonald, 6 February 1865 in Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 34. Martin, Britain and the Origins of Confederation, 79, 261, 295. The quote from Galt can be found on 295. Andrew Smith, British Businessmen and Canadian Confederation: Constitution-Making in an Era of Anglo-Globalization (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008), 1, 5, 7, 18, 75, 111, 128. Vaughan, The Canadian Federalist Experiment, 74. As Vaughan points out, the changes made at the London Conference where the Act was drafted did not include any “substantive departure” from the Quebec Resolutions. This is also Martin’s conclusion in Britain and the Origins of Confederation, 271–7. Saywell argues that Francis Reilly, who drafted the British North America Act for the Colonial Office, did make some important changes in the wording of Sections 91 and 92 of the Act, but these changes did not alter the basic intentions of the Fathers of Confederation as embodied in the Quebec Resolutions. See Saywell, The Lawmakers, 7–14. Morton, “Victorian Canada.” McNairn, in The Capacity to Judge, claims that “Ultimately, the British constitution claimed the support of many Upper Canadians not because it was British, but because they thought it was the best,” 51. Of course, most Upper Canadians who were of Loyalist descent or were recent British immigrants defended the British constitution as “the best,” using classical arguments, but the notion that they reached their conclusions objectively seems a bit unlikely. For example, see Christopher Moore, 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1998), 235. See D.B. Swinfen, Imperial Control of Colonial Legislation, 1813–1865: A Study of British Policy Towards Colonial Legislative Powers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 183. John A. Macdonald, 6 February 1865 in Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 34. The letter is reproduced in Alexander Mackenzie, The Life and Speeches of Hon. George Brown (Toronto: Globe Printing Company, 1882), 226–7. I am grateful to Jacqueline Krikorian for this reference. George Brown to John A. Macdonald, 22 December 1864, quoted in Ged Martin, Britain and the Origins of Confederation, 75. On this issue see Smith, “Origins of the Canadian Amendment Dilemma,”

c a n a d i a n c o n s t i t u t i o n - m a k i n g in the british world

56

57

58

59

60 61

62 63 64 65

66 67

99

290–306. Smith convincingly argues that this decision reflected the desire of the anglophone Fathers of Confederation to maintain a close connection with the Mother Country: “Far from viewing British institutions as somehow foreign to the new constitution, he [Macdonald] saw their ongoing association with it as an important aspect of continuity with the constitutional past and as reassurance of the triumph of British principles of government in North America” (305). See Phillip Buckner, The Transition to Responsible Government: British Policy in British North America, 1815–1850 (Westport, ct: Greenwood Press, 1985), 257–9. As Macdonald pointed out, the larger constituencies into which the elected upper house had been divided meant that the costs of campaigning were much higher and “men of ambition” preferred to run for the Assembly. Macdonald, 6 February 1865, Parliamentary Debates on the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 35–7. Janet Ajzenstat and Peter J. Smith, “Liberal-Republicanism: The Revisionist Picture of Canada’s Founding,” in Canada’s Origins: Liberal, Tory, and Republican, ed. Janet Ajzenstat and Peter J. Smith (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1995), 10. George Emery, Elections in Oxford County, 1837–75: A Case Study of Democracy in Canada West and Early Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 10–11. George Coles, E.I. House of Assembly, 25 February 1869, in Canada’s Founding Debates, 63. Emery notes that “The statutory franchise [in Ontario] became less democratic for the 1867 elections than for all earlier elections.” Emery, Elections in Oxford County, 150. A History of the Vote in Canada, 2nd ed. (Ottawa: Office of the Chief Electoral Office of Canada, 2007), 136. Emery, Elections in Oxford County, xii. Janet Ajzenstat, The Canadian Founding: John Locke and Parliament (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007), 16. Ian McKay, “Canada as a Long Liberal Revolution: In Writing the History of Actually Existing Canadian Liberalisms, 1840s–1940s,” in Liberalism and Hegemony: Debating the Canadian Liberal Revolution, ed. Jean-François Constant and Michel Ducharme (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 393–4. Peter H. Russell, Constitutional Odyssey, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 12. George Brown claimed that an election was unnecessary since between the Quebec Conference in 1864 and the Confederation Debates in 1865 there

100

68 69

70 71 72 73

74

phillip buckner

had been byelections in 50 of the 130 seats in the Assembly of the United Province of Canada and that only four of the candidates in the byelections had been opposed to Confederation – all of them in Lower Canada – and only two had been elected. Brown, 8 February 1865 in Parliamentary Debates on the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 114. A.I. Silver also notes that pro-Confederates won the majority of byelections in Canada East after 1864, suggesting that this implies that there was less opposition to Confederation in Canada East than is usually assumed. A.I. Silver, The French-Canadian Idea of Confederation, 1864–1900 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 26–7. See Edward Cardwell to Arthur Gordon, 15 September 1865, in G. Browne, Documents, 178. Ajzenstat argues that both the Fathers of Confederation and the anti-Confederates believed that “there is no legitimate government without the people’s consent. They disagreed only about the means to obtain that consent.” Canadian Founding, xiii. But neither in Nova Scotia nor in Quebec was the “consent” of the people really obtained. George Brown, 8 February 1865 in Parliamentary Debates on the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 87. French Canadians, of course, had their own composite Canadian-Quebec identity. W.M. Kennedy, Theories of Law and the Constitutional Law of the British Empire (Canadian Bar Association, 1929), 11, 14–15. Alan C. Cairns, “The Constitutional World We Have Lost,” in Canada’s Century: Governance in a Maturing Society, ed. C.E.S. Franks et al. (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1995), 44. See Phillip Buckner, “The Long Goodbye: English Canadians and the British World,” in Rediscovering the British World, ed. Phillip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005), chap. 8, and Phillip Buckner, “Canada and the End of Empire,” in Canada and the British Empire, chap. 6.

part two

Avoiding the “iniquitous pit of liberty”: The Centralizing Federalism of Joseph-Édouard Cauchon éric bédard The events leading up to the passage of the British North America Act, and the key figures who defended or fought against the Quebec Resolutions, have not received much attention from historians in recent years, at least in Quebec. Since Nature abhors a vacuum, the theme has been taken up by political scientists, who have a different approach to the past. However, following the work of Christopher Moore, I believe that we can all benefit from reviewing the course of events and the ideology that guided the leading players, if only to add nuance to existing judgments and avoid over-simplification.1 Researchers hold two ideas to be true when looking at the foundation of Canada in 1867 with respect to the bloc of French-Canadian parliamentarians in the 1860s. The first is that they were fiercely opposed to legislative union. According to this point of view, the French-Canadian representatives, besides playing a fundamental role in the creation of a “federal” regime (alongside the Ontario reformers) and thereby promoting a healthy dialogue based on the sharing of sovereignty between two levels of government, were able to carve out a degree of freedom for a minority national community. This federal regime, as explained by political scientist Guy Laforest and legal expert Eugénie Brouillet in their respective studies, was then denatured by the Constitution Act, 1982.2 The second idea that has gained general acceptance, because multiple traces of it can be seen in the debates of 1865, is that the support of French-Canadian conservatives for the Quebec Resolutions was based on a fear of American hegemony. The fears raised by the theory of manifest destiny proposed by US intellectuals and politicians in the northern camp, including the

104

éric bédard

powerful Secretary of State William Seward, a close advisor to President Abraham Lincoln during the US Civil War,3 apparently exerted a strong influence. Joseph-Édouard Cauchon (1816–1885), although not one of the “Fathers of Confederation,” was an important and even dominant figure of the period, especially in Quebec City.4 He took a passionate interest in the debate surrounding the union of the British North American colonies and published two works on the topic. The first, and most succinct, dates from 1858 and was generally against the new union;5 the second, containing 152 pages and published in January 1865, only a few weeks after the Quebec Conference and before the famous parliamentary debate at the Legislative Assembly of United Canada, came out clearly in support of the seventy-two resolutions from the Quebec Conference.6 His work deserves our attention, if only because he was one of the few people at the time to record his ideas about the projected union of Britain’s North American colonies. In this chapter, I will show how Cauchon’s rejection of the US model, inspired by a political and social conservatism, led him to write some highly critical reflections on federalism. In Cauchon’s view, the imbalance in the new regime that favoured the central state was not a defect but was, in fact, absolutely necessary to avoid the sorry and chaotic spectacle offered by Canada’s southern neighbours, plunged into a devastating civil war. a man of in f l u e n c e Although he was not as central a figure as Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine or George-Étienne Cartier, Joseph-Édouard Cauchon was one of the people who counted in United Canada. In October 1864, it was far from certain that Cauchon would support the resolutions defined at the Quebec Conference. At the time of the great parliamentary debate of 1865, at which he spoke on 2 and 6 March, Cauchon was almost fifty and a politician at the height of his powers. He was born into a family with deep roots in the Quebec City region, and attended the Minor Seminary from 1830 to 1839. Too young to have taken part in the confrontations of 1837–38, he nevertheless retained some bad memories from the period. On several occasions, he blamed Papineau and the Patriote command for their “all or nothing” strategy and intransigence.7 After completing his legal studies, he became a key figure in the mid-nineteenth century as a journalist, politician, and promoter.

t h e c e n t r a l i z i n g f e d e r a l i s m of c auchon

105

Cauchon began his journalistic career at Le Canadien and then founded Le Journal de Québec in 1842, continuing as its proprietor until 1862 and editor until 1875. The newspaper offered him a platform to express his views on the colony and world affairs. His ideas about his own era were clear, vivid, and sometimes controversial. Cauchon enjoyed spirited debate and confrontation; as a polemicist he was formidable, quarrelsome, and sometimes abrasive, and certainly could not be ignored. In addition to editing a newspaper to which he also contributed prolifically, he quickly became a major political figure, especially in the Quebec City area. In 1844 he was elected as the member for Montmorency, the riding he went on to represent for the whole of his political career. He was elected by acclamation twice, and appeared undefeatable. From 1865 to 1867, the years that concern us here, he was also mayor of Quebec City, and as a result wielded even more influence. Considered by some to be a free spirit, by others a loose cannon, he often transgressed the party line. Although, at the time, the boundaries between the parties were flexible, to say the least, the list of his reversals, resignations, and attacks against former allies is impressive. During the 1840s he supported the Reformers grouped around LaFontaine but then broke away from Augustin-Norbert Morin, the natural successor, who, in 1851, sided with Francis Hincks, the ally of George Brown, leader of the Clear Grits. When the Reformers became more obviously conservative, in the mid-1850s, he returned to his former camp and held office as Commissioner of Crown lands (1855– 57) and minister of public works (1861–62). In the wake of the Pacific Scandal in 1873, he simply switched sides and became a Liberal. After holding office as a federal Liberal minister for a few months in 1877, he ended his career as lieutenant-governor of Manitoba. His numerous changes of direction obviously delighted his adversaries, who lost no chance of accusing him of opportunism. The accusation was not unfounded but now, with hindsight, can be seen in a more nuanced way. Cauchon considered that, once elected, a member “represent[ed] the whole country” and was therefore free to follow his own conscience in matters of vital public interest.8 He had a classical view of British parliamentarianism, and saw the House as a community of independently minded men who, once elected, could work together to seek the common good. Periodically, he affirmed the importance of rising above the partisan struggle. In his first editorial in Le Journal de Québec, Cauchon stated that a “broad and generous” view of politics excluded any overly closed and restrictive “political system.”9 Not only

106

éric bédard

did such blinkers prevent people from thinking freely, he said, but they also distracted members from the essential challenges they faced. In his first manifesto directed at electors in the Montmorency riding, published in October 1844, Cauchon was pleased to report that “minds are turning to more serious topics, and increasingly moving away from pointless abstractions.” The “abstractions” he was referring were those of the Liberals, who were promoting stricter separation between Church and state; of the socialists, who dreamed of abolishing property ownership; and of the Rouges, who threatened to shatter society’s philosophical and moral foundations.10 Like all prospective members, Cauchon wanted to improve the country, but on the condition that expenditure remain under control and that no transformation be made to the “nature [or] character of the fine and sacred institutions bequeathed to us by our forefathers.”11 Another reason why Joseph-Édouard Cauchon could not be ignored was that, like all the leading politicians of the period, he also tried his luck in the business world. In 1852, he and a group of businessmen launched a corporation to promote a railway along the north shore of the St Lawrence.12 Their consortium, however had a major competitor: the Grand Trunk Railway Company, represented by lawyer GeorgeÉtienne Cartier, who lobbied the colonial authorities to obtain support for the construction of a railway along the south shore from Montreal to Lévis, which would later link Quebec City to Halifax. In 1857, the project supported by Cauchon and his associates was turned down by the government of the colony – of which Cauchon was a member, leading to his flamboyant resignation! It seems reasonable to suppose that this disappointment also influenced his generally negative view of the proposed union of the British North American colonies, the subject of his first publication in 1858. raising a rampa rt a g a i n s t the empire o f e v i l … One striking feature of Cauchon’s written commentary on the proposed union of the British colonies is his immense hostility to the US model. In his view, although it was necessary to preserve the language and religion of his forebears, it was even more vital to slow the expansion of the American republic. The great mission of the parliamentarians of United Canada had to be, above all, to avoid annexation. The

t h e c e n t r a l i z i n g f e d e r a l i s m of c auchon

107

United States, he pointed out in his brochure of 1865, was going through a devastating civil war. To join the US would be to join a country that was deeply divided and in debt, and to risk seeing Canada’s “sons sent to die” on the battlefield in the struggle against the Confederate States.13 In addition to these circumstantial reasons, however, the member for Montmorency had a more profound motivation. First, Cauchon feared the assimilation of the French Canadians. It has often been suggested, possibly to excuse their conduct, that if Papineau and the Rouges signed the Annexation Manifesto in 1849, it was partly because the situation of French-speakers in Louisiana was less alarming than it later became.14 Cauchon, however, was more pessimistic. By becoming annexed to the United States, he wrote in 1858 to his target audience of French Canadians, “we will disappear like our brothers in Louisiana who will soon go humiliated before history to inquire, in a foreign language, about their origin and the forgotten names of their forefathers.”15 Seven years later, he returned to the same theme with the spectre of Louisiana, where “the French language is rapidly disappearing,” and asked questions that revealed his concerns about the fate of the language of Molière and Bossuet in the great republic. If annexed to the United States, “for how long would we be French? For how long would we retain the independence that is so dear to us, and would we continue to say, as Frenchmen, ‘our institutions, our language, our laws,’ engraved in pages that are sometimes glorious, sometimes bloody and lugubrious, but still visible as the frontispiece to our history?”16 If the founder of Le Journal de Québec sought to avoid annexation at all costs, it was also, and especially, because he associated the idea of republicanism with disorder and anarchy as the inevitable consequence when “democracy” is taken hostage by an irrational population led by the worst kind of demagogues. “In a country subject to a democratic regime,” he wrote in the 7 February 1843 issue of Le Journal de Québec, “moderation … the politics of a happy balance, is radically impossible … Popular passions are like a vapour, following a natural law of expansion that can only be limited by artificial laws.” In other words, under a democratic regime, popular passions could be unleashed and trigger riots, confrontation, and disorder – as occurred in Philadelphia in the spring of 1844. An excess of liberty stifled freedom, and played into the hands of dictators. Addressing his FrenchCanadian readership, Cauchon issued a warning that was nothing if

108

éric bédard

not clear: “Do not plunge into this iniquitous pit of liberty … which swallows up all freedom … There is no-one more tyrannical, more anarchist, than a republican in general.”17 In Cauchon’s view, the danger lying in wait for America was, specifically, this democratic and republican spirit. On the rare occasions when he commented on political life in South America, it was to deplore the successive uprisings there. After informing his readers that a bloody struggle had erupted in Peru, he quickly complained about “this land of revolution, like the rest of benighted Spanish America”;18 when he mentioned the transfer of Bolivar’s ashes to Venezuela, it provided an opportunity to mock a “South American Napoleon.”19 In short, he explained in 1865, it was better to avoid communion with the spirit of democracy in order to “escape the demagogic whirlpool in which the republics of North America, Central America and South America are struggling convulsively.”20 Last, Cauchon feared annexation because he considered that the US republic embodied a form of moral degeneracy. This, at least, is what he explained in a piece developed at length in Le Journal de Québec on 17 January 1843. In his opinion, the “virus,” the “deep wound” eating away at “the entrails of the American social body,” was “love of gain.” “Morality is a cumbersome baggage for someone intent on making his fortune.” Although Cauchon admitted that this vice had in fact led to some great achievements, and had “allowed the country to advance by two centuries in twenty years … revivifying the desert, and transforming forests into cities and swamps into fertile land.” As a promoter and businessman, Cauchon sincerely admired American prosperity and wanted Canadians to benefit from it too, explaining his support for a reciprocal trade deal with the United States in the mid-1840s. However, he still feared the moral effects of the American spirit of enterprise. “The country, the land, have benefitted immensely from this spirit of enterprise,” he admitted, while wondering “But the inhabitants, from a moral standpoint, the people themselves, have they gained anything?” Even though he never turned his back on a good business opportunity, he seemed to think the answer to his question was obvious. Like Damien-Claude Bélanger, I feel that this comprehensive and outright rejection of the American model reflects a broader sensitivity to the ideals of modernity unfurling across the western world in the nineteenth century.21 To summarize, these ideals of liberty, equality, and democracy allowed peoples and individuals to choose their own destiny, even if this meant modifying the institutions inherited from the past.

t h e c e n t r a l i z i n g f e d e r a l i s m of c auchon

109

In the loose formation of this “reformist” generation that I have discussed previously,22 it is clear that Cauchon represented a conservative ethos, allergic to sudden change, breaks with the past, and revolutions based on abstract philosophical ideals. However, he cannot be described as a reactionary or ultramontane. “We are living in prodigious times,” he wrote in Le Journal de Québec on 26 February 1850, “and we can say that the social elements at play have never produced phenomena such as those currently occurring in the world.” The shocks were salutary, and in his opinion formed part of a grand, Christian scheme of justice, respect, and dignity for each person. “But,” he continued, “the peoples have taken a wrong turning; unaccustomed to the enjoyment of freedom, they are throwing themselves into anarchy.” He was entirely at ease with the British constitutional monarchy, since he saw the regime as the epitome of moderation and good measure that provided individuals with the essential freedoms while ensuring order and stability. In a long speech focusing on the Quebec Resolutions on 2 March 1865, he highlighted the benefits of the constitutional monarchy. Tempered by a “parliamentary system” which allowed the representatives of the electorate to debate issues calmly, and thanks to the “responsible government” granted to the colony in the late 1840s, the political regime inherited from Great Britain was by far preferable to “democracy” which, “dressed in republican garb,” was proceeding “swiftly toward demagogy, and from demagogy toward an intolerable despotism.”23 In Cauchon’s mind, the French-Canadian people were clearly attached to their language and culture, but also to the traditions they had inherited. They were tolerant in matters of religion, open to cohabitation with other nationalities, but essentially “conservative,” in other words attached to historical continuity and faithful to the heritage of the past. … by founding a highly c e n t r a l i z e d f e d e r at i o n While annexation to the United States appeared to offer the worst potential outcome for French Canadians, they still had to identify a regime that would allow them to survive as a nation and slow the expansion of the New World empire. From 1858 to 1865, Cauchon’s position on this issue changed. Early on, he was optimistic and foresaw a bright future for the British North American colonies. In June 1843, he predicted that Canada

110

éric bédard

would one day be “powerful” and “populous” enough to proclaim its independence. If the British colonies turned their back on this destiny, they ran the risk of falling into the “devouring maw of the great republic.”24 Four years later, the same Cauchon came out in favour of a “federal union, in which each province has its own local legislature free from foreign influence.”25 Open to a change of regime but wary following the Act of Union of 1840, Cauchon and the French-Canadian political elite wanted to avoid unilateral decisions. It was important to act prudently. In 1858, Cauchon was suspicious of a plan put forward by a Liberal minister, because he feared the “odious machinations” that could “destroy the constitutional balance.”26 He was worried, first, about the political weight of the French Canadians in the future union. Since the Act of Union, a modus operandi had become established that ensured equal representation of Upper and Lower Canada in the Assembly. This equality had been challenged by the supporters of “rep by pop.” Cauchon feared that in a new union (whether legislative or federal, as we will see later), the French and Catholic element would be given less weight. “We – the French Canadians of Lower Canada – would be one out of six,” predicted a slightly anxious Cauchon, “rather than one out of two.”27 In addition, Cauchon opposed the union project because he found it premature at both the military and commercial levels. In his view, there was no need to turn everything upside down to give the future central power the means to establish an army since, as British North American colonies, they could still count on Her Majesty’s forces to protect them. The geo-economic argument for creating a vast economic area with permanent access to the sea was no more valid, according to Cauchon. For merchants in the St Lawrence Valley and the Great Lakes region, it was far simpler to use the rail routes developed by the Americans. As for the market possibilities, once again there was no need to go so far: simply extending the reciprocal trade agreement with the United States sufficed. In addition, a union with the highly indebted Atlantic colonies would create more of a burden than an advantage for United Canada. By 1865, when Cauchon published his second brochure, the circumstances had changed. This time, the project was put forward by a conservative government supported by George Brown; the United States was plunged into civil war, and the reciprocal trade agreement was in the past. The Quebec Conference had taken place a few weeks earlier and the outline of the new union was a lot clearer than in 1858. As a

t h e c e n t r a l i z i n g f e d e r a l i s m of c auchon

111

result, Cauchon supported both the spirit and the letter of what he called the Quebec “agreement,” falling in line behind Cartier and the conservatives. However, his arguments, as we will see, were still a long way from the autonomist position later laid out by Honoré Mercier. Cauchon accepted the principle of a “federal” union, but on the condition that the union be as centralized as possible and that the central government always have the last word. On 6 March 1865, during his second speech to the Legislative Assembly of United Canada, in response to Antoine-Aimé Dorion, who described the new proposal as a disguised legislative union, Cauchon said: “Sovereignty lies with the federal government for all federal matters, and with the states, for everything connected with their specific attributes.”28 This statement, which almost prefigures the future Gérin-Lajoie doctrine, could be interpreted to mean that Cauchon was already a staunch defender of provincial autonomy. This is the position taken in La négation de la nation by Eugénie Brouillet, who uses this excerpt to demonstrate that the autonomist philosophy was broadly shared by the French-Canadian parliamentarians who supported the Confederation project.29 To the best of my knowledge, the statement by Cauchon is the only one that can be used to link him to an autonomist position, and the only one that shows genuine adhesion to the spirit of federalism. However, it was made during an oratorical spat between two parliamentarians seeking to have the last word. An attentive reading of Cauchon’s written comments on Confederation, whether from 1858 or 1865, reveals an extremely different view of federalism, one diametrically opposed to autonomism. The union of all the British colonies was, in Cauchon’s view, a necessity for the French Canadians. The need to group all the colonies together as a single entity reflected both geopolitics and ideological sensitivity. To resist the American model and be in a position to propose an alternative, there was an urgent need to unite all the colonies “failing which, the current will carry us quickly towards annexation,”30 the worst possible outcome according to Cauchon, as we have seen. In short, his argument was based on critical mass. “Supposing that we are not afraid of this terrifying prospect, what position would we find ourselves in, as French Canadians, in an alliance with a nation of thirty million republicans, so different from us, not only in their language, but also in their morals and sentiments, given how conservative and monarchist we are in our instincts and aspirations?”31 Concerning the

112

éric bédard

“federal” aspect of the union, it was also a necessity. The political class, both in Britain and the colonies, had, according to Cauchon, understood “the absolute necessity of making major concessions to numerous separate interests, of recognizing, in a broad measure of equity and liberality, the existing social elements with their differences, and to also embrace local aspirations and even the biases of race and religion.”32 In other words, for the union to be brought into being and to develop in relative harmony, there was an imperative need to make compromises, to find points of agreement between the various “national” communities that Cauchon reduced to “existing social elements.” But federalism as such, federalism as a political regime and a way to share sovereignty, was not considered by Cauchon. It even seems as though federalism was, for him, a second choice, a stopgap solution, and that in other circumstances he would clearly have preferred a legislative union. In his brochure of 1858, Cauchon explained that a legislative union would be far more “logical.”33 More logical “from a budgetary point of view,” first, because the new colony would have only one parliament, would form a single state, and would have only one government, and would therefore be less costly for taxpayers. Legislative union would also be more “logical” from the point of view of the “colonial system” because power would only be divided between two levels of government, one in the home country and one in the colony. This type of colony would be far easier to manage from London. Above all, a legislative union would be more “logical” because it would counterbalance the weight of the United States, “since unity resides in centralization and indissociability; because centralization and indissociability are two major forces, two great principles of national life, one of initiative, the other of resistance, one of action, the other of cohesion. Only unity, initiative and resistance brought together in unity, can save us in the future from the eagle’s claws.” With this American counter-model in mind, Cauchon pleaded for a highly centralized federation in his 1865 brochure. He supported the resolutions in the Quebec agreement specifically because they gave the central state the last word on the most delicate matters, and because the local states were subordinated to the federal state. The Quebec Resolutions specified that marriage (and divorce) would be a responsibility of the central government. Antoine-Aimé Dorion and the Liberals, to embarrass the Conservatives, had raised the possibility that a future legislative assembly dominated by Protes-

t h e c e n t r a l i z i n g f e d e r a l i s m of c auchon

113

tants could allow the dissolution of marriage. According to Cauchon, leaving the question of divorce to the local legislatures, as in certain American states, would make divorce “a lot easier and … more frequent.” Cauchon added: “The local legislatures, some of which represent very small Provinces, would not be able to guarantee the same degree of conservation and elevation, in ideas and sentiments, as the federal parliament.”34 Because the family was a serious, fundamental, and sacred institution, the question of divorce had to be reserved for the central parliament. Cauchon also supported the Quebec Resolutions because they made the central government responsible for appointing judges to the higher courts. To act otherwise, and to give the local legislatures this responsibility, would be to risk seeing a drop in the “intellectual and moral level of our courts,” as they fell victim to “the influence and intrigues” of “cliques.”35 Similarly, he vastly preferred to see the appointment of lieutenant-governors entrusted to the governor general rather than to the local legislatures, since this would allow the union to avoid the democratic excesses of the south and escape from “the sphere of influence of the great Republic, already decrepit and worm-ridden.”36 With arguments like these, Cauchon’s enthusiastic support for the supremacy of the central power comes as no surprise. In the event of a dispute, he pleaded, the federal laws should override the local legislation. The Quebec Resolutions, he was glad to see, provided that in “exceptional circumstances,” the central government would be able to disallow the statutes passed by local parliaments who had made the wrong choice. “The reason,” explained Cauchon, to shed light on the predominance of the future federal state, “is, once again, unity; it is, once again, the need for centralization without which it appears to be impossible to found a durable empire alongside the grand republic which is our neighbour.”37 The 152 pages of Cauchon’s 1865 book, all imbued with fear of the American counter-model, also contain an idea that anticipates the dissolution of the future federal union. In his view, “the preponderance of unity in the constitution, with the accompanying conditions, is preferable, from all points of view, to the sovereignty of states and delegation!”38 The error of the founding fathers of the American republic, according to Cauchon, was to have granted too many powers and too much leeway to the local legislatures. If the Confederate southern states had rebelled, it was because the founding fathers had not been able to create a broad, homogeneous, and centralized nation. Canadians had

114

éric bédard

to take note of this mistake, “to avoid the incipient dangers in the American constitution” and “build our nationality on a firmer foundation, on elements that are more homogenous and principles that are more indissociable.”39 To achieve this, it was imperative to build a union in which the whole took precedence over the parts, in which the central state acted as a force for unity and cohesion. “Admitting the sovereignty of the state and the right to delegate as the foundation for the general constitution is to proclaim, at the same time, the right to separate; it is to place within the system, a necessary germ of dissolution which, sooner or later, will produce fatal consequences.”40 ✠ ✠ ✠

Joseph-Édouard Cauchon supported the Confederation project essentially for two reasons: first, because he considered that without a new federal union, annexation with the United States would become inevitable and would seal the fate of the French-Canadian nation; and second, because the federal union would be far more centralized than in the south and would therefore be able to resist aggression from without and possible secessionist movements from within. In a strange coincidence, Cauchon died in 1885, the year in which Louis Riel was hanged and a major assembly was held on the Champ de Mars, marked by an important speech by Honoré Mercier. notes 1 Christopher Moore, 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1997), ix–xiv. 2 Eugénie Brouillet, La négation de la nation: L’Identité culturelle et le fédéralisme canadien (Quebec: Septentrion, 2005), 105–98; Guy Laforest, Un Québec exilé dans la fédération: Essais d’histoire intellectuelle et de pensée politique (Montreal: Québec/Amérique, 2014), 33–44 and 127–66. 3 John Boyko, Blood and Daring: How Canada Fought the American Civil War and Forged a Nation (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2013), 61–105. 4 The most up-to-date biography of Joseph-Édouard Cauchon is by Andrée Desilets. It was published in 1982 in Volume 11 of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. http://www.biographi.ca/fr/bio/cauchon_joseph_edouard_ 11E.html.

t h e c e n t r a l i z i n g f e d e r a l i s m of c auchon

115

5 Joseph-Édouard Cauchon, Étude sur l’union projetée des provinces britanniques de l’Amérique du nord (Quebec: Augustin Côté et Cie, 1858). 6 Joseph-Édouard Cauchon, L’union des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du nord (Quebec: A. Côté et Cie, 1865). 7 An example of his criticism is found in Le Journal de Québec, 17 June 1848. 8 This is how he responded, on 6 March 1865, to Antoine-Aimé Dorion who was calling for voters to be consulted specifically on the Quebec Resolutions. See Débats sur la question de la Confédération des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du nord, 3rd session, 8th Parlement Provincial du Canada (Quebec: Hunter, Rose et Lemieux, parliamentary printers, 1865), 701. 9 Le Journal de Québec, 1 December 1842. 10 This view was shared by most members of the reformist generation. Éric Bédard, “Parler d’une seule voix,” in Les Réformistes: Une génération canadiennefrançaise au milieu du XIXe siècle, chap. 2 (Montreal: Boréal, 2009), 81–127. 11 Le Journal de Québec, 8 October 1844. 12 Concerning the plan for a railway along the north shore of the St Lawrence, the key reference work remains: Brian Young, Promoters and Politicians: The North-Shore Railways in the History of Quebec, 1854–85 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978). 13 Cauchon, L’union des provinces, 117. 14 Guy Lachapelle, “L’américanité du Québec au temps de Louis-Joseph Papineau,” in Le destin américain du Québec: Américanité, américanisation et anti-américanisme, ed. Guy Lachapelle (Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2010), 9–30; Yvan Lamonde, Histoire sociale des idées au Québec, 1760–1896 (Montreal: Fides, 2000), 311–12; Jean-Paul Bernard, Les Rouges: Libéralisme, nationalisme et anticléricalisme au milieu du XIXe siècle (Montreal: Presses de l’Université du Québec, 1971), 61–73. 15 Cauchon, Étude sur l’union projetée, 33. 16 Cauchon, L’union des provinces, 29. “Our institutions, our language, our laws” was the motto of the newspaper Le Canadien. 17 Journal de Québec, 18 May 1844. 18 Ibid., 3 January 1843. 19 Ibid., 24 January 1843. 20 Cauchon, L’union des provinces, 116–17. 21 Damien-Claude Bélanger, Prejudice and Pride: Canadian Intellectuals Confront the United States, 1891–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 3–48. 22 Éric Bédard, Les Réformistes, 23 See Débats sur la question de la Confédération, 566.

116

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

éric bédard

Le Journal de Québec, 27 June 1843. Ibid., 9 September 1847. Cauchon, Étude sur l’union projetée, 3–4. Ibid., 11. Débats sur la question de la Confédération, 700. Brouillet, La négation de la nation, 157. Cauchon, L’union des provinces, 25. All the quotations in this paragraph are from this source, with italics added. Ibid., 27. Ibid., 128. Cauchon, Étude sur l’union projetée, 8–10. Cauchon, L’union des provinces, 97. Ibid., 114. Ibid., 117. Ibid., 132. Emphasis added. Ibid., 51. Ibid., 54. Ibid., 53.

The Trustee, the Financier, and the Poet: Cartier, Galt, and D’Arcy McGee guy laforest and félix mathieu

The symposium on the 150th anniversary of the Quebec Conference, which took place in mid-October 2014 at the Musée de la Civilisation, more or less coincided with the bicentenary of George-Étienne Cartier’s birth, which was highlighted by then prime minister Stephen Harper during his trip to Quebec. Given that Cartier was, at the time of the Conference, the leading conservative politician from Canada East (formerly Lower Canada) in the world of United Canadas politics, it seems essential to examine the role he played in the Quebec Conference. For this purpose, we will quickly review Cartier’s career, looking first at his ideas, actions, and speeches during the years leading up to the Quebec Conference between 1858 and the Charlottetown Conference in September 1864. As mentioned in some of the other chapters, the archival documents and histories of the period all suggest that Cartier’s formal role, during the official sessions of the Quebec Conference from 10 to 26 October 1864, was relatively limited. However, he played a leading part in the debates surrounding the ratification of the seventy-two Quebec Resolutions, whether at the Parliament of the United Canadas or in the public forum.1 We will examine Cartier’s main positions, which were generally stated during the winter of 1865 and before the London Conference in 1866. Throughout Canada, but particularly in Quebec, historians have tended to focus on the relationship between Cartier and his partners – John A. Macdonald and George Brown2 – in the Great Coalition that governed the United Canadas from the summer of 1864. Their explicit goal was to promote a project to unite the colonies of British North America to break the deadlock between Canada East and Canada West. In this chapter we will take another interpretative approach by

118

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

considering the roles played by Alexander Tilloch Galt and Thomas D’Arcy McGee, respectively members of the Anglo-Protestant and Anglo-Catholic communities in Canada East, during the Quebec Conference and before and after the events of October 1864. Like Cartier, Galt and D’Arcy McGee were true giants of nineteenth-century Canadian politics. Just as Cartier was clearly the trustee of the FrenchCanadian Catholic community in the soon-to-be Quebec, known at the time as Canada East, Galt and D’Arcy McGee deserve to be considered as the trustees of their respective Anglo-Protestant and AngloCatholic communities. They also played another role, namely as the financial genius and the poet behind the Quebec Conference and the project to unite the British colonies in North America. In pursuit of our goal we will review the careers, actions, ideas, and main speeches of Galt and D’Arcy McGee between 1858 and 1866, to better understand their respective roles and the nature of their relationships with Cartier. We believe that this shift in perspective will provide the foundation and prolegomena for a re-examination of the links between Cartier, Galt and D’Arcy McGee during the Quebec Conference period, and will also offer various lessons for twenty-first-century Quebec society, in particular concerning its majority/minority relationships. the c areer of george-étie n n e c a rt i e r , t r u s t e e of the french-c ana d i a n c o m m u n i t y It is possible to distinguish five phases in the life and career of GeorgeÉtienne Cartier (1814–1873). He started out as a sympathizer of Louis-Joseph Papineau, Robert Nelson, and their Patriote movement launched in 1834 and, after being called to the Bar of Lower Canada in 1835, took part in the 1837–38 rebellion. He was present at the Battle of Saint-Denis and then voluntarily exiled himself in the United States for a few months. Next, he was a business attorney dealing mainly with the commercial and industrial interests of the Montreal bourgeoisie, which was largely English-speaking.3 The Grand Trunk Railway Company was one of his clients. This second period began around 1838–39 and, until 1852, represented Cartier’s main field of activity and one that he never entirely left. A little arbitrarily, we propose the dates 1854–64 for the third period in Cartier’s professional life, when he became the political leader of the French-Canadian and Catholic heritage community in Lower Canada, known as Canada East

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

119

since the Act of Union, during which he can be labelled as a conservative reformer or moderate reformer. His political career actually began before 1854, since he was a follower of LaFontaine and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the United Canadas in 1848, and it continued until his death in 1873. However, it was really during the years 1854 to 1864, as LaFontaine’s main successor, as a minister and as the political leader of Canada East in the dualist system of the United Canadas, that Cartier helped introduce the extensive series of reforms that made him, incontestably, one of the founders of Quebec as a distinct society in North America. These reforms included the codification of civil law and civil procedure, the extension of the application of French civil law to the Eastern Townships, the reorganization of the municipal and school systems, and judicial decentralization.4 The fourth period in Cartier’s career began in the winter and spring of 1864, when he began the political manoeuvres that confirmed his acceptance of the idea that the British colonies should unite in a federal union, in particular to break the political impasse in the United Canadas. The Quebec Conference of October 1864 was the high point of this period, and we will look at Cartier’s contribution, both before and after the Conference, in the next section of this chapter. The last active period in Cartier’s life began with the coming into force of the bna Act in July 1867, and ended with his death. As Minister of Militia and Defence and Quebec’s political leader, Cartier was John A. Macdonald’s right-hand man in the extension of Canada to the north (via the purchase of Rupert’s Land and the Northwest Territories in 1869), and in its growth following the entry of Manitoba (1870) and British Columbia (1871) into Confederation as Canada’s newest provinces. This brief review reminds us that, at a time when key figures from the past are often pressed into service for use in simplified formulas for the political combats of today, Cartier’s public career had an unusually broad scope. We can now look in more detail at his contribution to the federal union project that led to the Quebec Conference of October 1864. c artier before a n d a f t e r t h e quebec co n f e r e n c e Cartier was both a highly significant political figure and an immensely complex man. He was educated by the Sulpicians and stood with one foot in French-Canadian Catholic conservatism and the other in British

120

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

conservatism, a monarchist but open to economic liberalism. He was simultaneously a “growth-attracted bourgeois railway lawyer,”5 to borrow a phrase from historian Christopher Moore, and the political heir to the ideological program shared by Étienne Parent and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, founded on the preservation of the language, nationality, and laws of Lower Canada, which was in the process of redefining itself as a French-Canadian community. The work of historians Éric Bédard and Yvan Lamonde shows that, faced with the clear assimilatory intentions of the Durham Report and the Act of Union, Lower Canada, or Canada East, and its political leaders played their hand skillfully under the dualist regime introduced by the Act of Union. They obtained new institutional status for the French language, helped obtain responsible government in 1848, and then joined first with the reformers and later with the Conservatives of Upper Canada in managing and transforming the colony.6 However, around 1864, the system became paralyzed: between 1854 and 1864, the government changed every year. The source of this crisis was the population increase in Upper Canada and the calls from the reformers led by George Brown for representation by population (“rep by pop”) in the Legislative Assembly. For several years, Cartier and the other leaders of Canada East – including the leader of the Rouges, Antoine-Aimé Dorion – resisted the pressure to reform, preferring to retain a system that provided more guarantees for their community.7 According to Jean-Charles Bonenfant, Cartier was well aware that Canada East would not be able to resist the pressure indefinitely.8 Starting in 1857, several reform projects were considered, including a dualist federal regime uniting Canada East and Canada West. In August 1858, the Member for Sherbrooke, Alexander Tilloch Galt, joined what would become the Cartier-Macdonald government on the express condition that it would work on a project for a federal union of all the British colonies in North America. This was when Cartier rallied behind this idea and, as usual, he consulted nobody before making the switch. In the fall of 1858, Cartier, Galt, and John Ross travelled to London to persuade the imperial authorities that their proposal was relevant and timely. However, the idea failed to make headway thanks to the absence of any true interest in London and a lack of enthusiasm in the Maritime colonies. We will come back to this project of the fall of 1858 when we look more closely at the role played by Galt at the Quebec Conference. After 1858, the project for a union of the colonies remained in suspense, in both London and North America. The question was raised

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

121

again in 1860 during a visit by the Prince of Wales, partly hosted by Cartier, and received serious consideration from a parliamentary committee set up at the suggestion of George Brown and attended by Alexander Tilloch Galt. That was during yet another ephemeral United Canada government, this time directed by Étienne-Pashcal Taché and John A. Macdonald, between March and June 1864, in which Cartier participated as attorney general for Canada East.9 The government fell in mid-June 1864. Besides the chronic instability of the United Canadas, what had happened since 1858 to increase the urgency of the federal union project for these political leaders? The answer can be found in the United States, where a colossal civil war had been under way since 1861; the North had just claimed decisive victories at Gettysburg in July 1863 and at Chattanooga in November of the same year. There could be no doubt as to the final outcome. The conservative and monarchist camp in the United Canadas, represented by John A. Macdonald, alongside whose name we can add those of Galt and D’Arcy McGee, feared both American expansionism and democratic republicanism. Cartier was also part of this movement; he felt a deep-seated aversion to the United States, and had always opposed the annexationist proposals put forward in the circle around Papineau and Dorion. In September 1864, in Halifax, Cartier stated that he represented a province whose inhabitants were “monarchist by religion, custom and memory of the past.” 10 Similarly, in mid-June 1864, he had no hesitation in joining a coalition government formally led by Étienne-Paschal Taché, with the participation of John A. Macdonald, Galt, and D’Arcy McGee, and also of the reformer George Brown and his friends. This government was based on a new alliance between two former enemies, Brown and Cartier, in which Cartier reconciled himself to the idea of rep by pop in a federal union that would protect local institutions and identities, including those of the French-Canadian community. The pace of history quickened when the representatives of the Maritime colonies of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick met in Charlottetown from 1 to 9 September 1864, to debate the union of the colonies, with support from London. The new government of the United Canadas seized on the opportunity to delegate some of its heavyweights including, besides Macdonald and Brown, Cartier, Galt, and D’Arcy McGee, to win over the Maritime delegates to the idea of discussing an even broader union project. During the Charlottetown Conference, and in the days following in Halifax,

122

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

Cartier made several speeches that helped persuade the Maritime colonies to discuss the federal union project in more depth at a conference to be held in Quebec in October. As we will show below, Galt and D’Arcy McGee also played their hands skillfully in Charlottetown. In Charlottetown on 8 September and then in Halifax on 12 September, Cartier’s comments stoked his listeners’ ambition and aspirations. He stated that a new country built on a union of the British colonies would be one of the world’s greatest in terms of industry, public prosperity, trade, and national development.11 To achieve these goals, the United Canadas already had two of the prerequisites, namely population and territory, but not the maritime element that would be contributed by the colonies in the East. In both cities, Cartier also presented himself as a partisan of conservative monarchism and a defender of local interests. All these elements would be reflected in his actions and statements over the next two years. The Quebec Conference began one month after the Charlottetown Conference ended, and lasted a little over two weeks. The Parliament of United Canada sat for almost the last time in Quebec at what is known today as Parc Montmorency, overlooking the St Lawrence and a stone’s throw from the Château Frontenac, the Archbishop’s Palace, and the Quebec Seminary. A monument erected in honour of Cartier stands today at this site, one of the most symbolically charged in the history of French America. The Quebec Conference created the series of resolutions that formed a substantial foundation for the Canadian federal constitution of 1867.12 The resolutions also laid the groundwork for the sharing of powers between the central government and the provinces. In the fields of political science, constitutional law, and history, an abundant literature, in French and English, has already scrutinized the balance and the degree of centralization and decentralization found in the Quebec Resolutions and the Canadian Constitution.13 We will not relaunch the debate here. However, it seems only fair to point out that at the time of the Quebec Conference, George-Étienne Cartier was both a centralizer and a decentralizer. He militated in favour of a strong central power, first for military and strategic reasons based on the deep-seated fears raised by the United States. He also had an economic motivation, as mentioned by Guy Rocher, John Meisel, and Arthur Silver: Cartier, whose constituency was Montreal, whose legal practice counted the Grand Trunk Railway as one of its clients, and

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

123

whose income came partly from Montreal commercial property, shared the ambitions of Montreal’s anglophone businessmen who aimed to make their city the centre of an interprovincial transportation system and the focus of manufacturing and commerce for British North America. He was well aware that Montreal’s prosperity had been built on its transport connections with Upper Canada, on its role as shipper of Upper Canadian wheat and lumber to European markets, and as a provider of manufactured goods to Upper Canadian consumers – and he hoped to see Montreal’s hinterland further expanded. An effective central government was needed to promote those ambitions.14

However, as André Burelle points out in another chapter, the new country Cartier dreamed of was a union in which the federated communities would not merge, in which responsibility for matters of general interest would be assigned to the central government, while the provinces, as federated states, would retain jurisdiction over local and identity-based matters. This aspect of his approach made him, between 1864 and 1867, one of the main promoters of Quebec’s reborn political autonomy, inherited from the autonomy Lower Canada enjoyed before the 1837–38 rebellions. As a result, it comes as no surprise to see that the powers allocated to the provinces (and therefore to Quebec) in the Quebec Resolutions generally match the areas in which Cartier, as a reformer politician, beginning in the years 1852 to 1854, had introduced a range of reforms affecting the administration of justice, property, and civil law, and municipal and school organization. Education, culture, and, to a large degree, health care, belonged, in the spirit and letter of the Quebec Resolutions, to the sphere of local matters under provincial jurisdiction, albeit residually. And in connection with the jurisdiction of Quebec and the other future provinces over property and civil rights – the centrepiece of the local autonomy and institutions that Cartier was busy consolidating through the codification of civil law and civil procedure – paragraph 29(33) of the Quebec Resolutions protected Quebec from any attempt to harmonize its laws with those of the other provinces.15 By analyzing the general balance of the Quebec Resolutions and comparing them with the evolution of Cartier’s professional career, it is easy to imagine that during the Conference he lent his support at times to the centralizing apparatus championed by John A. Macdonald, and

124

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

at others to the decentralizing features promoted by Upper Canadian reformer Oliver Mowat, which were supported by the delegates from the Maritime provinces and several delegates from Canada East. Archival documents from the period and the research of other historians have revealed little about what Cartier actually said during the debates at the Quebec Conference. Overall, he is said to have played a relatively subdued role during the official sessions.16 However, it is important to remember that, during the two weeks of the Quebec Conference, the cabinet of Upper Canada also met daily, for a few hours, before and after the Conference sessions. In addition to the numerous banquets that enlivened the life of the delegates during their two-week stay in Quebec, Cartier also had the cabinet meetings to present his point of view.17 It is clear that after the Quebec Conference, when it came time to highlight, in the public sphere, the advantages of the federal union project for Quebec and in particular for the FrenchCanadian community, Cartier left to others (Étienne-Pashcal Taché, Jean-Charles Chapais, Joseph Cauchon, and Hector Langevin) the task of presenting the project as a form of sovereignty-association that left Quebec in control of all the matters and institutions needed to preserve its national character. The Quebec Resolutions stipulated that the delegates would submit the results of their deliberations to their respective legislative assemblies and governments. In the next few paragraphs we will present an overview of the main arguments developed by Cartier at the Legislative Assembly during the winter of 1865, paying special attention to his speech on 7 February.18 Cartier believed, first, that a union of the British colonies was a necessity in light of events to the south, where the United States was in the midst of a civil war. He presented the situation in Manichaean terms: either a union of the colonies, or absorption into the United States.19 In his speech, as in the whole of his career, his aversion to the United States was ever-present. As a conservative and supporter of Britain’s mixed constitutional system, he defended the idea of a Canadian confederation dedicated to upholding the monarchist principle and opposed to the hegemony of the democratic principle that characterized the United States. Cartier was neither the most philosophical nor the most eloquent of the founders of the 1864–67 regime. His speech did not offer a coherent, Burke-like system decrying democratic radicalism. However, it contained several elements of this doctrine, such as the idea that the weakness of the United States resulted from its lack of a Crown authority, in other words an institution or personi-

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

125

fication of executive authority that inspired universal respect and rose above the everyday conflicts of political life.20 In his speech of 7 February 1865, Cartier repeated the arguments he had already used in Charlottetown and Halifax in favour of a strong central authority with power over all matters of general interest. He wanted the association of the colonies to form a single, great nation, but within a federal union in which extensive local powers would be retained, in which there would be no drive to merge the various communities cohabiting in the colonies, and in which there would be no cause to fear that the central government’s powers would enable it to adopt principles that would threaten the interests of any one nationality.21 The following passage offers a key insight into his position: Objection had been taken to the scheme now under consideration, because of the words “new nationality.” Now, when we were united together, if union were attained, we would form a political nationality with which neither the national origin, nor the religion of any individual, would interfere. It was lamented by some that we had this diversity of races, and hopes were expressed that this distinctive feature would cease. The idea of unity of races was utopian – it was impossible. Distinctions of this kind would always exist. Dissimilarity, in fact, appeared to be the order of the physical world and of the moral world, as well as of the political world. But with regard to the objection based on this fact, to the effect that a great nation could not be formed because Lower Canada was in great part French and Catholic, and Upper Canada was British and Protestant, and the Lower Provinces were mixed, it was futile and worthless in the extreme.22

Although we present Cartier’s arguments here without entering into an exhaustive discussion of their normative value or analytical coherence, we can still retain our critical standpoint. To support his contention that the races could cohabit, Cartier gave the example of the United Kingdom, although his example was questionable, given the subordination and repression of the Catholics in Ireland in the nineteenth century. In addition, there appeared to be no overall vision, no leitmotiv, in Cartier’s speech of 7 February 1865, or in his subsequent speeches to the Legislative Assembly of the United Canadas. This is why the speeches by Galt and D’Arcy McGee, discussed below, are so interesting,

126

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

since they are based on a systematic approach. Surprisingly, Cartier never felt the need to explain in his speech, clearly and coherently, the protection that the federal union project set out in the Quebec Resolutions would give the French-Canadian people. The paragraphs devoted to the community of which he was the trustee, and to its members, basically reminded his listeners of the key dates in French Canadians’ loyalty toward the British Crown and the Empire, and emphasized their tradition of tolerance toward Anglo-Protestants.23 This is one of the keys to Cartier’s thought process. He believed that the successful conclusion of the project to unite the races, without merging them, relied fundamentally on protection for minorities, by which he meant, in his speeches of February and March 1865, defending the interests of the Protestants in Lower Canada and the Catholics in Upper Canada. On several occasions, in these speeches and in the answers he gave to questions from colleagues at the Legislative Assembly, Cartier expressed his support for the central government’s power to reserve and disallow provincial legislation, considering this as an essential mechanism to reassure the Protestants of Canada East. He deployed similar arguments to justify the appointment by the central government of legislative councillors for the ridings of Lower Canada (Canada East), saying to his parliamentary colleagues on 3 March 1865, “Lower Canada finds itself in a peculiar situation. We have two populations with distinct interests from a threefold point of view: race, language and religion.”24 In 1866, when it became time to discuss the internal constitution of the future province of Quebec, Cartier once again repeated similar arguments to support a second appointed chamber (the Legislative Council) to guarantee additional votes and extra institutional protection for the English-speaking Protestant minority.25 the c areers of alexande r t i l l o c h g a lt (1817– 1893) and thomas d’arcy m c g e e ( 1825–1868) , a s tr ustees of the english- s p e a k i n g p ro t e s ta n t and c atholic communit i e s i n c a n a da e a s t

Alexander Tilloch Galt and Thomas D’Arcy McGee, generally ignored by French-language historians, both led remarkable lives.26 Galt was born in London to an Anglo-Scots family, and followed his father to Montreal, where he was a student in 1828, before settling in the Sherbrooke area in 1835 and working as a clerk for the British American Land Company, a land-owning and colonization enterprise founded by

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

127

his father. For the next decade he gradually worked his way up in the company, even becoming its highest-ranking Canadian officer – commissioner – in 1843. The company played a leading role in the growth and industrialization of the city of Sherbrooke and its surrounding region. Gradually, Galt’s focus shifted to the railways, where he also made a significant contribution. From 1844 to 1852, Galt’s commercial and organizational genius helped extend the transportation system in the Sherbrooke area and create new rail links to the United States, the Maritimes, and Upper Canada. The financial packages put together by Galt sometimes required government action and subsidies negotiated through business attorneys, and that is how Galt was introduced to Cartier in 1849. Galt helped found the Grand Trunk Railway Company in 1851.27 He was elected as member for Sherbrooke for the first time in 1849, around the same time as Cartier’s first election. Successively an independent, a reformer, and a conservative, he was attracted for a time, like many English merchants, to the idea of annexation with the United States, and moved back and forth between the opposition benches and several of the ephemeral governments of the United Canadas. A staunch supporter of a federal union of the British colonies since 1858, as we will see in the next section, he was minister of finance in the Cartier-Macdonald government of 1858 to 1862, and held a similar position under the Great Coalition from June 1864 to 1866 before becoming, briefly, minister of finance again under Macdonald in 1867. He had two other careers after leaving politics. He was Canada’s first official representative in London from 1880 to 1883, and in the following decade made a significant contribution as a businessman to the colonization and development of Western Canada. Although less prolific than D’Arcy McGee he published several books, focusing on Canada under the Act of Union, religious freedoms, and ultramontanism in Canada East, and the extension to the whole of the British Empire of his understanding of federalism, under which essential general powers were allocated to the central government and local matters to the member states. He died in Montreal in 1893. Thomas D’Arcy McGee was born in 1825 to a poor Irish Catholic family that retained a vivid memory of the hopes and repressions of the great Irish rebellion of 1798. He emigrated to America at the age of seventeen in 1842, settling in the Boston area.28 Two years later, he became editor-in-chief of The Pilot, the main newspaper for the Irish community in New England. He then crossed the Atlantic in the opposite direction and worked from 1845 to 1848 as a journalist in Ireland

128

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

and London, participating in the national literary movement Young Ireland and performing various roles for the Irish political resistance movement against British rule, sometimes in the autonomist camp and sometimes in the radical republican movement that supported armed rebellion. In 1848, the People’s Spring across Europe spurred Ireland into action, and the young D’Arcy McGee took part in what turned out to be a small rebellion compared with the upheaval of 1798. Its failure led him to return to the United States, where he spent several years in the New York and Buffalo area, observing developments in Irish politics from afar and taking action to support the integration of the Irish into American life, as well as to analyze their history and literature. During this second stay in the US, D’Arcy McGee became increasingly critical of the country’s institutions, increasingly conservative, and increasingly sympathetic to the ideas of political ultramontanism.29 After believing for many years that Canada was doomed to be annexed to the United States, his trips to the north and changes in his ideological outlook led him to see Canada as a country that was more generous toward its minorities, and as a result more tolerant toward Irish Catholics. 30 He settled in Montreal in 1857 and his energy, combined with his talents as a speaker and political organizer, quickly made him the political leader of the Irish Catholic community. He was first elected in late 1857. At this time, fifteen years after his initial arrival in North America, he had already written around ten books, mostly on themes relating to the literature, history, and religious orientation of Ireland and the Irish, along with hundreds of poems, in both the Old and New Worlds. As early as 1859 he became a supporter of a federal union of the British colonies, and held various ministerial portfolios in the governments that succeeded each other after 1860. 31 In the cabinet of the Great Coalition that governed the United Canadas after June 1864, he was minister of agriculture, immigration, and statistics. At the time, in addition to his speeches and actions in support of the project laid out in the Quebec Resolutions, he gradually began to oppose radical republicanism in Ireland, going so far as to speak on this topic in the region of Ireland where he had spent his childhood. This position, along with his recurrent problems with alcohol, led to a loss of confidence among his Irish constituents in Montreal. However, he was re-elected after the federal constitution came into force in 1867 and was trying to relaunch his career when he was assassinated in Ottawa on the night of 6 to 7 April 1868.

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

129

galt and d’arcy mcgee b e f o r e a n d a f t e r t h e quebec co n f e r e n c e Alexander Tilloch Galt joined the new government directed by GeorgeÉtienne Cartier and John A. Macdonald in August 1858, after receiving an express undertaking that it would make the question of a new federal union of the British colonies a key element in its program. Galt appears to have had a clearer idea of what such a union could be than either Cartier or Macdonald. The latter agreed to accept their colleague’s condition, in particular because it allowed them to postpone the need to choose a site for a permanent capital for either the United Canadas or the new country.32 To give concrete shape to the government’s undertaking, Galt, Cartier, and Ross set out again for London in October 1858. In terms of substance, their journey was a failure, since they were not able to convince the British authorities of the urgency of the situation and of their project’s feasibility, in particular given the reticence of the Maritime colonies. The interest of this trip, however, lies in the correspondence exchanged by the three Canadian representatives and the British authorities, which reveals a remarkable consistency between the draft of the project put forward in the fall of 1858 and the text of the Quebec Resolutions of 1864. According to O.D. Skelton, Galt’s biographer, he was clearly the source for the vision and proposal of the Canadian delegation. We will present here several excerpts from a letter sent by the Canadian delegates to Britain’s Colonial Secretary, Edward Lytton, on 25 October 1858: That the powers of the Federal legislators and Government should comprehend the Customs, Excise and all trade questions, Postal Service, Militia, Banking, Currency, Weights and Measures and Bankruptcy, Public Works of a National Character, Harbours and Light-houses, Fisheries and their protection, Criminal justice, Public Lands, Public Debt and Government of unincorporated and Indian Territories. It will form a subject for mature deliberation whether the powers of the Federal Government should be confined to the points named, or should be extended to all matters not specifically entrusted to the local legislatures. The Confederation might involve the constitution of a Federal Court of Appeal […] In these respects it is conceived that the proposed Confederation would possess greater inherent

130

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

strength than that of the United States, and would combine the advantage of the unity for general purposes of a legislative union with so much of the Federation principle as would join all the benefits of local government and legislation upon questions of provincial interest.33

The participants at the 1864 Quebec Conference adopted the spirit and letter of this program, with the exception of jurisdiction over public land, which was given to the provincial governments. Galt, as an expert on financial matters, was able to foresee in 1858 that the central government needed to have overriding powers in taxation, even imagining the details of a comprehensive policy that would allow the central government to pay direct subsidies to the provinces while assuming their existing debts. And, as we will see when we examine the speeches he made in 1864, he maintained a coherent position when defining the constitutional consequences of the need to organize the new federal regime differently from that of the United States. Thomas D’Arcy McGee, working just as industriously in his own way, became convinced of the urgent need for a federal reorganization of the British colonies at around the same time as Galt. After settling permanently in Montreal in 1857, D’Arcy McGee once again founded and published a newspaper, The New Era, in which he defended the idea of a new nationality that would bring the British colonies together in a federal regime, would provide better protection for minorities, including the French Canadians and Irish Catholics, than the US republic, and would be just as able to promote liberty, with the bonus of offering more effective institutional checks on demagogical outbursts.34 D’Arcy McGee remained open to economic development and immigration, and believed at the time that, like Ireland, the British North American colonies could find an original new way to exercise their sovereignty, via significant local autonomy, while maintaining strong ties with Great Britain. Between 1859 and 1865, once again self-taught, he researched the history of federalism extensively, trying to identify the best models for Canada. In conclusion to his Notes on Federal Governments, Past and Present, D’Arcy McGee stated that One result of all the Federal forms of government which has hitherto prevailed in the world, [is] that the jealous precautions taken by their founders, against the executive or central power, whether electoral or hereditary, have invariably defeated them-

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

131

selves. Whenever the executive class did not successfully usurp the place in the State which the contrivers of such fetters and restraints forbade them to aspire to, the whole Federal framework broke up in chaos. It was so in the Greek Confederacies; so in the Italian; so in the Netherlands.35

An excellent speaker and persuasive politician, even before history began to unfold more rapidly in 1864, D’Arcy McGee made several trips to the Maritime colonies in 1862 and 1863 to find out more about the colonies and their leaders, foreshadowing the work that became politically necessary at the Charlottetown Conference of September 1864. Similarly, Quebec City, when the Conference was held there, had around 12,000 Irish inhabitants out of a total population of 60,000. During the two weeks of the Quebec Conference, it is easy to imagine D’Arcy McGee coming into contact, every day, with faces that reminded him of all the interconnected themes and places so dear to his heart: Canada, America, Ireland, the fate of his fellow countrymen and co-religious, and the goal of striking a balance between freedom and authority.36 It is clear to see that Galt and D’Arcy McGee, with their respective qualities, completed the line-up for the Canadian Great Coalition team, starting in June 1864. Galt, like George-Étienne Cartier, had been one of the members of the parliamentary committee that recommended action on the project to unite the colonies on the very day on which the previous government fell on 14 June 1864. Based on the events outlined above, Galt has probably been the most neglected of the great visionaries of the union project, while D’Arcy McGee can be described as its spokesman and convener. In their alliance with Cartier, as the trustees of the largest communities in Canada East, they had the triple task of acting together in the Great Coalition team and working to convince the representatives and delegates of the Maritime colonies, while maintaining the trust of their respective constituencies. Given the complexity of this program, it seems reasonable to believe that they were sometimes subjected to enormous pressure. However, based on the documents we have seen, it appears that they never came close to letting the team down. At both the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences, Galt and D’Arcy McGee appear to have performed their respective duties faithfully. In Charlottetown and especially in Quebec, Galt presented exhaustive summaries of the economic and financial situation of the

132

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

new planned country, its powers of taxation, and the sharing of fiscal resources between the central and provincial governments, the approach used to assume each colony’s debts, and the calculation of the subsidies to be paid to the various colonies.37 It can only be assumed that he managed to convince his audience. D’Arcy McGee, in contrast, could rely on his personal experiences and the wide range of his historical knowledge to highlight the originality of the union project, especially concerning protection for minorities in general and religious minorities in particular, and intervening in connection with minority education rights.38 On this topic he was an objective ally of Galt. It was not until the London Conference of December 1866 that a definitive compromise was reached to reassure the Protestants of Canada East and the Catholics of Canada West, in particular by confirming that the central government could intervene to repair any injury to the rights of a minority. Unlike Cartier, who left the task to others, Galt and D’Arcy McGee made important speeches to their constituents and fellow citizens in the weeks following the Quebec Conference. We will look at the speech given by Galt in Sherbrooke on 23 November 1864, and also at the comments made by D’Arcy McGee, first in Cookshire, in the county of Compton, on 22 December of the same year, and later in the Legislative Assembly of the United Canadas on 9 February 1865. The most striking thing about the speech given by Galt in Sherbrooke and reported by a journalist of the Montreal Gazette is its scope, serenity, and exhaustivity.39 He spoke to his constituents for several hours, explaining that he felt the responsibility common to all who represented constituencies in Parliament, but also the responsibility of acting as the representative of the English-speaking Protestant community in Canada East (Lower Canada). Galt took the time to remind his listeners of the geographic, economic, political, and strategic situation of the United Canadas. His speech was that of a true statesman. As a businessman, Galt even verged on lyricism when describing the St Lawrence – according to him the greatest and most important river in the world, commercially speaking.40 As a conservative and, like his colleagues, supporter of the monarchic principle, Galt explained clearly that the delegates to the Quebec Conference wanted to give the central government as broad a list of powers as possible, including residual powers, to avoiding falling into the same trap as the United States which had left too many sovereign rights to the local authorities.41 After providing a precise description of the operation of the central institu-

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

133

tions, the main fiscal approaches and the general principles for the sharing of powers, while emphasizing the centripetal aspects, Galt addressed the powers and constitutions of the provinces, paying special attention to the issues of language, religion, and identity in Canada East (Lower Canada). On all these topics, Alexander Tilloch Galt repeatedly told his constituents that he was happy with the reciprocal agreement between the leaders of the “British Lower Canadians” and the French Canadians. The latter would need the assistance of the former in the new parliament and central government in which they would now be in the minority, while this same majority/minority relationship would be reversed in the new province of Quebec.42 Galt expressed his overall satisfaction with the nature and scope of the powers given to the provinces. Concerning the key jurisdiction over property and civil law, he stated that he had no fear, as a “British Lower Canadian,” about seeing it entrusted to the provinces, and therefore to the province of Quebec. He alluded to the recent codification of civil law under the leadership of Cartier, and mentioned the honourable part borne in that enterprise by one of the most eminent legal specialists of the Anglo-Protestant community, Charles Dewey Day.43 In Galt’s view, the fact that the power to appoint the lieutenant-governor of each province was given to the central government, combined with the mechanisms to reserve and disallow legislation, represented an additional protection for the minority communities in Canada East. A visionary but also fundamentally an optimist, Galt ended his speech by stating that “No part of British North America would derive so great benefits from the Confederation as Lower Canada, and no portion of the population would derive such benefits as the British element.”44 In looking at the comments made by Thomas D’Arcy McGee in Cookshire before the constituents of the county of Compton only a few weeks after Galt’s celebrated speech, we will avoid the areas covered by both speakers in order to concentrate on the elements in which their remarks were complementary. D’Arcy McGee was deeply aware of the tragic and dramatic dimensions of history, and began by reminding his audience that, given the success of the northern forces and the progress of the Civil War in the United States, he considered that the time was ripe for a union of the British North American colonies.45 He was more interested than Galt in a comparison of philosophical approaches and political institutions, and used the recent example of the reorganization of New Zealand to show that the federal union project did not imperil

134

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

Canada’s ties with Great Britain. He also denied that there was a necessary link between federalism and republicanism. Although multinational federalism is an important trend in twenty-first-century political science, one of its pioneers would appear to be D’Arcy McGee, speaking in Cookshire. He was confident that several different linguistic and national communities could live together in the northern portion of the continent, and was more fearful of the relationship between the majority and the minorities in religious terms. Speaking in Cookshire to another group of British, and Protestant, Lower Canadians, his words give pause for thought: But we both believed [n.b.: Galt and D’Arcy McGee] – and all our Canadian colleagues went with us in this belief – that in securing the power of disallowance, under circumstances which might warrant it, to the General Government, in giving the appointment of Judges and Local Governors to the General Government, and in expressly providing in the Constitution, for the educational rights of the minority, we had taken every guarantee, legislative, judicial and educational, against the oppression of a sectional minority by the sectional majority. You will have for your guarantee the Queen’s name […] You will have the subordination of the local to the general authority, provided in the constitutional charter itself, and you will have, besides, the great material guarantee, that in the General Government you will be two-thirds of the whole told by language, and a clear majority counted by creed; and if with these odds you cannot protect your own interests, it will be the first time you ever failed to do so.46

A few weeks later, on 9 February 1865, Thomas D’Arcy McGee gave his most important speech in support of the union project before his colleagues, once again assembled in Quebec at the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. The Great Coalition’s strategists had kept their best speaker for last and, according to his biographer David A. Wilson, D’Arcy McGee did not let them down, giving what was perhaps the best speech of his entire parliamentary career.47 He reiterated his opposition to the democratic radicalism of the United States, and his fear of an American invasion as the probable consequence of the messianic ideology of the victors, the unchecked ambitions of the barons of military industry, and the brute force of an army

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

135

of 800,000 men. He painted in glowing colours, for the French Canadians, the advantages already mentioned in this chapter and also the joy of being reunited, in the same country, with populations and territories that not so long ago had belonged to the French empire. A generous man, he extended his greetings to the leaders and delegates of the Maritime colonies, repeating how greatly he had appreciated their qualities and sense of honour during his voyages and at various conferences.48 Last, he reaffirmed and specified his faith in the value of federalism: The principle of Federation is a generous principle. It is a principle that gives men local duties to discharge, and invests them at the same time with general supervision, that excites a healthy sense of responsibility and comprehension. It is a principle that has produced a wise and true spirit of statesmanship in all countries in which it has been applied. It is a principle eminently favorable to liberty, because local affairs are left to be dealt with by local bodies, and cannot be interfered with by those who have no local interest in them, while matters of a general character are left exclusively to a General Government.49 concl u s i o n George-Étienne Cartier, Alexander Tilloch Galt, and Thomas D’Arcy McGee all shared a great destiny. The first, Cartier, was a key player in the definition of Quebec’s place in the Canadian federation. Obviously, he showed his presumptuous side when he agreed to join the Great Coalition and advocate a federal union of the British colonies before the Quebec Conference without consulting any of his associates and partners in the conservative and Catholic communities of Canada East. The Rouges, under Antoine-Aimé Dorion, were the only major opposition party in the colonies to be denied a delegate at the Quebec Conference, and Cartier was responsible for this. Despite all his contradictions, he was sure of himself and confident in his complex identity, which combined a conservative Catholic heritage and FrenchCanadian ruralism with the ambitions and values of Montreal’s English-speaking bourgeoisie and those of the British Empire and monarchy.50 When did Cartier truly show himself at his best? In 1837–38, as a patriot rebel? Between 1837 and 1853, as a business attorney? Between 1854 and 1864, as a reformer politician and worthy

136

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

heir of LaFontaine? During the crucial period from the creation of the Great Coalition to the coming into force of the bna Act in 1867 (now known as the Constitution Act, 1867), which also spans the Quebec Conference of October 1864, as his biographer John Boyd believes? Between 1867 and 1873, as a founder of modern Canada alongside John A. Macdonald? One hundred and fifty years after the Quebec Conference, when we look at what has happened to Quebec society over this long period, it seems best to leave the question unanswered for now. We find it plausible to advance that Cartier was never more clear-sighted in his political judgment than during the years 1864 to 1867, while adding that as a man of action, he impresses us more in the periods immediately before and after. As a trustee Cartier was presumptuous, confident, audacious, but nevertheless consistent in his plan to found a new country based on the model of a true union, which was turned toward the future but which did not require the partner communities to merge. Instead, in both the Quebec Resolutions and the Constitution Act, 1867, the individual communities retained a substantial degree of political autonomy and the means to preserve the essential aspects of their own identity. In the words of historian Éric Bédard, the task of the Reformers in Lower Canada, which became Canada East following the Act of Union of 1840, was to preserve their core rights51 and Cartier’s actions between 1864 and 1867 are entirely consistent with this approach. The fact that this required him to make a series of compromises and promises, and even bets on the future, emerges clearly from an examination of Cartier’s trajectory as compared with those of Alexander Tilloch Galt and Thomas D’Arcy McGee. Like Cartier, they were trustees in their own way. Galt was the financial genius of the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences, an incomparably dynamic and ambitious businessman, and at the same time a visionary statesman who already in 1858 could outline the sharing of powers established at Quebec in 1864 and ratified in 1867. Both Quebec and Canada today owe a lot to Galt. The same can be said of Thomas D’Arcy McGee, whom we have referred to as the poet of the Quebec Conference and of Canadian Confederation.52 Fortified by his experience in Ireland, D’Arcy McGee knew that misfortunes and tragedies can occur in a people’s history and saw the project first discussed at Quebec as an honourable compromise for the British colonies in North America and as an example for the Ireland he continued to cherish. At the time of the Quebec Conference, Cartier, Galt, and D’Arcy McGee designed a complex political system in which majorities and

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

137

minorities were intermingled. As the representatives of the minorities in Canada East, Galt and D’Arcy McGee knew that Cartier needed them to protect the interests of French-Canadian society, itself destined to become a minority in the new federal union of the British colonies in North America. To what extent can this be considered an actual pact between the three men? Answering this question would require far more painstaking archival work than what was needed to write this chapter. In our opinion, such a pact remains a plausible hypothesis and is supported by some of the key texts. However, in this area Cartier was deeply aware of his commitments and responsibilities, as can be seen in this excerpt from a speech he gave on 30 October 1866, in the presence of Galt and D’Arcy McGee, at a banquet held in his honour held in Montreal a few days before he left for the London Conference: I am also a French Canadian, like many of those I see around me here. I love my race, I obviously have a natural predilection for it; but, as a politician and citizen, I also love the other races. And I am glad to see, in this meeting of fellow citizens of all classes, all races and all religions, that my compatriots have recognized my feelings; I have already had an opportunity to proclaim in Parliament that the Protestant minority in Lower Canada has nothing to fear from the provincial legislature under Confederation. I have given my word and, I repeat, nothing will be done that in any way harms the principles and rights of that minority. I call on all the Protestants present here today as witnesses. I have given, and I will keep, my word, that of a man of honour. I can see here some distinguished military gentlemen whose motto is: To die for one’s country. What should be a statesman’s motto be? To keep your word until death. After saying that the Protestants of Lower Canada will have all possible guarantees, I must add that the Catholic minority of Upper Canada will have the same guarantees, and I can give you my solemn word: The Catholic minority of Upper Canada will be protected equally with the Protestant minority of Lower Canada. All fears on this topic are groundless and false.53

Cartier can, of course, be reproached for neglecting the Frenchspeaking minorities outside Lower Canada in his political and constitutional work between 1864 and 1867. During his lifetime, the fallout from this neglect became apparent in New Brunswick, then in Ontario and in the great adventure of the development of the Canadian West.

138

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

Clearly, present-day Canada, and Quebec too, must live with the consequences. However, based on the idea of Paul Ricoeur, who states that researchers and intellectuals have a responsibility to write history in a way that leaves room for the future, we conclude, like Jocelyn Létourneau, that the actions and ideas of Cartier, Galt, and D’Arcy McGee make a strong contribution to the history of political pluralism. They illustrate that English-speakers were one of the founding peoples of Quebec society, and also that Canada East (Lower Canada), by refusing to agree to be absorbed into a melting-pot type of union, played a key role in the creation of a multinational federation in Canada.54 In short, in a world facing uncertainty of all kinds and in which peoples and their leaders must take a measured approach to all their actions and decisions – as we were recently reminded by political scientist Alain-G. Gagnon – just as Cartier, Galt, and D’Arcy McGee did in their discussions with their fellow delegates to the Quebec Conference, both Canada and Quebec deserve to be judged on the way in which they treat their minorities.55 notes 1 The text of the Quebec Resolutions and a selection of the main debates that took place in the colonial parliaments, along with an overview of the bibliographical interpretation, can be found in Débats sur la fondation du Canada, ed. Janet Azjenstat, Paul Romney, Ian Gentles, and William Gairdner, French language edition prepared and enriched by Stéphane Kelly and Guy Laforest (Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2004). 2 This is clear from the book cited in the previous note. For one of the most comprehensive views, see Christopher Moore, 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1998). 3 This is a dominant theme in Brian Young, George-Étienne Cartier: Bourgeois Montréalais (Montreal: Boréal, 2004). 4 This period, and in fact the whole of Cartier’s career, is extensively covered in Jean-Charles Bonenfant, “Cartier, sir George-Etienne,” in Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, vol. 10 (Université Laval/University of Toronto, 2003–), retrieved 17 January 2015, http://www.biographi.ca/fr/bio/ cartier_george_etienne_10F.html. 5 Moore, 1867, 142. 6 Éric Bédard, Les réformistes: Une génération canadienne-française au milieu du XIXe

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

7 8 9

10 11 12

13

14

15

16 17

18 19 20 21 22

139

siècle (Montreal: Boréal, 2012); Yvan Lamonde, Histoire sociale des idées au Québec: 1760–1896 (Montreal: Fides, 2000). Lamonde, Histoire sociale des idées au Québec, 349. Jean-Charles Bonenfant, “Cartier, George-Etienne,” Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, 6. Cartier, Brown, and John A. Macdonald were all members of this parliamentary committee. See Oscar Douglas Skelton, Life and Times of Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1966), 149–50. Joseph Tassé, Discours de Sir Georges Cartier, baronnet (Montreal: Eusèbe Sénécal & Fils, 1893), 396. Translation. Ibid., 394–5. Translation. For previous constitutions, see Guy Laforest, Eugénie Brouillet, Alain-G. Gagnon, and Yves Tanguay, eds, The Constitutions That Shaped Us: A Historical Anthology of Pre-1867 Canadian Constitutions (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Univeristy Press, 2015). For French-language political science, see Réjean Pelletier, “Constitution et fédéralisme,” in Le parlementarisme canadien, ed. Réjean Pelletier and Manon Tremblay, 5th ed., revised and updated (Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2013), 48–50. See John Meisel, Guy Rocher, and Arthur Silver, eds Si je me souviens bien/As I Recall: Regards sur l’histoire (Montreal: Institut de recherches en politiques publiques, 1999), 66. For an interpretation of this clause that makes it the basis for an asymmetric form of federalism favourable to Quebec’s interests, see Guy Laforest and Éric Montigny, “Le fédéralisme exécutif: Problèmes et actualité,” in Le parlementarisme canadien, ed. Pelletier and Tremblay, 151–2. Bonenfant, “Cartier, Sir George-Etienne,” Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, 8. Cartier’s biographer, John Boyd, clearly explains his political importance at the time, while amplifying his role at the Quebec Conference. However, Boyd is right to claim that Cartier’s support was absolutely necessary to give legitimacy to the Quebec Resolutions. See John Boyd, Sir George-Étienne Cartier, baronnet (Montreal: Librairie Beauchemin Limitée, 1918), 212–13 and 223–6. For the full text of Cartier’s speech, see Joseph Tassé, Discours de Sir Georges Cartier, baronnet, 410–26. Ibid., 414. Ibid., 421. Ibid., 413. Ibid., 422.

140

g u y laforest and félix mathieu

23 Ibid., 416–17. 24 Ibid., 434. Translation. 25 Bonenfant, Jean-Charles, La naissance de la Confédération (Montreal: Leméac, 1969), 106–08. 26 Jean-Pierre Kesteman, “Galt, Sir Alexander Tilloch,” Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, vol.12 (Université Laval/University of Toronto, 1990), accessed 17 January 2015, http://www.biographi.ca/fr/bio/galt_alexander_tilloch _12F.html. See also Robin B. Burns, “McGee, Thomas D’Arcy,” Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, vol. 9 (Université Laval/University of Toronto, 1977), accessed 17 January 2015, http://www.biographi.ca/fr/bio/cartier_george_etienne_10F.html. 27 Kesteman, “Galt, Sir Alexander Tilloch,” Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, 5. 28 For the part of D’Arcy McGee’s life spent in the United States, see David A. Wilson, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Volume I: Passion, Reason and Politics 1825–1857 (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008). 29 Ibid., 280–2. 30 David A. Wilson, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, volume 2, The Extreme Moderate: 1857–1868 (Montreal & Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008), 16–17, 30–1. 31 Ibid., 99–100. 32 Skelton, Life and Times of Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt, 92. 33 Ibid., 96–7. 34 Burns, “McGee, Thomas D’Arcy,” Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, 4–5. 35 Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Notes sur les gouvernements fédéraux passés et présents, translated from English by L.S. G. Gladu (Saint-Hyacinthe: Des presses à pouvoir du courrier de St Hyancinthe, 1865), 60. 36 On this topic, see Josephine Phelan, The Ballad of D’Arcy McGee: Rebel in Exile (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 56. 37 Kesteman, “Galt, sir Alexander Tilloch,” Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, 7–8. 38 Wilson, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, 2: 207. 39 Alexander Tilloch Galt, Speech on the Proposed Union of the British North American Provinces delivered at Sherbrooke, speech delivered 23 November 1864 (Montreal: Longomore & Co. Printing House, 1864). 40 Ibid., 7. Galt was a source of inspiration for the English Canadian conservative historian Donald Creighton, and for his ideas concerning the commercial empire of the St Lawrence. 41 Ibid., 8. 42 Ibid., 14 and 19.

c a rt i e r , g a lt , a n d d ’ a rcy m c g ee

141

43 Ibid., 15. 44 Ibid., 21. 45 Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Two Speeches on the Union of the Provinces (Quebec: Hunter, Rose & Co., 1865), 3–4. 46 Ibid., 9. 47 Wilson, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, 2: 210–11. 48 D’Arcy McGee, Two Speeches on the Union of the Provinces, 22–3. 49 Ibid., 33. 50 Moore, 1867, 136–42. These illuminating pages highlight Cartier’s skill at combining the various facets of his personality and his main sources of influence into a coherent political figure. 51 Éric Bédard, Les réformistes, 253–6. Translation. 52 One of D’Arcy McGee’s first poems written on Canadian soil describes Mary, Mother of Jesus, as “Our Ladye of the Snow.” See Wilson, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, 2: 27. 53 Tassé, Discours de Sir Georges Cartier, baronnet, 514. Translation. 54 Jocelyn Létourneau, Le Québec entre son passé et ses passages (Montreal: Fides, 2010), 82–5. 55 Alain-G. Gagnon, L’âge des incertitudes: Essais sur le fédéralisme et la diversité nationale (Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2011), 179.

A Big Group in a Small Room: Parties and Coalitions at the Quebec Conference christopher moore

why did such a large g ro u p o f p o l i t i c i a n s spend so many days at t h e c o n f e r e n c e ta b l e in quebec city in o c to b e r 1864? The Quebec City conference of 10 to 27 October 1864, at which the fundamentals of the Canadian constitution were negotiated, lasted close to three weeks and drew as many as 200 people to Quebec City, including delegates, their families, aides, and secretaries, journalists from across British North America and also from the United States and Britain, and lobbyists, particularly from the railroad companies. Social gatherings associated with the conference attracted a thousand or more invitees. Quebec City society, both francophone and anglophone, became wrapped up in the events surrounding the conference, and steamships coming down from Montreal were said to be crowded with guests eager to be part of the great event.1 Within this crowd of observers, the group of accredited delegates participating in the conference was also notably large: thirty-three accredited delegates, even though British North America in 1864 consisted of just five provinces with a combined population of fewer than 3,500,000 people and with state institutions and administrative bureaucracies that were small and underdeveloped by later Canadian standards.2 The political delegations at Quebec City were substantially larger, and their business sessions much longer-lasting, than at any of the constitutional conferences of late-twentieth-century Canada. In recent deliberations, ten provinces, two territories, and a population of 30 million or more people were represented, but the number of deci-

pa rt i e s a n d c oa l i t i o n s at t h e quebec conference

143

sion-makers rarely much exceeded the infamous “eleven white men in a room”: the prime minister and ten provincial premiers. The longest single constitutional negotiating session of the twentieth century – the week that a gathering of first ministers spent trying to salvage the Meech Lake Accord in June 1990 – was about a third as long as the Quebec conference, with a third as many decision-makers involved.3 Today, Canadians may understand the small executive conclaves of the late twentieth century as the norm for constitutional negotiation, not only because they have been standard throughout recent Canadian history, but also because they follow the model of executive federalism now deeply entrenched in Canadian government and politics, through processes ranging from frequent first ministers’ meetings on federal issues to the concentration of authority in prime ministers’, premiers’, and party leaders’ offices. The politicians of the 1860s, however, avoided executive federalism in their constitutional deliberations. It was not provincial executives that were represented at the conferences of the 1860s, but provincial legislatures. It was the presence of legislative delegations that made nineteenth-century constitutional discussions, particularly at Quebec City, so large and so long-lasting, compared with their twentieth-century equivalents. This essay considers how the participation of parliamentary delegations affected the process of confederation in 1864–67. The largest delegation at the Quebec City conference, the twelve representatives of the Province of Canada, was not, strictly speaking, a legislative delegation. It consisted exclusively of the cabinet members in the provincial government, and cabinet solidarity prevailed in votes by the Canadian delegation. Nevertheless, the Canadian delegation included representatives of rival parties and even potential prime ministers. After forming the famous “Great Coalition” government in June 1864, the new cabinet spent much of the summer negotiating consensus policies on a British North American union.4 In those conferences, cabinet solidarity did not conceal the diversity of views within the delegation, which did represent a broad, though incomplete, representation of the Canadian legislature. Since the conferences proceeded mostly in “committee of the whole” mode, permitting untrammelled expression of views by all participants ahead of voting, individual members of the Canadian delegation were able to put forward arguments during the discussion that were not supported by the delegation when it came time to cast the province’s vote, notably George Brown’s idiosyncratic ideas about provincial governments, William McDougall’s

144

christopher moore

alleged advocacy for an elected upper house, and John A. Macdonald’s musings about the advantages of legislative union.5 Each of the Atlantic provinces at Quebec was represented by a truly legislative, rather than executive, delegation. There were no coalition governments in these four provinces. Conservative governments held power in Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia during 1864, and a Reform government was in power in New Brunswick. Despite the presence of independent members in the legislatures, party loyalties and party rivalries were longstanding and strongly entrenched in all the provinces. Yet when Charles Tupper was invited (before the formation of the Canadian coalition government) to represent Nova Scotia at the conference on Maritime Union being proposed for Charlottetown, he declared he would not attend unless the leader of the opposition, the Reformer Adams Archibald, would go with him.6 The same rule took hold in the other Atlantic provinces. At Charlottetown, at Quebec City, and later in London, all the Maritime provinces that participated were represented by delegations that represented a crosssection of the legislature, not simply the government alone. When Newfoundland sent observers to the Quebec Conference, its two delegates represented both the government and the opposition.7 The large number of participants at Quebec City, then, reflected the will to include leading parliamentarians from both sides of the House in each participating province. The British scholar of Confederation Ged Martin has suggested that in going together into the Confederation conferences, the Confederation makers of the 1860s took each other “not by the hand but by the throat.”8 Edward Whelan, an opposition Reformer from Prince Edward Island who was a delegate at Quebec, made much the same point during that conference, observing at a public dinner that the premiers had invited the opposition leaders “because if the people of the several provinces should be so unwise as to complain … the opposition would have to bear the censure as well as those in the administration.”9 Bipartisanship was undoubtedly a defensive manoeuvre in part: constitutional politics were risky and unpredictable, and Tupper and others may well have calculated that it was better to share the credit than to risk carrying all the blame. There was something deeper at work, however. The Confederation delegates of 1864–67 were the first generation of Canadian politicians to have grown up under responsible government, which gave real independent authority to local parliaments in the British North American

pa rt i e s a n d c oa l i t i o n s at t h e quebec conference

145

provinces. The responsible government tradition reinforced the sense among legislators that they had the right and duty to make and unmake governments, to shape policy, and to hold the executive constantly accountable for its actions. In this period there was a powerful parliamentary ideology and a widely shared conviction that the people were represented not in a particular government, but in the representative legislature as a whole. Even on a fundamental constitutional question such as confederation, relatively few politicians of the 1860s believed that the issue had to be settled by a referendum or even by general elections. With some notable exceptions, most believed, as was said in the Nova Scotia legislature in 1866, that “the people were here present by their representatives” and “the gentlemen within these walls represent the feelings of their constituents,” and that it was the right and duty of elected legislatures, not the electorate at large, to determine and represent the will of the people.10 In that kind of parliament, party leaders were important and influential, but they remained accountable to their caucuses and to the legislature. Coming home from the Quebec conference, for instance, Nova Scotia premier Charles Tupper had the backing of a recently elected majority government and also the support of the opposition leader for the agreement they had negotiated together at Quebec City. Yet he did not put the Quebec Resolutions to the Nova Scotia legislature in 1865, because he lacked the votes to pass them. His own caucus would not do what he preferred, and neither would the opposition caucus follow its leader.11 The situation was the same in the other Atlantic provinces: even when premiers and opposition leaders were united in support of the Quebec Resolutions as the basis of confederation, they could not count on the support of their caucuses. It seems to have been agreed throughout British North America before the 1864 conferences that the choice about British North American union would be a legislative and not an executive decision, that any union policy recommended by the cabinet would not be passively approved on a disciplined majority-party basis, and that therefore the negotiations for confederation had to be entrusted to broadly based legislative delegations, who had no independent decision-making authority but would bring their proposals back to their legislature for evaluation and ratification. The mid-nineteenth-century politicians could legitimately have laid claim to one of William Lyon Mackenzie King’s favourite expressions: Parliament will decide.12 There were significant shortcomings in the delegations most of the provincial legislatures sent to Quebec. Minority Acadians and Irish

146

christopher moore

Catholics were distinctly underrepresented in the Maritime delegations, and those most sceptical about a union of the provinces were generally excluded (or self-excluded). In the Province of Canada, the Rouge party refused to be part of the Confederation coalition in June 1864, and was in any case not wanted by George-Étienne Cartier’s Bleus, though some Canada West reformers regretted the absence of their former allies from the coalition.13 The requirement for multi-party legislative representation explains the large number of delegates at Quebec City, and the large number explains the length of the meetings. Many delegates spoke infrequently in the conference sessions (or their interventions went unrecorded), but enough did speak for even routine discussions to consume many hours. The limited and incomplete record of discussion at Quebec City makes plain that the delegates had many disagreements that did not map easily by party identification or by province and region. Long discussions were held in search of consensus on such contested issues as the form and role of the upper house, the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments, the allocation of taxation powers, and other questions. If the recruitment of opposition legislators into a Confederation coalition (in the Province of Canada) or into the legislative delegation (in the other provinces) was intended to reduce the various governments’ risk of defeat on the constitutional file by drawing other parties into responsibility for the Confederation plan, the results were at first far from satisfactory. In the spring of 1865, only the Province of Canada ratified the seventy-two resolutions negotiated by its delegation during the previous October. In New Brunswick, Premier Tilley called a provincial election when faced with majority opposition in the New Brunswick legislature, and his government was defeated by an impromptu coalition of anti-Confederates. In Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, governments surveyed the mood of their legislatures and the public and decided to avoid defeat by not putting the Quebec City agreement to the legislature. The broadly based delegations that Confederation supporters had brought to the Quebec City conference had initially proved to be not broad enough to secure a legislative majority in four of the five provinces of British North America. Indeed, not all Quebec City delegates supported the Quebec City proposals themselves, once back in their home provinces. Though, in all the legislatures, most opposition to Confederation came from groups and individuals who had not participated in the conferences, there were delegates from Prince

pa rt i e s a n d c oa l i t i o n s at t h e quebec conference

147

Edward Island (e.g., Edward Palmer) and from Nova Scotia (Robert Dickey) who did not feel bound as legislators by the positions their delegations had adopted at Quebec City. Across British North America, anti-Confederates were hardly unified in anything beyond their rejection of the Quebec resolutions. Some found the resolutions too centralizing, a threat to local culture and autonomy. Others found them not centralizing enough, threatening to produce a fragile national government that would not deliver the aspirations of British North American union. Some anti-Confederates called for a stronger upper house that could effectively represent regional interests, but others found in the proposed upper house a threat of anti-democratic autocracy. Still others expressed a profound distrust of the motives and ambitions of the other provinces or wished to preserve the autonomous existence of their home province. In these divisions, the anti-Confederates proved rather similar to the legislative delegates who had negotiated at Quebec City for most of three weeks. During the Quebec Conference’s week of debate on the upper house, for instance, Antoine-Aimé Dorion opposed what he called “this confederation now” and declared, “The confederation I sought was a real confederation, giving the largest power to the local governments and merely a delegated authority to the general government.”14 In this, however, Dorion was not very far removed from provincial-rights advocates inside the Quebec Conference, from Edward Chandler15 of New Brunswick to Oliver Mowat16 and Hector Langevin of Canada. Langevin described the French Canadians as “a separate people,” and insisted that the autonomy of the Quebec legislature was guaranteed.17 These legislators who had been “inside” the conference concluded that the compromise reached at Quebec was acceptable and the threat to local autonomy exaggerated; those who had remained outside tended to retain their suspicions. Dorion also argued that the appointed upper house proposed in the Quebec resolutions threatened to become an autocratic, aristocratic threat to liberty and to elective institutions,18 whereas his fellow reformer and former government partner George Brown, having participated in the conference debate, concluded that the proposed upper house could in fact be relied on to meet Dorion’s requirements, which were also his: that it be weak and not threaten the authority of the truly representative lower house.19 Similarly, Robert Wilmot and John Allen, leading anti-Confederates in New Brunswick, denounced the Quebec Resolutions for having failed to deliver a legislative union, that is, a single

148

christopher moore

government for the whole nation without provincial governments. Several of the leading delegates in the conference, however, including Charles Tupper and John A. Macdonald, had repeatedly argued that they too would have preferred legislative union, and they accepted a federal union only on being convinced during the coalition and conference discussions that legislative union was a practical impossibility – a view that Wilmot and Allen eventually came to accept. Dorion and most of his party continued to oppose Confederation throughout the ratification process, but many of them reconciled themselves to the idea not long after and Dorion eventually became a Liberal cabinet minister and then Chief Justice of Quebec. Before the Quebec resolutions were made public, there were many similarities between those who became anti-Confederates and proConfederates throughout British North America. Many of them had similar questions about federal union versus legislative union, and about the appropriate division of powers. They expressed similar concerns about the role of an upper house, and shared the same uncertainties about relations with Britain and the degree of autonomy or imperial loyalty required. A key difference was that pro-Confederates of all parties who had been able to participate in the extended discussion of these issues, particularly at Quebec City, became convinced that the compromises made there were both acceptable and necessary. Despite their initial setbacks in most of the provinces, in the end they proved numerous enough and persuasive enough to carry Confederation narrowly through in the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, in a way that an executive or partisan project almost certainly could not have. Since the anti-Confederates, particularly in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, were divided between centralists and anti-centralists and found it increasingly difficult to make common cause together, those legislators who had participated in the conferences and had thrashed out the centralization/decentralization question and other issues in detail came to occupy the middle ground. Their successes in 1866–67 belatedly demonstrated the effectiveness of the big-tent, legislativedelegation model the conferences of 1864–67 had adopted. The majority government formed by New Brunswick’s ad hoc anti-Confederate alliance early in 1865 broke up in its first year, principally over the irreconcilable differences dividing centralists and provincialists. As a result, pro-Confederates attracted support in the legislature from both

pa rt i e s a n d c oa l i t i o n s at t h e quebec conference

149

sides and won their own substantial majority in the 1866 provincial election, after which the legislature ratified the union project. In Nova Scotia, there was no provincial election, but the anti-Confederate majority of 1865 reversed itself during 1866. William Miller, always prounion but not a delegate to any of the conferences, and initially a strong opponent of the Quebec Resolutions, proposed the “better-terms” motion on which Nova Scotia ratified Confederation. A clear and bipartisan majority of the Nova Scotia legislators voted to send delegates to the final conference in London, and then ratified its results after the bna Act was drafted.20 The significance of the large size and multi-partisan nature of the Confederation conferences of the 1860s lies not so much in the potential comparison with late-twentieth-century Canadian constitutional processes as in what it suggests about the nineteenth-century political culture of British North America. First, British North American legislators accepted, seemingly without much argument or debate, that broad legislative participation was a fundamental requirement for constitutional discussion. Such participation eventually proved crucially important to the successful ratification of British North American union based on the Quebec Resolutions. Second, the way the provinces negotiated the terms of union through the use of broadbased legislative delegations suggests fundamental principles about democratic and constitutional accountability held by British North Americans in the 1860s. For decades, commentators have dismissed the politicians of the 1860s as “not democrats” because they did not endorse the universal adult franchise that became the norm during the twentieth century and because some of them used “democracy” to define a system that they equated with mob rule, in which a single election could produce a powerful presidential leader empowered to rule without accountability or restraint for long periods.21 The Confederation makers were democrats: they believed in parliamentary democracy, and did not define political legitimacy by the universal franchise or by frequent recourse to plebiscite or direct democracy. They believed that the elected representatives of the people, even on the franchise of that time, broad for the mid-nineteenth century but narrow by twentyfirst-century standards, had the authority to make constitutional choices and that no one else did, including the executives they had put into office.

150

christopher moore

notes 1 Details based on newspaper accounts, as summarized in Moore, Three Weeks in Quebec City. 2 The population of the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia (1861), and Newfoundland (1857) was about 3,242,000. Statistics Canada, Censuses of Canada: www.statcan.gc.ca/ pub/98-187-x/4064809-eng.htm. 3 A recent study is Ron Graham, The Last Act: Pierre Trudeau, the Gang of Eight and the Fight for Canada (Toronto: Penguin, 2011). 4 The extent of these cabinet discussions is well described in George Brown’s correspondence: Library and Archives Canada, mg24-B40, R2634-0-9-E. George Brown fonds, letters of George Brown, 1864. The summary minutes of the executive council meetings are in Library and Archives Canada, rg1 e1, State Minute Books, Canada Executive Council 1841– 67, Minutes of Executive Council, State Book aa Volume 89, May 1864–January 1865. 5 All these can be seen in the notes of the conference kept by Hewitt Bernard, in Documents on the Confederation of British North America, ed. Janet Ajzenstat (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), based on the 1969 ed., G. Browne (ed.), 93–126. 6 Donald Creighton, The Road to Confederation (Toronto: Macmillan, 1964), 22–3, quoting Public Record Office, C.O. 188, vol. 139, Gordon to Newcastle, 28 September 1863. 7 The delegates are listed in the Hewitt Bernard minutes of the conference, in Documents on the Confederation of British North America, ed. Ajzenstat, 55–93. 8 Ged Martin, in the radio documentary Historians on Confederation, cbc Radio “Ideas,” 1992, cited in Moore, 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997), 43. 9 Edward Whelan, ed., The Union of the British Provinces (Charlottetown: G.T. Haszard, 1865), 109, quoting his own speech to a dinner held at Quebec City October 15, 1864. 10 Nova Scotia, Debates and Proceedings of the House of Assembly 1866 (Halifax, 1866), passim, but notably 221 (Tupper), 247–54 (Henry), 269–76 (McDonald), and 283–4 (McFarlane). For similar arguments by John A. Macdonald in the Province of Canada legislature, see Province of Canada, Legislative Assembly, Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces (Quebec: Hunter Rose, 1865, reprinted Ottawa, Queen’s Printer, 1951), 1007. 11 Nova Scotia, Debates 1865 203ff.

pa rt i e s a n d c oa l i t i o n s at t h e quebec conference

151

12 Janet Ajzenstat, The Canadian Founding: John Locke and Parliament (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007), 22–40, draws attention to the legislators and others who argued in 1864–67 that such a fundamental constitutional change had to be put to the voters in an election or referendum. 13 E.g., Alexander Mackenzie regretting the Rouges’ non-participation: Parliamentary Debates, 239. 14 Parliamentary Debates, 250. 15 Bernard’s notes in Documents on the Confederation of British North America, ed. Ajzenstat, 122. 16 Mowat always insisted that the British North America Act based on the Quebec resolutions preserved provincial sovereignty and was regularly upheld in the courts. 17 Ajzenstat, Parliamentary Debates, 362–92. 18 Ibid., 255. 19 Brown frequently made the case that he supported an appointive senate precisely to render it powerless. E.g., Edward Whelan, ed., The Union of the British Provinces, 192–3 (speech at Toronto, October 1864) and Parliamentary Debates, 421–6 (in the Canadian legislature, February 1865). 20 Nova Scotia, Debates 1866 and 1867. 21 The assertion can be found in the work of many distinguished scholars of Canadian politics, including A.R.M Lower, Bruce Hodgins, Reginald Whittaker, George Woodcock, Peter Russell, and Phillip Buckner.

George Brown and Oliver Mowat on the Quebec Resolutions and Confederation: Reality and Myth paul romney The anniversary of a founding event invites us to consider the event afresh – to project our minds back across the years, scraping away the accretions of myth and unexamined recollection, in order to contemplate the event as it unfolds. This paper considers an aspect of Canada’s founding which for most of the twentieth century was obscured by a myth. The demands, expectations, and explanations that Brown and Mowat voiced as representatives of the Reform party of Upper Canada were misrepresented by a narrative that denied the relevance of Confederation to their party’s very raison d’être: the attainment of effective self-government for the people of their province. Instead, it depicted Confederation purely as the founding of a new nationality: a new collective identity, destined in time (except, perhaps, for one slight anomaly) to render local identities quaint and trivial. I call this narrative a myth because it presents as the whole truth what is only partly true, and because it projects certain characters in the story as heroes and others as villains. In essence, it is a polemic with a normative gloss, and its elaboration in the 1930s embodied a radical reinterpretation of the Confederation settlement. To distinguish the actual meaning of Brown’s and Mowat’s statements from the significance that the myth ascribes to their words, this paper examines how their remarks were treated by two very different historians, each of whom subscribed to the myth, although not with equal zeal. Donald Creighton viewed Canada in a geopolitical perspective, seeing the Dominion as a partial restoration of a transcontinental trading empire that had been disrupted by the American Revolution. An intensely political historian, he did more than anyone to render the

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

153

centralist myth as a grand narrative. J.M.S. Careless had no political axe to grind but, born in 1919, he grew to intellectual maturity at a time when the myth was in its first fierce flush, and it influenced his work in surprising ways. We will see these tendencies expressed in Creighton’s portrayal of Mowat as a villain and Careless’s portrayal of Brown as a hero. history a n d m y t h To understand Brown’s and Mowat’s views, we need to consider them in the context of the Upper Canadian Reform politics which the two men represented at the Quebec Conference. That politics was rooted in the history of a province that had been set up in 1791 as a homeland for Loyalist refugees from the American Revolution but had quickly acquired a larger population of non-Loyalist Americans, who settled the land with the encouragement of the provincial government. To govern this society of agrarian smallholders, the Canada Act of 1791 (also known as the Constitutional Act) established an essentially oligarchic political structure, with an elective legislative assembly counterbalanced by an upper chamber of members appointed by the Crown. Local government was assigned to appointed magistrates and sheriffs, and the Church of England was accorded a privileged position in the colony. This constitution compounded the antipathies engendered by the growing animosity between a largely British or Loyalist official elite and an agrarian population predominantly composed of post-Loyalist American immigrants. The animosity reached a climax in the 1820s owing to the protracted controversy arising from the provincial government’s attempt to have American inhabitants of post-Loyalist vintage adjudged to be aliens.1 From this political context arose the demand for colonial responsible government, which proposed to remedy Upper Canada’s political ills by introducing the practice, then coming to maturity in Great Britain, of ministerial responsibility to the elective legislature. Formally adopted by the Reform leadership in 1828, it relied on a federal theory of the imperial constitution. The theory stated that the establishment of a colonial legislature (as the Constitutional Act had done for Upper Canada) invested the colonists with far-reaching rights of local selfgovernment – rights that were irrevocable without the consent of that legislature. According to this theory, as summarized in a newspaper article of 1829, “the powers of government generally” were vested in

154

paul romney

the colonial legislature, and the British Parliament retained only “those special powers of Government which for the preservation of the safety and integrity of the Empire at large, it is absolutely necessary to have lodged in the hands of one body only for the whole Empire.”2 After some twenty years, colonial responsible government was conceded to the Province of Canada as established by the Act of Union, 1840. In this context, however, its effect was to permit the Upper Canadian Conservatives, although a minority within Canada West, to wield political power in coalition with the Lower Canadian majority. Upper Canadian Reformers renewed their campaign for local autonomy; and in 1859 George Brown persuaded the party to pursue this goal, not by dissolving the Union, but by federalizing it, if necessary within a wider union of Britain’s North American colonies. Within the enlarged political context created by the British North America Act, 1867,3 this tradition of commitment to Upper Canadian autonomy persisted into the 1870s and 1880s, when it manifested itself as an Ontario-led movement to establish “provincial rights” within Confederation: rights amounting to co-ordinate sovereignty with the federal authority.4 With the final victory of this cause, however, the tradition of political thought that had sustained the drive for local self-government, first within the Empire and then within Confederation, began to fade from memory. In the 1930s, the centralist myth filled the vacuum with a narrative based on actual misunderstanding of the words in which the Confederation compact had been discussed and written by the founders. Initially the work of lawyers and political scientists, who were more interested in mining the historical record for useful quotations than in considering those quotations in context, the myth obscured the Reform tradition by severing both responsible government and Confederation from the cause of Upper Canadian autonomy. It ascribed the agitation against the union of 1840 to “sectional grievances” arising from anti-Catholicism and francophobia, and to the intransigence of a pro-American rump of radical Reformers, known as Clear Grits, who spurned responsible government in favour of populist and republican reforms. It severed Confederation from its roots in that agitation by locating it in a succession of proposals for British North American union dating back to the eighteenth century and treating it as a nationbuilding exercise pure and simple. The resultant disruption of collective memory left the cause of provincial rights dependent on a body of case law that seemed perversely at odds with the wording of the bna Act. In 1943, disparaging a judgment that expressed concern for provincial autonomy, F.R. Scott

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

155

asserted that, “if the provinces had wished to ‘preserve their autonomy,’ they would never have entered Confederation at all.”5 A constitutional arrangement that many Canadians had supported as a guarantee of local autonomy was retrospectively transfigured into one entailing a renunciation of autonomy. Mowat became a judge right after the Quebec Conference, and so made no public comment on Confederation until 1872, when he quit the bench to become premier of Ontario. His first speech as premier was devoted to a survey of Ontario’s position under the new constitutional order, and much of it recapitulated the history that had brought that order into existence. The speech framed the constitution of 1867 as the culmination of decades of struggle by an oppressed people against a domestic elite sustained by external allies – a struggle, moreover, in which the people had been repeatedly betrayed by their own leaders only to have new ones take up the sword until, finally, George Brown had led them into the Promised Land. As reported in Brown’s newspaper, the Toronto Globe, Mowat recounted that struggle in detail before continuing: It was impossible for those who had anything to do with these past struggles to over-estimate the importance of the reform which was then accomplished. Everything for which Reformers had been struggling up to that time … was accomplished by means of the new constitution which they had got. They had, as between Upper and Lower Canada, that representation by population which they had sought; they had the common Government confined to things of common interest; they had a provision that all their local affairs should be in their own hands, that their money should not be taken for local purposes in Lower Canada, that their laws and the expenditure of their revenue should be regulated by themselves, that their schools, about which they were so nervous, should never be changed without a majority of their own representatives. It was something to have accomplished these things, after struggling so many years to obtain them.6

Only after this long look at the benefits accruing from the dissolution of the legislative union of 1840 did Mowat turn to a broader appreciation of British American union: the erection of a barrier against absorption into the United States, and the prospect that the newly united provinces might evolve into:

156

paul romney

a free Russia in British America … still receiving its Chief Magistrate from the fatherland; a nation still cordially acknowledging the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament; a nation not independent of any other, but still forming part, and desiring ever to form part, of that loved land from which we had sprung, whose language we spoke, whose institutions we had adopted or imitated, whose glorious history was our own – a country which, in freedom and in power, in the purity of its statesmen of all parties, and the patriotism of its people, had long been regarded as second to no nation in the world. (Cheers.)

But although Mowat acknowledged the nation-building aspect of Confederation, he did not suggest that the old commitment to local self-government was now redundant. Five years had passed since Confederation, and for the first four of them Ontario had been under a coalition ministry containing at best one-and-a-half Reformers and at least one Tory “who sighed for the old days of the Family Compact, for the days when there was no such thing as responsible government.” Without going into detail, Mowat remarked that those years had taught the lesson that “a great deal … depended [,] in accomplishing the glorious results which they had expected from that constitution, upon the way in which that constitution was worked out by those who had the management of it.” Working out the constitution, under conditions of some difficulty, was to be Mowat’s great achievement. I quote this report at such length because it evokes the world view that underpinned the successive Upper Canadian campaigns for local autonomy, and because it situates Confederation – and therefore the subsequent campaign for provincial rights – in a narrative of struggle that continues the earlier Reform campaign for responsible government. There is a significant pre-echo of that narrative in a speech that Mowat had given thirteen years previously on another momentous occasion: the Reform party convention of 1859. On that occasion, Mowat spoke in favour of federalizing Canada as a means of liberating Upper Canada from the “baneful domination” of Lower Canada and thereby regaining “those rights of British subjects, of which, for some time past, we have been deprived.” Then too, he linked his province’s current predicament to the earlier battle against the Family Compact in the cause of responsible government, thus contriving to depict the Reform party as the vanguard of popular resistance in a historic and

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

157

persisting struggle against oppression.7 These two speeches, one delivered five years before the Quebec Conference, the other five years after the implementation of the bna Act, both show Mowat rehearsing the Reform interpretation of Upper Canadian history. It is a myth much like the centralist myth;8 and, like some of the originators of the centralist myth, Mowat was a lawyer. Unlike them, however, he had lived through, and taken part in, the history he spoke about. This was, in fact, an item in Creighton’s indictment, as we shall see. donald creigh to n ’ s v i l l a i n Creighton’s animus toward Mowat focused on the significance of the fact that the framework of Confederation, as it emerged from the Quebec Conference and was finally implemented in the bna Act, was based on the constitution of the British Empire. This was rightly understood as an expression of the delegates’ concern to avoid the apparent friability of the United States constitution, as revealed by the secession of the Southern states, and that purpose made it a pillar of the centralist myth. According to Creighton, American federalism … was only one of a number of federalisms, ancient and modern; and, as a matter of fact, British North Americans did not have to look very far in either time or space before they discovered another rather informal federal system, with which they were all perfectly familiar and which they infinitely preferred to the American. This was, of course, the Old Colonial system of the second British Empire, with its sovereign Imperial Parliament and its dependent colonial legislatures.9

He goes on to explain that the Old Colonial system gave Confederation a “theoretical basis” that precluded any equivalent to the states’ rights doctrine that had helped to undermine the United States. Unlike the latter, “the new Canada was not the result of a compact or treaty between free and autonomous provinces; it was the creation of the Imperial Parliament, which, in accordance with the procedure laid down already on previous occasions, was advised by the proper authorities in the provinces, who had previously consulted among themselves.”10 The argument is fluent enough, but it is conspicuously unhistorical. By Creighton’s own account, some fifty pages earlier in the same book,

158

paul romney

the Old Colonial system had expired by 1850.11 The question therefore arises – although Creighton ignores it – as to why British North Americans should have “infinitely preferred” that defunct system to the system of internally self-governing colonies, under a light imperial suzerainty, with which they were, in fact, “all perfectly familiar” in 1864. One might also wonder how Creighton could possibly know what British North Americans as a whole “infinitely preferred” at that time; but the book in question was written for a general audience and has no footnotes. Of course, the very notion that British North Americans all preferred one thing is fantastic, given that the historical record shows them quarrelling over the prospect of federation before the Quebec Conference, disagreeing over the nature of the proposed federal constitution during and after the Conference, and then, in some cases, trying to overturn that constitution once it was accomplished. Mythmaking can hardly get more blatant; and indeed, Creighton’s “theoretical basis” for Confederation, with its denial of the Confederation compact, is just a parroting of the legalistic rationale for federal supremacy in which the centralist myth originated.12 One has only to read George Brown’s newspaper to grasp the falsity of Creighton’s argument. In an article published in the interval between the conferences at Charlottetown and Quebec, the Globe cites the imperial model in an attempt to reassure Canadians who fear that federal union means disintegration. This article specifies that it is referring to the new model: Many illustrations of the advantage of local self-government in rendering the central power more secure occur to us. The most familiar is that presented by the British colonies. So long as they were governed from Downing-street they were always discontented, and complaints were constant, sometimes ending in rebellion, and always injurious to the authority of the parent State. When local self-government was granted all this ceased.13

Accordingly, after the Quebec Conference, the Globe cites the imperial analogy to rebut forebodings that the governor general’s proposed power to disallow local legislation would threaten local autonomy: “The veto power exists now, but in practice it is never exercised, nor would matters be different under Confederation.”14 The newspaper also compares the federal disallowance power with the Crown’s power to veto legislation in Britain, which was practically obsolete. The general gov-

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

159

ernment had received that power to permit it to nullify local legislation that was unjust to minorities. If ever the power was used unwisely, an agitation would probably ensue that would sweep it away altogether.15 As we know, the Globe was deluded in its expectation that the disallowance power would not be used unwisely but was correct in supposing that such abuse would discredit disallowance as an instrument of federal authority. However, what matters here is the fact that Brown’s newspaper discusses the proposed federal union by analogy with the imperial constitution as it was in 1864 and distinguishes that model from the obsolete system cited by Creighton. Moreover, the article does not say (in effect): “By rejecting the Old Colonial System, we guarantee local autonomy.” It says: “By rejecting the Old Colonial System, and guaranteeing local autonomy, we make the central power more secure.” By basing the federal constitution on that of the Empire, the Canadian scheme does not sacrifice local autonomy to central power, as Creighton would later maintain; it makes local autonomy the basis of central power. This is very germane to Creighton’s indictment of Mowat, which rests above all on what Mowat said about the disallowance power. Nothing did more to discredit this power than its repeated use by the government of John A. Macdonald in the 1880s to veto an Ontario statute, the Rivers and Streams Act. The statute was enacted to allow log slides to float timber downstream after paying compensation to the owner of the slide. It was incontestably within the provincial jurisdiction over property and civil rights, and it adhered scrupulously to contemporary precepts of the rule of law. Its disallowance was thus an unequivocal rebuttal of the Globe’s assurances in 1864 – indeed, the Globe made a point of acknowledging the doubts that the Lower Canadian Liberal leader, Antoine-Aimé Dorion, had expressed at the time.16 Commenting on the Globe’s analogy between the proposed federal disallowance power and the existing imperial power, Dorion had predicted that party politics, transcending the jurisdictional divide, would tempt the general government to apply the power to local legislation much more aggressively than was sanctioned by current imperial practice.17 The disallowance of the Rivers and Streams Act had proved Dorion right, since Macdonald had acted at the behest of a member of his parliamentary caucus, who happened to own the contentious slide that had prompted the legislation.18 In 1885, Mowat’s position was vindicated by a judicial declaration that his legislation, which Macdonald had denounced as an atrocious abuse of property rights, had actually been the law of the land for

160

paul romney

decades. Despite this personal vindication, Mowat joined several other premiers at the Interprovincial Conference of 1887 in calling on the imperial government to repeal the disallowance power. On that occasion, harking back to the Quebec Conference, he recalled in a newspaper interview that the power had been granted for fear that the general government might be too weak without it, but the delegates had agreed that it should be subject to the same constraints as the imperial veto on which it was modelled.19 In the legislature he added a further recollection: At one time it had been a burning question in the provinces as to what they could do to prevent so frequent and injurious a use of the veto power by the British Government as they were then subjected to. But that day had passed away in 1864. For some years prior to that date there had been very little disallowance of Provincial statutes. Still it was thought that there was less danger of that power being too freely or improperly exercised if it was given to the Dominion Government than if it were given to the Imperial Government, seeing that the people of the Provinces were of course represented in the Dominion Parliament.20

Thus Mowat, like the Globe a quarter of a century before, tied the expectations of the Quebec Conference to the demise of the Old Colonial system. But Creighton overlooked these testimonies. Instead, he based his indictment on remarks by the premier’s son-in-law, C.R.W. Biggar, in a posthumous biography of Mowat. As I noted above, myths have heroes and villains. Creighton prefaces his indictment with a distinctly unheroic portrait of his villain: “A short, rotund person [not man], with a bland, bespectacled countenance and a slightly sanctimonious expression, Mowat had a high opinion of his own virtues and was fond of describing himself as a ‘Christian statesman.’ He was, at least, an intensely political Christian.”21 Then he proceeds to particulars, which I quote at length as a choice specimen of myth-making. [H]e had developed a new theory of Canadian federalism, exclusively provincial in its bias, which he held with dogmatic assurance. That this theory differed from – and, in fact, completely contradicted – the original conception of Confederation was, of course, well known to Mowat, for he had been a member of the Coalition Government of 1864 and had been pre-

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

161

sent at the Quebec Conference. At the end of his career, in interviews with his prospective biographer, he attempted to explain away at least a part of this contradiction by falsifying the official record of the Quebec Conference concerning the federal power of disallowance. But, while he was Premier, the knowledge that he was repudiating principles which he had previously endorsed and attacking a constitution which was partly his own handiwork apparently did not cause him a moment’s concern. In effect, he went back to the Grit tradition, which was older than Confederation and older than the Coalition of 1864 – to the Upper Canadian tradition of sectional grievances, claims, and protests; and, in the context of the federal union, this tradition had acquired fresh vitality as the doctrine of “provincial rights.” Mowat’s aim now was to elevate the political status of his province and to enlarge the sphere of its legislative and administrative powers. He utterly denied the tacit assumption of the Quebec Conference that the “local” governments would decline in importance to virtually municipal levels.22

This paragraph exhibits several points of interest, the most important being the way it disrupts and negates Mowat’s interpretation of Upper Canadian history in the manner I described earlier. As we have seen, Mowat projected the history of his party as a narrative of unceasing popular resistance to the domination of a domestic elite buoyed by outside power, and in his speech of 1872 he identified Confederation as a crucial moment in that narrative – not a final deliverance, but a major advance, although the ground gained would need defending in future. Accordingly, he justified his opposition to Macdonald’s centralizing policies as a defence of that ground against an opponent bent on taking it back. But since it contradicts the centralist myth, this narrative simply does not exist for Creighton. By characterizing Mowat’s account of the understandings reached at Quebec as a “new theory,” and describing that new theory as a return to “the Upper Canadian tradition of sectional grievances, claims, and protests,” he severs the connection between the founding of Canada and the successive struggles for Upper Canadian autonomy. Note that Creighton recognizes the continuity between the old grievances and the “doctrine of provincial rights.” What he denies is the relevance of these things to the Quebec agreement. Confederation is not to be thought of as resolving Upper Canadian grievances by means of institutional remedies that confined (as Mowat put it in 1872)

162

paul romney

the federal power. It must be understood, rather, as the uniting of British North Americans under a new order that rendered those grievances moot. Mowat’s campaign for provincial rights cannot be a defence of the Confederation settlement against threatened subversion; it must itself be subversive – a regression to petty habits of thought that had been renounced at Quebec in the founding of a new nation. But how could Mowat have got it so wrong? Was he perhaps misremembering the events of more than twenty years ago, as people do? That cannot be, since Mowat is, after all, a villain in this narrative: he must be a deliberate, unblushing liar. But when you actually look at the text that Creighton cites in proof of this contention, you find that it is not quite as Creighton would have us believe. Biggar writes that, although the official minutes report Mowat as moving the resolution on the disallowance and reservation of provincial legislation in the terms that were eventually incorporated in the bna Act, this was certainly not the original form of Mr. Mowat’s motion, which is stated to have been “adopted after much debate.” I have his own authority for saying that he desired the Provincial Legislatures to be made co-ordinate with, and not subordinate to, the General Legislature, and the power of veto over provincial, as well as federal legislation, to remain vested, as it had theretofore been, in the Imperial authorities.23

So, actually, what Creighton calls a deliberate falsification by Mowat is more likely an inept inference by Biggar (who also manages to misquote the record, since the minutes state that the motion passed “after further debate”).24 But the words that Biggar ascribes to his father-in-law are inconsistent both with the official record and with anything else that Mowat said on the subject; and one should also bear in mind the possibility that what Mowat said in this instance may refer to discussions, not in conference, but among the Canadian delegates. As for the final item in the indictment, one wonders what evidence can exist for a tacit understanding. But here, too, Creighton is writing for a general audience and making do without footnotes. maurice c arel e s s ’ s h e ro In Creighton’s treatment of Mowat, we see the mythmaker at work. Careless on Brown is a very different matter. His biography, sufficiently well-written and accessible to have earned the Governor General’s

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

163

Award, is a committed and penetrating scholarly inquiry, amply footnoted; and it is its footnotes (strictly speaking, endnotes) that will largely concern us. Careless was no mythmaker in the Creighton style, and a few years later he was to publish a short but influential critique of the “nation-building” approach to Canadian history.25 However, his criticism was sociological, not constitutional, in nature. He uncritically endorsed the view that the founders had intended a highly centralized federation, and that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council’s later construction of the bna Act was a reversal rather than a faithful implementation of that intent.26 As a result, there are places in the biography where Careless inadvertently distorts the evidence to make it fit the myth – which, of course, he accepted as historical truth. These faults are evident in what he says and does not say, and in what he cites and does not cite. The main theme of the biography is epitomized in the subtitles of its two volumes: Brown’s passage from his initial political role as The Voice of Upper Canada, the tribune of Upper Canadian sectional grievances, to that of Statesman of Confederation, a leader among the nation’s founders. During the legislative session of 1864, Brown secured the appointment of a select committee to consider solutions to the constitutional crisis, and the committee’s deliberations paved the way for the formation of a coalition government when the crisis came to a head. Naturally, Careless gives a detailed account of Brown’s leading role in the party convention that adopted the policy of federalization;27 and when he comes to Confederation, his approach is basically to compare Brown’s words in 1864 and 1865 with what he had said five years earlier, when he had persuaded his Reform party to pursue local autonomy by federalizing, not dissolving, United Canada. He then attempts to explain what he calls “the complete change” in Brown’s thinking since then.28 This is an approach calculated to frame Brown as an evolving centralizer. The Reform convention of 1859 had pitted the advocates of federation against opponents who preferred complete dissolution of the Union. For this reason the federalists had tended to downplay the authority to be assigned to the general government, which they minimized by designating it as “some joint authority.” In 1864, however, confronting the need to work out a detailed plan of federation in light of the catastrophic failure of American federalism, Brown expressed himself in terms that, especially if taken out of context, could easily be construed as favouring a dominant general government. Careless acknowledges the tactical considerations at work in 1859 but concludes

164

paul romney

(in my view, correctly) that the Globe’s assurances in this instance “carried the ring of conviction”; he does not contend that Brown was then more of a centralizer than he pretended.29 This sets up the contrast between Brown’s views in 1859 and 1864. But in discussing the latter occasion, Careless ignores the possibility of a tactical aspect to Brown’s declarations in favour of centralization. He simply takes the “complete change” for granted. Careless’s synopsis of Brown’s ideas is based on copious but selective quotation; it mingles sources from before, during, and after the Quebec Conference in a way that imposes a specious coherence. And since he is writing for a general as well as a scholarly audience, he is ever attentive to the need to tie his narrative to the broad themes of Canadian history as his readers know it; thus he explains Brown’s apparent volteface on the balance of federal and local power in terms that speak to the conventional understanding of the final outcome. Confederation, as distinct from the mere federalization of United Canada, meant “the creation of a whole new nationality,” and “of course the new national authority should have precedence.”30 The expansion of the federation to include the Maritime provinces made such precedence less risky, since it would diminish the influence of “French Canadianism” in a federal legislative assembly elected on the basis of representation by population. And of course, federal sovereignty, as manifest in the residuary legislative power being assigned to the federal legislature, was dictated by the example of the collapse of American federalism. Much of this is true, or at least plausible; but the influence of the centralist myth is always liable to tug Careless a step too far. This is especially evident in his paragraph on the residuary power. To adherents of the centralist myth, it was axiomatic that the founders, in dividing the legislative power between the general and local governments, had deliberately reversed the American pattern by assigning only specified powers to the local legislatures and the residue to the Dominion Parliament. This required them to explain away the fact that the scheme that the Canadian delegation presented to the conferences at Charlottetown and Quebec assigned specific powers to both spheres of government. Thus Donald Creighton, in The Road to Confederation, postulates that, for the Canadian delegation at Charlottetown, the cardinal point was that “the American principle of division would have to be completely reversed” by defining the local legislative power in detail as exceptions from a general grant of power assigned to the general legislature; but then he has to confront the fact that, “somewhat

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

165

curiously,” the Canadian proposal did not quite do that. He surmises that the Canadians “may have feared that the importance of the residuary clause would be reduced if they did not illustrate its vast scope by providing a number of examples.”31 Again, recounting Macdonald’s presentation of the Canadian plan at Quebec, Creighton premises that “its fundamental basis was the grant of residuary authority – of all powers not specifically left with the local bodies – to the national parliament.” Then he admits that the “crucial importance” of this principle was, to some slight extent, obscured and minimized by the phraseology of Macdonald’s motion. The resolution opened with the grant of authority “to make laws for the peace, welfare, and good government” of the federation – an historic, all-embracing phrase by which the Imperial Parliament had in the past conveyed to British colonial legislatures the entire range of their legislative sway. The motion closed with the grant of authority to legislate “generally, respecting all matters of a general character, not specially and exclusively reserved for the local governments and legislatures.” In between these two comprehensive [sic] endowments of power, however, a long list of specific, enumerated federal functions had been inserted. As at Charlottetown, the Canadians might seem to be proposing both residuary powers and specific powers for the national legislature, at one and the same time.32

Creighton comments that the ensuing debate was “temperate and constructive” but recognizes that the wording of the resolution may have misled some of the delegates as to its “basic significance.”33 He has to do so because of the heated debate that erupted three days later, when Mowat presented a series of resolutions defining the powers of the local legislatures. The Quebec Conference unfolded behind closed doors, and our main source for what was said consists of scanty notes by the conference secretary, Hewitt Bernard. Maurice Careless cites Bernard’s record of the debate on the local powers to support the statement that “Brown was in accord with the dominant feeling in the Conference that whatever lists of subjects were drawn up, the residuary powers should lie with the general government; that is, in Confederation … the provinces should have only certain specified powers delegated to them, and the

166

paul romney

central régime keep all the rest.”34 However, a close look at Bernard’s exiguous summary hardly confirms Careless’s view. In essence, the debate is a quarrel between Maritimers over a Canadian proposal. E.B. Chandler of New Brunswick begins it by rejecting the idea of listing the local powers at all, since in his view it would be tantamount to creating a legislative union rather than a federal one. At first the tide of opinion favours Chandler, and so Brown intervenes, defending a proposal that he himself had presented at Charlottetown. Bernard summarizes his intervention as follows: This matter received close attention of Canadian government. I should agree with Mr. Chandler were it not that we have done all we can to settle the matter with sufficient powers to Local Legislatures. I would let the courts of each Province decide what is Local and what General Government jurisdiction, with appeal to the Appeal or Superior Court.35

After this, the Maritimers continue to argue among themselves, so Macdonald intervenes to criticize Chandler’s position for reproducing the primary flaw of American federalism. So far, the debate (according to Bernard) has been confined to the question of whether it is better to list the local or the general powers, but now the actual proposal to list both sets of powers enters the discussion. None of the Maritimers likes the idea; yet in the end, that is what the conference decides to do. There is simply no basis here for supposing that Brown was in accord with the “dominant feeling” that the residuary powers should lie with the federal government. First of all, there is no such “dominant feeling”: the discussion as reported is evenly balanced. But in any case, Brown’s stated inclination is not centralist: he expresses sympathy with Chandler’s wish to leave the local powers undefined – which is, after all, consistent with the scheme of federation that the Upper Canadian Reformers had adopted in 1859. And although Brown does not fight for his personal preference, neither does he embrace its antithesis. He defends the Canadian compromise, with its two lists. And presumably the conference adopts the Canadian proposal, despite the Maritimers’ reservations, precisely because it is a compromise. Careless’s opening statement of Brown’s position, therefore, is not true to the cited evidence. Neither is the rest of the paragraph. Careless writes:

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

167

Macdonald and others had emphasized that the chief flaw in the American federal system was that the states had delegated powers to the federal government and retained the residue themselves. This had given rise to the doctrine of states’ rights, carried by the South to the point of breaking up the union. But Brown would wholly agree that “a great evil in the United States, the acknowledgement of an inherent sovereign power in the separate states,” above all had to be avoided. British North America should reverse the United States principle, keeping any “implied power” for the general government, and securing “all those powers which will enable the legislative and administrative proceedings of the central authority to be carried out with a firm hand.” To the Globe this was the essential difference between the two federations. The Civil War had proved the inherent defect in the American system; in the new Confederation there would be no basis for any right to secede, because the general government would control “the whole nation.”36

The two longer quotations in this passage come from Brown’s speech at Toronto after the conference, as reported by another delegate,37 but the words “implied power,” and the attendant reference to reversing “the United States principle,” belong to an article (entitled “The Essential Difference”) in the Globe of 1 August 1864. It is not improper to use a source dating from ten weeks before the Quebec Conference to illuminate the outcome of the conference, as long as the source accurately states the principles expressed in the conference resolutions, and no doubt that is what Careless thinks he is doing here. However, the report of the Toronto speech, on which Careless mainly relies, does not actually say that the issue of sovereignty has been addressed by reversing the American pattern. Careless has inserted extraneous material to impute to Brown his own understanding of the Resolutions. But that is not all: he misquotes his source in the process. The article in question is addressed to Upper Canadians who prefer legislative union to federation, and so it takes pains to play down the disintegration that federation would entail. Accordingly, it states that the local governments will possess delegated powers, while the “sovereign” power (the Globe inserts quotation marks to acknowledge that legal sovereignty will remain with the imperial government) will be vested in the general government. It also compares the proposed local governments

168

paul romney

with the existing Upper Canadian municipalities: just as the latter are subordinate to the government of Canada, so the former will be subordinate to the general government. This sort of talk was meat and drink to the centralist mythmakers, yet Careless contrives to improve on perfection, imparting a normative gloss to a purely descriptive statement by altering it to say that the “sovereign” power should (not will) be vested in the general government. And he rounds off his paragraph by misquoting another Globe article, again in a manner that imparts a centralist bias. This second article distinguishes between the jurisdiction of the provincial legislatures, each of which would be confined to “matters affecting its particular section,” and the federal legislature, which “would have the control of those matters material to the whole nation.”38 Careless’s misreading converts a simple distinction between spheres of jurisdiction – one made, as it happens, to illustrate the largely formal nature of any federal “sovereignty” – into an assertion of effective federal supremacy. Misquotation is easily proved; selective quotation must be demonstrated by referring to what is ignored. The article of 1 August is an excellent example because, even here, the centralist affirmations are qualified by remarks that signify that the proposed arrangement is precautionary and largely formal in nature. In “the remote contingency, to which some imaginative people look forward, of a separation” from Great Britain, a formal federal supremacy will help to prevent a crisis like that currently besetting “the delegated government at Washington.” Besides, “it is unphilosophical that the part should be deemed greater than the whole, or that the lower should be more important than the higher.” However, “the ‘sovereign’ character of the general government does not necessarily give it a very wide range of duties, and in no manner gives it the slightest power of interfering with the duties of the local governments.” Careless lifts the most centralist-sounding remark out of context and inserts it in his general explanation of Brown’s “complete change” of heart.39 Yet, as Robert Vipond has noted,40 the autonomy of the local governments, and the distinction between formal sovereignty and actual power, are leading themes in a sort of serial seminar on the proposed federation that the Globe conducted during these months. Thus, on the eve of the Charlottetown Conference, the paper points out that the local legislative power will be prescribed by the Imperial Parliament, and that the general government will have no power of inter-

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

169

ference or encroachment. It goes on to distinguish between real and nominal sovereignty: The real sovereignty, under a federal form of government, rests with the body which has the largest share of power … The central power might be nominally supreme, but yet it might delegate to the local bodies such extensive jurisdiction as to deprive itself of all weight in the country. On the other hand, the central might be the delegated power, and yet have conferred upon it so large a prerogative as to leave the local bodies with nothing to do.41

The Globe continues to ring the changes on these themes throughout September (which begins with the Charlottetown Conference) and into October, but the main argument is consistent all along. Likewise, in the parliamentary debate on Confederation, when Brown considers the merits of the Quebec Agreement as a remedy for the political ailments of United Canada, he focuses on the actual distribution of power, not the principle of distribution. Like Mowat in 1872, he stresses that Upper Canadian revenues will no longer be appropriated for local Lower Canadian purposes, the people of each province will have full control of the administration of their local affairs, and “the questions that used to cite the most hostile feelings among us” will be “placed under the control of the local bodies.”42 When other speakers suggest that the proposed constitution resembles the highly centralized federation that Conservatives prefer, rather than the Reformers’ scheme of 1859, he answers that it combines the “best features”43 of all the schemes proposed in the last decade. It appears, then, that Careless’s notion of a complete change in Brown’s views is unfounded, at least as far as the residuary power is concerned. However, as I noted earlier, Brown did reportedly say some things at and about the Quebec Conference which, taken out of context, sound strongly centralist. Careless leads off his account of Brown’s supposed conversion by mentioning Brown’s proposal that the local governments should consist of a federally appointed lieutenantgovernor assisted by elected department heads, who would be permitted to speak, but not vote, in a unicameral legislature. This, he remarks, “was an odd mixture of American and British precedents. But it was obviously not intended to produce powerful provincial

170

paul romney

regimes.”44 He points out that Brown justified his proposal by referring to the “insignificance” of the provincial powers as agreed at Charlottetown, and that he would have been willing to reduce the provincial legislative power as defined by the Quebec Resolutions: “For example, he did not think that education, or property and civil rights necessarily belonged in the provincial field, though he recognized French Canada’s special claim to have them in the local field … Even agriculture … he felt might best be left to central control alone.”45 There is no point in fretting about things that Brown reportedly said on a single occasion. He had bitterly opposed the imposition of separate Catholic public schools on Upper Canada as a breach of the principle of the separation of church and state, but at Quebec he had been obliged to concede their continuance under the new constitution to protect the rights of the Protestant minority in Lower Canada.46 It may be that his discussions with delegates from the Maritime provinces had persuaded him that no further breach of the principle was to be feared from a federal legislature dominated by the anglophone majority provinces. As for property and civil rights, the importance that this subject was later to acquire as a source of provincial legislative power, compared with the provision in the Quebec agreement that gave the local legislatures jurisdiction over “all matters of a private or local nature, not assigned to the General Parliament,” was not apparent in 1864. And what Brown actually said about agriculture was that he was willing that it should be a local matter, but if so, they should not expect any financial support for it from the general government.47 But what about those quasi-municipal provinces, and Brown’s reported remark about the insignificance of the local powers as agreed at Charlottetown? Here again the context is significant. Cheap and responsive government was an idea that appealed strongly to Brown’s political base – especially the hard-core Grits who were more inclined to split United Canada than engage in elaborate state-building schemes. In 1859, Brown had persuaded them to accept a very loose federation, and now he had had to compromise with the Tories on something more centralized. He needed to throw his supporters a bone. As for the “insignificance” of the local powers, our only evidence for the remark is Barnard’s note. It could easily be just a rather loose rendering of something Brown blurted out to back up his proposal for cheap local government. Oddly enough, at the place where Brown’s views on the provincial constitutions are most relevant, Careless ignores them. He quotes Brown’s triumphant note to his wife at the end of the conference:

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

171

All right!! Conference through at six o’clock this evening – constitution adopted – a most creditable document – a complete reform of all the injustices we have complained of !! Is it not wonderful? French-Canadianism entirely extinguished! … You will say our constitution is dreadfully Tory – and so it is – but we have the power in our hands … to change it as we like. Hurrah!48

At this moment of nation-building glory, Brown says nothing about a new nationality: the “Statesman of Confederation” sounds exactly like “The Voice of Upper Canada,” a striking fact that Careless overlooks. But when Careless comes to the comment about “our constitution,” he guesses that Brown “was thinking, in all likelihood, of those eighty-two Upper Canada seats in the new federal legislature – sure to be dominated by right-minded Grits.” This suggestion makes sense only if Brown was referring to the federal constitution; yet Brown had no complaint about the federal constitution, with its elective Lower House affording representation by population, its appointed upper house, and its monarchical panoply. Surely he was thinking of the provincial constitution. His attempt to impose a quasimunicipal system on the provinces had been rejected; but since (apart from imposing a federally appointed lieutenant-governor) the conference had empowered each province to define its own constitution, Ontario’s would be determined by the Upper Canadian members of the current Canadian legislative assembly, who were indeed mostly Grits.49 In sum, even if the vagueness of the allusion makes it slightly ambiguous, Careless entertains only one option – the less likely one. The fact that Brown’s first ebullient response at this moment of nation-building triumph should have focused exclusively on Upper Canadian concerns either eludes him or is silently dismissed.50 concl u s i o n During the Canadian parliamentary debate on the Quebec Resolutions, the Montreal conservative Christopher Dunkin remarked that people like himself, who preferred legislative union, were told “that the Federal union offered us in name will be a legislative union in reality.” Yet, he continued, “whoever dislikes the notion of a legislative union is assured that it will be nothing of the sort.”51 The Resolutions represented a compromise, and the architects of this compromise were anxious to reassure their followers that it sacrificed nothing essential. In

172

paul romney

Brown’s case this problem is magnified by his status as proprietor of the most widely circulated newspaper in Canada. The contemporary record of his views is ample, but it needs to be read with an eye to context. His views, amplified by the Globe, were heard by both sides (or all sides) at once, and he shaped his words accordingly.52 Maurice Careless correctly stated that the Quebec agreement embodied a more centralized union than the Upper Canadian Reformers had endorsed in 1859, but his intellectual conditioning rendered him deaf to the nuances of Brown’s political evolution. The difference lay in investing the general government with a larger legislative capacity and a formal supremacy that made it first among equals, not in erecting a dominant central authority to which the local governments would be effectively subordinate. Certainly the Reformers did not consent, as Donald Creighton imagined, to impose on the local governments that subordination to central authority that had been the colonies’ lot under the Old Colonial system; as we have seen, the Globe spurned this obsolete model in favour of its successor. This editorial, together with Hewitt Bernard’s note of Brown’s intervention in the debate on the local legislative power, foreshadows the basis upon which Mowat was later to defend provincial rights: the imperial model of internally autonomous colonies, the compromise on the distribution of legislative powers, and judicial resolution of jurisdictional issues. John A. Macdonald, of course, had other ideas. Shortly after the conference, he predicted to a fellow Conservative that, within their lifetimes, the local governments would be “absorbed in the general power.”53 At the London Conference, he collaborated with British officials to transmute the Quebec Resolutions into statutory language that might promote that outcome.54 As prime minister of Canada, his efforts to expedite it would precipitate the struggle over provincial rights. That struggle would turn on the discrepancy between the Resolutions, which could be seen as a treaty or compact incorporating unwritten constitutional conventions, and the text of the statute. Accordingly, Mowat pursued a strategy of insinuating the understandings of the Quebec Resolutions into the case law developing around the statute.55 The triumph of provincial rights was above all Mowat’s triumph in infusing Canadian constitutional law with the spirit and lore of the Upper Canadian Reform tradition.56 With the fading of that lore, however, the case law thus generated would begin to seem contemptibly perverse.57

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

173

We have reviewed the reported remarks of George Brown and Oliver Mowat on the Quebec agreement and Confederation from two points of view: first, that of the Reform tradition of struggle for Upper Canadian self-rule; and, second, as they appeared to two leading historians through the distorting prism of the centralist myth. The metaphor of the prism is not casually employed. As a prism splits light, so the myth splits the Reform narrative, which asserts the unity of the Upper Canadian quest for local autonomy, into unconnected phases: the struggle for responsible government, which is over by 1850; the Grit sectional discontents of the 1850s and early ’60s, which are rendered moot by Confederation; and the Grit recidivism of the campaign for provincial rights. By equating the design of Confederation with that of the Old Colonial system, Creighton could dismiss Oliver Mowat’s analogy between Confederation and the modern imperial constitution without serious consideration. Careless, Mowat’s junior by seventeen years, was educated in the myth. When, in his biography of Brown, he attempted to review the antecedents of Confederation from a Reform perspective, the myth induced him to misrepresent Brown’s words where they did not quite say what he imagined Brown must have meant. It is noteworthy that Creighton and Careless paid as much attention to the Quebec Conference as they did. The lawyers and political scientists who mainly invented the centralist myth viewed Confederation through the lens of the bna Act. Where the Quebec agreement did not fit their narrative, they happily dismissed it as unimportant; and, of course, it fitted badly, not only because of its perplexing ambiguity about the distribution of legislative power but also because of its aspect as a treaty or compact, which gave colour to the derided compact theory of Confederation.58 An English-Canadian historian could not ignore the great moment when British North American statesmen came together to found a new nation. However, both Creighton and Careless laboured to fit the event into an unhistorical narrative that had become a historical axiom. notes 1 Paul Romney, Getting It Wrong: How Canadians Forgot Their Past and Imperilled Confederation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 33–41. 2 K.D. McRae, “An Upper Canada Letter of 1829 on Responsible Govern-

174

3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26

paul romney

ment,” Canadian Historical Review, 31 (1950), 293; Romney, Getting It Wrong, 42–56. There is no historical warrant for the Orwellian appellation “Constitution Act, 1867”: Romney, Getting It Wrong, 276. Ibid., 75–86, 109–24. Frank R. Scott, Essays on the Constitution: Aspects of Canadian Law and Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 185; Romney, Getting It Wrong, 147–212. Globe, 30 Nov. 1872. Ibid., 11 Nov. 1859. Romney, Getting It Wrong, 29–32. Donald Creighton, Dominion of the North: A History of Canada (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944), 306. Ibid., 307. Ibid., 253–62. Romney, Getting It Wrong, 155–75. Globe, 17 Sept. 1864. Ibid., 25 Nov. 1864. Ibid., 10 Nov. 1864. Ibid., 8 Jan. 1882, 8. Canada (Province), Legislature, Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces (Quebec: Hunter, Rose, 1865), 258. Romney, Getting It Wrong, 112–15. Globe, 4 July 1887, 4. Globe, 1 Mar. 1888, 4. Donald Creighton, Canada’s First Century, 1867–1967 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1970), 46. Ibid., 47. C.R.W. Biggar, Sir Oliver Mowat: A Biographical Sketch, vol. 1 (Toronto: Warwick Bros. & Rutter, 1905), 132–3. The minutes state that the motion passed “after further debate” (G. Browne, ed. and intr. (2009), Documents on the Confederation of British North America, new intr. by Janet Ajzenstat (Montreal & Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 86). One should also bear in mind the possibility that what Mowat says may refer to discussions, not at the 1864 conferences, but among the Canadian ministers. J.M.S. Careless, “‘Limited Identities’ in Canada,” Canadian Historical Review, vol. 50, 1969, 1–10. J.M.S. Careless, Canada: A Story of Challenge, 2nd. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 244–5, 364–5.

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d c onfederation

175

27 J.M.S. Careless, Brown of the Globe, vol. 1, The Voice of Upper Canada (Toronto: Macmillan, 1959), 304–22. 28 J.M.S. Careless, Brown of the Globe, vol. 2, Statesman of Confederation (Toronto: Macmillan, 1963), 168. 29 Ibid., 168. 30 Ibid. 31 Donald Creighton, The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada, 1863– 1867 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 118–19. 32 Ibid., 165–6. 33 Ibid., 166. 34 Careless, Brown of the Globe, 2: 169. 35 G. Browne, Documents, 123. 36 Careless, Brown of the Globe, 2: 169. 37 Edward Whelan, The Union of the British Provinces (Charlottetown: G.T. Haszard, 1865), 197. 38 Globe, 16 Sept. 1864. 39 Careless, Brown of the Globe, 2: 168. John Saywell does likewise (John T. Saywell, The Lawmakers: Judicial Power and the Shaping of Canadian Federalism [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002], 5). Compare Vipond’s use of the same article, and others from the Globe (Robert C. Vipond, Liberty and Community: Canadian Federalism and the Failure of the Constitution [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991], 26–33, especially 30–2). Careless and Saywell are perpetuating the centralist myth. Vipond challenges it. 40 Vipond, Liberty and Community, 27–34. 41 Globe, 30 Aug. 1864. 42 Canada (Province), Legislature, Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 96. 43 Ibid., 1008. 44 Careless, Brown of the Globe, 2: 167. 45 Ibid. 46 Canada (Province), Legislature, Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 95–6. 47 G. Browne, Documents, 119. 48 Careless, Brown of the Globe, Vol. 2: 171 (italics in original). 49 G. Browne, Documents, 160. 50 Creighton, who quotes the first part, does note the sectionalist bias; but he had a quick ear for Grit recidivism, as we have seen, and Brown was not his hero (Creighton, The Road to Confederation, 182). 51 Canada (Province), Legislature, Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 501.

176

paul romney

52 Romney, Getting It Wrong, 93–4. 53 Creighton, The Road to Confederation, 165. 54 Moore, 1867, 212–14; Saywell, The Lawmakers, 9–12; Romney, Getting It Wrong, 98–102. 55 Paul Romney, “The Nature and Scope of Provincial Autonomy: Oliver Mowat, the Quebec Resolutions and the Construction of the British North America Act,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 25 (1992), 17–28. 56 Moore, 1867, 121–8. 57 See, e.g., Saywell, The Lawmakers, passim, and David Schneiderman, “Constitutional Interpretation in an Age of Anxiety: A Reconsideration of the Local Prohibition Case,” McGill Law Journal, 41 (1996), passim. Unlike Saywell, Schneiderman does not subject members of the jcpc and their reasoning to explicit derision while avoiding the logic underlying their decisions. However, on no good grounds, he does ascribe ulterior motives to Lord Watson’s professed concern for provincial autonomy as a reason for defining Parliament’s power to legislate for the peace, order, and good government of Canada (435–55). 58 Romney, Getting It Wrong, 155–75, 200–1. Brown was among the participants who described the Quebec resolutions as a compact (Canada [Province], Legislature, Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 110). Significantly, just as it disrupts the Upper Canadian Reform narrative, the centralist myth also disrupts the French-Canadian compact theory (Romney, Getting It Wrong, 141–3).

part three

Opponents of the 1864 Confederation Project: Criticism of the Future Regime françois rocher

introdu c t i o n The Quebec Conference laid the foundations for the British North America Act, and the Resolutions adopted at the Conference became the framework for the Canadian Constitution of 1867. Those favourable to the new political regime tended to magnify this historical episode and its ramifications. For example, the imperialist and nationalist Canadian historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who supported a simultaneously loyalist and conservative view of history, defended a political regime founded on borrowed British institutions, highlighted the enlightened and visionary nature of the Fathers of Confederation, and claimed that Canada’s political evolution was a sign of progress and access to more freedom, autonomy, and self-governance.1 In their view, any opponents of the regime could only have been shifty and ungodly characters under the influence of Voltaire, or else annexationists or republicans hostile to the British monarchy. This analysis looks at the various kinds of criticism levelled at the federal union, in particular during the debates of 1864–67. It highlights the similar or divergent arguments raised by the opposition movements, whether in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Canada West, or Canada East. Our research shows that the discourse of these critics was not insignificant, but rather reflected legitimate concerns about the type of political regime that would emerge from the process and the social and economic upheavals it would entail. The criticism also laid bare the deep divisions and the competing ideas put forward by political and social forces of unequal strength, with a degree of mobilization

180

françois rocher

that differed widely from one colony to another. We will look at the nature of the power relationships during this period, and the arguments – still widely used today – to describe the supporters and adversaries of the confederal project. The article is divided into three parts. The first part looks at the Quebec Conference of 1864 from a historiographical point of view, and illuminates the range of interpretations given to constitutional history and the ways in which critics of the federal project have been depicted. Some of these interpretations were expressed during the major conferences. As we took a fresh look at the various currents of thought, we realized that the ideas expressed by the opponents tended to be described in an anecdotal way by Canadian and Quebec historians, or simply denigrated or ignored. The second part of the article focuses on the main criticism of 1864, the elitist and secret nature of the process that led to the adoption of the Quebec Resolutions. The third part examines how the opposition was structured in each of the four colonies. In the conclusion, we highlight the accuracy of some of the criticisms made, in particular those concerning the dysfunctional nature of the Canadian federation, another deception of the nineteenth century. 1 the opponents as portray e d i n t h e h i s to r i c a l memory: marginal a n d u n i n s p i r e d Historiography in Canada is made up of several different currents that offer a range of explanations for the key moments in Canada’s foundation. Opponents are disparaged or simply overlooked. It is not possible to present a complete review of this rich historiography, so to illustrate our arguments we will simply provide a few significant examples. For instance, the imperialist historians, who placed great store on the values of conservatism, tradition, and the institutions of the British monarchy, attributed a form of moral and social superiority to the Fathers of Confederation on the basis of their patriotism.2 Their opponents could therefore not be described in a positive light, and their sometimes dangerous arguments could not be taken seriously.3 In contrast, the so-called continentalist historians sought to discredit the proposed imperial federation and put forward the idea of union with the United States.4 They showed little interest in those who opposed this idea.

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

181

Nationalist English-Canadian historians at the turn of the twentieth century emphasized the benefits of the federal regime, which included the introduction of responsible government in the colonies’ legislatures and their entry into Confederation.5 In fact, the notion of responsible government was a key topic.6 Reginald G. Trotter7 and Chester B. Martin8 considered it a revolutionary idea and a necessary preliminary to the establishment of a federal political system. The Canadian federation was seen as a political regime superior to that in effect in the United States, especially because of its centralized structure. Trotter and Martin also let their centralist leanings influence their reading of the constitutional debates by repeating the classic duality of federalism, which opposes the rights of the states (the provinces) to those of the union (the federal state). In this way, any criticism of the federal regime becomes a charge against a strengthening of the powers of the federal authorities and therefore a weakening of the provinces’ sovereignty and identity. Trotter states that in 1864, in the Maritimes, “[o]pposition was already active, due partly to the separatist instincts of the little community which dislikes the loss of identity involved in union.”9 He applies the same reasoning to Prince Edward Island which refrained, until 1873, from joining Confederation so as not to harm its economic interests. According to Trotter, “the Colony feared that its interests as a fish-producer might be neglected by the Dominion.”10 This opposition was generated by the interests not only of the provinces but also of individuals. For example, in New Brunswick, Martin states that interest groups slowed the process of Confederation. Bankers and merchants in particular opposed the idea because of the rail links they were planning with the United States. If the province signed on to the Confederation project, their plans were placed in jeopardy. Martin ascribes some of this opposition to the votes of the Catholic population of Saint John “who appeared to fear the large influence of Western Canada.”11 Last, in Nova Scotia, the opposition movement directed by Joseph Howe, along with William Annan of the Anti-Confederation League, was “deeply critical of the plan and openly sympathetic with the banking and mercantile interest of Halifax in opposing it.”12 With respect to Howe in particular, Martin adds that he was momentarily against the project because he was afraid of seeing Nova Scotia swallowed up in a vaster group. In addition, he could not tolerate the fact that this irreversible decision had been taken without popular consent.13 In short, by focusing almost entirely on the pragmatic argu-

182

françois rocher

ments of the opposition on, for example, the economic, political, or religious interests at stake, Trotter and Martin hint that the opponents’ motives were not entirely virtuous. This viewpoint is one of the characteristic traits of the liberal reading of the situation which, in its narration of history, aims to produce a moralizing discourse. We should also add that the nationalist historians attempted repeatedly to show other nations that the Dominion’s ascension to independence was achieved without struggle or revolution. 14 Their description of the “nation” seeks constantly to highlight the country’s “normality” without dwelling too long on any disturbances. It is important for them to make Canada a model on the international stage by emphasizing the moral principles of justice, the common good, tolerance, and the freedoms inherent in the federal union.15 Their discourse reflects the consensus that eliminated any dissension about the 1867 project once the specific requirements of the provinces had been met. In short, the actions of the opponents or the reticence of the provinces toward the federal project carried little weight compared with the overriding quest of the nationalist constitutionalists to find answers to the problems involved in building a Canadian national state and giving it a specific nature that would stand out in the new “concert of nations.” It was not until the publication of a remarkable book by P.B. Waite, The Life and Times of Confederation 1864–1867, Politics, Newspapers, and the Union of British North America,16 a detailed analysis of newspaper articles from the period, that a clearer image of the arguments invoked by the opponents of the Confederation project emerged. Waite devoted a large part of his book to the negative reactions created by the union project of 1864. However, he points out that criticism in Canada West came only from a few conservative, reformer, or liberal individuals: “opposition to Confederation was found among only a small part of the Conservative and Reform parties. On the other side, Conservatives and Reformers produced a powerful majority for Confederation.”17 In Canada East, he draws the same conclusion. The province was in favour of union, even though some individuals voiced their criticism. Waite once again ascribes this imbroglio to several players, mentioning that their actions carried little weight.18 Other historians have examined the criticisms raised, often only to disparage them. For example, conservative historian W.L. Morton, in The Critical Years: the Union of British North America, 1857–1873,19 described the opponents in New Brunswick in unflattering terms, as being moved mainly by narrow interests:

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

183

Perhaps the largest body of opinion to be roused to oppose to Confederation was the Roman Catholic, both Irish and French. The Catholics were, as descendants of Acadian refugees, or of Irish immigrants, understandably among the poorest and most ignorant of the voters of New Brunswick. Possessed as landholders of the franchise, they followed the lead of their clergy in politics. The Roman Catholic clergy of New Brunswick were persuaded that the Quebec scheme of union offered nothing to advance their chief claims, control their own schools, and the influence of their own denomination in public administration.20

His treatment of Nova Scotia’s Joseph Howe is no more encouraging. He was, in Morton’s eyes, “half man of genius, half rapscallion on the make, seeking to win back the political prominence he had lost in accepting the post as imperial commissioner, and to get himself a salary that would mend a fortune always precarious and now neardesperate.”21 Similarly, without giving his reasons, he describes Charles Fisher, a member of the anti-constitution party, as “a well-known mediocre politician of flexible views.”22 At the same time, Donald G. Creighton emphasized the economic factors that determined political choices. He still took a negative view of the criticisms raised. Donald Wright, who signed the preface to the book The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada, 1863–1867, states that Creighton judged the opponents severely: It wasn’t just Lower-Canadian opposition that Creighton refuse to consider in its own terms, it was Maritime opposition as well. That opposition, moreover, was not insignificant. Prince Edward Island initially refused union. Nova Scotia was bitterly divided. And New Brunswick voters actually rejected Confederation in 1865. Yet Creighton dismissed that opposition as “parochial,” “suspicious,” and “jealous.” On one occasion he labelled it “mutinous” and on another “fanatical.”23

Creighton’s view of the opponents illustrates his bias about the project of the founding fathers. In his opinion, their goal was to establish a centralized union and they were “deeply suspicious of the doctrine of States Rights.”24 His criticism of federalism used a binary logic that opposed the interests of the centre to those of the periphery. In the same way, he made the principle of autonomy a senseless demand that,

184

françois rocher

combined with the demands of Prince Edward Island, gave “a feeling of parochial exclusiveness.”25 The view of the opposition defended by Creighton can also be placed along a loyalist/republican axis. The following excerpt shows clearly that the arguments of the Anti-Confederates in New Brunswick were associated with those of the Fenians. He states that, in New Brunswick, Anti-Confederates became linked with the Fenians, with the aggressive and interfering republicans to the south; sometimes they were stigmatized as the “Annexation Antis” […] One of the main purposes of the Fenian movement was to defeat confederation and thus to prevent the continuation of the British monarchy in British North America. “Republican institutions have become a necessity to peace and prosperity of your Province”, declared a Fenian manifesto that was published in Saint John at the height of the crisis.26

Creighton systematically depicted any party or individual opposed to Confederation in a negative light. Since he had no interest in showing opponents in a favourable light, Creighton perpetuated the bias of the Canadian imperialists, for whom the country’s identity could only be British.27 Some historians drew away from this nationalistic reading to emphasize class dynamics and their influence on the nascent political parties. For example, Frank H. Underhill and Arthur R.M. Lower showed that mercantile and financial interests were defended by the party that supported Confederation, namely the Macdonald-Cartier LiberalConservative party.28 It faced a party made up of the Rouges in Lower Canada and the Grits in Upper Canada, under the direction initially of Antoine-Aimé Dorion and George Brown from 1858 to 1860, and then of Sandfield Macdonald and Dorion in the 1860s. Underhill states that they defended democratic values (democratic representation), were against the interests of the capitalists (and therefore for the interests of farmers), and supported the separation of Church and State. On the topic of the Grits, Underhill stated that, in the 1860s, the separation of Church and State, and Representation by Population, became their main demands. “Rep by Pop” meant increased power for the Grit sections of Upper Canada. Since

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

these areas were mainly agricultural, Grittism meant also attack upon the vested interests of Montreal big business – banks, industrialists, wholesale merchants, railways magnates – who supported the Liberal-Conservatives.29

185

Carl Berger added that, for Underhill, “[t]his faction, which found its intellectual centre in Toronto and its organ of opinion in George Brown’s Globe, was Canada’s counterpart of Jacksonian democracy and Lincoln republicanism.”30 And the Rouges were apparently individuals “who had absorbed some of the ideas of the revolutionary Paris of 1848; and their chief attack was upon the control of their FrenchCanadian community by the Church.”31 According to A.R.M. Lower, there were two opposing interpretations of federalism: the Hamiltonian vision, which gave precedence to a strong central government; and a Jeffersonian interpretation, which supported the devolution of powers and the autonomy of the federated entities.32 In French Canada, little interest was paid to opponents and, when historians turned in this direction, it was to emphasize their lack of influence. One example is Benjamin Sulte who, in his Histoire des Canadiens français,33 develops the theme of the “glorious nation” and magnifies the role played by French-Canadian politicians in obtaining responsible government and drafting the constitution, which officially consecrated political equality and guaranteed the survival of their community.34 Sulte paid scant attention to those who criticized the project, commenting only that “In our part of the country, like theirs, discussion turned on questions of secondary interest compared to the general scheme, that few people opposed, seeing how advantageous it appeared for the mass of the population once brought together. As French Canadians, we were afraid of seeing our nationality weakened and perhaps, of seeing it disappear.”35 The dominant paradigm of survival ensured that historians in the early twentieth century also emphasized just one of the opponents’ demands: respect for their nationality. As a result, the project was found to be acceptable, despite the criticism, to the extent that the federal system allowed Lower Canada to govern itself without interference and to have “a national legislature” that guaranteed that the French language retained all its rights.36 According to historian Jean Lamarre, the conservative trend in constitutional history can be traced back to the Cours d’histoire du Canada37 by Thomas Chapais, who took up “the clerical-nationalist credo that the survival of French Canada depended on the mutual respect of the

186

françois rocher

two founding peoples guaranteed by institutional mechanisms and symbolised by the “confederative pact.”38 Chapais adopts a “conciliatory” tone to emphasize the compromise and solidarity made necessary by Confederation and describes as “excessive pessimism” the fears of centralization raised by Antoine-Aimé Dorion, who saw the federation simply as a disguised legislative union.39 During the same period, Lionel Groulx, in particular, heaped scorn on the opponents. In his book La Confédération canadienne,40 he went so far as to compare them, by association, to the suspected radicals: The anti-federalists in Quebec could have taken more advantage of this situation, had there not been certain weaknesses in their own attitude […] The group of opponents included young men of value, with upstanding and generous views, who were patriots of proven character. Their misfortune was to be mixed up with the other suspects, from the radical annexationists of the Institut canadien in Montreal to those of Le Pays and Le Journal de Saint-Hyacinthe who had been dabbling for several years in irreligion and the war against the Church. The general population was both amused and worried to see men from the Rouge clique, until then under the influence of George Brown and the worst of his doctrines, suddenly transformed into defenders of our religious and national institutions. In truth, what were they to think when they saw fanatical Francophobes of the Dougall type from The Witness in Montreal mixed up with this group of compromised individuals?41

Robert Rumilly, in Histoire de la province de Québec,42 takes up this clerico-nationalist reading of the situation with its negative clichés about the opponents. He refers, for example, to the “noisy opposition of the anticlerical group” and states that the Rouges were “seen as extremists and, from the start, had few followers.”43 Groulx, in turn, attacks the opponents who, in his opinion, offered no actual alternative: “And here is another weakness of the anti-federalist group in Lower Canada: their failure to put forward any solid counter-project able to withstand a successful comparison with the broad and seductive perspectives offered by the federal union.”44 For Groulx, “the real battle was between confederation and annexation.” He reiterated this position in 1967 in his article “Les Canadiens français et la Confédération canadienne,” while specifying that the anti-federalists were recruited from

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

187

“the liberal-democrat faction, discredited in advance by its Americanism and irreligious ideas.”45 This view had a profound influence over the way in which the confederal project was seen. In the end, a new interest in the opponents to the confederal project came from Ged Martin, a British historian.46 He wrote that: Perhaps no group of politicians has suffered more from the national school of Canadian historiography so prevalent before the 1970s than the Anti-Confederates, those who in the 1860s opposed the British North America Act and the establishment of the Canadian federation. Historians have charged the “Antis” with lack of vision, parochialism, negativism, cynicism, and an absence of any real theoretical understanding of the meaning of federalism.47

This is precisely the deformed view of the opposition to the Quebec Resolutions that we will attempt to correct. 2 criticism of an eliti s t a n d s e c r e t p ro j e c t The Quebec Conference began on Monday, 10 October and ended on 27 October 1864. Meeting always behind closed doors, the delegates came together in a room of the Parliament Building at the top of Côte de la Montagne.48 As pointed out by Jean-Charles Bonenfant, around fifty politicians were involved in the events that unfolded between 1864 and 1867 and even if a group of about ten of them stand out and deserve the attention they have been given, the activity was pursued by a larger group, to which must be added the project’s adversaries and the figures who, in Great Britain, busied themselves with promoting it.49 In many colonial newspapers, a large number of editorials condemned the deliberative process at the Quebec Conference and the legitimacy of its so-called representatives. In vain – after seventeen days of discussions, the conference ended with the publication of the seventy-two resolutions on 8 November 1864, first in the Journal de Québec, then in the Monitor in Charlottetown, and after that in practically all the other newspapers.50 The process that led to the adoption of the seventy-two resolutions was criticized for the participants’ lack of representativity, the secrecy of the deliberations, the conclusions of which were only made public after a lengthy delay, and the impossibility

188

françois rocher

of modifying any of the parameters. The democratic deficit inherent in the process was roundly denounced, and criticism came from all the colonies. In a letter published on 7 November 1864 in La Minerve, AntoineAimé Dorion was already aware of the shortcomings: Obviously, when one is mistrustful of the people, it is because one fears its influence. Not only does one withdraw the concessions that have been made, but one refuses to consult it on the changes proposed for fear that it may have an opportunity to express its opinion, and one even goes so far as to suggest that the local constitutions of Upper and Lower Canada should be voted on by the legislature as it currently exists.51

The secrecy of the meeting was also denounced, along with the fact that the Resolutions undermined citizens’ rights and freedoms. According to the Prince Edward Island newspaper The Vindicator: [E]verything connected with the convention has been conducted with such mystery and secrecy as to call forth the universal denunciation of the Colonial Press […] St. John papers, almost without exception, have denounced the Convention as a secret conspiracy of politicians against the rights and liberties of the people. They warn the Delegates that the people of these Provinces cannot and will not be forced into a Union which will assuredly entail many disadvantages especially on the weaker Provinces, to please imperial statesmen or to gratify the ambition and pecuniary views of Colonial ones. We echo their sentiments in the fullest degree, and we must be thoroughly convinced that we are not about to be should before we utter one word in favor of a Union, either Federal or Legislative.52

Thomas Coffin, the member for Shelburne, Nova Scotia in April 1866, used this argument in the House to state that the “closed doors” of the Quebec Conference had raised the indignation of the people.53 From the outset, criticism in the colonies focused on the elitist, nonrepresentative, and secret nature of the negotiations that led to the seventy-two resolutions. For example, The Morning Chronicle in Halifax complained that “the Quebec Conference did not originate with the British government, but was purely an emanation from Canadian states-

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

189

men to meet the crisis caused by the difficulties of their own affairs.”54 The Tribune in Yarmouth, in a similar vein, attacked the conference delegates, calling them “self-constituted delegates […] the un-accredited individuals who seem to have ‘taken upon themselves the absolute power of changing the whole constitution of these Provinces.’”55 Newspapers in the Maritimes questioned the legitimacy of the delegates and their mandate to change the constitution. The Tribune continued along this path: No self-appointed Delegates have a right to commit these Provinces to a decision so momentous. The present Legislatures, elected upon other issues, have no right to assume to represent the sentiments of the people on this subject. Even were nothing but unmixed benefit likely to result from the contemplated union, the people ought in common decency to be consulted before its consummation.56

In short, the fact that the population was not consulted was a major problem and suggested that the new political regime was designed to impose the desiderata of the elite rather than reflect the free and enlightened wishes of citizens. Had they been consulted, it is unlikely that it would have been possible to define a shared vision for the goals of the new political regime, as we will show using the criticism voiced in the various colonies that joined the confederal project a few years later. 3 multi-facete d o p p o s i t i o n Objections to the proposed confederal union, as discussed at the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences, varied depending on whether they came from the Atlantic colonies, Quebec, or Ontario. They nevertheless targeted many of the same points, including the nature of the process itself, the scope of the powers reserved for the provinces, and the impact of a newly created “political nationality” on preconstituted identities and ongoing and close ties with the mother country. The economic consequences of the project, in particular, aroused fear in the Maritime colonies, attracting criticism from players defending either their own specific interests or their vision for the future of the community. To gain an overview, we will review the arguments put forward by opponents of the confederal projects, first in the Maritimes and then in what were to become the provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

190

françois rocher

The political institutions of the Maritime provinces were based on the English model. They were under the authority of a governor who, in turn, received instructions from the Colonial Office in London. The structure of each legislature included an executive council (appointed by the governor) and a legislative council (appointed by the government in London on the governor’s recommendation), in addition to a legislative assembly whose members were elected in a similar way to the members of the British House of Commons.57

3.1 New Brunswick

In October 1864, New Brunswick sent a delegation to the Quebec Conference under the direction of Samuel Leonard Tilley, a fervent liberal and supporter of a federative regime.58 He also attended the Charlottetown Conference in September of the same year, and was impressed by what a confederal union would offer New Brunswick: greater security, a larger market, and access to that market via the intercolonial railway.59 Although he was generally in favour of the Quebec Resolutions, Tilley questioned the financial provisions, the political weight of his province, and its representation in the Senate.60 His first objection concerned the principle of representation by population (rep by pop). New Brunswick was expected to have 15 out of a total of 194 seats, giving it a far smaller representation than Canada West (Ontario) and Canada East (Quebec). His second objection called into question the composition of the Senate. Although Ontario and Quebec received an equal number of senators, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island each received less, although the number remained equivalent on a pro rata basis. His third objection concerned the purchase of Rupert’s Land. The premier of New Brunswick was afraid that the purchase, of minimal interest for his fellow citizens, would involve them in a needless expense, like the projects to build the St Lawrence seaway and to acquire mining rights in Newfoundland. From this standpoint, the delegates knew that the financial, commercial, and economic aspects would have played a significant role in the first elections held about Confederation. The last objection raised by the premier concerned the federal power of taxation, since there was no limit to its power to levy revenue in the provinces.61 Tilley gave his support to Edward Chandler, who saw the unspecified powers granted to the central government in a negative light.62 Tilley continued to fight to increase New Brunswick’s representation in the Senate (Legislative

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

191

Council), but in vain.63 In his speech reported in the Morning Telegraph of 24 October 1864, he remained optimistic and pointed out that, if everything went according to plan, he would succeed in having his amendments accepted and that, soon, “we should be united in one great Confederation.”64 However, a wave of scepticism swept through the press, which remained divided over the project.65 For example, the Daily Evening Globe of 17 October 1864 put the future representatives of the new “federation” on trial, stating that once in power they would consider only their own interests rather than those of the colony, describing them as “pettifogging politicians whose statesmanship will consist in engineering situations for themselves and their friends, and whose patriotism will be developed in filling their own pockets at the expense of the State.”66 According to the newspaper, these spokespersons were concerned about the integrity of New Brunswick’s representatives, fearing that once in the federal parliament, far from the colony, they would implement measures to further their own interests. The Globe also denounced the lack of ties with the Canadian population, and questioned the lack of interest in the project.67 The Head Quarters of Fredericton questioned the urgency of the proposed change, pointing out that “[t]here are – if no extraordinary emergency arises that will require prompt action – several things to do to pave the way for the indissoluble union, or the old matrimonial proverb will apply strict force to the Lower Provinces ‘Marry in haste and repent at leisure.’”68 One editorialist at the Head Quarters even asked if it was advisable to join forces with Canada which, for the time being, seemed unable to deal with its own differences: The people of the Lower Provinces will like to see how the people of Canada adjust the differences amongst themselves by Confederation. At present they are at a “deadlock” and parties in the two sections are so evenly divided that it is impossible to carry on the Government. It is a question how Confederation – giving each section its local Government, and management of its local affairs, with a general Government and Executive Head above them to control the larger matters, as defence, trade, revenue, great public works, &c. – can be carried out.69

When Tilley returned to New Brunswick, he faced a group of opponents that had formed within the Assembly.70 Newspaper reports on

192

françois rocher

the activities at Charlottetown, and especially the Quebec Resolutions, helped to fuel the political fires.71 The opponents were led by the antiConfederationist Albert J. Smith, who enjoyed broad support among the population. Unable to lay the Resolutions before the Legislative Assembly, Tilley was forced by Lieutenant-Governor Arthur HamiltonGordon to bring the issues before the people at the election held in March 1865.72 The pro-Confederation party was defeated, leaving power in the hands of the anti-Confederationists on 27 March 1865.73 Economic arguments dominated the debate, although the opponents were also driven by their grave doubts about the integrity of the Confederation project’s promoters and their fear of the political instability that would mark the Confederation. It is impossible to consider the confederal project separately from the issue of railway financing and building. As mentioned by P.B. Waite, “[t]here are no great questions dividing parties and the battles of Parliament are mainly of a personal nature, except when railway matters are introduced.”74 The divisions were based less on partisan ideology than on the questions of patronage and the expansion of the railway system, in particular the development of a western extension toward the United States.75 The debate on the railway question was superimposed on the confederation debate, pitting those who favoured an eastward expansion (Intercolonial) and the confederal project against those who preferred a southwesterly route (the Western extension).76 The bankers in Saint John were afraid of competition from the Canadian financial institutions and the loss of their monopoly. Merchants, in turn, preferred an extension of the railway toward New England, an option they believed would be closed if New Brunswick joined Confederation. As highlighted by Bailey, “[b]y far the strongest single element opposed to union with Canada was the business fraternity who had been endeavouring for a decade to integrate the commerce of the province more closely with that of the United States, and thus to make the most of New Brunswick’s historic position as the northeastern extension of the Atlantic geographic province.”77 They feared competition from the colonies located to the West (the Upper Colonies), the introduction of new tariffs, or an increase in tariffs and the raising of new taxes.78 Smith, as party leader, also attacked the anticonstitutional aspects of the Quebec Conference and the disguised approach to changing the constitution, the costs of union, and the lack of political influence, and

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

193

even subordinate status, of the province as part of the new whole. Alfred G. Bailey provides the context: [A]s early as the first week in December, 1864, A.J. Smith announced his objections to the Quebec scheme and foreshadowed the platform upon which his party would appeal to the electorate. The adoption of the Quebec plan could mean increased taxation; the loss to the province of political influence and status; the expenditure of vast sums on Canadian canals; the unfairness of eighty cents a head as a basis for taxation, since it would not be increased, whereas the revenue of the general government would be increased; and the unconstitutional behaviour of the delegates at Charlottetown and Quebec. Moreover, he asserted, the Intercolonial Railway would be “no great boon.”79

Carl Wallace adds that “[t]he inferior position of the local legislature and representation by population were signalled out as two of the methods by which the lower provinces were to be subordinated.”80 The 1865 elections brought to power an anti-Confederation coalition made up of conservatives and liberal reformers. Although they were united by their opposition to the Quebec Resolutions, they still held divergent views on Confederation itself. Some were apparently in favour of a union equipped with a strong central government, others supported retaining the local legislature, while a last group favoured annexation to the United States. As historian Carl Wallace points out, “[t]his dissension, which was public knowledge, prompted one editor to state that he did not remember a time when a Government of this Province, with apparently so large a following in the Assembly, displayed signs of internal weakness so conspicuously as the present Administration.”81 The fear of annexation to the United States mentioned by Wallace, raised by a few opponents, can possibly be traced back to the “sentimental loyalism” that emerged in the 1860s.82 Similarly, a disassociation with Great Britain was feared as a consequence of the creation of a new nation. During the parliamentary debates in March 1866, Smith reiterated that he would not give his support to a union whose conditions risked reducing the prosperity of his electorate.83 With respect to the seventytwo resolutions, he shared Tilley’s concerns, and set two new conditions:

194

françois rocher

the creation of a tribunal to resolve conflicting interpretations of the Constitution Act, and a guarantee of representation on the executive council of the federal government.84 In short, the arguments raised to criticize the federal plan were mainly economic. Bailey summarized the character of the debates as follows: “[a]lthough one member waxed sentimental over the destruction of the link with England, which he envisaged if the Quebec Resolutions were adopted, dollar-and-cent considerations received the greatest attention.”85 Added to this was a deep mistrust of the Canadian political elite, which was considered to be “politically unstable, economically destitute, and personally corrupted.”86 The party in favour of Confederation, whose campaign was financed by Canada, won the general elections of 1866, in particular through fear of an attack by the Fenians, a group of Irish nationalists who wanted to free Ireland by attacking British colonies in North America, and the end of the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States, which led to the erection of trade barriers that placed New Brunswick’s merchants at a disadvantage. As a result, the opponents of the confederal project were associated with Irish revolutionaries, to the point where Catholic bishops lent their support to the plan to avoid being included in this group.87

3.2 Nova Scotia

After accepting Canada’s proposals for a broader union in Charlottetown, Nova Scotia’s delegates agreed to travel to Quebec to further discuss the basis for the union.88 However, the direction and tone of the negotiations were very different, and they had to renegotiate the conditions for the planned union.89 Like the delegates from New Brunswick, their main concerns centred on the questions of Senate composition and equal representation within the government.90 Nova Scotia was the oldest of the British colonies in North America and had possessed its own institutions for many years – and it was afraid they would disappear following Confederation.91 As a result, according to Forbes and Muise, “[t]he possible submergence of Nova Scotia’s specific provincial identity within Confederation was brought forward as another serious problem. The meeting commenced [with] a long and bitter debate over union’s consequences for the region.”92 Once the Quebec Conference was over and he had returned to Nova Scotia, Premier Charles Tupper was surprised to note the general population’s opposition to the Resolutions, specifically among the mer-

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

195

chants, leading bankers, the wealthier farmers, and the petite bourgeoisie.93 Under the leadership of the Anti-Confederation League and sometimes the League of the Maritime Provinces, this group complained about the costs of building the Intercolonial Railway, the changes to the constitution made without popular approval, and the cutting of ties with the mother country. Their views were summarized in an anonymous pamphlet entitled A Letter to the Electors of Nova Scotia, being a Reply to Confederation Considered on its Merits.94 In January 1865, Joseph Howe, at the time the imperial fisheries commissioner in Nova Scotia, anonymously authored a series of twelve articles in the Halifax Morning Chronicle to denounce the Resolutions and, above all, to dissipate some of the myths surrounding the federal union project. From January to March 1865, under the title “Botheration Scheme,” he highlighted the shortcomings in the federalist arguments and forced Tupper to adopt a resolution to demand a resumption of negotiations for the Maritime Union.95 Howe was not alone in this fight, since Lieutenant-Governor MacDonnell was also firmly opposed to the idea of joining his colony to a federal union. He wrote to the colonial secretary, Edward Cardwell, that he could not agree to such an action, which he considered to be spoiled by opportunism. In a letter addressed to Lord Monck in 1865, Howe once again spoke out against the union, but this time highlighting the disloyal pressure placed by the Canadians on the Nova Scotians who still resisted the idea.96 It is important to note that, as in New Brunswick, the press adopted a critical stance, especially the Herald and Tribune in Yarmouth and the Citizen and Morning Chronicle in Halifax. The Herald questioned the urgency of the change and its usefulness: “[a]re the people of Nova Scotia so discontented with their present system of Government that they are willing to change it at such cost?”97 The Tribune, in turn, attacked everything to do with revenue, the sharing of power, and nationhood within the federation. The Citizen in Halifax regretted the fact that a federal union had been chosen rather than a legislative union in the Maritimes. In its view, “[h]istory has now satisfactorily proved that Legislative Union is the only lasting Union. Federation is not Union.”98 Although the religious newspapers, and also those of the Conservative Party, came out in favour of confederation, some Catholics, such as the Archbishop of Halifax, Thomas J. Connolly, were concerned by paragraph 6 of the 43rd resolution because it applied only to the religious minorities in Quebec and Ontario, meaning that the educational

196

françois rocher

privileges of the Catholic and Protestant minorities in other places could be lost.99 As was the case in New Brunswick, the Nova Scotia legislature rejected the Quebec Resolutions and on 18 April 1866, as his term drew to a close, Charles Tupper adopted a resolution authorizing the government to appoint delegates to discuss a union project with the government in London that would guarantee protection for the province’s rights and interests.100 Although economic arguments were raised in Nova Scotia to oppose the confederal project, at the heart of the debate were identity issues. This national sentiment, or deep-seated identity, appeared when the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed federal union were calculated. As early as December 1864, the Monitor asked: What are we likely to gain, after all, by a Union of the Provinces? Are there not grave dangers to be apprehended, as well as speculative advantages to be gained? We will have to surrender a good deal. In the first place, we lose our individuality; we become a part, and a small part, instead of the whole – an outlying limb, instead of a body corporate.101

The Tribune in Yarmouth opposed the “new nationality” – as offered by the federal union – and questioned the need to redefine the nation, since for Nova Scotians, “our nationality is the nationality of Great Britain, the sovereign, the honor of the British flag is our honor.”102 It added: The last reason for a Federal Union of the Provinces, its national importance, has had much weight with many men, and visions of a national greatness and a status among the powers of the world have filled their imaginations. It is said that we are now a small province, with a small population, small revenue, small ideas, small everything; but that on the day we enter this federation, all these things will suddenly grow larger […] But, it is argued, we ought to be ashamed to be only Nova Scotians, or as a Canadian orator declared here in Temperance Hall, to make ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of the world by hailing from such a place.103

In addition, the “new nationality” praised by D’Arcy McGee did not appear to Nova Scotians to be a realistic proposition given that United

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

197

Canada had still not managed to forge any kind of “ethnic partnership” between its two peoples.104 What would this new nation be based on, wondered the Yarmouth Tribune, if there was no bond between its members? In its view, “[y]ou cannot make a nation unless you establish social intercourse, admixture and contact between its component parts. This can never take place in a Confederation of States arranged like a chaplet of beads, much less, as our present case, when non-homogeneous States intervene,” with the result that “Upper Canada and Nova Scotia cannot communicate with each other except through Lower Canada, which is of a different race, language, religion and legislation; they can therefore never assimilate. They can be no true unity between them.”105 The lack of mutual relations and social cohesion within the federation gave rise to more criticism, this time from L’Autre, directly mainly against the Canadians of Upper Canada, not, as in New Brunswick, because of their immorality (financial corruption), but because of their ignorance and disdain. On this point, the Yarmouth Tribune noted in an article entitled “From a Nova Scotia Correspondent”: Upper Canadians, accustomed as they are to look upon the French Canadians with their “small horses, small dogs, small carts and small men”, as a stationary people – a hindrance to their own progressive energies – seem inclined to regard Nova Scotians with equal contempt, forgetting that the latter possesses the same Anglo-Celtic element which ensures for Upper Canada so rapid and so sure progress […] So also the opinion they have on the material wealth of this provinces is wonderfully “fishy.” The blue-nose is supposed to breakfast on fish, dine on fish, sup on fish – enjoying an epicurean variety in cod, mackerel and salmon – and salmon, mackerel and cod. The idea that Nova Scotia can be anything but an immense fishing ground, never occurred to them.106

Upper Canadians, as they were called in Nova Scotia, were also singled out for their actions. Among other things, they were held responsible for imposing the Union of 1840 on the French-Canadian population. The question of economic corruption was still present, but became gradually more political in character and took on the sense of a “misappropriation” of power and a “plot” against the people. One example is found in an article in the Yarmouth Tribune from December 1864, entitled “Nova Scotia Betrayed!.” The author’s accusations target the

198

françois rocher

usurpation of power, the anti-democratic decisions made by the political representatives gathered in Quebec, and their proposal to amend the Constitution: There is too much reason to fear that the atrocious bartering away of our country’s rights is a foregone conclusion – that the covenant of our subjection is already virtually signed, sealed, and delivered – and that under the pressure of government influence and corrupt and venal majority in our Legislature will be formed to ratify the infamous bargain […] Now we deny in the most emphatic manner the right of our present Representatives to deal with the question at all. They were elected to work under the form of the existing Constitution – not to subvert and destroy it. And we denounce in advance, not only as unconstitutional but as revolutionary, any attempt on the part of these men to legislate away the independence of Nova Scotia, without first submitting the question to the decision of her people.107

In short, Nova Scotia’s position in 1864 was encapsulated in the maxim “Festina lente” (make haste slowly) used in the dissident press. Although some Nova Scotians supported change, it could not be sped up, and if a union was necessary, a legislative union of the Maritime provinces, preferably without the Canadians, was the better choice. The Morning Chronicle of 22 September 1864 neatly summarized this position: What we are prepared to advocate, however, is not union at any cost or at any terms – nothing of the kind. We want union, but such union as will secure for our Province and our people all that is valuable that we at the present enjoy, and much more that, without it, we can scarcely hope to secure. That is the union we are prepared to advocate; and just as fast as the scheme under consideration is developed, and its details made public, we shall sustain or condemn them, and endeavor to influence public opinion accordingly […] We may remark, however, that up to the present, we have not had any amiable weaknesses in favor of union with Canada; our sympathies have been for a Legislative union of the Maritime Provinces.108

In the final analysis, opposition to union – that of the 1864 project – can be traced back to an established colonial identity that then shaped

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

199

the disputes. In the press and in the House of Assembly, the “new nationality” created by the union, a sharing of powers incompatible with the province’s interests, and the fear of seeing its history, culture, and institutions disappear, were all points of contention.

3.3 United Canada

Criticism within United Canada took many forms and was not channelled by a single “Anti-Confederation” party during the debates that unfolded between 1864 and 1867. A wide range of views was expressed, whether through political parties (Rouges, conservatives, liberals, and reformers) or within society (merchants, politicians, farmers, and intellectuals).109 Some of the arguments raised were similar to those of the opponents in the Maritime colonies, such as pragmatic comments about the premature nature of the project, the unelected status of the upper chamber, and the fact that the sharing of legislative powers between the two levels of government threatened local institutions.110 However, there were some key differences between the comments made in Canada West and Canada East. In both cases, the confederal structure was cited as a problem, but for diametrically opposed reasons that centred on the issue of recognition for and the institutionalization of the differences between the national identities. 3.3.1 Canada West Opposition to the project came, in particular, from people who would have preferred a legislative union of sufficient strength to subdue the French element in Canada East. The instability that had been a feature of the United Province was ascribed to its binational basis. As a result, some Conservatives, like the representative Matthew Crooks Cameron, doubted that a federal regime would be able to reduce the dissension that had marked the United Province period. During a speech before Parliament in February 1865, Cameron stated his fear that the quarrelling would continue and even get worse if French Canada were allowed to affirm itself, since “the French element in Lower Canada will be separated from us in its Local Legislature and become less united with us than it is now; and therefore there is likely to be disagreement between us.”111 As pointed out by Margaret Evans, Cameron was never convinced that confederation would solve all the colonies’ problems.112 When the Quebec Resolutions were laid before the Canadian legislature in 1865, he voted against them on the grounds that the federal union was an “excessively costly agreement” compared with legislative union.113

200

françois rocher

The Spectator in Hamilton developed Cameron’s argument, writing that federation was more dangerous than a legislative union, which, by centralizing powers, would be a more effective way to end the ongoing troubles generated by the quasi-federal structure of the 1840 union.114 According to the Spectator, “the sectional troubles of Canada had developed because of the federal elements which existed in the Union constitution, notably equal representation for each section of the province.”115 The Canadian Quarterly also relied on the poor reception the press gave to the new federation – if based on a decentralized structure – and mentioned that “the true and only sound system [is] a ‘Legislative Union.’” On this topic, drawing on an organic analogy, it suggested that: In the British form of government we have in the Sovereign and Ministry the mind that controls the whole nation or “‘body politics,’” no member is allowed to have independent action that will interfere with the general welfare of the whole people or body, the same as the mind of a man controls all the members of the body, and does not allow the interest of one to conflict with that of the others. This is also the principle upon which each system of all material worlds is founded, and upon which all intelligent spiritual existences are organized.116

Under the heading “Beware of Confederation,” the Quarterly Review and Family Magazine took up the analogy to express its disagreement with a structure whose centre was at risk of emasculation: The federation and confederation system is the adoption of the principle that each member of the “body politic” shall, while apparently under the control of a supreme head at the same time possess a separate and independent mind or controlling power, each capable of working like a false rule in arithmetic to the injury of all the other rules or members of the “body politic,” and the effort to control each members by “‘checks’” and “‘guarantees’” will be as powerless to prevent their action as the continual probing of a running sore is to prevent suffering and injury and death to the human body.117 [emphasis in the original]

A legislative union, synonymous with the standardization and centralization of powers, was supported by people who believed that the

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

201

flaw in the federal union would be to recognize diversity and, therefore, to fuel discord. Like the conservative newspapers, the Dispatch in SaintThomas and the Courier in Perth (which supported the reformers) were against the federal principle, since they did not see the federation as a way to regulate the disputes between the factions. In other words, not all the reformer parties supported the Confederation project. Other arguments were raised in the more radical newspapers in Canada West, such as the Irish Canadian. Here, the problem was the idea of a federation that kept its ties to the British Empire: The formation of a federation of the British Provinces, so as to form an American nation simply, is quite practicable for such federation would leave to every State of which it was composed ample powers of self-government; but a federation based on the subserviency of one of its members to the will of the whole – a federation contrived for the purpose of sustaining British supremacy rather than promoting Canadian interests – such a federation as that can hardly, we think, be formed, or, formed, can certainly not endure.118

Accordingly, the idea of founding a federation within a monarchical framework was “a British absurdity”119 designed to subordinate the French component and place it at the mercy of the British majority.120 To summarize, the critical discourse emanating from Canada West often referred to the structure of the union, in other words to the federation itself, as being unsuitable for resolving the differences between the two peoples, seeing assimilation as one of the goals of any future political regime. This echoes the fear of the political leaders in the former Upper Canada that a federation would not be sufficiently centralized to contain, if not assimilate, the French element. The conflict-ridden past of Upper and Lower Canada was not without importance here, since it focused criticism on ethnic preoccupations, referring on the one hand to the superiority of the English race and on the other to the French minority that needed to be diluted in a vaster whole.

3.3.2 Canada East In Canada East, the critical discourse was conveyed by the Rouges, who insisted on the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty. Others put forward arguments based on the dangers of centralization, the

202

françois rocher

problems of political representation and autonomy, and the fate of minorities.121 At the heart of these concerns lay the role that Frenchspeakers would play as a national minority within the federal whole.122 The arguments for and against Confederation were presented in a confrontational atmosphere that pitted the liberals, depicted as radical annexationists, against the clergy. In fact, the supporters of the project based on the seventy-two resolutions took advantage of the political and ideological allegiances of its opponents (here, the Liberals and Rouges), and highlighted their refusal to see Confederation as an act of providence and, more fundamentally, their opposition to the involvement of the Church in the affairs of the State.123 Jean-Paul Bernard emphasizes that in 1864, to ensure the success of Confederation, “it was advantageous to portray the liberals as a danger to all the institutions and traditions of French Canada.”124 The past history of the former Rouges was also a handicap: it was easy for their adversaries to place them on the defensive by pointing out that Dorion and his colleagues from Lower Canada, in the Liberal government of 1858, had collaborated with George Brown and taken part in the liberal committee of 1859 that came out in favour of the project to federate the colonies of British North America.125 Both the Rouges and the Liberals attacked the clergy and the conservative pro-Confederation representatives who, in their view, were not defending the people’s interests. According to the Journal de SaintHyacinthe, the policies of the Conservatives favoured the privileged, capitalists, wealthy merchants, and speculators “to the detriment of the immense majority of people in the farming and working classes.”126 This led to the feeling of betrayal that was also echoed in the press. For example, in an editorial published on 28 June 1864 in Le Pays under the heading “Hypocrites and Traitors,” Taché and Cartier in particular were accused of putting the colony “on the path to a form of confederation based on the ruinous principle of representation by population.”127 The feeling was still present after 1865, as reflected in Le Canadien on 20 April 1866: The organs of government are seeking to mitigate the scope and effect of our protest, in which we denounced the imminent betrayal of Lower Canada […] they are trying to discourage us through the threat of isolation, they remind us that this path leads nowhere; in our view, meaning that it leads to neither the

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

203

honours nor the employment that the union of the provinces reserves for those who, directly or indirectly, were complicit in the betrayal.128 [emphasis original]

The theme of betrayal was taken up in a number of pamphlets and magazines to attack the actions of Cartier or of the French-Canadian representatives who had been involved in the project.129 The “past” was also important when the feeling of betrayal was mentioned, because the former combat of the French Canadians could not be forgotten and had to serve as a lesson and guide for the decisions to be made. For “history is the best guide for the statesman; it must be his starting-point; to attempt to determine the future before knowing how Providence determined the past would be to spurn its lessons.”130 The editor and proprietor of True Witness, G.E. Clark, takes another approach to “the cowardliness of the Catholic ministers in Cabinet, who have given the federal parliament, in other words the Protestant majority, the ability to split families up by allowing the granting of divorces.”131 He ended by stating that “the people of Lower Canada must protest massively and their protest will possibly cause our ministers to draw back from the mistake they were just about to make.”132 Other pamphlets were circulated in 1867, such as the pamphlet written by Antoine Lusignan of the newspaper Le Pays. Under the title La Confédération couronnement de dix années de mauvaise administration [Confederation, the crowning glory of ten years of poor administration], Lusignan and his colleagues reminded the people that it was not too late, and that “a heroic effort can still deliver French Canada from the leaches feeding on the best of its blood.”133 Between the Quebec Conference and the moment when the Parliament of United Canada met to discuss Confederation, the critical movement broadened and the project’s adversaries organized public demonstrations in several counties.134 Several meetings were held, for example, at the Institut canadien in Montreal, during which Côme Séraphin Cherrier, E.G. Clerk, Charles Laberge, Médéric Lanctôt, and others presented their points of view on constitutional change. The pamphlet Discours sur la Confédération prononcé par C.S. Cherrier [Speech on Confederation by C.S. Cherrier] provides a useful summary. Cherrier states that the proposed union threatened the political existence of Lower Canada, whose fate was being sealed without consultation; he saw it as a disguised legislative union.135 In Cherrier’s view:

204

françois rocher

[T]he country’s history shows us that at all times, those whose goal has been to diminish the legitimate influence of the inhabitants of Lower Canada over the land on which they were born, and to confiscate the rights they enjoyed under a constitution voted on by statesmen as enlightened and famous as Fox, the Pitts and Burke, have proposed a union or confederation identical to that which, at present, is hotly debated in this country, the most essential objective of which was to submerge the representation of Lower Canada and by that means deal a fatal blow to its political existence.136

While government-supporting newspapers in Canada East attempted to highlight the advantages of the proposed system, Le Pays, La Tribune, Le Défricheur, Le Canadien, and Le Journal de Saint-Hyacinthe presented it as a threat. 137 Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion announced, for example, in Le Défricheur, that Confederation, if adopted, would “weaken the French Canadians and lead to the introduction of direct taxes.”138 Le Pays, in turn, stated that the system “would reduce the influence of members from Lower Canada in the central parliament,”139 while Le Journal de Saint-Hyacinthe added that union was an instrument “which would place not two, but seven Anglo-Saxons facing each French Canadian.”140 Last, the Union nationale presented resolutions critical of constitutional change and pointed out that no evidence had been provided to show “that the federation and confederation would be likely to promote the interests of Lower Canada and to protect its rights; but that on the contrary, the political difficulties, sectional conflicts and administrative barriers currently afflicting the country would increase considerably.”141 Antagonism between the “races” was still present in the criticism of Confederation as a way to end the struggle between Upper and Lower Canada; and union was rejected, because it favoured the majority over the minority. For this reason, the lack of cohesion between the groups would lead to its failure. Besides the arguments based on the conflict between the majority and minority groups, the centralized nature of the project was also strongly criticized. The newspaper Le Pays, for example, emphasized that: In the proposed constitution, the general government would be everything; the local legislatures, nothing. All life, all movement would start from the top, in other words from a body in which we would be crushed by numbers, from a parliament in which

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

205

our language would not be understood, where our laws would be ignored and where our customs would be unknown. We would have no influence over the choice of a lieutenant governor, no influence over the appointment of judges, no influence over the administration of criminal justice.142

The Liberal leader, Antoine-Aimé Dorion, in turn denounced the federal structure which, in his view, was “simply a disguised legislative union” because “under the name confederation, each province is given a simulacrum of a government with no authority other than that which it exercises at the whim of the general government.”143 Dorion made a statement in the House about the division of powers that was almost prophetic: I am opposed to this Confederation in which the militia, the appointment of the judges, the administration of justice and our most important civil rights, will be under the control of a General Government the majority of which will be hostile to Lower Canada, of a General Government invested with the most ample powers, whilst the powers of the local government will be restricted, first, by the limitation of the powers delegated to it, by the veto reserved to the central authority, and further, by the concurrent jurisdiction of the general authority or government […] Everywhere this scheme has been protested against, and an appeal to the people demanded; and yet, in defiance of the expressed opinions of our constituents, we are about to give them a Constitution, the effect of which will be to snatch from them the little influence which they still enjoy under the existing union. We are about, on their behalf, to surrender all the rights and privileges which are dearest to them, and that without consulting them. It would be madness – it would be more, it would be a crime. On these grounds I shall oppose this scheme with all the power at my command, and insist that under any circumstances it shall be submitted to the people before its final adoption.144

He was just as concerned about the election of the members of the Legislative Council, the construction of the Intercolonial Railway, and the minority status of the French Canadians. Nevertheless, he strongly opposed a union with the Maritime colonies, basing his position on economic considerations.145

206

françois rocher

Christopher Dunkin, the Conservative member for the county of Brome and a strident critic of the project, raised military and territorial considerations and highlighted the lack of links between the independent provinces.146 To start with, in Dunkin’s view, the “new nationality” was artificial, because “we have no sort of nationality about us, but are unpleasantly cut up into a log of struggling nationalities.”147 Once again, the questions of diversity and homogeneity influenced the analysis of the advantages of confederation. In Dunkin’s imperialistic approach, the federation would undermine the colonies’ loyalty to the Empire, since their role within the new country would be diminished. As he put it, “What is wanting, as I have said, is an effective federalization of the Empire as a whole, not a subordinate federation here or there, made up out of parts of it.”148 Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, a member of the Rouge party, stated in the House that a federation would not guarantee the ongoing survival of the French-Canadian nationality, built up through constant effort at both the economic and cultural levels. The idea of a “new nationality” went against the aspirations of the French Canadians since “the labors of a century must be wasted; we must give up our nationality, adopt a new one, greater and nobler, we are told, than our own, but then it will no longer be our own.”149 Overall, in the legislative assembly, when the creation of the “new nationality” was mentioned, its critics agreed that it could not be created by merger and that federalism had to respect each distinct community and its specific conditions. We can see here, as was the case in the Maritimes, a discourse critical of progress and hostile to the commercial elite. For Laurent-Olivier David, confederation reflected the interests of the English industrial and commercial classes, not the interests of agriculture, trade, and industry in Canada.150 Much of the debate centred on the religious, cultural, and political rights of minorities.151 Last, the newspaper Le Républicain Canadien denounced the “monarchic” nature of the confederal project, which would further harm relations with the United States. It stated that “confederation, based on the spirit and intent clearly expressed by its authors, is designed to establish to the north of the American republic a power that is ostensibly hostile to republican ideas and acts as a counterbalance in favour of monarchical institutions.”152 Recast in the form of a motion – to invalidate the action that the political leaders were about to endorse – the article once again expressed a feeling of betrayal and highlighted the importance of freedom:

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

207

Whereas the goal of any political association is to preserve natural and inalienable human rights; that these rights include freedom, prosperity, safety and the resistance of oppression; whereas the principle of sovereignty resides essentially in the people; whereas no body or individual may exercise any authority that does not expressly emanate from sovereignty; whereas these rights and principles have been openly violated by individuals who have usurped the right to tear the Canadian people away from its current political constitution and substitute another without its authorization; whereas the project for a new constitution tends to restrict its freedom, and to impose a complicated and ruinous monarchical regime that will create a major obstacle to its prosperity and safety; whereas this usurpation of authority will establish in our country an organization that is hostile to the institutions of our neighbours, which will create a permanent threat of war that will sooner or later make the Canadian people its victim.153

The critical discourse in Canada East, as in Nova Scotia, continued after 1867 in the liberal press and within the coalition that formed following the 1867 provincial elections. As emphasized by Normand Séguin in his thesis on the anti-Confederation movement of 1867, the coalition included members of the opposition to the George Étienne Cartier government, and members who had opposed Confederation in 1864.154 The movement brought together several political currents, sharing a hatred of the party responsible for the new political regime.155 It was supported by the newspapers L’Ordre, Le Pays, and l’Union nationale, and the regional Journal de Saint-Hyacinthe. Séguin specifies that “it was time, not to criticize the project, but to accept or reject the new political regime.”156 By the end of March 1867, it was time for the opposition to define its position to the ineluctable reality of Confederation. conclu s i o n Faced with a project for federal union that resulted from collusion between the economic and financial elites, both domestic (along the axis from Montreal to Toronto) and British, and the local petite bourgeoisie class, the opponents had little scope for imposing their views, and they have largely disappeared from collective memory. To borrow the maxim attributed to Walter Benjamin, history is written by the victors.

208

françois rocher

For the federal government, the activities commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Quebec Conference offered an opportunity to celebrate the grand vision of the Fathers of Confederation, especially the contributions of John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier, ÉtiennePaschal Taché, George Brown, and Thomas D’Arcy McGee. It comes as no surprise to see that the project’s opponents were left in the shadows. The television commercials produced by Heritage Canada remind viewers that the Great Coalition rallied former opponents who set aside their differences to create a country that was “strong, proud and free.” They had all played an active role in the conferences and joined the process that forged “this incredible country.”157 In short, despite their initial misgivings, the political context was ripe for a major change that these enlightened spirits could not ignore. This theme has been taken up by many different historians, powerfully reinforcing the idea that the opponents of the federal project were motivated by specific interests (as if the Fathers of Confederation were not!). In addition, they tend to depict the project’s detractors as marginal players whose disloyalty to the British Crown stemmed in particular from their presumed support for the Irish revolutionaries, or, sometimes, as uninformed individuals manipulated by forces they could not understand. French-Canadian authors have, on the other hand, attempted to defend the idea that Confederation created the conditions needed for the French-Canadian people to ensure its own survival thanks to the institutional guarantees obtained through the combined efforts of George-Étienne Cartier, and Étienne-Paschal Taché. This clerical-nationalist reading of history saw the opponents as either annexationists or liberal extremists hostile to the Church. In all the colonies, the conferences were criticized for their elitist and secretive nature. For the other aspects criticized, the context largely determined the nature and content of the opposition raised. In New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the opponents advanced economic arguments linked, among other things, to the development of trade relations with the northeastern US. The construction and financing of the Intercolonial Railway became a central issue. Other questions were raised about the relevance, urgency, and possible advantages of joining a confederal union with the colonies in central Canada. In addition, these central colonies appeared to have a completely different set of interests and values. The political and identity-related issues centred on the possibility of seeing a dilution, and even a subordination, of their political power in the new federal union. The fate of minorities was also a cause

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

209

for concern, in particular the possibility that Catholics would be placed at the mercy of Protestants. In United Canada, the positions taken in Canada West and Canada East differed greatly. The Conservatives of Canada West criticized the purpose of the union and its proposed structure. They deplored the lack of links with the Other. They saw the proposal to create a “new nationality” as both an illusion and a threat to ongoing relations with the British Empire. They did not see the federal solution as a way to put an end to the conflicts that had marked the 1840 Union. In their view, the best way to reduce tension was to continue the process started by Lord Durham and to assimilate the French Canadians by creating a true legislative union. In Canada East, the project’s opponents raised diametrically opposed arguments. They believed that the new political regime would reduce French Canadians’ institutional representation and relegate them to the rank of a perpetual minority. They considered that the structure proposed was too centralized and that the principle of provincial autonomy was made subject to the possibility of control by the federal authorities. They also saw the project as a betrayal by the elite, who had handed over the minority, bound hand and foot, to the majority. The fact remains that some of the arguments about the potential dysfunctionality and limits of the new federal union turned out to be almost clairvoyant. The constitutional conferences of Charlottetown, Quebec, and London were precursors of executive federalism, in other words discussions to modify the operation of federalism, and even its constitutional architecture, which took place far from the spotlight and led to results that were not submitted for public consultation. The fears that French Canadians and the Maritime provinces would be placed in a minority situation turned out to be true. Whereas Quebec held half of the 84 seats in the Legislative Assembly under the Act of Union, and then 36 per cent of the seats in the 1867 House of Commons, by 2015 that percentage had dropped to only 23 per cent. The situation is even more dramatic for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, whose combined weight has dropped from 19 to 6 per cent over the last 150 years (the Atlantic region accounted for only 9.5 per cent of all seats in 2015). Last, the Senate has never truly acted as a chamber representing the regions. Of course, the project to found a new “political nationality” was a process strewn with obstacles. Canada only truly threw off its colonial ties in 1982, after acquiring a way to effect its own constitutional

210

françois rocher

amendments. Quebec’s status within the Canadian federation has always been unsatisfactory for a significant number of Quebecers, who still fail to identify to any great degree with Canada, whereas the Maritimers crossed this Rubicon many decades ago. There can be no doubt that the goal of the Fathers of Confederation of founding a “new political nationality” has become a reality, simply through the existence of Canada as a nation-state. French Canadians have not disappeared and still control their own political institutions, mainly in Quebec, while remaining a significant political force in New Brunswick. The interest in recalling the arguments of the 1864 opponents is to show that the nation-building project remains incomplete, still faces widespread resistance, and in large part is marked by a deep distrust, with roots that go back more than a century. notes I would like to thank Marie-Christine Gilbert for sharing her research on critiques of federalism since 1763. Thanks to her observations, I have been able to focus in more detail on the situation in 1864. 1 Carl Berger, The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism 1867–1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970). 2 Ibid. 3 According to André Beaulieu, Jean Hamelin, and Benoît Bernier (Guide d’histoire du Canada [Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 1969], 10 and 11), the most representative figures of this approach were George Robert Parkin (1882), John Charles Dent (1881), William Kingsford (1887), and George McKinnon Wrong (1917). 4 Ian Grant, “Erastus Wiman: A Continentalist Replies to Canadian Imperialism,” The Canadian Historical Review 53, no. 1 (March 1972), 1–20. 5 Laurence Cros, La représentation du Canada dans les écrits des historiens anglophones canadiens, de la confédération à nos jours (Paris: Centre d’études canadiennes de Paris III/Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2000). 6 Carl Berger, The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of English Canadian Historical Writing since 1900 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986). 7 Reginald G. Trotter, Canadian Federation: Its Origins and Achievement. A Study in Nation Building (Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons Limited, 1924). 8 Chester Bailey Martin, Empire and Commonwealth (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1929). 9 Trotter, Canadian Federation, 125.

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

211

10 Ibid., 304. 11 Chester Bailey Martin, Foundations of Canadian Nationhood (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1955), 254. 12 Ibid., 357. 13 Ibid. 14 Trotter, Canadian Federation, 3–4; Martin, Foundations of Canadian Nationhood, 495. 15 Trotter, Canadian Federation, 5; Martin, Foundations of Canadian Nationhood, 516–17. 16 Peter B. Waite, The Life and Time of Confederation 1864–1867: Politics, Newspapers, and the Union of British North America (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1962). 17 Ibid., 131 and 132. 18 Ibid., 139 and 155. 19 W.L. Morton, The Critical Years: The Union of British North America, 1857–1873 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd, 1964). 20 Ibid., 172. 21 Ibid., 192. 22 Ibid., 189. 23 Donald G. Creighton, The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada, 1863–1867 (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 1964), xiv. 24 Ibid., 305. 25 Ibid., 12. 26 Ibid., 374. 27 Murray J. Beck, Joseph Howe: The Briton Becomes Canadian, 1848–1873 (vol. 2) (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1983), 15. 28 Frank H. Underhill, Canadian Political Parties (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1956); Arthur R.M. Lower, Canadians in the Making: A Social History of Canada (Toronto: Longmans, Green and Company, 1958). 29 Underhill, Canadian Political Parties, 15. 30 Berger, The Sense of Power, 65. 31 Underhill, Canadian Political Parties, 15 32 Arthur R.M. Lower, Colony to Nation: A History of Canada (Toronto: Longmans, Green & Company, 1946), 334. 33 Benjamin Sulte, Histoire des Canadiens-français 1608–1880 origine, histoire, religion, guerres, découvertes, colonisation, coutumes, vie domestiques, sociale et politique, développement, avenir, vol. 18 (Montreal: Société des publications historiques du Canada, 1884). 34 Jean Lamarre, Le devenir de la nation québécoise selon Maurice Séguin, Guy Frégault et Michel Brunet, 1944–1969 (Quebec: Septentrion, 1993).

212

françois rocher

35 Sulte, Histoire des Canadiens-français 1608–1880, 145. 36 Jean-Paul Bernard, Les Rouges. Libéralisme, nationalisme et anticléricalisme au milieu du XIXe siècle (Montreal: Les Presses de l’Université du Québec, 1971), 238. 37 Thomas Chapais, Cours d’histoire du Canada, vol. 8 (1861–1867), 2nd ed. (Quebec: Librairie Garneau Limitée, 1934) (1919). 38 Lamarre, Le devenir de la nation québécoise, 65. 39 Chapais, Cours d’histoire du Canada, 183. 40 Lionel Groulx, La Confédération canadienne: Ses origines, Conférences prononcées à l’Université Laval, Montreal, 1918. 41 Ibid., 114–15. 42 Robert Rumilly, Histoire de la province de Québec, vol. 1, Georges-Étienne Cartier (Montreal: Éditions Bernard Valiquette, 1940). 43 Ibid., 34 and 100. 44 Groulx, La Confédération canadienne, 118. 45 Groulx, “Les Canadiens français et l’établissement de la Confédération” Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 21 no. 3a (1967), 677–94, 684. 46 Ged Martin, ed., The Causes of Canadian Confederation (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1990); “The Opponents of Confederation,” in Interpreting Canada’s Past, vol. 1 (Pre-Confederation), ed. J.M. Bumsted (Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1993), 655–90; “The Idea of British North American Union 1854–64,” Journal of Irish Scottish Studies, 1, no. 2 (March 2008), 309–33. 47 Martin, “The Opponents of Confederation” 655. 48 Gil Rémillard, “Les intentions des pères de la Confédération ” Les Cahiers de droit 20, no. 4 (1979), 797–832, 798. 49 The delegates present were: the delegates from Newfoundland, Frederick Bowker, T. Carter, and Ambrose Shea, as observers only, along with Thomas H. Haviland and Edward Whelan from Prince Edward Island and ÉtiennePaschal Taché, Jean-Charles Chapais, James Cockburn and Oliver Mowat from United Canada. To them were added the twelve delegates from the Charlottetown Conference, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Alexander Campbell, and George Brown from United Canada; John Hamilton Gray, Edward Palmer, Andrew A. Macdonald, William H. Pope, and George H. Coles from Prince Edward Island; William H. Steeves, John Hamilton Gray, Edward B. Chandler, and Peter Mitchell and Charles Fisher from New Brunswick; and Robert B. Dickey from Nova Scotia. Last, eleven men took part in all three conferences – in addition to the secretary Hewitt Bernard: John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier, Hector-L. Langevin, William McDougall, and Alexander T. Galt from United Canada; Charles Tupper, William A. Henry, Adams G. Archibald, and Jonathan McCully from Nova Scotia; and S. Leonard Tilley and John M. Johnson from New Brunswick:

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

213

Jean-Charles Bonenfant, “Le Canada et les hommes politiques de 1867,” Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française 21, no. 3a (1967), 571–96. 50 Rémillard, “Les intentions des pères de la Confédération,” 799; Waite, The Life and Time of Confederation 1864 –1867, 105. 51 La Minerve, 10 November 1864. 52 The Vindicator, 21 September 1864 [italics original]. 53 Janet Ajzenstat, Paul Romney, Ian Gentles, and William D. Gairdner, eds., Débats sur la fondation du Canada (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1999), 422–3. 54 The Morning Chronicle, 24 January 1864. 55 The Yarmouth Tribune, 9 November 1864. 56 Ibid., Wednesday, 9 November 1864. 57 E.R. Forbes and D.A. Muise, eds., The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation (Acadiensis Press: Fredericton/Toronto, 1997), 7. 58 Rémillard, “Les intentions des pères de la Confédération,” 822. More specifically, the delegation comprised: Edward Baron Chandler; John Hamilton Gray; John Mercer Johnson; Peter Mitchell; William Henry Steeves, and Samuel Leonard Tilley, premier from 1861 to 1865. Tilley was a delegate at all three Confederation conferences and joined the government of Sir John A. Macdonald. He later became lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, and then minister of finance in the second Macdonald government. See: “Pères de la confédération du Nouveau-Brunswick,” Assemblée législative du Nouveau-Brunswick, http://www.gnb.ca/legis/publications/ tradition/legtrad9-f.asp [17/09/2014]. 59 Carl Wallace, “Albert Smith, Confederation, and Reaction in New Brunswick: 1852–1882,” The Canadian Historical Review, 44, no. 4 (1963), 285–312. 60 Ajzenstat et al., Débats sur la fondation du Canada, 302–3. 61 Gaëtan Migneault, Les Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick et la Confédération (Lévis: Les Éditions de la Francophonie, 2009), 84–6. 62 Ajzenstat et al., Débats sur la fondation du Canada, 306. The Library and Archives Canada website specifies that “Edward Chandler argued that all powers not specified as federal should come under provincial jurisdiction.” See: Nouveau-Brunswick, Bibliothèque et Archives Canada document online: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/confederation/023001-3050f.html#tphp [17/09/2014]. 63 Nouveau-Brunswick, Bibliothèque et Archives Canada document online: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/confederation/023001-3050-f.html #tphp [22/07/2015]. 64 The Morning Telegraph, 1864.

214

françois rocher

65 Waite, The Life and Times of Confederation 1864–1867, 237. 66 Daily Evening Globe, 17 October 1864. 67 As the newspaper asked its readers: “[h]ow many English publicists have examined the features of that obnoxious scheme of confederation agreed upon at Quebec? … How many of them know anything about the Northwest Territory, about the enlargement of Canadian canals, or the building of Canadian fortifications, in so far as these matters affect us? How many of them know that our taxation will be double the moment we enter upon Confederation? How many of them know that the Canadians are a people with whom we have little or no trade; that they are a people for whom we have no more affection than we have for the people of … any other British Colony” (Daily Evening Globe, 8 September 1865). 68 Head Quarters, 19 October 1864. 69 Ibid. 70 Forbes and Muise, eds., The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation, Library and Archives Canada (lac). 71 With reference to the “activities pursued” at the Charlottetown Conference, since as in the other colonies no details of the discussions were published in the newspapers because of the “secrecy” imposed. As stated by the Head Quarters in Fredericton: “[s]everal of the papers are greatly exercised about the ‘closed doors’ of the Charlottetown Conference. They appear to think that some slight was intended, and are very angry […] They vent their wrath by saying that the Conference will come to nothing, end in smoke, and that the people, finding the proceedings not reported will cease to take any interest in the matter.” Fredericton Head Quarters, 14 September 1864. 72 Waite, The Life and Time of Confederation 1864–1867, 242; Rémillard, “Les intentions des pères de la Confédération,” 822–3. 73 A resolution was brought before the Legislative Assembly to clarify the government’s position on the Resolutions adopted at Quebec (Migneault, Les Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick et la Confédération, 71). The resolution mentioned, in particular, that the committee “is of the opinion that the realization of this project will be, from a political, economic and commercial standpoint, extremely detrimental to the province’s interests” and that “as a result of the elections held to this end, the people of this province have clearly spoken against the adoption of these resolutions.” Excerpts from the Journal des Débats de l’Assemblée législative 1865 (5 June 1865), reprinted in Migneault, 72–3. Translation. 74 Waite, The Life and Time of Confederation 1864–1867, 232. 75 Alfred G. Bailey, “Railways and the Confederation Issue in New Brunswick, 1863–1865,” The Canadian Historical Review 21, no.4 (1940), 367–83, 368.

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

215

76 Ibid., 380; Waite, The Life and Times of Confederation 1864–1867, 246. 77 Bailey, “The Basis and Persistence of Opposition to Confederation in New Brunswick,” The Canadian Historical Review 23, no. 4 (1942), 382–3. 78 Ajzenstat et al., Débats sur la fondation du Canada, 142. 79 Bailey, “The Basis and Persistence of Opposition to Confederation in New Brunswick,” 381. 80 Carl Wallace, “Albert Smith, Confederation, and Reaction in New Brunswick: 1852–1882,” 289, https://doi.org/10.3138/CHR-04404-01 81 Ibid., 291. 82 Ajzenstat et al., Débats sur la fondation du Canada, 21. 83 Ibid., 144. 84 Migneault, Les Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick et la Confédération, 87. 85 Bailey, “The Basis and Persistence of Opposition to Confederation in New Brunswick,” 384. 86 Wallace, “Albert Smith, Confederation, and Reaction in New Brunswick,” 288. 87 William M. Baker, Timothy Warren Anglin 1822–96: Irish Catholic Canadian (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977). 88 Jean-Charles Bonenfant, “Les idées politiques de Georges-Étienne Cartier,” in Les idées politiques des premiers ministres du Canada, ed. Marcel Hamelin (Ottawa: Éditions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1969), 11–50, 8, bac. 89 “Nouveau-Brunswick,” Library and Archives Canada document online http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/confederation/023001-3050-f. html#tphp [accessed 08.10.14]; Forbes and Muise, eds., The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation, 37. 90 Migneault, Les Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick et la Confédération, 84. 91 Bonenfant, “Les idées politiques de Georges-Étienne Cartier,” 16. 92 Forbes and Muise, eds., The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation, 37. 93 Murray J. Beck, Joseph Howe anti-confédéré (Ottawa: Société Historique du Canada, 1975), lac, “Nouveau-Brunswick,” 8; Forbes and Muise, eds., The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation, 38–9. 94 An Acadian [anonymous], A Letter to the Electors of Nova Scotia, being a Reply to Confederation Considered on its Merits [pamphlet], Halifax, 1867. 95 Bonenfant, “Les idées politiques de Georges-Étienne Cartier,” 17; Rémillard, “Les intentions des pères de la Confédération,” 823. 96 Waite, The Life and Times of Confederation 1864–1867, 197. 97 The Herald, 8 Decembre 1864. 98 Citizen, 19 November 1864. 99 Waite, The Life and Times of Confederation 1864–1867, 116–17.

216

françois rocher

100 Bonenfant, “Les idées politiques de Georges-Étienne Cartier,” 17; Rémillard, “Les intentions des pères de la Confédération,” 823–4. 101 The Monitor, 8 Decembre 1864. 102 The Yarmouth Tribune, 21 Decembre 1864. 103 Ibid. 104 James L. Sturgis, “The Opposition to Confederation in Nova Scotia, 1864– 1868,” in The Causes of Canadian Confederation, ed. Ged Martin (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1990), 125. 105 The Yarmouth Tribune, 25 January 1865. 106 Ibid., 15 February 1865. 107 Ibid., 28 December 1864. 108 The Morning Chronicle, 22 September 1864. 109 By bringing together a range of newspapers and pamphlets, it becomes clear that while there were many written comments about the passage of the Resolutions in the Assembly, the union was also lampooned in cartoons in, for example, La Scie illustrée, La Sangsue, La Guêpe and La Lanterne. This sheds some doubt on the comment in the La Revue Canadienne which, according to Arthur I. Silver, stated at the time “that the mass of ordinary people seemed indifferent to the project, or didn’t understand anything about it.” Arthur I. Silver, The French Canadian Idea of Confederation, 1864–1900 (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1983), 26. 110 Rémillard, “Les intentions des pères de la Confédération,” 825. 111 Ajzenstat et al., Débats sur la fondation du Canada, 336. 112 A. Margaret Evans, [s.d.]. “Cameron, Sir Matthew Crooks,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/cameron_matthew_crooks_11E.html [accessed 08/10/14]. 113 Ibid. 114 Hamilton Spectator, 13 October 1864. 115 Cited in Waite, The Life and Time of Confederation 1864–1867, 123. In fact, the newspaper was not against the federation as such, but wanted to see more centralization: “we care not whether the Union is called federal or legislative … A strong supreme central government, delegating to the legislatures certain powers for the management and control of certain local interests and objects, even controlling their action so as to protect the rights of minorities in each section, and reserving to itself absolute and unchecked control over all subjects not so especially delegated, is certainly the simplest and most innocent form in which the ‘federal’ principle could be presented to us” (The Hamilton Spectator, 13 October 1864). 116 Canadian Quarterly Review and Family Magazine, April 1865, 348–9.

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

217

Ibid., 349. Irish Canadian, 9 November 1864. Ibid. Ibid. Bernard, Les Rouges; Rémillard, “Les intentions des pères de la Confédération”; Silver, The French Canadian Idea of Confederation, 39. 122 Silver, The French Canadian Idea of Confederation, 34–5 and 50–66. 123 L.H. Huot, Le Rougisme en Canada; ses idées religieuses, ses principes sociaux et ses tendances anti-canadiennes (A. Côté et Cie., 1864), 8–9, http://archive.org/ details/cihm_39131 [accessed 08/10/2014]. 124 Bernard, Les Rouges, 238. Translation. 125 Ibid., 253. 126 Journal de Saint-Hyacinthe, 21 April, in Bernard, Les Rouges, 250. Translation. The Rouges, through the Dorion brothers, Joseph Doutre, Louis-Antoine Dessaulles, and Laurent-Olivier David, denounced the corruption of the Conservative Party members and their connivance with the clergy (ibid., 296). In a series of articles on Confederation, the editor of Le Pays, Dessaulles, focused his criticism on the intervention of the clergy in the debate and the pressure it placed on the common people (Ibid., 312). In a long speech, Joseph Doutre pointed to “the extravagance of local spending, for the purpose of parliamentary corruption, the unfortunate speculation of the Grand Trunk Railway […] and the corruption of the people’s representatives and of public opinion, erected as the basis and first element of government’” (ibid., 165–6). Translation. 127 Le Pays, 27 June 1864; Bernard, Les Rouges, 251. Translation. A poem by A. Marsais in Le Pays on 13 December 1864 also reflects this perception: “Grand pillard et mauvais soldat; / Maint mercenaire d’une armée; / Dans la gloire, lorsqu’il se bat; / Ne voit qu’une aine fumée. / Quelque jour, traître à son drapeau, / Il part, sans tambour ni trompette, / Et désertera à nouveau; / Changeant comme la girouette.” 128 Le Canadien, 20 April 1866. Translation. 129 As pointed out by Lusignan, “What made this treachery even more odious was that, before the final vote on local constitutions, Attorney General Cartier, questioned in the House by Cauchon, stated publicly and repeatedly that the government would not consent to any change in the draft constitutions passed by Parliament, and especially concerning the education question, without submitting them again to Parliament. And it was only a few days after his statement that he arranged with Galty to have the draft Constitution amended in England to give the Protestants in Lower Canada what they wanted while leaving the Catholics in Upper Canada without any pro117 118 119 120 121

218

françois rocher

tection or guarantee.” (Séguin, Normand, L’opposition canadienne française aux élections de 1867 dans la grande région de Montreal, thesis, Department of History, Université d’Ottawa, Ottawa, 1968, 19 [translation]). Arthur Buies of the Institut canadien de Montreal, in his newspaper La Lanterne, raised the question of Cartier’s betrayal of the people to further his own political ambition and his interest in the Grand Trunk Railway (La Lanterne, 1, no. 4 [17 December 1868]). The satirical newspaper La Guêpe also attacked Cartier: “M. often gives delightful evening receptions, obviously without the slightest idea of gaining any capital, or adding to what he already possesses” (Saturday, 1 June 1867, no. 36 [translation]). In Le Républicain canadien, we read: “The Tories in Canada have always believed, and will today believe even more deeply that they must sacrifice the entire French population; that the majority must be handed over to the minority (see Lord Durham’s report). Injustice has always been their share, they want to grow fat on the sweat and blood of the Canadians and cover themselves with their bodies” (9 April 1867 [translation]). 130 H.-G. Joly, “Discours de Mr. G. Joly sur la confédération Prononçé (sic) à la Chambre le 20 Février1865,” Quebec, C. Darveau, 1865, 2. Translation. 131 M.C.S. Cherrier, Discours sur la Confédération prononcé par MM. C.S Cherrier (Montreal: Lanctôt, Boutillier & Thomson, 1865), 23). Translation. 132 Ibid., 24. Translation. 133 Alphonse Lusignan, La Confédération: le couronnement de dix années de mauvaise administration (Montreal: Éditions du Journal Le Pays, 1867), 2. Translation. 134 Bernard, Les Rouges, 258. 135 Cherrier, Discours sur la Confédération prononcé par MM. C.S Cherrier, 4–13. 136 Ibid., 3. Translation. 137 Lusignan, La Confédération, 251. 138 Ibid., 251–2. Translation. 139 Ibid. Translation. 140 Ibid. Translation. 141 L’Union nationale, 3 September 1864. Translation. 142 Le Pays, 29 November 1864. Translation. 143 Lettre du 7 novembre 1864. Translation. 144 Reprinted in Gil Rémillard, “Les intentions des pères de la Confédération,” 825–6. Translation, 694–5. 145 Bernard, Les Rouges, 258; Ajzenstat et al., Débats sur la fondation du Canada, 20 and 322–6. 146 Dunkin, 27 February 1865, in Ajzenstat et al., Débats sur la fondation du Canada, 260–1. 147 Ibid., 260. Translation, 525.

o p p o n e n t s o f t h e 1 8 6 4 c o n f e deration project

219

148 Ibid. Translation, 526. 149 Cited in Ajzenstat et al., Débats sur la fondation du Canada, 259. Translation, 362. 150 Ibid., 153. 151 Ibid., 322–42. 153 Le Républicain canadien, 9 April 1867. 153 Ibid. 154 Séguin, L’opposition canadienne française aux élections de 1867 dans la grande région de Montreal, 1–2. 155 Ibid. 156 Ibid., 11. 157 Heritage Canada [n.d.], http://canada150.gc.ca/fr/patrimoine-canadien. html/1342792785740/1342793251811 (accessed 09/10/2014).

Confederation and Corruption: The Republican Critique of the Quebec Resolutions louis-georges harvey Although political history has taken some twists and turns in recent years, and post-structuralist frameworks have been used to better theorize the history of “Canada” before Confederation, historical texts still tend to portray the advent of Canadian Confederation as inevitable, although they now characterize it as the incarnation of a new liberal order. Historians have also emphasized the monarchic nature of Canada’s parliamentary institutions and its ultimate embodiment in the project proposed in Quebec City some 150 years ago. Although we are still a long way from creating a cult of the federation’s founding fathers similar to the one erected around their American counterparts, the federal government appears to be asking us to do precisely that, at this conference and in the many commemorative events that will follow. The outline of this approach has already emerged in recent texts: the Fathers, by being prudent, creative, and essentially liberal, apparently managed to shape a sustainable political edifice by somehow combining freedom and monarchy.1 But great national narratives are not elaborated solely by celebrating nation-builders; they are shaped just as much by forgetting those who did not share the national consensus, those who expressed their opposition to the founding project. A few months after the Quebec Conference, when debate was just beginning in the legislature of United Canada, it was far from certain that the project would be adopted. Opposition came first from the Atlantic provinces. In Lower Canada, public meetings organized to denounce the proposed federation were held in more than twenty ridings, and public opinion seemed so hostile that the government did not dare present the project to its electors,

t h e r e p u b l i c a n c r i t i q u e o f t he quebec resolutions

221

despite the fact that some mps had promised to do so.2 Opposition to Confederation therefore went beyond the handful of dissidents and Parti Rouge mps who actively denounced the project; its opponents, as they will be referred to here, accounted for a significant percentage of the population. That the Parti Rouge’s discourse on Confederation has generally been associated with the defence of French Canada’s distinct nature and an exclusively French-Canadian form of nationalism is hardly surprising.3 Articles published in the newspapers of the time and speeches delivered before public meetings were filled with appeals to patriotism and calls to protect the French Canadians’ institutions, religion, and language. Opposition members raised the same questions in the House, and detailed articles were written to analyze what would happen if a still-hypothetical federal government were to take action on an issue such as divorce, a sensitive topic for Catholics. While the opponents’ discourse was usually structured around national issues, the fact remained that their arguments and choice of words were often overtly republican. For example, on the question of Lower Canada’s place in the proposed federation, the opponents drew the obvious conclusions from the creation of the “Dominion of Canada,” a new “power,” to use their own term, whose existence would, in their view, place Lower Canadians under a new form of political subjection.4 Beyond purely national questions, the influence the Crown would have over elected representatives at both levels of government conflicted with the contemporary republican interpretation of political freedom as the absence of domination. Thus, the proposed Confederation, by its strengthening of the royal prerogative and its appointed legislative councils, represented a significant step backwards from political freedom in the republican sense.5 The project’s critics also argued that it would foster the emergence of another, more subtle form of domination, equally dangerous to the political freedom of the proposed Dominion’s subjects. Republicans believed that corruption played a key role in the political sphere, limiting the freedom of both elected representatives and their constituents. Where political institutions fostered corruption, the elected representative’s freedom of action was inevitably curtailed by the necessity of securing the support of special interest groups in order to remain in power. Moreover, an mp compromised by his association with corrupting influences could no longer represent the true interests of voters, much less the public interest. In other words, corruption could exercise

222

louis-georges harvey

real political domination over the people and their representatives, hindering their freedom and making it harder for the public will to be expressed.6 Republican criticism of the federation proposal drafted in Quebec City was based on several of these themes and was structured around three main elements. First, republican critics claimed the Confederation proposal had its origins in corrupt Canadian political practices. Second, they denounced the strategies used to get the project adopted. Finally, they claimed that the institutions proposed by the regime’s promoters would entrench corruption into the fabric of government over the long term. the “quebec co n s p i r acy ” The federation proposal discussed at the Quebec Conference triggered many reservations and fears from the time the first rumours about its content began to circulate in Quebec’s newspapers. A few days after the end of the Conference, A.-A. Dorion clearly expressed the prevailing mistrust of an agreement whose details were not yet known, and which had been signed during “secret sessions” due to “a total absence of any official communication of the Conference proceedings” and “absolute silence on the part of the Lower Canadian ministers.”7 The theory of a ministerial conspiracy was fuelled by the fact that the government did not have a mandate to negotiate constitutional changes, and by the belief that the Great Coalition, which made Canadian participation possible, had been created to keep ministers in power after they had lost the Assembly’s confidence on a money bill. Indeed, the government had failed to gain the Houses’s support for its appropriation of public funds for the benefit of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. “Rouge” newspapers had alluded to close ties linking the government and the company, accusing the Grand Trunk Railway of forming “a State within a State” and the Conservative government of protecting their capitalist allies “at the expense of the vast majority of the population represented by the agricultural and working classes.”8 Following the Quebec Conference, the subject of a conspiracy led by Cartier for the benefit of the Grand Trunk Railway was often raised at public meetings. The idea of such a plot also inspired Jean-Baptiste Côté’s famous caricature, which represented the project in the form of a hydra or multi-headed dragon, a symbol often associated with conspiracies in the Anglo-American iconographic tradition.9

t h e r e p u b l i c a n c r i t i q u e o f t he quebec resolutions

223

In the parliamentary debates, Parti Rouge critics associated the proposed federation with British precedents to show that such unions were often facilitated by political corruption. In his speech to the House, Joseph Perrault used the examples of the union of England and Scotland, as well as that of Ireland and Great Britain in 1801, to illustrate the point. In the case of Scotland, Perrault showed that the union was first proposed after a conference similar to the one held in Quebec, and that England, faced with the united opposition of the Scottish people and elites, managed to corrupt certain members of the Scottish parliament to ensure that the union proposal would be adopted. He concluded: “Here is … a striking example of the way England’s politics are able to overcome even the best-motivated resistance, even in the face of the unanimous wishes of a race. Scotland clearly considered the union with England to be a form of suicide, and yet a majority of the Edinburgh parliament voted in favour of it.” As for Ireland, Perrault accused Thomas D’Arcy McGee, a member of the government, of using the same methods in attempting to impose a union on Lower Canada similar to the one foisted on his former homeland. Citing Gustave de Beaumont, Perrault showed that Irish opposition was also overcome by “places, pensions and favours of all kinds.”10 Other contributors to the newspapers and to the debate cited the Irish precedent, but it appeared less frequently than the reference to the project’s origins in the annals of Canadian history. Here, the connection between the proposed federation and Lord Durham’s Report on the Affairs of British North America was often brought up in republican discourse. Durham’s policy of assimilation and his role in the 1840 Union project were used as examples by those who predicted that French Canada would be lost if the 1864 proposal were to be adopted. However, the Report was also used to illustrate the role of corruption in consolidating British political domination. Durham favoured a highly centralized federation of the British colonies in North America, but he also proposed an assimilation policy based on a strategy of using political patronage to ensure the loyalty of the political elite. In the eyes of Parti Rouge critics, the support of Lower Canada’s political elites for the Confederation scheme was a logical outcome of Durham’s policy. If large numbers of French-Canadian members supported Confederation, it was because Durham’s strategy had made inroads in the colony.11 In fact, this analysis could already be found on the pages of the Le Pays in the summer of 1864, in a long article that connected the

224

louis-georges harvey

project’s progress to an imperial policy based on the exploitation of the French-Canadian politicians’ “personal ambitions.”12 In his speech to the Assembly, Maurice Laframboise went even further, citing passages from the Report in which Durham had shown how the policy had worked for American authorities in Louisiana. He also mentioned its impact on a single individual, George-Étienne Cartier: “Lord Durham well knew what he was about when he recommended the bestowal of places and honors on the ambitious individuals who made a disturbance, and the Hon. Attorney General for Lower Canada made a great disturbance and stir in 1836 and 1837; he was present at the meeting of the five counties, when he donned the cap of liberty. Lord Durham says, ‘Give places to the principal men, and you will see how they will sacrifice their countrymen and submit to England.’”13 These same ideas were taken up by numerous other commentators, and were expressed in even cruder terms in newspapers and political pamphlets. Thus, Alphonse Lusignan wrote in 1867 that it was “Mr. Cartier and his complacent parliamentary majority who have become Lord Durham’s tools.”14 The same author also invoked a classic explanation to demonstrate the effect of corruption on the people’s representatives: and then comes a time when the conspirators have whispered to at least a dozen people that they will be the next Lieutenant Governor, to at least two hundred others that they will be lifelong senators or advisors, to two or three dozen that they will be ministers in Quebec City, and so on, for the hundreds of featherbed jobs created by the new regime. And so the people wake up one morning unable to find the slightest trace of their political constitution, as members of a power in which the greed of a handful of rascals will reign, if we let them.15

Political favouritism and executive positions filled by appointment were traditional mechanisms of corruption, but in the 1850s railway construction companies had a tremendous influence over the provincial government. The close ties between the government and the Grand Trunk Railway Company also threw suspicion on the proposal that emerged from the Quebec Conference.16 For Antoine-Aimé Dorion, the failure of illegal attempts to fill the company’s coffers had led to the emergence of another scheme for “bringing aid and relief to the unfortunate Grand Trunk.” Confederation “naturally suggested itself to the Grand Trunk officials as the surest means of bringing with it the

t h e r e p u b l i c a n c r i t i q u e o f t he quebec resolutions

225

construction of the Intercolonial Railway. Such was the origin of this Confederation scheme. The Grand Trunk people are at the bottom of it.”17 Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion connected the coalition formed to promote Confederation with the $100,000 granted to Grand Trunk without the House’s approval. To stay in power, the government had abandoned its principles and bound itself to its political enemies. Here again, Cartier was called into question because of his direct contacts with the company.18 In Lusignan’s opinion, Cartier and his government colleagues had created “this immense monopoly, this motor of corruption whose influence was only just beginning to emerge, and it added $21,000,000 to our public debt.”19 In the Parti Rouge’s discourse, the federation proposal concocted in Quebec City was the culmination of a system of corruption that had diverted Lower Canada’s representatives from their duty to the people. It was also a perfect complement to the policy introduced by Durham, and was perfectly aligned with the British Empire’s assimilation practices. Lusignan summarized this view in 1867: It is your false prophets, your false patriots, who have brought about your loss. The links in your chain began in Lord Durham’s program, and in the corruption of your leaders, and they are continuing in the form of political and administrative scandals … the shameful trade in public jobs, the desecration of the oath in the double shuffle, the wasting of public money thrown at Grand Trunk, at the Bank of Upper Canada, at Upper Canada’s municipal loan, at the ocean-going steamships, at the buildings in Ottawa, at Tory greed, to end in the monstrous growth of public debt and taxes – and ultimately, in the Quebec Conspiracy and the sale of an entire people – a generous people who had too much trust in its false prophets and corrupt leaders.20 “newfoundland’s hay … a n d t h e h o r s e s of saint - j e a n ” Thus, the opponents to the federation proposal tried to associate it with the corrupt political practices that had marked the United Province of Canada since 1840, and that had helped consolidate the political domination of certain elites at the expense of the people. In the same vein, the methods used to ensure that the project would be adopted in the

226

louis-georges harvey

colonies also seemed to confirm its corrupt nature. First, the resolutions adopted in Quebec City contained a number of incentives designed to garner the support of the Atlantic colonies. The project’s Parti Rouge adversaries took pleasure in identifying these measures and showing that they had been offered with the sole aim of purchasing the consent of politicians in the Atlantic provinces. A.-A. Dorion felt it was humiliating to see the Canadian government “going on its knees” and “begging” Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia “to relieve us of our difficulties,” and he regretted the fact that the government had allowed Canadians to “see these supplications and the bribes in every direction with which they were accompanied, in the shape of subsidies to New Brunswick and Newfoundland, and of the Intercolonial Railway, rejected by those to whom they were offered.”21 As for Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion, he showed just how ridiculous some of the concessions made to the smaller provinces really were. Among other things, he cited the purchase of public land in Newfoundland for $150,000, suggesting that “the fact is that these lands are utterly useless for cultivation, that the whole island does not produce hay enough for the town of St. John’s.”22 Dorion was against the project partly because he anticipated annuities and donations to the Lower Provinces “to persuade and induce them to enter into a union which will be injurious to all the contracting parties.”23 The case of New Brunswick is particularly interesting, since the province’s electors were against the project and had expressed their opposition by voting out Leonard Tilley’s government, which was in favour of Confederation.24 The Government’s refusal to hold a referendum-election also fuelled criticism of its federation project. A few days after the end of the conference, A.-A. Dorion criticized the government for intending to have the Quebec plan adopted without first consulting the population.25 Speaking in the House, Dorion accused the ministers of being afraid of public opinion and cited the example of Tilley in New Brunswick as the source of that fear: “Well may they tremble for the fate of their scheme among the people of Canada.” 26 His colleague Maurice Laframboise went even further, claiming that the members who supported the measure had been “repudiated by their counties, and do not represent the opinions of the majority of their constituents on this question.” According to the Parti Rouge, the government’s contempt for the people was first shown when the ministers refused to resign following the controversy over the $100,000 intended for the Grand Trunk. Government members were afraid of what the people thought

t h e r e p u b l i c a n c r i t i q u e o f t he quebec resolutions

227

about this, so they had set aside their principles and joined forces with their political enemies to stay in power.27 Lusignan judged them severely for this: “(the ministers) betrayed their previous professions, deserting the flag entrusted to them by their compatriots, and traded the sacred trust of popular freedom, which they had been charged with defending, for lowly honours and salaries.”28 Condemned by the House and having no mandate to negotiate a new political union, the government did not dare take the question to the people, and had sought to corrupt the political leaders of the other colonies to ensure the success of their own undertaking. the return of the m a l i c i o u s o l d g ua r d Obviously, it was quite possible for corrupt methods to be used to impose a political regime that would be in the general interest and ensure the people’s political welfare. However, critics of the project felt that the institutions being proposed would simply entrench the corrupt nature of Canadian politics. Space restrictions prevent me from presenting this aspect of the opponents’ arguments on the failings of the political system; instead, I will limit my remarks to two political institutions that republicans disliked for their monarchic or aristocratic aspects: the Senate, or Legislative Council as it was referred to in the debates, and the office of lieutenant-governor. In the case of the Legislative Council, a simple rumour to the effect that the upper house of the proposed federal legislature and the new Lower Canadian legislature would be composed of Crown-appointed members was enough to generate vigorous criticism from the Parti Rouge. According to A.-A. Dorion, the Canadian delegates had “forgotten the past battles between a council appointed by the Crown and the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.” Moreover, going back to a system of appointment for the Council after the reforms of the union period, which had sought to rebuild it “on foundations more in line with popular sentiment,” would be tantamount to “returning to a system that has been judged and condemned by the vast majority of Upper and Lower Canada.”29 There were many references in the Assembly’s debates to the fact that returning to a system of councils under the nomination of the Crown would represent a significant step backwards for democracy. Critics usually mentioned the many political misdeeds attributable to the “malicious old guard” that made up the majority of the Legislative Council of Lower Canada, and which

228

louis-georges harvey

people held responsible for closing schools established by the Assembly (1836) and for the political impasse that had led to the 1837 uprising. According to J.B.E. Dorion: “Lower Canada has tested both systems of nomination, that by the Crown and that by the people, and it does not ask to return to the former.”30 In A.-A. Dorion’s view, the main problem with an appointed “conservative” upper house was the fact that senators were appointed for life and could therefore spend years blocking the popular will as expressed by the lower house. The nature of the proposed upper house could itself become a source of political corruption, since it allowed members to be appointed simply to consolidate support for a sitting government, or to favour special interests. In Lusignan’s view: Those added to fulfill a temporary need will perhaps become the greatest obstacles to the passing of another measure, at which point it will be necessary to start over again and again, until everyone is well and truly disgusted with the system. While public opinion is in favour of reverting to an elective system, the only possible or sustainable type of system on the American continent, the plotters, traitors and deceivers will fight among themselves to plunder the public treasury.31

As for the position of lieutenant-governor, the Parti Rouge was clearly against it, since it opposed any expansion of the Crown’s powers, but also because, in its opinion, such a position embodied a blatant potential for corruption. Already, under the new constitution, the governor general could be subject to political pressure from special interests, and as a result might nullify legislation passed by Parliament.32 In the Party’s view, the power of reserve and revocation granted respectively to the lieutenant-governor and the governor general would be enough to quell any spirit of autonomy or independence in local legislatures, reducing them to the status of “simple municipalities.” Republican critics also contested the idea that the veto would be used only rarely, regarding this extension of executive power as a new avenue for corruption. According to J.B.E. Dorion: “From the moment that you bring the exercise of the right of veto more nearly within the reach of interested parties, you increase the number of opportunities for the exercise of the right – you open the door to intrigues. As, for instance, a party will oppose the passing of a law, and not succeeding in his opposition in Parliament, he will approach the Ministers and the Governor Gen-

t h e r e p u b l i c a n c r i t i q u e o f t he quebec resolutions

229

eral, intriguing to obtain as a favour that the law may be disallowed.” 33 Any increase in the number of positions filled by Crown appointments would further compromise public will. A.-A. Dorion summarized the impact of the new constitution simply by listing the positions that would be filled by appointment: With a Governor-General appointed by the Crown; with local governors also, appointed by the Crown; with legislative councils, in the General Legislature, and in all the provinces, nominated by the Crown; we shall have the most illiberal Constitution every heard of in any country where constitutional government prevails. The Speaker of the Legislative Council is also to be appointed by the Crown, this is another step backwards and a little piece of patronage for the Government.34

In short, republicans were naturally against any increase in the Crown’s power of appointment. They viewed it as a real step backwards for the power of the people and warned of the many avenues these changes would open up for corruption by special interests. Born out of corruption, the regime proposed in 1864 also seemed to make corruption systemic while taking away the means for the people to oppose it. concl u s i o n It is highly unlikely that the contributions of opponents to the resolutions adopted at the Quebec Conference will one day be included in a national narrative celebrating the creation of the Canadian federation. Unlike the American anti-federalists, the Parti Rouge critics of 1864 and 1865 did not leave behind a “Bill of Rights” that would allow them to share in the glory of the founding fathers. In addition, many eventually rallied to the new regime and, like A.-A. Dorion, became ministers or judges. In terms of Quebec’s political tradition, however, the Parti Rouge opponents of 1864–65 certainly influenced autonomist thinking as it emerged in the positions of the Parti national and the provincial Liberal Party in the late nineteenth century. Their discourse on corruption also influenced the development of Quebec’s political culture, which was marked by a number of corruption scandals in the decades following Confederation. Indeed, the topic of corruption was a major element of political discourse in the late nineteenth century,

230

louis-georges harvey

and Quebec stepped firmly into the era of the modern political scandal with the Baie-des-Chaleurs railway incident that led to the political downfall of Honoré Mercier. The charges of conspiracy and corruption made against the federal project of 1864 therefore seem to be a turning point in both the definition of corruption and the emergence of republican thinking sensitive to the pressures of private interests on public life – a form of pressure that intensified with the development of industrial capitalism and railway construction. notes 1 Government of Canada; Canadian Heritage; Communications, “Fathers of Confederation,” 2 September 2014, http://canada150. gc.ca/eng/1408122550222/1408364702611. 2 Jean-Paul Bernard, Les Rouges: Libéralisme, nationalisme et anticléricalisme au milieu du XIXe siècle (Montreal: Boréal, 1971), 249–56. 3 See the interpretation presented in Janet Ajzenstat et al., Canada’s Founding Debates (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999). 4 Alphonse Lusignan, La confédération couronnement de dix années de mauvaise administration (Montreal: Presses du journal Le Pays, 1867), 38. 5 On liberty and political domination see Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 6 Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, volume 1, Regarding Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Robert Sparling, “Political Corruption and the Concept of Dependence in Republican Thought,” Political Theory 41, no. 4 (August 2013), 618–47, doi:10.1177/0090591713485371. 7 A.-A. Dorion, “Aux électeurs du comté d’Hochelaga,” 7 November 1864, published in L’Ordre, 9 November 1864. Translation. 8 Le pays, 9 April 1864 and the Journal de Saint-Hyacinthe, 21 April 1864, cited in Jean-Paul Bernard, Les Rouges: Libéralisme, nationalisme et anticléricalisme au milieu du XIXe siècle (Montreal: Les Presses de l’Université du Québec, 1971), 338. Translation. 9 On this question see the account of a public meeting, Franco-Canadien (Saint-Jean sur Richelieu), 2 December 1864; Mario Béland, “Côté, JeanBaptiste,” in Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, vol. 13, Université Laval/ University of Toronto, 2003–, accessed 6 January 2015, http://www. biographi.ca/fr/bio/cote_jean_baptiste_13F.html. 10 Joseph Perrault, in Débats parlementaires sur la question de la Confédération des

t h e r e p u b l i c a n c r i t i q u e o f t he quebec resolutions

11

12 13

14 15 16

17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

231

provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord, Quebec, Parlement provincial du Canada (Quebec: Hunter, Rose et Lemieux, parliamentary printers, 1865), 602–5. Translation. This interpetation was first developed in Stéphane Kelly, La Petite Loterie: Comment la Couronne a obtenu la collaboration du Canada français après 1837 (Montreal: Boréal, 1997). Bernard, Les Rouges, 340–1. Translation. Maurice Laframboise in Canada, Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord, 3rd session, 8th Parlement provincial du Canada (Quebec: Hunter, Rose et Lemieux, parliamentary printers, 1865), 853–4, 857. 856 in English. Lusignan, La confédération couronnement, 9. Translation. Ibid., 39. Translation. On the Grand Trunk’s role and on the financing of its debt, see Michael J. Piva, The Borrowing Process; Public Finances in the Province of Canada, 1840– 1867 (Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1993); Ann M. Carlos and Frank D. Lewis, “The Creative Financing of an Unprofitable Enterprise: The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, 1853–1881,” Explorations in Economic History no. 32, 2 (1995), 273–301. A.-A. Dorion in Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord, 255. 251 in English. Brian Young, George-Etienne Cartier, bourgeois Montréalais (Montreal: Boréal express, 1982); J.-C. Bonenfant, “Cartier, sir George-Étienne” in Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, vol. 10, Université Laval/University of Toronto, 2003–, accessed 6 January 2015, http://www.biographi.ca/fr/bio/ cartier_george_etienne_10F.html. Lusignan, La confédération couronnement, 26. Translation. Ibid., 38 (emphasis in original). Translation. A.-A. Dorion, in Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord, 659. 655 in English. J.-B.-E. Dorion, in ibid., 862. 861 in English. Ibid. 861 in English. Ibid. A.-A. Dorion, “Aux électeurs du comté d’Hochelaga,” 7 November 1864, published in L’Ordre, 9 November 1864. A.-A. Dorion, in Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord, 774. 769 in English. M. Laframboise, in ibid., 850. 848 in English. Lusignan, La confédération couronnement, 7. Translation.

232

louis-georges harvey

29 Dorion, “Aux électeurs du Comté d’Hochelaga.” Translation. 30 J.-B.-E. Dorion, in Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique britannique du Nord, 860. 859 in English. 31 Lusignan, La confédération couronnement, 15. 32 J.-B.-E. Dorion, in Débats parlementaires, 852. Translation. 33 Ibid., 861–2. 860 in English. 34 A.-A. Dorion, in Débats parlementaires, 259–60. 255–6 in English.

The Economic Arguments of the Quebec Opponents of Confederation stéphane kelly

Following the Quebec Conference, significant opposition to the new project emerged in three of the founding colonies: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. In other words, the Quebec Resolutions were an easy sell only in Ontario. In a fascinating study, Britain and the Origins of the Canadian Confederation 1837 –1867, Ged Martin shows that the project’s opponents were not as irrational as they are generally portrayed in Canadian history.1 The arguments of the opponents, in each colony, were grounded in reality. In fact, a political union of the colonies making up British North America was not the only logical response to the problems of the time. ✠ ✠ ✠

In this chapter I will focus on the opponents in Quebec. Some held elected office and played an active role in the parliament of United Canada. However, other influential voices were not eligible to speak in parliamentary debates. For this reason I will also look at the opponents who expressed their views in the press, in the streets, and in taverns. To study opposition to the Quebec Resolutions without taking into account the opposition expressed outside Parliament would be senseless, and in fact one of the key arguments of the opponents was that the creation of a federal union had to reflect the will of the people. I will look, in particular, at the economic arguments. Canadian intellectual Frank Underhill summarized the opinion of the Quebec opponents to the Confederation project in a single pithy phrase: “government of the people, by lawyers, for big business.”2 Before analyzing the voting patterns and arguments of the opponent, I will attempt

234

stéphane kelly

to describe the economic context that led to the emergence of the Great Coalition in 1864.3 unease in t h e c i t y In the early 1860s, a crisis in British investment in North America caused anxiety among some of the leading financiers in London, at the time the financial capital of the world.4 In response, the financiers with investments in Canada came around to the idea of supporting both political union in British North America and the construction of a railway from Halifax to Quebec. In 1862, they founded the British North America Association (bnaa), a pressure group that found itself at the heart of the political events leading to the creation of the federal union in 1867. Why was the British financial establishment so nervous? The answer is simple: between 1862 and 1864, the government of United Canada considered an alternative approach to economic development that was less servile to the City (London).5 From 24 May 1862 to 15 March 1863, United Canada was governed by John Sandfield Macdonald and Louis-Victor Sicotte; on 15 May 1863, Antoine-Aimé Dorion replaced Sicotte. During this two-year period, United Canada tried to break away from the supervision of the British financiers who had imposed massive borrowing and excessive public debt. The strategy pursued by John Sandfield Macdonald, Louis-Victor Sicotte, Antoine-Aimé Dorion, and Minister of Finance Luther Holton had the following aims: to balance the budget, reduce the public debt, cut spending, and reduce financial dependency on the Empire’s capital. The nervousness felt in the City’s financial circles led to a change in the Colonial Office’s policy. Before the Macdonald-Sicotte administration took power, the Colonial Office had shown itself indifferent, even hostile, to the idea of a federal union. The shift in colonial policy occurred after the British North America Association launched an appeal for colonial union. In the months that followed, the Colonial Office asked the colonies to consider this option.6 When the Conservatives returned to power in 1864, the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences were organized. The delegates to the Quebec Conference produced a constitutional draft, which later formed the basis for the British North America Act. When the details of the new constitution arrived in London after the Quebec Conference they were greeted positively by the leading British financiers. The reaction in the City was crucial to the project’s viability. If the financiers had proved hostile, the project would probably have

e c o n o m i c a r g u m e n t s o f t h e q uebec opponents

235

been dropped, since its success depended entirely on financial guarantees and, more generally, on a sympathetic reception by the Empire’s financial elite. The financiers supported the proposed constitutional changes because, in their view, the constitutional arrangements in the North American colonies had ceased to function in a way that promoted their own interests. They were worried about low returns on their investments, which were under threat because the colonies had become “too democratic.” Suffrage was unfortunately, in their view, not sufficiently restricted. In fact, it was decisively more democratic than in Great Britain, since practically all adult males could vote.7 These British financiers hoped that the federal union project would be less democratic. Some proposed stricter criteria for the qualification of electors, hoping to reduce the proportion of adults eligible to vote. However, they realized it would be difficult to reverse the democratic trend. The backers of the Quebec Conference chose another way to temper the democratic ardour of the local electorates. The degree of centralization in the union they proposed was quite high, meaning that important decisions were transferred to a more distant, federal, level of government. This prudent move by the chiefs of the Great Coalition reassured the financiers, whose main concern was to weaken democratic rule. At first, the financiers were disappointed by the fact that the draft constitution from Quebec maintained the provincial legislative assemblies, since they were more in favour of a legislative union. However, this feature of the project, which was a provincial level of government, quickly ceased to be a problem since, after studying the Quebec Resolutions, the financiers realized that the provincial governments would be more like trumped-up municipalities, subject to the whims of a powerful central government. As we will now see, the opposition in Lower Canada saw the Quebec Resolutions in a similar light, and concluded that the interests of the population in Lower Canada were not exactly the same as those of the City financiers. three regional po l i t i c a l c u lt u r e s To fully understand the arguments of the opposition in Lower Canada it is necessary to take the regional political cultures into account. During this period three electoral groups can be discerned.8 The first regional political culture was that of French-speaking Greater Montreal and of the counties bordering on the United States,9 a republican

236

stéphane kelly

political culture that considered that citizens’ participation continued between two elections; the second was that of deepest Quebec, for lack of a better term,10 a conservative culture based on a degree of political paternalism; and the third was that of Imperial Montreal, which was strongly liberal. The regional nature of the parliamentary vote on the Quebec Resolutions is obvious. In Imperial Montreal there was massive support for Confederation; in French-speaking Greater Montreal there was massive opposition; and in deepest Quebec (Quebec City, Mauricie, the Lower St Lawrence, and Saguenay), there was slight opposition. It was deepest Quebec, conservative and quasi-seignorial, that ensured the victory of the Great Coalition in Quebec.11 In the next section I will not spend too much time on Imperial Montreal, which offered almost unanimous support for the project. Instead, I will analyze the causes for the apparent differences between electors in French-speaking Greater Montreal and those in deepest Quebec. First, we can analyze the result of the vote on the Quebec Resolutions held on 10 March 1865.12 In the parliament of United Canada as a whole, 91 members voted for and 33 against the Resolutions. In Upper Canada, there were 54 votes for and a mere 8 against; in Lower Canada, 37 votes for and 25 against. By breaking down the vote, some interesting observations can be made that diverge from historians’ customary view, according to which only the Rouges were behind the opposition to Confederation. This is not entirely accurate. In Lower Canada, the parliamentary movement opposing the Resolutions included four Bleus (Conservatives) who voted against. Opposition was unanimous among the Rouges: all ten members of the Assembly voted against. There was a third group of members in the Assembly, neither Bleu nor Rouge. In a masterful study, Les Rouges, JeanPaul Bernard called them the Violets.13 On the day of the fateful vote, eleven Violet members opposed the Quebec Resolutions. In short, only 40 per cent of all the members who opposed the Resolutions belonged to the Rouge party of Antoine-Aimé Dorion. Whereas all the Rouge members voted against, the Violets were more divided. In Parliament, the Violets held seventeen seats in Frenchspeaking ridings; eleven voted against, and six for, the project. These pro-Confederation Violets all represented ridings in deepest Quebec. It appears that, to understand how the vote swung in favour of the Quebec Resolutions, we have to take the regional factor into account. The regional factor illustrates how the opposition to the Great Coalition’s project was structured in Quebec This regional configuration de-

e c o n o m i c a r g u m e n t s o f t h e q uebec opponents

237

pended, in turn, on economic factors. The Bleus and the Violets who voted against the project of the Great Coalition represented ridings with trade connections to the United States. In the opposition movement as a whole, the members most hostile to the project came mainly from the region of Greater Montreal, the Bois-Franc region, the Eastern Townships, Montérégie, and the Beauce,14 in other words from border or near-border cities and villages. Their electors hoped to see the economy develop along north-south lines, rather than along an eastwest axis, as proposed by the supporters of Confederation. To put this another way, a large majority of the ridings north of Yamachiche (the home territory of Duplessis) voted for the Crown in 1865. On this national issue, French Quebec was split in two: upper Quebec, north of Yamachiche, was conservative; lower Quebec was republican.15 This ideological split can be seen at several different times in the history of French-speaking Quebec. bleu, violet , a n d ro u g e We can now break down the vote of 10 March in greater detail, by party. Four members associated with the Bleu side voted against the Quebec Resolutions: Alfred Pinsonneault (La Prairie); William Duckett (Soulanges); Henri-Elzéar Taschereau (Beauce); and Christopher Dunkin (Brome).16 It is important to note the geographic location of the four ridings, all situated close to the US border. Pinsonneault and Duckett cannot be considered heavyweights, while the remaining two were redoubtable debaters. Henri-Elzéar Taschereau was a young member aged twenty-nine.In 1865, he was unaware that he would go on to enjoy a remarkable career. After writing a number of legal works and practising law, he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1878 and served as chief justice from 1902 to 1906, the Supreme Court’s first French-Canadian chief justice. Elected under the Conservative banner and a supporter of the Great Coalition project, he changed his mind a few weeks before the vote. He believed that the project for a federal union was premature and had significant reservations about the guarantees offered to protect the French-Canadian nation: I shall say, on the contrary, what will soon be found out, that this Confederation is the ruin of our nationality in Lower Canada – that on the day when Confederation is voted, a death-blow will have been dealt on our nationality, which was beginning

238

stéphane kelly

to take root in the soil of British North America. Our children, far from feeling grateful for what we are now doing, will say that we made a great mistake when we imposed Confederation on them.17

The member for Brome, Christopher Dunkin, also spoke eloquently. Of all the speeches made in the Assembly against the Quebec Resolutions, his was the most ingenious, the most learned, and the most precise. Dunkin demonstrated that the federal aspects of the future regime were vague, incoherent, and imprudent. In his view, a federal union would lead to difficulties in the future. Soon, the new country would have to deal with a heavy debt load, and conflict-ridden and acrimonious intercultural relations. He felt that the Great Coalition had brought together a group of short-sighted politicians who were attempting above all to escape from a dead end. The Resolutions promised only problems for politicians of the succeeding generation. Literally, it sounds at every turn as a promise of everything for everybody; and yet, when each comes to ask how much it promises, and how, and where, and when, the whole is to be found ambiguous, unsubstantial and unreal. I repeat, there is everywhere throughout this scheme a most amazing amount of that sort of cleverness which may characterize the astute politician, but which, I think, I shall be able to show is yet far from being the wisdom and foresight characteristic of the far-seeing statesman. The game of all things to all men is a game that cannot be played with success in the long run.18

Outside Parliament, the Bleus also had strong representation. Several public figures closely associated with the Bleu party disapproved of the Quebec Resolutions; some gravitated around the Institut canadienfrançais, a conservative organization that sought to block the anticlerical influence of the Institut canadien. They included the patriarch Séraphin Come-Cherrier, George Clerk (close to Mgr Bourget), the editor of True Witness (an English-language Catholic newspaper aimed at the Irish);19 and Joseph Royal and J.-A. Plinguet, editors of the newspaper L’Ordre. In addition, several young conservatives had deserted Cartier’s party and become active members of a secret society, Le Club Saint-Jean-Baptiste. The best-known are Honoré Mercier, LaurentOlivier David, Ludger Labelle, Louis-Amable Jetté, and H.-F. Rain-

e c o n o m i c a r g u m e n t s o f t h e q uebec opponents

239

ville. These dissident Bleus accused Cartier of placing their nationality in jeopardy. When the Assembly voted on the Quebec Resolutions, eleven Violet members were against: Louis Caron (L’Islet), S. Coupal (Napierville), Adolphe Gagnon (Charlevoix), Moïse Houde (Maskinongé), HenriGustave Joly de Lotbinière (Lotbinière), Louis-Labrèche Viger (Terrebonne), Charles Lajoie (Saint-Maurice), Anselme H. Paquet (Berthier), Joseph-Xavier-François Perrault (Richelieu), Jean-Baptiste Pouliot (Témiscouata), Isidore Thibodeau (Québec centre), and Pierre-A. Tremblay (Charlevoix-Saguenay). The Violet members’ criticism was as severe as that of the Rouges, although they placed more emphasis on the dangers awaiting the French-Canadian nationality. However, their point of view was not narrowly Catholic – after all, the Violet leader, Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, was a Protestant. Several Violets had been affiliated with the Rouges in the 1850s, but had moved away in view of the Rouges’ increasingly anti-clerical stance. Outside Parliament, several Violet public figures played an active role: Médéric Lanctôt, editor of the Montreal newspaper L’Union nationale; Charles Laberge and Félix-Gabriel Marchand, editors of the newspaper Franco-canadien in Saint-Jean; and Hector Fabre. During the debates, the former Violet leader, Louis-Victor Sicotte, remained silent, having been appointed as a judge in 1863. His absence from the political stage may have deprived the opposition of victory over the Great Coalition. As I mentioned, the Violet members of the Assembly were divided on the question of confederation. Eleven members were against the Quebec Resolutions, while six were for, and the division was also geographical. Most of the members against the project were from Frenchspeaking Greater Montreal, the Richelieu valley, and Les Bois-Francs; those who supported the Great Coalition were mainly from the Mauricie, Quebec City, and Lower St Lawrence regions. This geographical analysis shows, with surgical precision, the extent of the split between conservative and republican Quebec. The ten Rouge members of the Assembly all voted against the Great Coalition. Most represented ridings in French-speaking Greater Montreal and areas close to the border: François Bourassa (Saint-Jean), Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion (Arthabaska), Antoine-Aimé Dorion (Hochelaga), Alexandre Dufresne (Iberville), Moïse Fortier (Yamaska), Félix Geoffrion (Verchères), Maurice Laframboise (Bagot), Luther Holton

240

stéphane kelly

(Châteauguay), Lucius Seth Huntington (Shefford), and James O’Halloran (Missisquoi). The latter three were English-speakers representing border ridings, and their electors hoped to see stronger trade with cities in New England. Outside Parliament were numerous Rouge opponents. Some were already or on the point of becoming well-known: Louis-Antoine Dessaulles, Wilfrid Laurier, Arthur Buies, Louis Fréchette, Joseph Doutre, Alphonse Lusignan, Charles Daoust and, of course, off-stage and silent, the patriarch Louis-Joseph Papineau. The ideas of the Rouges were defended in the newspapers Le Pays (Montreal), Le Défricheur (Arthabaska), and Le Journal de Saint-Hyacinthe. The Violets, Rouges, and Bleus aligned against the Quebec Resolutions did not all proffer the same arguments. Their coalition was heteroclite, like the Great Coalition itself. Three observations can be made here. First: the opponents of the Quebec Resolutions considered that they represented a decline in democracy. Several resolutions came in for criticism: the abolition of the elective principle for the members of the upper house; the monarchical nature of the new regime; the weakness of the provincial governments; and the right given to the Crown to disallow legislation. Second: the opponents, both English-speaking and Frenchspeaking, were divided over the level of cultural protection offered by the Quebec Resolutions. Several English-speaking opponents feared that the new provincial state would restrict the rights of the AngloProtestant minority; the French-speakers, in turn, were concerned that the federal union would lead to a decline in the French-Canadian nationality. Despite this difference, however, they agreed on one thing: the constitutional guarantees were so vague that quarrels between the nations would, rather than die out, in fact get worse with the birth of the new regime. Third: despite this cultural uncertainty, there was a surprisingly strong consensus on other points: the military threat (from the US Civil War) was raised only as a diversion; the Grand Trunk Railway project would commit the new country to an unending spiral of indebtedness; the public debt, as a result, would lead to tax increases and impoverish the working class. In the next section of this chapter, we will concentrate on this economic criticism levelled at the Quebec Resolutions.

e c o n o m i c a r g u m e n t s o f t h e q uebec opponents

241

parliamentary f r au d a n d t h e grand tr un k r a i lway According to its opponents, the very emergence of the Great Coalition could be traced back to dubious economic circumstances. Historian J.M.S. Careless wrote that the wife of George Brown could be considered the “mother of confederation” and, in the eyes of the Quebec opponents, there was also a “godfather” in the mafia sense: the Grand Trunk Railway. Its resources allowed it to constantly enlarge the family circle and convince even the most recalcitrant. Much of the economic criticism aimed at the Quebec Resolutions concerned the corrupting influence of the Grand Trunk company. For many opponents, for example, it was astonishing to see that a clause in the future constitution provided for the construction of a national railway. Similarly, they denounced the fact that the government had often advanced money to the Grand Trunk company to prevent its bankruptcy, and pointed out that several of the Fathers of Confederation, as members of the company’s board of directors, were in a conflict of interest. In his first speech during the debates in the Assembly, Antoine-Aimé Dorion recalled the Canadian adventures of Edward Watkin, the Grand Trunk’s British representative. For many years Watkins had been pursuing Canadian politicians: and I find that at the last meeting of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, Mr. Watkin did in advance congratulate the shareholders and bond-holders on the bright prospects opening before them, by the enhanced value which will be given to their shares and bonds, by the adoption of the Confederation scheme and the construction of the Intercolonial as part of the scheme.20

In the eyes of the Quebec opponents, the intercolonial project proposed by the Great Coalition was even less advantageous than its previous projects, such as the one put forward in 1862. The financial contribution from United Canada was estimated at five-twelfths of the cost of building the railway, with the remaining seven-twelfths coming from the Maritime provinces. By 1864, the calculation had changed: United Canada was to pay ten-twelfths, leaving a mere two-twelfths for the Maritime provinces. The opponents’ arguments even included a possible reason for the mysterious birth of the Great Coalition in 1864. In their view, the Great

242

stéphane kelly

Coalition resulted from a parliamentary fraud. It is true that the Taché-Macdonald government was defeated by a vote in the Assembly because it had fraudulently granted a $100,000 loan to the Grand Trunk Company – the loan had not received the prior consent of the legislative assembly. This parliamentary fraud, often condemned by opponents of the Resolutions during debates, is never discussed in general accounts of the birth of Confederation; neither William Morton, nor Donald Creighton, nor P.B. Waite deemed this grave matter worthy of their attention.21 Only by reading the actual text of the Parliamentary Debates is it possible to see that this was a crucial question and the starting point for the Great Coalition adventure. After the parliamentary fraud was publicly disclosed and the government was defeated, Governor General Lord Monck found a way to get Cartier and Macdonald out of a messy situation, saving their (political) lives in exchange for a new version of the project for a military and political union of the colonies. This interpretation of the birth of the Great Coalition, as proposed by the Quebec opponents, was long associated with a “paranoiac train of thought” by Canadian historians, but a recent book by historian Andrew Smith on the British financial class lends credence to the opponents’ version. Although many industrialists hoped that the Empire would simply abandon its colonies, the City’s financiers tended to favour a centralized political union to secure their investments in the colonies of British North America,22 and Edward Watkin was given the mission of bringing this delicate propaganda operation to a successful conclusion. key economic a r g u m e n t s The economic position of the Quebec opponents was based on three key inter-related arguments: 1) the non-necessity of raising a permanent army and building an intercolonial railway to resist an American military invasion; 2) the danger of excessive public debt; 3) the impoverishment of the working classes, crushed by new taxes. The opponents, whether Rouge, Violet, or Bleu, hammered these arguments home from the beginning to the end of the parliamentary debates. Bleu party member Christopher Dunkin highlighted the absurdity of the military argument. As we know, Macdonald, Cartier, and D’Arcy McGee had sounded the alarm, calling for a unification of the colonies to resist the American invader. After defeating the southern forces, they

e c o n o m i c a r g u m e n t s o f t h e q uebec opponents

243

predicted, the Northern army would annex the British colonies and expel the Crown from North America. In response, the member for Brome pointed out that if the Americans decided to invade Canada, the Canadians would never be able to put up an effective resistance: Whenever there is such danger, our defence will not be found in the making of federal or other constitutions, or in paper display of any kind, but must be found in the strong arms and determined courage of our people, responding earnestly to the call of the Mother Country, and backed with all the power she can bring to bear upon the conflict. Supposing that time come, we have plenty of governing machinery for that defence. We do not need, in order to it, a viceroy and court, and lieutenant governors, and all the complicated political apparatus of this scheme.23

According to the opponents, the best solution, to avoid a war with the neighbour in the south, was to reaffirm United Canada’s autonomy from Great Britain which, since the start of the Civil War, had informally supported the Southern forces. Rouge party member Jean-BaptisteÉric Dorion spoke eloquently on this point. The military defence of the English colonies, from Newfoundland to New Brunswick and Upper Canada, was difficult if not impossible, since the territory of the future federal union was immense and sparsely populated: I am opposed to Confederation, because instead of giving us strength to defend ourselves, it will prove to be a source of incalculable weakness. How can it be believed that by adding 700 miles to our long frontier, we shall strengthen ourselves against the enemy, when the territory to be added does not yet contain inhabitants enough to defend it […] A country without depth, like that which it is proposed to form here, has not its like under the sun. It would be vulnerable at all points along its frontier of 1,600 to 1,800 miles. In geographical form it would resemble an eel. Its length would be everything, its depth nothing. Nothing would be easier than to cut it into little pieces, and none of the parts so sliced off could send help to the others.24

Violet representative Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière also doubted the ability of the future confederation to confront the powerful American

244

stéphane kelly

army, and ridiculed the lyrical approach of the Great Coalition members, who believed that the union of the colonies would increase the military strength of British North America. In fact, the colonies were disparate, separated, and vulnerable compared with the New England states. He proposed, jokingly, that the new dominion should adopt the rainbow as its emblem: By its lack of consistence – an image without substance – the rainbow would represent aptly the solidity of our confederation. An emblem we must have, for every great empire has one; let us adopt the rainbow. The fact of our provinces being all at once erected into a Confederation will not give us a single additional man; batallions cannot be made to spring forth from the earth, armed from head to foot, by a stamp of the foot as in the mythological ages.25

Rouge member Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion used a striking image to describe the consequences of the financial extravagance of the Macdonald-Cartier government. Since the 1850s, successive governments had bailed out the Grand Trunk Company, and the Quebec Resolutions included a promise to build a railway to the Pacific. Dorion predicted that this investment would see an explosion in the public debt and an increase in the tax burden on the agricultural classes: “When we shall have seen the Local Parliament in operation with its restricted powers […] it will soon be found, as it is in fact destined to become, a mere taxing machine. Nothing more, nothing less!”26 In his view, the intercolonial railway met no vital economic need. He denounced the project’s unrealistic goals, defying the logic of a north-south pathway for trade: “Does any suppose that a person having flour to export will send it to Halifax, when he can dispatch it by Portland? There is no sentiment in trade; it takes the road which it finds to be the shortest.”27 The leader of the Violets, Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, warned that excessive taxation could undermine the people’s loyalty toward England and cause it to balk like the donkey in La Fontaine’s fable: “But if […] the people find themselves taxed beyond their resources, the Government need not be surprised, if they should ever appeal to the courage of the people and call upon them to meet the enemy, to receive the answer the old man got from his donkey […] When, at the approach of the enemy, the old man wished to mount and fly, the donkey refused.”28

e c o n o m i c a r g u m e n t s o f t h e q uebec opponents

245

The union of colonies currently isolated from each other required major public works: the construction of a railway, military fortifications and canals, and the establishment of an army and navy. The opponents predicted that new taxes would have to be raised to finance all these projects. For the colonies’ inhabitants, this meant that commodities as basic as molasses, flour, sugar, tea, and coffee would be taxed, impoverishing the working classes. Several members opposed to the Great Coalition represented border ridings where an exodus toward New England could already be detected. Rouge member Luther Holton had observed this tragedy and noted that the proposal “will certainly result in depopulating our country. Already the work of depopulation is going on.”29 He was not the only member to evoke dark times. According to Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion, “In many country places people are shutting up their houses and setting off to the States […] half the houses in Acton are now shut up.”30 Anger against Great Britain in the New England states made it unlikely that the reciprocal trade agreement would be renewed in 1866, and this was expected to be catastrophic for towns and villages along the border. According to J.-B.-É. Dorion, the British government’s sympathy for the southern cause had disappointed the US authorities, who would now seek to end the trade agreement. Reciprocity, however, was advantageous for the rural population, who could easily sell their sheep, horses, butter, and oats to Americans in the frontier towns of New England. The creation of a federal union offered no new prospects for merchants and farmers in border ridings. co-opting of o p p o n e n t s As we have seen, the electorate most hostile to the goals of the Great Coalition was found in the ridings of French-speaking Greater Montreal, and in the border ridings. They were in a better position to resist British loyalism, in particular because they were more effectively connected to the New England economic network. Their opposition, though, failed when a majority of members from conservative Quebec, the political territory to the north of Yamachiche, accepted the Great Coalition’s arguments. Why were the Quebec opponents not more successful in selling their arguments in the northern ridings of the Quebec political map? This is where the cunning of the British colonial elite proved vital, flattering, coaxing, co-opting, and absorbing the enemies of their

246

stéphane kelly

scheme. In Les étapes de la pensée sociologique, Raymond Aron devoted a few lines to the talent displayed by this elite class: Any elite faced by a minority of individuals, in the common people, who are worthy of belonging to the smaller elite group, can proceed in either of two ways, or using both ways together in varying proportions: eliminate the potential members of the elite, who are generally revolutionaries, or absorb them … The elite that has shown the most virtuosity in absorbing potential revolutionaries is the English elite, which for many centuries has opened its doors to some of the most talented members of the class not born to privilege.31

This quote provides a perfect summary of what occurred in Quebec in the years leading up to Confederation, and I revealed the trick in 1997 in my book La petite loterie.32 Several former Patriotes who had taken part in the Rebellion of 1837 astutely changed sides for the Act of Union. Over the years, they had adhered to the colonial, monarchist order, paving the way for the regime of 1867.33 The master of ceremonies for this little colonial lottery was John A. Macdonald. Despite his unpopularity in Upper Canada in the 1850s, he worked patiently to cement the loyalty of the public figures who had opposed the plans of the City financiers. These included George Brown. Before joining the Great Coalition, the reformer leader had been the Grand Trunk’s most outspoken opponent. When the administration of John Sandfield Macdonald and Louis-Victor Sicotte was formed in 1862, Brown supported the new direction of their economic policy, which boldly turned its back on the City financiers. Two years later, however, Brown decided to stand alongside John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier to launch the Great Coalition. At the start of the 1860s, in Lower Canada, the Rouges had clearly become less of a threat, and it was the Violet movement that seemed likely to upset the projects of the British financiers. These Lower Canadian reformers were the only people able to make a stand against the Bleus in the conservative electoral ridings north of Yamachiche. Before the establishment of the Great Coalition, the colonial regime had successfully neutralized this threat: two Violet leaders had been offered seats on the bench: Thomas Loranger, followed by Louis-Victor Sicotte. In L’union des deux Canada, Laurent-Olivier David highlighted this strategy: “Until recently, Sicotte had decried the government’s policy and

e c o n o m i c a r g u m e n t s o f t h e q uebec opponents

247

asked the House to condemn it; and the same government silenced him and encouraged him to desert his post by appointing him as a judge.”34 Without Sicotte, without Loranger, the Violets became less of an encumbrance. At the vote on 10 March 1865, Cartier won his bet by a few seats. ✠ ✠ ✠

Before concluding, I would like to comment on some aspects of the opposition outside Parliament. Within the political region of Frenchspeaking Greater Montreal and the border ridings were seven newspapers opposed to the Quebec Resolutions. The differing tone of their editorials can be ascribed to the fact that each newspaper addressed a specific audience. In Montreal, for example, electors hostile to the Great Coalition could read Le Pays, L’Union nationale, L’Ordre, or The True Witness, four newspapers that were extremely critical of the Quebec Resolutions. The first two addressed an audience already won over to republicanism, whereas the last two targeted a more moderate audience that remained attached to Catholic values. Three newspapers were active outside Montreal, in areas at or near the border: Le Franco-canadien (Saint-Jean), Le Journal de Saint-Hyacinthe, and Le Défricheur (Arthabaska). The first two defended positions close to those of the Violets. They were nationalist and autonomist, although their economic credo was closer to the moderate tone of L’Ordre and True Witness. On the other hand, Le Défricheur contained vindictive criticism of the railway clique and its editors (Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion, followed by Wilfrid Laurier from 1866) deplored the critical situation in which the inhabitants of the border villages lived. They could only watch, powerless, as the exodus of French Canadians toward the United States began. All seven newspapers claimed that the Great Coalition was controlled by City financiers, but two were even more virulent: Le Défricheur and L’Union nationale contained radical economic criticism. The first took the defence of the rural classes, subjected to the unbearable taxation imposed by the railway clique. The second took a more urban standpoint, defending the position of workers and tradesmen involved in the industrialization process in Montreal. Both defended the productive classes (farmers, tradesmen, and small merchants) against the unproductive classes (financiers, bankers, and capitalists). The articles written by J.-B.-É. Dorion, in particular, were full of condemnation for

248

stéphane kelly

the luxury lifestyles, indebtedness, extravagance, and parasitic lives of the unproductive class. Outside Parliament, the most structured opposition was based on the actions taken by activist Médéric Lanctôt,35 whose professional life was singular, to say the least. An adept of the Institut canadien in his youth, he experienced a religious conversion in the mid-1860s. With some business partners he founded the newspaper La Presse in 1863, seeking a path that was independent of both the Rouges and the Bleus, to bring all French Canadians together under the same banner. When the Great Coalition launched its project for a federal union, Lanctôt renamed his newspaper L’Union nationale. His enterprise was more than just a newspaper – it was also an association that organized public demonstrations to raise the people up against the conspiratorial endeavours of the Grand Trunk clique. For several weeks he organized demonstrations and processions that sometimes attracted thousands of tradesmen. Lanctôt was not only against the federal union; he also rejected colonial ties and annexation to the United States, and supported political independence for Lower Canada. The colonial link, wrote Lanctôt, hindered trade with the United States, and Great Britain’s policy of provoking the United States had a negative impact on Montreal’s economic growth. ✠ ✠ ✠

To conclude, the creation of the federal union between 1865 and 1867 left a triple mark: political, economic, and cultural. At the political level, Confederation occurred without any kind of popular participation.36 Generations of Canadians were deprived of significant images to nourish the collective memory. It is possible to suggest that, with the exception of Ontario, Canada was actually founded against the will of the people, in the interest of the Grand Trunk shareholders. Cartier and Macdonald rejected, in cavalier fashion, the suggestion of holding a referendum, and the federal election in the fall of 1867 had no referendary dimension. Studies of the election have shown that local questions monopolized the debates.37 Most of the opponents of Confederation had rallied to the cause, believing that continued resistance was pointless. On the economic level, Confederation came into being at a time of strong dependency on British high finance. It was to take many years for Canada to define its own economic policy and break free of colo-

e c o n o m i c a r g u m e n t s o f t h e q uebec opponents

249

nialism once and for all. In addition, from the point of view of growth in the economy of French-speaking Quebec, Confederation confirmed the subordination of the interests of the Quebec state to the diktats of the Ontario bourgeoisie. The exodus of a million French Canadians between 1860 and 1930 was not unconnected with the transfer of practically all Quebec’s economic powers to the federal level. Last, in cultural terms, the newly created federal union offered only vague and incoherent legal guarantees that reflected, in many ways, an unequal pact between English and French Canadians. As predicted by Christopher Dunkin, the number of ethnic, linguistic, and religious quarrels could only increase and at times culminated in national crises that eventually exhausted the capital of sympathy existing between the two founding peoples. To establish the contribution of the founding fathers of the Canadian nationality, it is easy to cite the lyrical outpourings of John A. Macdonald, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, and George-Étienne Cartier, but their actions must also be assessed. The establishment of the federal upper chamber in the first days of the new regime set the tone for this unequal pact. Quebec was entitled to twenty-four senate seats. Based on the province’s actual demography, twenty-one seats should have been allocated to French Canadians, and twenty-two to Catholics. Cartier, however, ensured that eight of the twenty-four seats went to English-speakers, and six to Protestants. At the same time, not a single Catholic was represented in Ontario’s twenty-four senate seats. notes 1 Ged Martin, Britain and the Origins of the Canadian Confederation 1837–1867 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1995). 2 Frank Underhill, The Image of Confederation (Toronto: Macmillan, 1964), 151. 3 To understand the economic context, one of the best studies is still Stanley B. Ryerson, Le capitalisme et la confédération (Montreal: Parti pris, 1972). 4 This section is based on the interpretation of historian Andrew Smith in British Businessmen and Canadian Confederation (Montreal & Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2010). 5 Peter Baskerville, “Imperial Agendas and ‘Disloyal’ Collaborators: Decolonization and the John Sandfield Macdonald Ministries, 1862–1864,” in Old Ontario: Essays in Honour of J.M.S. Careless, ed. David Keane and Colin Read (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1990), 234–56.

250

stéphane kelly

6 Martin, Britain and the Origins of the Canadian Confederation 1837–1867. 7 Marc Chevrier, Louis-Georges Harvey, Stéphane Kelly, and Samuel Trudeau, De la république en Amérique française: Anthologie pédagogique des discours républicains québécois (Quebec: Septentrion, 2013). 8 Stéphane Kelly, “Famille, différentialisme et républicanisme,” Revue Tocqueville 34, no. 1 (2013), 137–53. 9 An analysis of the regional dynamics of Quebec republicanism is offered by Gilles Laporte in Patriotes et loyaux: leadership régional et mobilisation politique en 1837 et 1838 (Quebec: Septentrion, 2004). 10 Éric Bédard gives an analysis of French-Canadian conservatism in the 1850s and 1860s in Les réformistes (Montreal: Boréal, 2012). 11 This same electoral group made a vigorous statement in the 2007 provincial elections, when Action démocratique du Québec became the second-largest party with 43 elected members. See the analysis by sociologist Pierre Drouilly, “Les élections du 23 janvier 2007,” in L’Annuaire du Québec, ed. Michel Venne and Miriam Fahmy (Montreal: Fides, 2007), 360–70. 12 Canada, Débats parlementaires sur la question de la confédération des provinces de l’Amérique du Nord, 3rd session, 8th parliament (Quebec: Hunter, Rose et Lemieux, 1865). Referred to hereafter as Débats parlementaires. 13 Jean-Paul Bernard, Les Rouges (Montreal: Presses de l’Université du Québec, 1970). 14 The regional dimension of the opposition vote is analyzed in a master’s dissertation by historian Normand Séguin, “L’opposition canadienne-française aux élections de1867 dans la région du grand Montréal” (Ottawa: University of Ottawa, 1968). 15 The growth of Quebec republicanism in the first decades of the nineteenth century is analyzed in Louis-Georges Harvey, Le printemps de l’Amérique française (Montreal: Boréal, 2005). 16 Most of the public figures named in this chapter have their own entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Instead of providing multiple links, I refer readers directly to this documentary source, available online at http://www.biographi.ca/en/index.php. 17 Débats parlementaires, 899. 897 in English. 18 Ibid., 495. 19 Walter Ullmann, “The Quebec Bishops and Confederation,” Canadian Historical Review, 44, no.3 (September 1963); Bruno Clerk, “Le Journal True Witness and the Catholic Chronicle et la pensée politique de George Edward Clerk (1850–1875),” master’s thesis, Université de Montréal, Montreal, 1996. 20 Débats parlementaires, page 255. 251 in English.

e c o n o m i c a r g u m e n t s o f t h e q uebec opponents

251

21 W.L. Morton, The Critical Years: The Union of British North America (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1964); Donald Creighton, The Road for Confederation (Toronto: Macmillan, 1964); P.B. Waite, The Life and Times of Confederation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962). 22 Andrew Smith, British Businessmen and Canadian Confederation (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010). 23 Débats parlementaires, 536. 24 Ibid., 865. 25 Ibid., 360. 354 in English. 26 Ibid., 860. 859 in English. 27 Ibid., 863. 862 in English. 28 Ibid., 361. 355 in English. 29 Ibid., 711. 708 in English. 30 Ibid., 868. 867 in English. 31 Raymond Aron, Les étapes de la pensée sociologique (Paris: Gallimard, 1967), 467. 32 Stéphane Kelly, La petite loterie: Comment la Couronne a obtenu la collaboration des Canadiens français après 1837 (Montreal: Boréal, 1997). 33 The gradual conversion of these former rebels is clearly shown in a book by Jacques Monet, La première révolution tranquille (Montreal: Fides, 1981). 34 Laurent-Olivier David, L’Union des deux Canada (Montreal: Senécal, 1898), 202. 35 Gaëtan Gervais, “Un souverainiste du XIXe siècle: Médéric Lanctôt,” in Fernand Dumont, Les idéologies au Canada français, 1850–1900 (Quebec: pul, 1971), 265–74. 36 The hostility of the founding fathers to the democratic ideal has left its mark on Quebec political culture. See Marc Chevrier, La république québécoise (Montreal: Boréal, 2012). 37 Marcel Caya, “La formation du parti libéral au Québec, 1867–1887,” doctoral thesis, York University, Toronto, 1981. Master’s thesis of Normand Séguin, cited above, makes the same finding.

Papineau and the Refusal of Arrangements (1854–67) yvan lamonde

In 1864, Papineau was seventy-eight years old (he died seven years later, in 1871). Ten years previously, he had left politics for reasons of age, poor health, and because he had been politically marginalized. Papineau had been involved in politics since 1808, as an mp, Speaker of the House of Assembly (1815), and leader of the Canadian Party (1817). He left politics in 1854, just as the seigneurial regime was being abolished, and set about developing the land in the former seigneury of La Petite Nation, where he built the manor house that would become his home. It was in 1854 that Papineau first formulated the idea that would become the foundation for his position in 1864 at the Quebec Conference, when his primary concern was the fate of the United States, embroiled as it was in a civil war. He saw the future of Canada East and United Canada as part of a continental or Columbian federation. Other than the failure of the constitutional battle that he had led since 1817, the defeat of the resistance in 1837, and his disagreement with the rebellion of 1838, there were two main reasons for his choice of a continental rather than a Canadian federation: his fierce opposition to both the 1840 Union and responsible government.1 This little-known, if not completely unknown, stance taken by Papineau has only recently been uncovered, in the last decade or so, when his correspondence became available. Papineau himself published nothing of consequence after the early part of 1849, and the only other thing he published during his lifetime was his public lecture before the Institut canadien of Montreal in December 1867. As a result, only his older son, Amédée, knew the details of his position, which could nev-

pa p i n e au a n d t h e r e f u s a l o f a rrangements

253

ertheless be detected in what could be called his testamentary declaration of 1867.2 the signific ance of pa p i n e au ’ s f i e rc e opposition to t h e 1840 u n i o n From Paris, where he lived in exile from 1839 to 1845, and during his return to political life in 1847, Papineau opposed the third Union proposal, and also opposed LaFontaine and the Reformers who allowed it. At the heart of his opposition were his anti-colonialist views, which had been developing since the time he spent in London in 1823, with John Neilson, to lobby against the second Union bill of 1822 (the first had been put forward in 1809–11). He reformulated his anti-colonialism in his book Histoire de la résistance du Canada au gouvernement anglais, published in May 1839. Papineau was clearly aware of the intention underlying this third Union proposal. He had been intimately involved in two successive “dress rehearsals” where the same issues were at stake: to take control of the House of Assembly which, paradoxically, the colonizer had been unable to do, and to create a new Legislative Assembly so that the colony would mirror the metropolis and apply English rules. This time, however, the urgency was clear: the population of Upper Canada, the influx of immigrants from the British Isles, and the support of the French Canadians who had rallied to this “last resort” solution (to use LaFontaine’s term) – everything tended to suggest that, this time, the proposal would be accepted. The scope of Papineau’s republican position is therefore clear. His interest in the republican experience of the United States dated back to the mid-1820s, when the second Union proposal, combined with the metropolis’s clear lack of interest in the colony, had caused him to look closely at the example of the neighbouring states that had managed to free themselves from their motherland.3 In his arguments against the colonial Legislative Council, which he felt should be an elected body like the American state senates, he referred constantly to the example of the United States. He hoped – in vain – for support from the American president in 1837 and 1838. In other words, his anti-colonial views became proportionately stronger as his admiration for the neighbouring republic grew. The 1840 Union proposal, and its implementation, reactivated his republican propensities, among other things because it suspended the notion of rep by pop, a fundamental democratic principle of the

254

yvan lamonde

“English freedoms.” Papineau felt the proposal reflected the true colours of the British constitutional monarchy and its willingness to abandon a democratic principle for the benefit of its colonial policy. Suspension of rep by pop deprived the demographic majority of its power and handed it over to a minority. For Papineau, the only choice and therefore the only strategy was to demand a recall of the Union and a repeal of the Constitution. Unless the French-Canadian demographic majority could recover its parliamentary majority, emancipation in any form would be impossible. Papineau’s strategy was born of desperation: not only did the majority of his fellow French-speaking citizens and most English-speaking citizens from Lower Canada (or Canada East) vote with the Canada West deputation, but the colony’s entire demographic balance was about to tip toward an Englishspeaking majority. This was clear from the country’s first official census, in 1851: Canada West had 952,004 inhabitants and Canada East 890,261.4 The constitutional monarchy in the metropolis could now revert to democracy and restore rep by pop in the colony: the goal it had been pursuing since 1809 had been met. Consolidation was accomplished and would subsequently be strengthened, in 1864 and again in 1867. a “responsible” gover n m e n t i n a f r e n c h colony under engl i s h d o m i n at i o n After denouncing the Union and unsuccessfully demanding a recall, all Papineau could do was show that the “responsible” government was not in fact responsible, and that the only truly responsible government was government of the people, by the people, for the people. In short, the supposedly responsible government blocked the road to a republican government. It is important to note that Robert Baldwin had been promised responsible government – only recently introduced in England – as a solution to the parallel crisis in Upper Canada. Some historians regard an 1814 memoir by Pierre-Stanislas Bédard as the founding text in the quest for responsible government in Lower Canada.5 However, the idea was virtually absent from Lower Canada’s political history and certainly did not fit in with the strategy adopted by Papineau and the Patriot Party, which focused primarily on an elected legislative council that would give power to the French Canadians in both the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council. The republican demands, begin-

pa p i n e au a n d t h e r e f u s a l o f a rrangements

255

ning in 1831, were diametrically opposed to what the constitutional monarchy of the metropolis was and should be.6 In 1843, when Papineau was still in France, he said that “responsible government will only be responsible to the level it can be in a French colony under English domination.”7 On the same day, he pointed out the disconnect in the principle’s application: “I am convinced that, when England said it would give responsible government, it did so with false and deceitful intentions, with the distinction that it could not, in a colony, be as in a metropolis. What use is a responsible government that is not always, or not often, responsible?”8 The “responsible” element of government in the colony was clearly the governor, who filtered the legislative bills. In Papineau’s view, this representative sent from London was “obliged” to follow its views; in other words, responsible government in the colony – the governor – spoke with the voice of the Colonial Office in the metropolis. “Now, if people believe the Governor has the power and the will to do a lot of good, they are mistaken. The Colonial Office does not give him that freedom – only the freedom to strengthen its system to subject the population of the colony to the ideas revealed by the provisions of the Act of Union.”9 Could the governor logically be under the thumb of a “responsible entity” other than the representative body? Who was truly in control? Who was truly the responsible government? Responsible government has finally been made clear to them. The Governor will employ popular men, provided they are willing to become his docile instruments. There is no need to separate local and colonial issues from combined issues; they are all of that nature. Any solution that is wrong for the colony affects either the interests or the honour of the metropolis. Therefore, the Governor, its agent, is the controller, and will not be controlled in any way whatsoever. Nobody can bring ideas from England that will be suited, alone, to America.10

As well as being the voice of the Colonial Office, the governor was nothing more than a travelling administrator, someone “from overseas, who unpacked yesterday, and who packs up tomorrow for his country of his birth and of his loyalties.”11 Papineau was very familiar with these “vague hopes generated by the good intentions of a Governor who finds himself in Montreal today, in Calcutta tomorrow, who

256

yvan lamonde

promises no specific or extensive reform that his successors can willingly follow […] in the remaining years that domination over Canada lasts.”12 So why even agree to play the game? Once again, this is based on his thirty-five years of political experience, from which he had learned that things simply repeat themselves, over and over. Historically, in Papineau’s view, the Colonial Office had always censured governors who seemed even slightly in favour of responsibility for the elected chamber.13 It was difficult to see how things could change with the introduction of responsible government. a continental or colu m b i a n f e d e r at i o n Patriot thinking had come to the fore in 1848, in a local context where responsible government was finally going to be introduced, and in an international context where the principle of nationality was the subject of lively debate in Europe in general, and in Italy in particular. The debate was carried on in the journal L’avenir by Papineau’s nephew, Louis-Antoine Dessaulles.14 Papineau himself did not take part. Although he was clearly in favour of emancipation, his absence from the debate is hardly surprising, given two aspects of his political thinking: first, his model of emancipation was not and could not be European or Old World, and second, the type of emancipation he felt was possible and feasible did not involve the type of sovereignty demanded and obtained by nations that had or might be able to achieve separation from a metropolis, colonizer, or empire. His view of emancipation was a product of the intellectual process that led him to form the idea of a continental federation. Papineau’s view of emancipation formed as a result of his support, in 1849, for the idea that Lower Canada could be annexed to the United States. The idea was short-lived, and Papineau was a firm supporter of it. He became an annexationist, seeing Lower Canada as two or three new stars on the star spangled banner because of its size. Fascinated by the republican model since the mid-1820s, he was still an annexationist in mid-century, because he was first and foremost a republican and anti-colonialist. The idea of a continental federation was first raised by Papineau’s older son, Amédée, who also went to live in exile in the United States in December 1837 and was still living there when he formulated his view for the first time:

pa p i n e au a n d t h e r e f u s a l o f a rrangements

257

Something that is so desirable, something that, alone, can achieve permanent happiness and peace in the Canadas and in America, something that I want with all my heart, something that Le Canadien and other friends of their country appear to doubt, something that the Loyalists and the English government regard with horror – the agglomeration of every section of America to form a single, vast republic: a Continental Federation, united by its spirit and its laws, united by its social and political institutions – will one day be. All the history of the New World suggests that this is inevitable. The hand of God is guiding us toward it. The friends and enemies of Humanity, the English government itself, are working tirelessly and blindly on this gigantic project. “Make way for the justice of God!”15

It was not until 1854, when the Union system was in difficulty and a new constitutional solution was needed, that Papineau began to envisage a new nationality: not a “neo-Canadian, mixed” nationality, but an equally mixed American nationality: a nationality that was more an emancipation than anything else, one that did not rely on the principle of nationality, because Lower Canada did not have the means for this (as had become clear from the Resistance of 1837 and the Rebellion of 1838). He even saw the states drawn from Lower and Upper Canada as forming part of a continental whole, a “Columbian nationality.” From Montebello, he wrote to Amédée: A new, great nationality is forming, but it is not the nationality of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Delaware, etc., and preaching the little neo-Canadian nationality will simply delay annexation, which is as certain as it is desirable, and where a Columbian nationality must form, because it was the super eminent genius of Columbus that prepared the cradle in which the virtues of Washington were born and grew, and the genius of the author of the Declaration of Independence, not just of the thirteen colonies, but of humanity as a whole. He revealed the political rights shared by men of all races and all colours.16

Papineau, who admired the republican system, the general elective principle, and the relatively greater autonomy of the States in the American federal system compared with the “provinces” in United

258

yvan lamonde

Canada, did not view annexation to the United States as another form of colonialism: “Are these examples not clear in showing the benefits of annexation as quickly as possible? And of the association with what will, tomorrow, be the most noble intellectual theatre and the happiest political state anywhere in the world, in the stead of the colonial state?”17 Aware of the imperialist upsurge in the metropolis, Papineau, who thought that it was “as impossible for a metropolis to govern the colonies properly as it is for the Czars, Austria or Prussia to govern Poland properly,”18 wrote: “England wants to organize its weak colonies for a future independent status that would bind them in a system of alliance with it, which would make them a part of its future quarrels, to which its system of commercial exploitation leads it more often than any other nation in Europe.”19 By the end of 1856, Papineau’s vision for the future of Lower Canada was very clear, in particular with regard to the risk of an inevitable cultural and linguistic assimilation: “As a colony, our nationality will be smothered and eradicated by violence and insults. As a state, it will change slowly through assimilation, having as much and more to give in triggering the birth of the French literary, artistic and eminently social spirit around it, and in borrowing in order to become more active and industrious than it already is.”20 The new destiny of an emancipated Lower Canada was American, and it seemed as though the autonomy of the states in the federal republic would be satisfactory: Mr. Chauveau and Le National pretend they fear for the nationality, which can be strengthened by emigration and preserved for a little longer only within a political combination that makes Lower Canada a separate state, governing itself with respect to its sectional interests, alone, itself, and associated through its most distinguished citizens in the participation of everything that is so great, good and useful to do in the American Congress.21

The American civil war that had worried Papineau so much had been over for two years, and the Canadian Confederation had been in place since 1 July when, in December 1867, he gave a testamentary speech at the Institut canadien of Montreal. In his lecture, he addressed the “Columbian” issue in a more philosophical, if not utopic, way. In his view, it was still in the interests of the “new establishments in America” to “claim their emancipation as quickly as possible, and to acquire all the benefits and privileges of new nationalities, completely indepen-

pa p i n e au a n d t h e r e f u s a l o f a rrangements

259

dent of Europe.” He described as “blind” those people who “speak of the creation of a new, strong and harmonious nationality on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes,” a nationality that would be “already formed” and “confined within its current boundaries.” This nationality would also be marked by immigration, like all the American nations, and it would be composed “of all the races of men who, with their thousand religious beliefs and their host of mistakes and truths, are propelled by Providence towards this shared assembly to merge the entire human family together in unity and fraternity.” This “fact” was, in his view, “all too obvious throughout America and throughout its history, since its discovery by Columbus.” It was on this “solid foundation” that “the New World man” must “base the new society and its new institutions.” Papineau left his audience at the Institute with these words: “The fatherland will only have strength, greatness, prosperity, and serious and permanent peace for as long as all these different origins and beliefs can come together and work together, at the same time, on the development of social strengths and resources.”22 As he wrote to Amédée in 1870, his belief in annexation remained strong in spite of his disillusions: “The only regret I will have on my 85th birthday, after your return and our reunion, is that I will not see the completion of the annexation I so ardently want, but I will end my life with absolute faith that it is certain and forthcoming, as though I had seen it through my own, wide-open eyes.”23 Papineau’s opposition to the Union was similar to and different from that of his fellow citizens. Like LaFontaine, the Reformists, and the Catholic clergy, he was against it, and remained so. His resistance was sustained because he was able to consolidate his republicanism through his refusal of responsible government, which he felt was not responsible at all, because what was so in a metropolis could not be so in a colony, particularly a French-speaking colony in an English colonial system. It was because he was able to see this deception so clearly that he found new reasons not to believe in England and in the constitutional monarchy system. A die-hard annexationist, he leaned naturally toward the emancipation of Lower Canada with and in the United States. It is important to pause here to highlight this choice, and to understand that emancipation as Papineau understood and wanted it was the emancipation of a republican, an admirer of American federalism, and an anti-colonialist who preferred emancipation within a republic to the continuation of a colonial state such as the Union of 1840, with a false

260

yvan lamonde

responsible government. Bluntly speaking, Papineau chose the lesser of two evils: political and linguistic minority status in a republic instead of political and linguistic minorization in a monarchy. Lower Canada had the means for this form of emancipation; he felt it did not have the means for the independence or sovereignty that it could claim by calling on the principle of nationality, as other nations in America and Europe had done. Lower Canada’s potential destiny was there, and Papineau was enthusiastic about it because it opened the door to the republic, and to democracy. Having made this choice, Papineau refused a “mixed” Canadian confederation in 1864 and in 1867, preferring to see Lower Canada in a federation with its larger republican neighbour and, as a utopic republican, preferring to see the republics of the Americas come together under a continental model, as when they were discovered by Christopher Columbus. notes 1 Yvan Lamonde and Jonathan Livernois, Papineau: Erreur sur la personne (Montreal: Boréal, 2012) and Lamonde, Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra: Papineau et l’idée de nationalité (Montreal: Lux, 2015). 2 Georges Aubin and Renée Blanchet, eds., Lettres à Julie, Lettres à ses enfants, Lettres à divers correspondants, Lettres à sa famille; for 1847 and 1848 electoral and parliamentay activities, Cette fatale Union: Adresses, discours et manifestes (1847–1848), introduction and notes by Georges Aubin (Montreal: Lux, 2003); 1867 public lecture, L.-J. Papineau, Un demi-siècle de combats: Interventions publiques, choice of texts and presentation by Y. Lamonde and Claude Larin (Montreal: Fides, 1998), 574–611. 3 Lamonde, “Britannisme et américanité de Louis-Joseph Papineau à l’époque du deuxième projet d’Union (1822–1823),” Les Cahiers des Dix, 2012, also published in Lamonde, Trajectoires intellectuelles et politiques des XIXe et XXe siècles québécois (Montreal: Des Busso, 2013), 21–65. 4 Bruce Curtis, The Politics of Population. State Formation, Statistics, and the Census of Canada, 1840–1875 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 2001, 88–91, 136–9; Thomas Chapais, Cours d’histoire du Canada (Quebec City: Librairie Garneau, 1933), t. 6, 82, 159, 198. 5 “Mémoire au soutien de la requête des habitants du Bas-Canada,” in Robert Christie, A History of the Late Province of Quebec (Montreal: Richard Worthington, 1866), VI, 313–23.

pa p i n e au a n d t h e r e f u s a l o f a rrangements

261

6 Lamonde, The Social History of Ideas in Quebec, 1760–1896 (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013), 42–3; Frank Murray Greenwood, “Les Patriotes et le gouvernement responsable dans les années 1830,” Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 33, 1, 1979, 25–37. 7 L.-J. Papineau to J. Bruneau-Papineau, 31 August 1843, L.-J. Papineau, Lettres à Julie [LAJ ], ed. Georges Aubin and Renée Blanchet (Quebec City and Sillery: Archives nationales du Québec and Septentrion, 2000), 434. Translation. 8 L.-J. Papineau to Denis-Benjamin Papineau, 15 October 1844, L.-J. Papineau, Lettres à sa famille (1803–1871) [LASF ], ed. Georges Aubin and Renée Blanchet, introduction Y. Lamonde (Quebec City: Septentrion, 2011), 307. Translation. 9 “Then, when we saw the majority support them, in all matters, and the Legislative Council offer no assistance following the fortunate and clumsly withdrawal of all the Tories, we saw that all the bills would go as far as the Governor and that that was the decisive answer to the question of what responsible government meant in the intentions of the British ministry.” L.-J. Papineau to J. Bruneau-Papineau, 31 January 1844, LAJ , 466. Translation. 10 L.-J. Papineau to E.B. O’Callaghan, 15 June 1844, L.-J. Papineau, Lettres à divers correspondants [LADC ], text edited by Georges Aubin and Renée Blanchet (Montreal: Varia, 2006), vol. 1, 544. Translation. 11 L.-J. Papineau to J. Bruneau-Papineau, 31 January 1844, LAJ , 465. Translation. 12 Ibid., 31 October 1844, 519. Translation. 13 Ibid., 31 January 1844, 464. 14 Lamonde, The Social History of Ideas in Quebec, 1760–1896, 266–9. 15 A. Papineau, Journal d’un Fils de la Liberté (1838–1855), new edition with index, edited with introduction and notes by Georges Aubin (Quebec City: Septentrion, 2010), entry of 28 February 1842, 488–9. Translation. 16 L.-J. Papineau to A. Papineau, 31 December 1854, Lettres à ses enfants [LASE ], text edited by Georges Aubin and Renée Blanchet, introduction by Y. Lamonde (Montreal: Éditions Varia, 2004), 1: 639. Translation. 17 L.-J. Papineau to A. Papineau, 15 December 1856, LASE , 2: 193; in Papineau’s view, the United States could not be a colonial power since any territory with at least 60,000 inhabitants could ask to join the Union. Translation. 18 L.-J. Papineau to A. Papineau, 10 January 1855, LASE , 2: 11. Translation. 19 Ibid., 15 December 1856, 193. Translation. 20 Ibid., 23–4 December 1856, 198. Translation. 21 Ibid. Translation.

262

yvan lamonde

22 Papineau, L.-J., “Conférence à l’Institut canadien,” 17 December 1867, in L.-J. Papineau, Un demi-siècle de combats, 574–611. Translation. 23 L.-J. Papineau to A. Papineau, 26 May 1870, LASE , 2: 607. Translation.

part four

Is Rejection of the Melting Pot a Rejection of Modernity? andré burelle

In my book Le mal canadien,1 published a few months before the Quebec referendum of 1995, I called on some of the key ideas of GeorgeÉtienne Cartier, to denounce the shortcomings of Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s “one nation” approach and propose a modernization of Canada’s original “multinational” federalism that would be more consistent with our history and the spirit of our times. Needless to say, from this point of view the Quebec Conference and the seventy-two resolutions that emerged from it in October 1864 have always, for me, held emblematic value. It was during these deliberations that the Fathers of Confederation were asked to choose between two opposing visions of the Canadian social and political contract – either unitary, in the form of the legislative union of the colonies of British North America championed by John A. Macdonald, or federal, in the form of the confederation of provinces proposed by George-Étienne Cartier to ensure the “union without fusion,” of Canada’s founding peoples, along with the creation of a vast country able to counterbalance the might of its American neighbour. the

le g i s l at i v e u n i o n of john a. m ac d o n a l d

O N E N AT I O N

At the Quebec Conference, both the diagnosis and the remedy proposed in the Durham Report to the “troubles” of 1837 were called into question. The interest of going over this ground again today is that, at a time when political correctness was unknown, politicians could speak openly of race, ethnicity, and cultural nationality, whether in a positive or negative light.

266

andré burelle

Everyone is aware, for example, of the brutal diagnosis placed by Lord Durham at the beginning of his report into the state of crisis in Lower Canada that followed the Patriot rebellion: “I expected to find a contest between a government and a people; I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state; I found a struggle, not of principles, but of races.”2 We are also all aware of the condescending terms in which the Durham Report proposed, in order to terminate “the deadly animosity” between “the hostile divisions of French and English,” that the French Canadians, “a people with no history, and no literature,” should be assimilated into a United Canada dominated by the “English race” bearing the gifts of civilization. As Durham put it: The language, the laws, the character of the North American Continent are English; and every race but the English (I apply this to all who speak the English language) appears there in a condition of inferiority. It is to elevate them from that inferiority that I desire to give to the Canadians our English character.3

What is less well-known, on the other hand, is the way the Durham Report analyzes two possible ways to successfully assimilate the French Canadians into a Canada of “English character”: legislative union and federal union. In Durham’s words: By [federal union], the separate legislature of each Province would be preserved in its present form, and retain almost all its present attributes of internal legislation; the federal legislature exercising no power, save in those matters of general concern, which may have been expressly ceded to it by the constituent Provinces. A legislative union would imply a complete incorporation of the Provinces included in it under one legislature, exercising universal and sole legislative authority over all of them, in exactly the same manner as the Parliament legislates alone for the whole of the British Isles.4 And he added:

On these grounds, I believe that no permanent or efficient remedy can be devised for the disorders of Lower Canada, except a fusion of the Government in that of one or more of the surrounding Provinces […]5 But while I convince myself that such

r e j e ct i o n o f t h e m e lt i n g p o t , rejection of modernity?

267

desirable ends would be secured by the Legislative Union of the two Provinces, I am inclined to go further, and inquire whether all these objects would not more surely be attained, by extending this Legislative Union over all the British Provinces in North America; […] such an union would at once decisively settle the question of races; […] it would form a great and powerful people […] which, under the protection of the British Empire, might in some measure counterbalance the preponderant and increasing influence of the United States on the American continent.6

When John A. Macdonald spoke at the Charlottetown Conference, where New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island were discussing their proposal for a union of the Maritime provinces, he drew extensively on the arguments of the Durham Report to support a legislative union of all the provinces of British North America. However, as a wily negotiator, a quality he later displayed in Quebec City, he was careful not to openly endorse the central objective of the Durham Report, which was to make the French Canadians once and for all a minority within a broad legislative union in order to “decisively settle the question of races.” the

federal union of george-étien n e c a rt i e r

M U LT I N AT I O N A L

The fact that George-Étienne Cartier was present at his side revealed that on “the question of races” nothing had, in fact, been settled. However, something important had changed: the population of Upper Canada had exceeded that of Lower Canada during the application of the Act of Union, and the “English Canadians” had suddenly converted to representation by population.7 This virtuous and democratic shift, applied to a broader legislative union of all the colonies of British North America, would have marked the end of the power of veto exercised by Lower Canada in the parliament of United Canada, and at the same time signed the death warrant of the French-Canadian nation, submerged in a Canadian-American, English-speaking sea. To avoid this prospect of imminent death, Cartier took a stand and daringly suggested replacing the failed legislative union of 1840 by a federal union able to unite, but not merge, the founding peoples of Canada within a confederation of the provinces of British North America. Instead of merging the founding “cultural nations” of the country in an English-speaking, North American melting pot, he proposed

268

andré burelle

allowing them to live side by side within a “political nation” that would provide access to a shared, supra-national citizenship, in this case British. And just as Molière’s character Monsieur Jourdain “spoke in prose without realizing it,” Cartier, like Joseph-Charles Taché, the putative father of the seventy-two resolutions of the Quebec Conference,8 proposed, as a way to achieve his goal, a multinational type of federalism that could be labelled “communitarian and personalist” even if that school of thought was not yet born. cultural nation and attac h m e n t to t h e l a n d Some seventy-five years before Emmanuel Mounier and the personalist thinkers who wrote for the French magazine Esprit, George-Étienne Cartier claimed that a nation was not simply a collection of atomized individuals, acting each in his own interest but a community of persons sharing a history, a language, a set of values, and economic and social solidarity rooted in a territorial homeland that it governed in accordance with its own particular character. In his view, territorial self-government was a vital need for all viable nations, since the mother tongue that provides to their members access to knowledge and spiritual life was not just a family heritage, but a communitary creation governed in its daily use by a people who worked, traded, and celebrated life in this shared idiom. The same applied, of course, to the usage and custom that structure our adult lives and are transmitted by community impregnation throughout our childhood. This is the role of cultural matrix and concrete pathway to universal humanity that Mounier ascribed to local communities when he praised “small homelands within the greater.” If the family, village, and nation were not there to ensure the inter-generational transmission of the knowledge and moral wisdom accumulated by humanity over the centuries, the only possible result would be a perpetual return to the wild state. Cartier did not think any differently, and emphasized forcefully that a cultural nation could only survive and play its role as a “small homeland within the greater” if it was rooted in a specific territory. As he wrote: The population alone does not constitute a nationality; the territorial element is also needed … race, language, education and morals allow a nationality to exist, but this personal element is

r e j e ct i o n o f t h e m e lt i n g p o t , rejection of modernity?

269

not sufficient. To maintain and render permanent a nationality, we must […] leave to our children not only the blood and language of our ancestors, but also ownership of the soil […] Like individuals, nationalities have both a moral and a physical nature, they have a soul and a body. The duty of each generation is to transmit both parts of this nationality.9

To ensure this dual transmission, Cartier fought to give back to French Canadians the territorial rights that accompanied the linguistic, religious, and cultural rights recognized under the 1774 Quebec Act, especially since those collective rights had been confirmed by the 1791 Constitution Act. Alongside the Indigenous peoples, the latter Act consecrated the existence of the country’s two founding peoples: the people of Lower Canada, Franco-Catholic and governed by French civil law; and that of Upper Canada, Anglo-Protestant and governed by British common law. Since the 1840 Act of Union had clearly failed to merge these two “races” or cultural nationalities, there remained only one solution in Cartier’s eyes: to establish a form of multinational, territorial, and communitarian federalism bringing together all the colonies of British North America, and able to unite, without merging, the founding peoples of Canada under a supranational citizenship. a missing piece in the se v e n t y - t wo r e s o l u t i o n s Surprisingly, the seventy-two resolutions adopted unanimously10 by the constituting provinces did not mention the two opposing visions of Canada discussed at the Quebec Conference. And this silence concerning the refusal of the melting pot, which led to the federal union proposed by Cartier rather than the legislative union proposed by Macdonald, is made even more striking by the fact that without this wish to achieve “union without fusion” of the founding peoples of Canada, it is hard to understand the Quebec Resolutions. Why, for instance, did Resolution 29, Article 33, give the General Parliament the power to legislate to render uniform property and civil rights laws in the common-law provinces, when sanctioned by their legislatures, but exempted the provisions of the Civil Code of Lower Canada? It is also hard to understand Resolution 46, which imposes the use of both English and French in the General Parliament and in the Local Legislature of Lower Canada, as well as in the federal court and the courts of Lower Canada,

270

andré burelle

but exempts the other provinces from this requirement. And it is difficult to explain why the signatories took such care to separate the powers of the federation’s two levels of government as far as possible. Re-reading the seventy-two resolutions of 1864, one is struck by the drafters’ desire to draw up an exhaustive list of the local powers assigned to the provinces and the central powers assigned to the federal parliament, and by their decision to allocate any residual powers to the each level of government in two separate “subsidiarity” clauses. The first gives the provincial legislatures “generally all matters of a private or local nature, not assigned to the General Parliament” (Resolution 43, Article 18); and the second gives the General Parliament “all matters of a general character, not specially and exclusively reserved for the Local Governments and Legislatures” (Resolution 29, Article 37). In fact, one can only admire the way in which the various decisions issued by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London so faithfully reflect the intentions of the Fathers of Confederation concerning conflicts of jurisdiction between Ottawa and the provinces. To demonstrate this, I will limit myself to a citation from a decision by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Liquidators of the Maritime Bank of Canada v. Receiver General of New Brunswick, 1892, in which their Lordships declared: The object of the [British North America] Act of 1867 was neither to weld the provinces into one, nor to subordinate provincial governments to a central authority, but to create a federal government in which they should all be represented, entrusted with the exclusive administration of affairs in which they had a common interest, each province retaining its independence and autonomy. That object was accomplished by distributing, between the Dominion and the provinces, all powers executive and legislative, and all public property and revenues which had previously belonged to the provinces; so that the Dominion Government should be vested with such of these powers, property, and revenues as were necessary for the due performance of its constitutional functions, and that the remainder should be retained by the province for the purposes of provincial government. But, in so far as regards those matters which, by sect. 92, are specially reserved for provincial legislation, the legislation of each province continues to be free from the control of the Dominion, and as supreme as it was before the passing of the Act.11

r e j e ct i o n o f t h e m e lt i n g p o t , rejection of modernity?

271

Here, too, their lordships had nothing to say about the cultural reasons that encouraged the Fathers of Confederation to circumscribe the powers of the two levels of government with such care. rejection of the me lt i n g p o t a n d t h e multinational fe d e r a l i s m o f 1867 To uncover the true raison d’être or “ultimate cause” of Canadian Confederation, we need to look at the speeches made by Cartier and Macdonald before the Legislative Assembly of United Canada in February 1865. Cartier’s address on 7 February is particularly clear: Now, when we are united together, if union is attained, we shall form a political nationality with which neither the national origin, nor the religion of any individual,will interfere. It was lamented by some that we had this diversity of races, and hopes were expressed that this distinctive feature would cease. The idea of unity of races is utopian – it is impossible. Distinctions of this kind will always exist. Dissimilarity, in fact, appears to be the order of the physical world and of the moral world, aswell as in the political world. But with regard to the objection based on this fact, to the effect that a great nation cannot be formed because Lower Canada is in great part French and Catholic, and Upper Canada is British and Protestant, and the Lower Provinces are mixed, it is futile and worthless in the extreme . . . In our own Federation we will have Catholic and Protestant, English, French, Irish and Scotch, and each by his efforts and his success will increase the prosperity and glory of the new Confederacy . . . We are of different races, not for the purpose of warring against each other, but in order to compete and emulate for the general welfare.12

It would be hard to state any more clearly, as a sine qua non condition for the Confederation, the idea of a new “political nationality” able to bring together under a shared, supra-national citizenship, in this case British, the two “races,” “cultural nations,” or “founding peoples” of Canada. And it would be hard to affirm any more strongly that such a political nationality required the application of a multinational federalism, giving the central government responsibility for “large questions of general interest in which the differences of race or religion had no

272

andré burelle

place” and allowing the country’s founding peoples, provided the rights of isolated minorities were protected, to preserve their respective languages, legal systems, and cultures through local self-government based on equivalent rights, and equivalent treatment, for each of the federated communities. On 6 February 1865, at the Legislative Assembly of United Canada, Macdonald unwillingly accepted Cartier’s arguments: I have always contended that if we could agree to have one government and one parliament, legislating for the whole of these peoples, it would be the best, the cheapest, the most vigorous, and the strongest system of government we could adopt. But, on looking at the subject in the Conference, and discussing the matter as we did […] we found that such a system was impracticable. In the first place, it would not meet the assent of the people of Lower Canada, because they felt that in their peculiar position – being in a minority, with a different language, nationality and religion from the majority, – in case of a junction with the other provinces, their institutions and their laws might be assailed, and their ancestral associations, on which they prided themselves, attacked and prejudiced; it was found that any proposition which involved the absorption of the individuality of Lower Canada – if I may use the expression – would not be received with favour by her people.

And, generalizing this “rejection of the melting pot,” Macdonald added: We found too, that though their people speak the same language and enjoy the same system of law as the people of Upper Canada, a system founded on the common law of England, there was as great a disinclination on the part of the various Maritime Provinces to lose their individuality, as separate political organizations, as we observed in the case of Lower Canada herself.13

None of which prevented Macdonald, once he became prime minister of Canada, from cheerfully using the residual powers, and the powers to reserve and disallow legislation contained in the British North

r e j e ct i o n o f t h e m e lt i n g p o t , rejection of modernity?

273

America Act, to submit the provinces to the powerful central government of which he had always dreamed – even if he was later called to task by their lordships of the Privy Council in London, referred to by some as the “godfathers of confederation.” If only their successors, the judges of the Supreme Court, had applied the rules as rigorously as their lordships in London! Alas, since the end of the Second World War, centralizers have been easier to find in Ottawa and the Rest of Canada than true federalists. Convincing proof is found in the classic work by Eugénie Brouillet, La négation de la nation,14 in which she does a better job than I ever could of listing all the unitary excesses of modern-day Canada. For anyone wondering how the Canadian federation can draw inspiration from Cartier’s ideas to renew itself while remaining faithful to its history and current planet-wide concerns, I suggest reading my book Le mal canadien, essai de diagnostic et esquisse d’une thérapie. Although the world, Canada, and Quebec have changed since it was published, the federal response to the Bélanger-Campeau Report that it suggested is still valid. A supra-national citizenship15 and justice system based on equivalent rights and treatment, respect for the federal principles of subsidiarity and non-subordination, a partnership-based management of inter-dependency to unite without merging the founding peoples of Canada – all of this remains relevant, in my opinion, at a time when globalization is undermining the territorial powers of nation-states everywhere. is there a future fo r a u n i o n w i t h o u t a merging of t h e p e o p l e s ? However that may be, the real question that must be asked today, and which could hardly be asked at the time of Meech Lake, concerns the end rather than the means of the “multinational” federalism proposed in Le mal canadien. I would phrase it as follows: Is the objective of preserving the existence of a civil-law, French-language-based “cultural nation” still an honourable goal worth fighting for, in the eyes of Quebecers? Or, on the contrary, do Quebecers, whether sovereignist or federalist, consider that this objective is outmoded ethnicism, irreconcilable with the individualist, anti-communitarist requirements of the modern world and international free trade? This crucial question concerns federalists first, since, following the failure of Meech Lake, Canada turned once again, blissfully unaware,

274

andré burelle

to the unitary “nation building” inherited from Pierre Trudeau in 1982. In this approach, the concept of “founding peoples” was discarded, and the new Canada was defined as an essentially “multicultural” society, rejecting the idea of a host society in Quebec, or even Canada, with which immigrants had to integrate. In this way the righteous thinkers in the Rest of Canada could pride themselves on being open to the world and practising civic nationalism, as opposed to the self-centred ethnic nationalism of Quebecers. The same question, concerning the legitimacy of the combat to ensure the ongoing existence of a civil law, French-language-based “cultural nation” in North America, must also be addressed to sovereignists. After the unfortunate speech by Jacques Parizeau ascribing the defeat of the “Yes” side in the 1995 referendum to “money and the ethnic vote,” many Quebec intellectuals carefully began to remove any trace of ethnicism from the “le nous québécois.” Some went so far as to question the idea of fighting for a Quebec “cultural nation” to be preserved and promoted, relying on a disincarnated civil nationalism worthy of the “Chartist” Jacobin Trudeau they so detested.16 Even Lucien Bouchard said he would be “unable to look at himself in the mirror” if, as premier and pq leader, he permitted a return to Bill 101 in the area of commercial signage. Ignoring the collective rights foundations of Bill 101, the Larose Commission suggested that the language rights of English-speakers should be elevated to the rank of fundamental individual rights under Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.17 And at a seminar organized at McGill University, leading sovereignist academics passed a devastating judgment on the concept of “shared Quebec public culture.”18 Last, even the policy on the francization and integration of immigrants adopted by Quebec after negotiating the McDougall-Gagnon-Tremblay agreement, however intercultural it was, was swept under the carpet by the same selfrighteous supporters of modernity and the concept of civic nation. Once again misquoting Molière, let us cover up this “ethnocentrism” that we cannot allow ourselves to contemplate! over the long ter m , a l l n at i o n s are cultural n at i o n s As a “communitarian-personalist” philosopher who acted as a federal negotiator for the Canada-Quebec agreement on immigration signed in the wake of Meech Lake, I find this guilt placed on the Quebec majority as unfounded as it is debilitating. To the supporters of republi-

r e j e ct i o n o f t h e m e lt i n g p o t , rejection of modernity?

275

canism in the French or American style, who denounce the ethnicism of the “cultural nation” and depict the “civic” or republican nation as the only possible incarnation of modernity, I have for many years replied that, historically, the civic nation has typically been built in one of two ways: through a revolutionary republican process in the French or American style, or in a liberal evolutive process in the Swedish, Danish, Dutch, or even Canadian style. This changes the facts of the case. In the revolutionary republican process, in either the French or American style, all cultural, political, and social structures are razed by a violent revolution, following which a civic nation is reconstructed on the basis of a shared language and a set of civilized values inherited from the instigators of the revolution. These values are then proclaimed in a constitution and a charter of individual rights and freedoms designed to prevent, by the force of law, a decline into the injustice and inequality that prevailed before the revolution. The “civic” nation is seen here as an ab ovo creation, an ideal of justice to aim for, but paradoxically it leads to the merging of the citizenry in the melting pot of a new “cultural nation” built on the shared language and values imposed by the victors of the revolution – to the point that over time, the new nation is formed by a “group of individuals brought together by a number of civilizing factors, including a community of language and culture,” the actual definition of an ethnic group (as opposed to a race) given in Le Petit Robert. In contrast, in the liberal evolutive process, a pre-existing cultural nation is gradually modernized by conversion to the universality and equality of citizens’ rights, with no violent razing of the previous system. This progressive evolution in mindsets includes respect for individual rights and freedoms while ensuring the organic and historic coherence of an “integrative” cultural nation, meaning one that is open, without denying its own nature, to cultural pluralism. This is, in general, the pathway to modernity followed by “small nations,”19 and the route taken by the Quebec nation during the Quiet Revolution. The federalists who launched this quiet revolution, and the sovereignists who continued it, used the powers of the state to the full to “modernize,” within Quebec’s borders, a “French-Canadian” cultural nation submitted, for centuries, to a suffocating clericalism, economic domination by an English-speaking elite, and the centralizing vision of Ottawa. The question is: Was placing the Quebec state at the service of a “French-Canadian” cultural nation compressed within Quebec’s borders and renamed “Quebec nation,” to open it up progressively to modernity and cultural pluralism, a betrayal of the ideal of civic nation?

276

andré burelle

I consider that it was simply a different way of using the state’s powers to promote a civic nation that was not invented ab ovo, but grounded in a specific history and territory, as many other liberal nation-states have done. In my opinion, Quebec in the 1960s had neither the means, nor in fact the desire, to become a republican nation-state. As a federated “small nation,” the only way open to it to transform itself into a modern nation was that of evolutive liberal nation building. Following the failure of Meech Lake and the dead end in which the sovereignist project has become trapped, the real question facing the defenders of the Quebec nation is whether it is possible to combat the Jacobinism of Pierre Trudeau’s “one nation” Canada by using the seeds of Cartier-style multinational federalism still contained in the Constitution Act, 1867.20 To make that move possible, the supporters of modernity will have to stop thinking of the civic nation in ethereal terms, as more tolerant than it really is. What the federalist and sovereignist advocates of the civic nation never mention is the degree to which the French and American authorities had to use violence and legal constraints to impose the common language and common values introduced by their respective revolutions on their citizens.21 What they refuse to see is how the Canadian provinces other than Quebec can rely on the demographic weight and economic strength of the United States to impose the shared English language and culture of the continent on the immigrants who settle there. As noted by Alain Finkielkraut, from whom I borrowed the concept of large and small nations, the advocates of the civic nation who denounce the ethnicity of others and claim to rise above it to ensure citizens’ freedom and equality, can practise self-righteousness only because the ethnicity of the majority has prevailed within their own national territory, and can now continue to thrive thanks to the hidden force of demographic weight and economic laissez-faire. All these purists apply what Finkielkraut calls the “morals of large nations,” which, having practised a successful policy of assimilation based on constraint and violence within their territory, refuse their landlocked “small nations” the right to practise their own linguistic “nation building,” even if it respects the rule of law, is restricted to the public sphere, and open to cultural pluralism. As the only “small nation” with a majority population of French language and culture on a continent awash with English, Quebec has refused to blindly follow the creed of multiculturalism. As the cradle of

r e j e ct i o n o f t h e m e lt i n g p o t , rejection of modernity?

277

one of the country’s founding peoples, and backed up by the collective rights recognized by the Constitution Act, 1867, it has refused to be simply the home of one of the numerous minorities making up Trudeau’s multicultural, individualistic, and chartist Canada. This is why it has opted to implement a policy called interculturalism that 1) recognizes that the majority population in Quebec, a minority in both Canada and North America, is entitled to use the law to impose French as the common language within its territory, and 2) targets a mutual enrichment between the host culture of the majority and the cultures of Quebec’s old and new minorities, in a manner consistent with the democratic rules gathered together in 1988 by Gary Caldwell and Julien Harvey under the name “Quebec public common culture.” 22 The role of “form-giver” and “integrative centre of the nation” legitimately given to Quebec’s French-speaking majority is what fundamentally differentiates interculturalism from multiculturalism. This is the crucial difference that Quebec has placed at the heart of its policy statement on immigration and integration, the Au Québec pour bâtir ensemble, Énoncé de politique en matière d’immigration et d’intégration, by proposing the idea of a two-way moral contract between immigrants and the host society.23 When the Quebec and Canadian supporters of anti-communitarist individualism in the Trudeau mould reject the very idea that Quebec can, as a distinct society, practise such a clearly civilized form of interculturalism, they are also shattering the foundations of the Meech Lake Accord and the multinational federalism of Cartier and McGee. More dramatically, it is the recognition of Quebec as a “nation” or “distinct society” that they empty of all specific content, justifying the need for the Rest of Canada to serve up its never-ending What does Quebec want? to avoid answering the question What does Canada Want?, posed by its own rejection of the Meech Lake Accord. notes 1 André Burelle, Le mal canadien (Saint-Laurent: Fides, 1995). 2 The Report and Despatches of the Earl of Durham, Her Majesty’s High Commissionner and Governor-General of British North America (London: Ridgways, Piccadilly, 1839), 8. https://books.google.ca/books?id=t6wNAAAAQAAJ&pg= PA14&vq=fecest&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false. 3 Tongue in cheek, Durham writes: “It is not any where a virtue of the

278

4 5 6 7

8

9 10

andré burelle

English race to look with complacency on any manners, customs or laws which appear strange to them; accustomed to form a high estimate of their own superiority, they take no pains to conceal from others their contempt and intolerance of their usages.” Ibid., 23. Ibid., 225–6. Ibid., 225. Ibid., 229. In 1840, Lower Canada had a population of 650,000 people, compared with only 450,000 in Upper Canada. Despite this demographic inequality, the Act of Union gave equal representation to Lower and Upper Canada, which each had forty-two members in the Legislative Assembly and twelve members on the Legislative Council. This equal representation, embodied in the double majority rule, led to the chronic paralysis of United Canada’s political institutions. See Joseph-Charles Taché, Des provinces de l’Amérique du Nord et d’une union fédérale (Quebec: Presses à vapeur de J.T. Brousseau, 1858). The book takes up the theme of the federal union project proposed the previous year by Taché in Le courrier du Canada – and the seventy-two resolutions that emerged from the Quebec Conference bore a striking resemblance to the proposals made by Taché in 1858. Quoted by Eric Bédard in Les réformateurs: Une génération canadienne-française au milieu du XIXe siècle (Montreal: Boréal, 2012), 260–1. Given the fact that it was decided, at the Quebec Conference, that the resolutions had to be passed unanimously by the provinces and that Upper and Lower Canada would each have a vote despite the Act of Union which, on paper, joined them officially, it is not clear where the Supreme Court got the idea for its constitutional convention that an amendment to the Constitution affecting the powers of the provinces required only “a substantial degree of provincial consent” (Re: Resolution to amend the Constitution, [1981] 1 S.C.R. 753), especially since the same requirement of unanimous consent became a determining factor at the London Conference. The same disdain for history can be seen in the work of the judges who, in 1981, rejected the idea of a pact or treaty between the constituent provinces of 1867. On this topic, it is worth re-reading the paper by the great Canadian historian George F.G. Stanley, “Act or Pact, Another Look at Confederation.” The quotations from the period it contains are unequivocal. One among many is from a speech by the Colonial Secretary, Lord Carnarvan, to the House of Lords: “The Quebec resolutions, with some slight changes, form the basis of a measure that I have the honor to submit to Parliament. To those resolutions all the British Provinces in North America were, as I have said, consenting parties, and the measure

r e j e ct i o n o f t h e m e lt i n g p o t , rejection of modernity?

279

founded upon them must be accepted as a treaty of union” (our italics) (Sir R. Herbert, Speeches on Canadian Affairs by Henry Howard Molyneux, fourth Earl of Carnarvan, London, 1902, 92). Another quote comes from Under-Secretary Charles Adderley: “It will, I think, be manifest, upon reflexion, that as the arrangement is a matter of mutual concession on the part of the Provinces, there must be some external authority to give sanction to the compact in which they have entered (…) Such seems to me to be the office we have to perform in regard to this Bill” (our italics) (O’Connor, Report, Annex 4, 149.) The full text of the paper by George F.G. Stanley is found at: http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/300387ar. 11 Decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Relating to the British North America Act, 1867, and the Canadian Constitution, 1867–1954 (Queen’s Printer and Controller of Stationery, Ottawa, 1954), Vol. 1, 268–9. 12 Débats parlementaires sur la question de la Confédération des provinces de l’Amérique du Nord britannique, 3rd session, 8th parliament (Quebec: Hunter, Rose et Lemieux, 1865), Tuesday, 7 February 1865. It is interesting to note that Cartier defines the rights of the minorities isolated in Upper and Lower Canada in terms of religion rather than language. This may appear surprising to us today, but less so in light of the “cuius regio, euis religio” that applied before, and even after, the Treaty of Westphalia. The goal of the test oath, after the Conquest, was to impose the Protestant religion on the French Canadians. When the Quebec Act re-established Catholics’ right to practise their religion, the thirteen American colonies named it as one of the five “Intolerable Acts” that justified their rebellion against Great Britain because it authorized the existence of a “Papist” colony to the north. This is how religion became the guardian of language under the British North America Act. For an English-speaking Irish Catholic like McGee, this was a serious problem, but he came to accept what later became section 93 of the bna Act. 13 Débats parlementaires sur la question de la Confédération des provinces de l’Amérique du Nord britannique, Monday 6 February 1865. This fine speech did not, apparently, prevent Macdonald from going back on his word at the London Conference where, with assistance from the representatives of the Maritime provinces, he attempted to substitute a legislative union for the federal union agreed on at the Quebec Conference. According to the novel Lady Cartier by Micheline Lachance (Montreal: Québec/Amérique, 2004) and a paper by Chanoine Lionel Groulx from 1918, http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.be langer/quebechistory/encyclopedia/groulxConfLondres.htm, Macdonald’s attempt failed because Cartier threatened, so it seems, to leave the Conference and return to Canada to demand the dissolution of the Parliament of United Canada.

280

andré burelle

14 Eugénie Brouillet, La négation de la nation: L’identité culturelle québécoise et le fédéralisme canadien (Sillery: Septentrion, 2005). 15 Concerning the return to supra-national citizenship attempted during the Meech Lake period, see my paper from the McGill seminar “La culture publique commune au Québec en débats.” It constitutes Chapter 7 in the collective work Du tricoté serré au métissé serré? published by Les Presses de l’Université Laval in 2008 under the direction of Diane Lamoureux, Dimitrios Karmis, and Stephan Gervais. 16 On this topic, see the remarkable contribution by Daniel Jacques to the Devons-nous en finir avec l’indépendance? series published in the Fall 2007– Winter 2008 issue of Argument. 17 On this topic, see my discussions with Jacques-Yvan Morin published in Le Devoir and reissued on the website Vigile under the title “Polémique BurelleMorin sur le chartisme”: http://www.vigile.net/archives/dossier-101/ index/4-101-citoyennete.html. 18 For challenges to the concept of a shared Quebec public culture, see the proceedings from the seminar held at McGill University: Lamoureux, Karmis, and Gervais, Du tricoté serré au métissé serré? For a review of this collective work, see http://www.erudit.org/revue/rs/2009/v50/n2/ 038043ar.html. For Garry Caldwell’s reaction, see http://www.erudit.org/ revue/rs/2009/v50/n2/038045ar.html?vue=resume. 19 See Alain Finkielkraut, L’ingratitude, conversations sur notre temps (Montreal: Éditions Québec Amérique, 1999), 26. The concept of “small nations,” characterized by their precarious destiny, was first introduced by Kundera before being taken up by Finkielkraut. In his view, “a small nation is one whose existence may be called into question at any time, which may disappear, and which knows it.” 20 L.R.C. 1985, ap II, no. 5. 21 To gain an idea of laws and vexatious measures used by France and the United States to impose French and English on their respective populations, see the following websites: http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/europe/france2politik_francais.htm, http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/amnord/usa_1situatgenerale.htm. For a vivid account that concerns France, see Claude Duneton, Parler croquant (Paris: Stock 1973). 22 For an outline of this Quebec public common culture, see Gary Caldwell, La culture publique commune, Les règles du jeu de la vie publique au Québec et les fondements de ces règles (Montreal: Éditions Nota bene, 2001), which also exists in English: Gary Caldwell, Canadian Public Culture: The Rules of the Game in Canadian Public Life and Their Justification (Fermentation Press, 2012).

r e j e ct i o n o f t h e m e lt i n g p o t , rejection of modernity?

281

23 See Au Québec pour bâtir ensemble, Énoncé de politique en matière d’immigration et d’intégration (Quebec: Ministère des Relations avec les citoyens et de l’Immigration, 1990). Well before the Bouchard-Taylor Commission and the charter of Quebec values proposed by the Marois government, this policy statement, in my opinion, goes to the heart of the matter with a level of discernment and plain speaking that has still not been equalled.

The Quebec Resolutions and the Ideas Left Behind robert c. vipond, jacqueline d. krikorian, and david r. cameron

introduc t i o n Benedict Anderson has famously argued that all modern states create stories about themselves that weave together a national identity from many and various strands of social experience. Since modern states can’t replicate the face-to-face contact of the Athenian polis, they are left to create “imagined communities” that link citizens across time and space.1 Telling stories about a country’s “founding” (of which this volume is an example) is one of the most popular ways of creating these imagined communities – and reimagining them at moments of critical change.2 Imagination in this sense is a meta-factual exercise that depends for its success on our ability to transcend the fact of our actual separation, individually and collectively, in a way that lets us create bonds with those we have never met and/or cannot meet. But there is another way in which we routinely distinguish between the imagined and the real that Anderson does not identify though it provides another way to think about community. Take the statement: “Imagine how much less congenial this conference would have been had it been held in a drab seminar room at the University.” In this case, imagination is not meta-factual but counter-factual. It plays on the difference between what is and what might have been. We will suggest that by paying attention to what might have been, rather than what is, one can see possibilities for imagining or thinking about Canada in ways that run somewhat against the grain of conventional wisdom. The delegates to the Quebec Conference in October 1864 created the blueprint for what we now call the Canadian constitution. The

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d t he ideas left behind

283

blueprint was then submitted (or not, as it turns out) to the respective colonial legislatures for approval, reworked in London in 1866 to deal both with unfinished business and new developments, and ultimately given a new set of clothes before it was presented to the British Parliament in 1867. Christopher Moore echoes the received wisdom when he concludes that “[i]n the end, the British North America bill went to Parliament with minimal alterations in the colonials’ plan.”3 The architects and engineers did their work in Quebec; London supplied the interior decorators. We take a somewhat different view. We would like to suggest that the differences between the Quebec Resolutions and the British North America Act, 1867 are in fact more significant than the usual account allows; and that as the Quebec Resolutions evolved into the British North America Act, 1867, some of the most interesting, challenging, and even slightly subversive ideas discussed at Quebec disappeared from the final Act – and so from our political imagination. Let us be clear from the outset about what our approach is, and no less important, what it is not. Our principal goal is not to divine what “the Fathers” who met at Quebec in October 1864 “intended” to create. Recovering the ideas that informed the original constitutional design is germane to our argument and we will refer to them throughout, but we are less interested in understanding what went into the Quebec Conference than in examining and extracting meaning from the Resolutions that came out of it. At the same time, this is not a standard exercise in constitutional interpretation. For those who want to understand the “living tree”4 of the Canadian constitution, foundational events like the Quebec Conference of 1864 provide a way to tap into the constitution’s root system. This is, to be sure, an important task, but again this is not our main focus. Our interest, to pursue the arboreal metaphor, is less to describe the living tree of the Canadian constitution than to relocate some of the shoots that were pruned from the original sapling and discarded.5 It is an exercise in what one might call (arrested) political development.6 The central puzzle we want to probe follows from the fact that several of the ideas and key terms that graced the text of the Quebec Resolutions did not make it into the British North America Act, 1867. What should we make of the ideas that were left behind? What was lost between the Quebec Resolutions of 1864 and the British North America Act of 1867? And is it possible, with the help of the Quebec Resolutions, to construct an alternative “imagined community” to the

284

v i p ond, krikorian, and c ameron

Canada created by the constitution of 1867? Our answer to this last question is a resounding – perhaps. What we will argue is that the Quebec Resolutions embedded a set of basic cues about how to talk and think about Canadian politics that were potentially richer, more flexible, more democratically engaged, and more realistic than the language baptized by the British North America Act, 1867. If this is right, then indeed we lost something quite significant in the transition from the Quebec Resolutions to the British North America Act, 1867. What were the changes that occurred along what Donald Creighton famously called the “road to Confederation”?7 We will identify four that we believe merit special attention, though this is hardly an exhaustive list. There were, in fact, many twists, turns, and detours between 1864 and 1867 that merit further study. We can only scratch the surface here. Let us begin at the beginning – by contrasting the first three Quebec Resolutions with the Preamble to the British North America Act, 1867. This is, admittedly, a somewhat eccentric place to start since most constitutional scholars, lawyers, and courts do not take preambles particularly seriously. Preambles are like pre-season hockey or basketball games; they may generate fan interest but they don’t really count.8 For those interested in imagining communities, however, preambles are revealing texts precisely because they don’t count. The preamble is where the drafters are free (or at least freer) to speak their minds about their aspirations for creating a certain kind of community. Understood in this aspirational way, preambles provide extremely useful (and much under-used) material for anyone interested in larger themes of comparative constitution-making.9 When one of the authors was an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, he took a course in Canadian and American constitutional politics taught by Walter Berns and Peter Russell. Professor Berns began the course with a spirited set of lectures on the origins of the American constitution, a sprint through the Federalist Papers, and a riff on the preamble to the Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.” When it came time for Professor Russell to begin his first cluster of lectures on the Canadian constitution, he started by asking his students if they knew how the British North America Act, 1867 began. None did, so he read the opening

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d t he ideas left behind

285

lines: “Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom … with a Constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom: And whereas such a Union would conduce to the Welfare of the provinces and promote the Interests of the British Empire: … And whereas it is expedient that Provision be made,” and so on. The contrast was stark. Where the US Constitution begins with stirring appeals to popular sovereignty, justice, and the blessings of liberty, the British North America Act, 1867 reads like a real estate contract. It is all about interests, expedience, and the desires of the parties to make a deal. “principles just to th e s e v e r a l p rov i n c e s ” This is the context in which to situate what amounts to the preamble of the Quebec Resolutions of October 1864.10 The first resolution reads as follows: “That the best interests and present and future prosperity of British North America will be promoted by a Federal Union under the Crown of Great Britain, provided such Union can be effected on principles just to the several Provinces (Resolution #1, emphasis added). The contrast is striking. Where the British North America Act, 1867 leads with a bow to process (the colonies “having expressed their desire to be federally united”), the Quebec Resolutions are framed with reference to a substantive condition; the federal union will be good for the colonies as long as it is “effected on principles just to the several provinces” (emphasis added). The crucial difference here is that the Quebec Resolutions, like the US Constitution, identify justice from the outset as one of the standards by which to judge the new community that is about to be established. So here is a prime example of how the Quebec Resolutions and the British North America Act, 1867 differ. The delegates to the Quebec Conference went out of their way to foreground and highlight the importance of justice; those who drafted the British North America Act, 1867 removed it. Indeed, the only time the words “just” or “justice” appear in the British North America Act, 1867, they do so as a thing to be administered rather than as an ideal by which to judge the legitimacy of the political system.11 What accounts for the difference in wording between the Quebec Resolutions and the British North America Act, 1867? And what are its implications? Presumably, the imperial authorities wanted to signal that this political and constitutional project originated with the colonies

286

v i p ond, krikorian, and c ameron

themselves. They wanted to make it perfectly clear both to their own population and other powers that the Canadian federation had not been imposed on the colonists in the form of an imperial fiat but was consistent with the colonists’ own desires. This is arguably why the British North America Act, 1867 begins with a sort of disclaimer that what follows has emerged because the colonies “expressed their desire”; it was the colonists themselves, not Whitehall, who took the initiative.12 Why the delegates at Quebec chose to refer to “just principles” in their blueprint is more obscure. One might argue that the phrase “on principles just to the several provinces” simply reflected a strategic calculation about what was necessary to sell the deal once the delegates left Quebec. As Alexander Galt pointed out during the course of the debate, it was “very desirable that no question should arise from which any Province should complain of injustice … We must start therefore on a fair basis.”13 The delegates must have understood what Galt made explicit, namely that upon their return to their home provinces the delegates would face the criticism that they had sold their constituents’ interests down the river. That is why, by this line of argument, so much of the discussion and so many of the Quebec Resolutions dealt with the nitty-gritty of who was going to get what from whom if Confederation were realized. And it helps to explain why the many side deals that were executed at Quebec to secure agreement were cloaked in the high-sounding language of justice and fairness. Galt was right to be concerned. After all, once everyone had had an opportunity to kick the tires of the Confederation deal, two of the colonies present at the Quebec Conference – Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland – took a pass on it and another (Nova Scotia) began almost immediately to agitate for “better terms.” But it seems to us that a broader, more expansive, and more forwardlooking reading of this resolution is also plausible. If a federal union were to be created, it had to be established not simply as a one-off “deal” but on principles that were just. Principles are, by definition, broad and open-ended in the sense that they invite application to new and different factual situations.14 To say that the proposed federal union could only be sustained if it were “effected on principles just to the several provinces” was arguably a statement both about what was necessary to bring the colonies together in 1864 and a commitment to how things should work in the future. It provided a standard in light of which the proposal could be judged now and it articulated a goal to which the delegates aspired; just principles are both of the moment

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d t he ideas left behind

287

and the future. It is not too difficult to imagine how an explicit commitment to treating the provinces justly might have illuminated contested and important questions of constitutional federalism over the years. To cite only two examples, one can easily see how the justice principle might have been invoked by provincial autonomists in the late nineteenth century to help undermine the federal veto power of disallowance. And it is not a stretch to imagine how, in the context of the late twentieth century, “just principles” might have helped define the place of the provinces in advancing constitutional amendments or in defining the process by which a province may leave the federation. “ so far as our circum s ta n c e s w i l l p e r m i t ” It is not as if the Canadian Fathers or the British drafters were allergic to the idea of principles or did not understand their importance in establishing a higher, enduring ideal against which practice may be judged. In this respect, it is worth noting that the preamble to the British North America Act, 1867 contains its own reference to principle that does not appear in the original Quebec Resolutions. Readers will recognize it: “One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom.” This phrase, “a Constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom,” is usually taken by students of Canadian politics as a code for the Westminster model of government in general and the principle of responsible government in particular. It stands, in other words, for the basic idea that the coercive powers of the state can only be exercised according to rules that have been crafted by a government drawn from and responsible to duly elected representatives of the people. In the British tradition, the arbitrary exercise of executive or kingly power was the great problem; responsible government was the solution. Here lies the heart of British parliamentary democracy, and the Canadian Fathers subscribed to the principle unequivocally. Yet here again – and this is the second example – the British North America Act, 1867 and the Quebec Resolutions are slightly different. Where the British North America Act, 1867 speaks of a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom, the delegates in Quebec chose words that were more contingent, more flexible, and more pragmatic. Their version goes like this: “In framing a Constitution for the General Government, the Conference … desires to follow

288

v i p ond, krikorian, and c ameron

the model of the British Constitution, so far as our circumstances will permit” (Resolution #3; italics added). Readers who remember the glory days of Peter Gzowski, the legendary host of cbc Radio’s Morningside program, may recall the contest he ran in which listeners were invited to create a Canadian version of the American simile “as American as apple pie.” And they may recall that the winning submission was from a woman who finished the phrase as follows: “As Canadian as possible under the circumstances.” It turns out that she was tapping into a deep vein in Canadian political culture. In one sense, the “circumstantial” qualification seems oddly out of place, perhaps even redundant. Neither the Canadian situation nor its constitution was identical to that of Britain. Apart from everything else, Canada was to be a federal union. Britain was not. The “circumstances” of federalism made Canada different, which is why its constitution was similar rather than identical to that of Great Britain. By this reading, the final phrase – “so far as our circumstances will permit” – really just describes why the Canadian constitution is similar rather than identical. It is, in this sense, redundant. But maybe it means more. We know that Charles Tupper of Nova Scotia objected to the original language that had been proposed on the grounds that, in his words, “it is not judicious to fetter our actions” to the British model in a way that would “embarrass our action in the selection of the best means of providing for the general and local government of the country.”15 Unfortunately, Tupper did not elaborate and his delegation from Nova Scotia voted against the compromise wording that we have lingered over. Still, it is possible to imagine why he might have wanted to create a little distance between the British and Canadian models. Perhaps Tupper (and others) were thinking more broadly about ways to create constitutional space that would allow Canadians and their governments to make choices down the road about democratic structures that aligned with their peculiar “circumstances” – even (or especially) if these choices diverged from the British model. That was the way to embrace the Westminster model but maintain a certain distance at the same time. And whatever their intentions, the additional words surely would have conveyed the clear sense to future generations of Canadians that they were permitted, perhaps even required, to think of their political institutions as something other than cookie cutter imitations of those in Britain. It would have given them permission, even an incentive, to do what they ultimately did anyway, which was to think outside the British constitutional box.

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d t he ideas left behind

289

“the best interes t s o f t h e p e o p l e ” This leads directly to our third example, which focuses on what one might call the democratic priorities of the Quebec Resolutions. Here again the US Constitution is a useful foil, if not parallel. When the framers of the US Constitution set about to describe and define the powers of government, they quite deliberately arranged them in a way that followed from the foundational principle that power flows from “We the People.” Because the preamble begins with a robust commitment to popular sovereignty, it makes sense that the rest of the Constitution is organized in a way that follows logically from this democratic premise. Thus Article 1 defines legislative power, Article 2 describes executive power, and Article 3 outlines the power of what Alexander Hamilton called “the least dangerous branch” – the judiciary.16 The branches of government were ordered in the Constitution in a way that reflected their democratic status, and however one assesses either their relative power or democratic record now, it is clear that putting the legislature first was meant to pack an important symbolic punch. The original version of the Quebec Resolutions had a comparable structure. Consider again the final paragraph of the preamble, the third of seventy-two resolutions that contains the reference to the “model of the British Constitution, so far as our circumstances will permit.” In the passage quoted above, we omitted an important phrase. Taken as a whole, the third resolution reads as follows: In framing a Constitution for the General Government, the Conference, with a view to the perpetuation of our connection with the Mother Country, and to the promotion of the best interests of the people of these Provinces, desire to follow the model of the British Constitution, so far as our circumstances will permit. (emphasis added)

The “model of the British Constitution,” in other words, was the basic framework for achieving two overarching goals. One was maintaining the British connection (and with it, the Empire); the other was promoting “the best interests of the people of these Provinces.” The first is unsurprising, but what of the second? To be sure, “the best interests of the people” is not as unmistakably and directly democratic as the American version that vests sovereignty in “We, the people of the United States.” More than one authoritarian regime has claimed

290

v i p ond, krikorian, and c ameron

to act on behalf of, and to promote the welfare of, the people. But this reference to “the best interests of the people” in the Quebec Resolutions is not trivial either. It is one of the basic standards – like justice to the provinces and dedication to the British Empire – in light of which political power has to be arranged and exercised. The importance of this proto-democratic standard is connected to, and reinforced by, what comes next in the Resolutions. Having set out the basic goals of the new regime, the delegates at Quebec got down to the task of establishing the institutional framework to realize them. Where did they begin? With a description of the legislative power. “There shall be a General Legislature for the Federated Provinces, composed of a Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly” (later renamed the Senate and House of Commons). If one considers the structure of the Quebec Resolutions, this ordering makes a lot of sense. Having agreed that the proposed federal union should promote “the best interests of the people of these Provinces” on the morning of 13 October, in the afternoon session that same day the delegates turned to explain how they proposed to redeem the democratic promise of the constitution. Their approach was a textbook example of democratic constitution-making informed by the practice of midnineteenth-century responsible government: they put the legislative power first. To be sure, the delegates at Quebec were hardly democratic thoroughbreds. It speaks volumes, for instance, that much of the debate at Quebec concerning the legislative power centred on the composition of the Legislative Council (now the Senate) – whose members were appointed, not elected. Still, to borrow the language of comparative politics, Quebec was a crucial moment in Canadian democratization. The first draft of the Quebec Resolutions is structured in a way that both follows democratic logic and exposes pre-democratic limitations: The first three resolutions have the character of a preamble; they are connected to, and followed by, the next twenty resolutions that sort out the rules of the legislative game – how the Legislative Council (or Senate) will be selected, how representation by population in the Assembly (or House of Commons) will be determined, and so on. The Resolutions faithfully reflect the rhythm of the debate itself. First came a discussion of the goals of the Conference, followed on 13 October by a protracted debate about legislative power. Only on 20 October, after the discussion had resolved how legislative power would be configured, did the dele-

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d t he ideas left behind

291

gates move on to consider the nature and contours of executive power. In other words, the Resolutions were ordered in a way that followed the ebb and flow of the debate and, just as important, followed the democratic logic set out in the preamble. But at some point between the original discussion and the final vote in Quebec, John A. Macdonald changed the order of these subjects and put the resolution having to do with executive power ahead of the statement about legislative power. In the official version of the resolutions that was sent back to the colonial legislatures and on to London for consideration, the fourth resolution is no longer a description of the legislative power but, instead, a statement that “the Executive Authority or Government shall be vested in the Sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” We know that it was Macdonald who engineered this change because the National Archives of Canada contains Macdonald’s edited version of the Resolutions in which he cut and pasted the seventy-two resolutions into a different order.17 That change comes down to this: where the delegates had put legislative power first, Macdonald put executive power first. Whatever his reasons, the symbolic effect is clear enough. Macdonald gave the executive, not the legislature, pride of constitutional place. The primacy of executive power was cemented into place by the British North America Act of 1867, and this executive power – now firmly nested in the office of the prime minister – has arguably become the central institution of Canadian politics.18 And what of “the interests of the people”? By our reading of the Quebec Resolutions, the reference to “the people” in the third resolution was logically connected to the description and elaboration of the legislative power in the fourth. Once the legislative power suffered its constitutional demotion, the democratic promise of the preamble lost its prominence. Indeed, having lost its connection to the next set of resolutions, the “interests of the people” became something of a constitutional orphan. It is not surprising, therefore, that this phrase disappeared altogether from the British North America Act, 1867 – and with it all reference to the source of democratic authority, the people. Thus, where the preamble to the Quebec Resolutions organized political life equally around “the connection with the Mother Country” and “the best interests of the people of these provinces,” the preamble of the British North America Act, 1867 speaks more tersely of the “welfare of the provinces” and “the interests of the British Empire.”

292

v i p ond, krikorian, and c ameron

Some sixty years ago now, John Porter complained that “Canada has no resounding myth proclaiming a utopia against which, periodically, progress can be measured … In the United States there is a utopian image which slowly over time bends intractable social patterns in the direction of equality, but a Canadian counterpart of this image is difficult to find.”19 In the years since Porter’s Vertical Mosaic was published, various attempts have been made to locate and elaborate an indigenous democratic tradition in Canada’s intellectual history.20 However this may be, surely the task of identifying democracy as a fundamental principle of our constitutional culture would be much simpler had our fundamental constitutional documents contained – as the Quebec Resolutions contained – a clear statement of the primacy of “the interests of the people” in Canadian political life. In the Quebec Secession reference case of 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada argued that the democracy principle can best be understood as a sort of baseline against which the framers of our Constitution, and subsequently, our elected representatives, have always operated. It is perhaps for this reason that the principle was not explicitly identified in the text of the Constitution Act, 1867 itself. To have done so might have appeared redundant, even silly, to the framers …. The representative and democratic nature of our political institutions was simply assumed.21

To the delegates at Quebec, pace the Supreme Court, a statement of democratic intent was neither redundant nor silly nor assumed; it was front and centre, then discarded. the supremacy p rov i s i o n For someone like John Porter (and he is hardly alone),22 the relative poverty of democratic thought in the Canadian political tradition is the flip side of our longstanding obsession with federalism. This preoccupation reaches back at least as far as the Quebec Resolutions. Which brings us to our fourth point. The Resolutions began with a statement advertising the virtues of federation (Resolution #1) and ended with an invitation to the Queen to assign a new name to these “federated provinces” (Resolution #71).23 In between these federalist bookends, the delegates outlined a detailed division of jurisdictional

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d t he ideas left behind

293

powers, large chunks of which found their way into the British North America Act, 1867. But they did more than this. Having created a federal division of powers, the delegates also created a general constitutional rule for resolving jurisdictional disputes between the federal and provincial governments. Americans call it a supremacy clause; it appears as Resolution 45: In regard to all subjects over which jurisdiction belongs to both the General and Local Legislatures, the laws of the General Parliament shall control and supersede those made by the Local Legislature, and the latter shall be void so far as they are repugnant to, or inconsistent with, the former.

The basic rule, in other words, is that in the event that two laws – one federal and one provincial – collide, the federal claim prevails. The importance of this clause – yet another one that largely fell by the wayside between 1864 and 1867 – becomes evident in light of post-Confederation jurisprudence. At the risk of caricaturing a complex system of legal thought, one can say that for at least a half century after 1867 most constitutional jurisprudence attempted to define away rather than confront jurisdictional conflicts. Instead of developing a set of rules that sorted out which claim prevailed when jurisdictions overlapped, most constitutional interpreters most of the time assumed that there could only be one, true claim to legislate. In the absence of something like a supremacy or paramountcy clause, jurists had to discover (or create) bright-line boundaries that separated different constitutional categories, drill down to the “pith and substance” of a given piece of legislation, and then determine into which “watertight compartment” of legislative competence – federal or provincial – it fit.24 The delegates to the Quebec Conference seem to have been more down-to-earth about the real world of policy-making in a federation. They did not assume that jurisdiction could be sorted out so neatly and, as a result, they did not participate in the constitutional fiction of pretending that each level of government should have “exclusive” jurisdiction over a long list of subjects. They seem to have assumed, on the contrary, that conflict would be a fact of life in a federation and that it was important, therefore, to have a constitutional rule to settle conflicts. In fairness, the supremacy rule did not disappear entirely. It appears in the British North America Act, 1867 in a much scaled down version

294

v i p ond, krikorian, and c ameron

as a means to settle conflicts in the areas of agriculture and immigration – the only truly concurrent areas of jurisdiction established by the British North America Act, 1867. But the expectation that both federal and provincial governments would often have legitimate claims to legislate, that no one government had an exclusive claim to act in most jurisdictional fields, and that different national and provincial priorities might therefore produce conflict –was largely abandoned on the journey from Quebec to London. A paramountcy doctrine that does the work that Resolution 45 would have done was eventually developed by the courts, but it took them a good seventy-five years to develop it.25 conclus i o n What, in sum, was lost between the cup of the Quebec Resolutions and the lip of the British North America Act, 1867? Quite a lot, in fact. What we have wanted to suggest is that the Quebec Conference created a constitutional grammar for talking about politics in Canada that was richer (because it took principles of justice seriously), more flexible (because it was attuned to the need to apply principles in context), more democratically engaged (because it put the best interests of the people and their legislatures first), and more realistic (because it recognized that federalism would produce conflicts and so needed rules to resolve them) – richer, more flexible, more democratically engaged, and more realistic than the British North America Act, 1867. Imagine how different our politics might have been had these constitutional words been embedded in our country’s political lexicon from the beginning. It is, perhaps, not too late to recover that language and to imagine the Canadian community afresh. notes 1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983). 2 A good example is Bruce Ryder’s chapter on the Canadian “constitutional imaginary” in this volume. Other examples include Samuel LaSelva, The Moral Foundations of Canadian Federalism: Paradoxes, Achievements, and Tragedies of Nationhood (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996), especially chapter 5; Jeremy Webber, Reimagining Canada: Language, Culture, Community, and the Canadian Constitution (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d t he ideas left behind

3 4

5

6

7 8

295

Queen’s University Press, 1994); and Gérard Bouchard, Raison et Déraison: Au Coeur des imaginaires collectifs (Montreal: Boréal, 2014). Christopher Moore, 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997), 213. The metaphor of the “living tree” was coined by Lord Sankey and has, over the years, become a popular interpretive tool of constitutional analysis in Canada. For some examples of the way in which the preamble to the British North America Act, 1867 has been used in this way, see note 8. W.H. Clement, author of one of the first treatises on the Canadian constitution, said explicitly what many other jurists seem to have accepted implicitly when they dismiss or ignore the usefulness of the Quebec Resolutions in illuminating some of the fundamental principles of Canadian constitutionalism. “In the decision of questions strictly legal – as would come before the courts rather than before the legislatures – these resolutions can afford, at all events, at this date, very little assistance, and at the most only in the absence of all light from other parts of the statute … The fact that the B.N.A. Act must be judicially interpreted as expressing the will of the Imperial parliament, rather than of the federating provinces, tends to make it very doubtful how far, if at all, it is proper to refer to these resolutions.” W.H. Clement, The Law of the Canadian Constitution (Toronto: Carswell, 1892), 219–20. For a helpful guide to the approach we are employing, see Desmond King et al., Democratization and American Political Development (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). Donald G. Creighton, The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada, 1863–1867 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1964). Peter Hogg’s classic textbook, Constitutional Law of Canada (Toronto: Carswell, 2007), now in its fifth edition, contains only a handful of references to the Preamble to the Constitution Act, 1982. Most of these references are, in effect, consistent with the Supreme Court’s view that “a preamble, needless to say, has no enacting force but, certainly it can be used to illuminate provisions of the statute in which it appears.” In Re: Resolution to amend the Constitution, [1981] 1 rcs 753 at 805. The status of the Preamble arises as well in the Secession Reference case. Referring to the foundational principles of federalism, democracy, the rule of law and respect for minority rights, the Court notes: “Although these underlying principles are not explicitly made part of the Constitution by any written provision, other than in some respects by the oblique reference in the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867, it would be impossible to conceive of our constitutional structure without them.” Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 rcs 217 at paragraph 51.

296

9

10

11

12

13 14

15 16 17

v i p ond, krikorian, and c ameron

Our reading of the preamble is closer to that of Justice Rand who, in one of the famous implied rights cases of the 1950s, argued that the preamble to the British North America Act, 1867 articulates “a political theory which the Act embodies.” See Switzman v. Elbling, [1957] rcs 285 at 306. This more expansive reading is picked up by Chief Justice Lamer in the Reference Re: Rumuneration of Provincial Judges, [1997] 3 rcs 3 at par. 95. See, for instance, Liav Orgad, “The preamble in Constitutional Interpretation,” International Journal of Constitutional Law, 8, no. 4, (2010), 714–38. See also Tom Ginsburg, “‘We the Peoples’: The Global Origins of Constitutional Preambles,” George Washington International Law Review, 2014. We say “amounts to” because there is no formal preamble to the Quebec Resolutions. That said, the first three resolutions perform the function of a preamble. They provide the context and outline the basic architecture of what is to follow. In this respect, they run parallel to the preamble of the British North America Act, 1867. See British North America Act, 1867, section 92(14): “The Administration of Justice in the Province, including the Constitution, Maintenance, and Organization of Provincial Courts.” Imperial priorities continued to shape Canadian constitutional politics well after Confederation. See Jacqueline D. Krikorian, “Imperial Politics and Canadian Judicial Independence,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 33, no. 2 (2000), 291–332. Alexander Galt, Proceedings of the Quebec Conference, 22 October 1864. National Archives of Canada, mg 26, Series A1 (a), vol. 46, 17980. On principles and the differences between principles, rules, and other legal ideas, see Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1978). G. Browne, Documents on the Confederation of British North America (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1969), 63. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, #78. National Archives of Canada, mg 26, vol. 53. The first version, which includes all seventy-two resolutions, appears to be a compilation of the resolutions that had been agreed to, session by session. It is undated but contains the resolutions in the order and with the wording in which they were debated and accepted. The second version, also undated, must have been produced after the final session but before the resolutions were accepted as a whole. It contains, in addition to Macdonald’s change of order, various edits including, for instance, changes to nomenclature (e.g., Legislative Assembly is changed to House of Commons). The first version is simply entitled Resolutions (mg 26, vol 53, Series A 1 (a), p 21313–17. The second version (with

t h e q u e b e c r e s o l u t i o n s a n d t he ideas left behind

18

19 20

21 22

23

24

25

297

Macdonald’s annotations) bears the same title. It can be found at mg 26, vol. 53, Series A 1 (a), p 18142–55. For scholarly appraisals of the concentration of power in the executive, see (among others) Donald J. Savoie, Governing from the Centre: The Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); Graham White, Cabinets and Prime Ministers (Vancouver: ubc Press, 2005); and Graham White, “The ‘Centre’ of the Democratic Deficit: Power and Influence in Canadian Political Executives,” in Imperfect Democracies: The Democratic Deficit in Canada and the United States, ed. Patti Tamara Lenard and Richard Simeon (Vancouver: ubc Press, 2012), 226–47. For a strong journalistic account, see Jeffrey Simpson, The Friendly Dictatorship (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1991). John Porter, The Vertical Mosaic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 366. See, for instance, John Ralston Saul, Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin (Toronto: Penguin, 2010); Janet Ajzenstat, The Canadian Founding: John Locke and Parliament (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007). See also Janet Ajzenstat, Paul Romney, Ian Gentles, and William D. Gairdner, Canada’s Founding Debates (Toronto: Stoddart, 1999). The French version of this text is Janet Ajzenstat et al., Débats sur la fondation du Canada, French edition prepared and enriched by Stéphane Kelly and Guy Laforest (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2004). Reference re Secession of Quebec, at para. 62. A variant on Porter’s argument is what one might call the “pragmatism” defence. For better or worse, it is often argued, the Fathers of Confederation were pragmatic politicians interested in getting things done, not political theorists interested in “big ideas.” Janet Ajzenstat provides a useful compendium of these views in The Canadian Founding, 3, note 1. There were, in fact, a total of seventy-two resolutions, but since the final resolution is essentially procedural rather than substantive in nature we have not counted it as a bookend. See Robert Vipond, Liberty and Community: Canadian Federalism and the Failure of the Constitution (Albany: suny Press, 1991), chapters 5 and 6; R.C.B. Risk and Robert Vipond, “Rights Talk in Canada in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Good Sense and Right Feeling of the People,” Law and History Review 14 (1996), 1–32. The rule governing jurisdictional conflicts (Resolution 45) should not be confused with the federal veto power of disallowance (Resolution 51). They are different in two important respects. First, where the supremacy or paramountcy provision is aimed at jurisdictional conflicts, the power of

298

v i p ond, krikorian, and c ameron

disallowance was open-ended. It could be used (and occasionally was used post-Confederation) to strike down provincial legislation that was intra vires the provincial legislature but offensive on other grounds. Second, the disallowance power came equipped with a clear process; it was to be exercised by the governor general (in Council) within one year of a provincial bill’s passage. The supremacy provision of Resolution 45 provided no enforcement mechanism. Ultimately, as noted in the text, this function was taken on by the courts. On the rise and fall of disallowance, see Vipond, Liberty and Community, chaps. 3 and 5.

Principles of the 1864 Quebec Conference, Imperial Context, and Historians Joseph Royal and Alfred Duclos De Celles claude couture

introdu c t i o n The Quebec Conference, in the seventy-two resolutions, laid down some of the most important groundwork for what was to become the British North America Act (bna Act), to a greater degree than the Charlottetown or London conferences. For example, paragraphs 43.6 and 46 of the 72 resolutions, reformulated as sections 93 and 133 of the bna Act, represent, according to Samuel LaSelva,1 the moral foundation of Canadian federalism. Focusing on key events in Canadian political history, LaSelva, in a book published in 1996, analyzes the moral foundations of Canada’s federal system and the impact of its principles up to the 1980s and 1990s, a troubled period from a constitutional point of view because of the debates surrounding the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords. In particular, he examines the ideals, arguments, and rhetoric used in debates on crucial events in Canadian federalism – including Confederation, the patriation of the Constitution, Meech Lake, and Charlottetown – and compares them with the moral and political philosophy underlying the Canadian system. In his view these moral foundations were, in fact, forgotten, leading to grave consequences in the 1990s. Inspired by the work of Charles Taylor and his concept of “deep diversity,”2 LaSelva emphasizes that Canadian federalism is based on the vision of a nation in which multiple identities and national loyalties can blossom within the framework of a shared political nationality.3 For the French Canadians of the past, support for a federal system was a way

300

claude couture

to become part of a new nationality while proclaiming their national difference. LaSelva points out that this dualist belief has affected not only our understanding of the Canadian identity, but also a range of fundamental concepts, including fraternity, justice, democracy, and federalism itself.4 He proposes a convincing re-examination of Confederation and, in particular, of the central role played by George-Étienne Cartier, one of its founding fathers, through both its implementation and the creation of a typically Canadian federalist theory.5 This article looks at Cartier’s vision, based on diversity, and its influence on historians, in particular in the work of two historians who lived through the years in which the federation emerged, Joseph Royal and Alfred Duclos De Celles. If LaSelva is right, an important dimension of French Canada, as exemplified by Cartier, was a belief in national diversity as a guarantee for stability and prosperity. In Cartier’s view, the conscious decision to become a national minority in the multinational political system embodied in federal structures was, far from being a capitulation, an extremely important foundation of the Canadian federal system, but one that was quickly forgotten, in fact immediately after 1867, by the British majority. Why? I believe that the answer lies not in a specific cause, but in the imperial context of the period, an aspect that is seldom discussed and that I will address briefly in the last part of this article. First, however, I will look at how Cartier’s vision was expressed by two of his contemporaries: Joseph Royal and Alfred D. Decelles. joseph roya l According to LaSelva, “Against Durham, Cartier insisted that diversity of race always exists because dissimilarity … appears to be the order of the physical world and of the moral world, as well as in the political world.”6 Cartier himself said about Great Britain: “The question of race has been discussed at length in connection with this great confederation. If we look today at England, we see how with the union of three kingdoms by legislative means, there still exists different religions and nationalities.”7 This recognition of diversity was, according to LaSelva’s interpretation of Cartier, Canada’s moral foundation. In several key speeches, Cartier reaffirmed this principle, which constituted a kind of refusal of unicity.8 Many, if not most French Canadians supported this vision, even though sometimes confronted with the failure of its application. One such man was Joseph Royal.

h i s to r i a n s roya l a n d d u c l o s de celles

301

Joseph Royal is of particular interest to me given the important, although controversial role, he played in Western Canada. He was born on 7 May 1837 in Repentigny,9 Lower Canada, in modest family circumstances. From 1850 to 1854, Royal studied with the Sulpicians and then at the Sainte-Marie College under the direction of the Jesuits. Throughout his time as a student he was influenced by the ultramontane movement, and acquired a deep conviction that the teachings of the Church should be an integral part of both public and private life. As a young lawyer in 1857, Royal articled in the office of GeorgeÉtienne Cartier. His loyalty to the Conservative party never wavered. As a journalist, Royal was resolutely conservative and Catholic. In an article about the political career of Sir Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, Royal strongly criticized the leaders of the 1837–38 rebellions and praised the more moderate choices made by LaFontaine in the 1840s. After helping to found the newspaper L’Ordre, Royal was also involved in the creation and editorial policy of Le Nouveau Monde, also staunchly ultramontane.10 In 1869, an event in Western Canada caused a dramatic change of course in Royal’s professional career. The Métis in the colony of Red River (Manitoba), led by Louis Riel, rebelled to uphold what they considered to be their rights in a part of the northwest recently acquired by Canada. Royal’s newspaper, Le Nouveau Monde, doubtless through its links with the ultramontane bishop of Saint-Boniface, Alexandre-Antonin Taché, published several letters and articles expressing the position of the Métis and of Louis Riel.11 A few months later, in the summer of 1870, Monsignor Taché travelled to Montreal and recruited Royal, who felt called by the discovery of the Northwest Territories. Royal was already convinced that the Métis cause was just, and went on to spend most of the next twenty years of his life in the West, during which he was extraordinarily active.12 In 1871, he created the newspaper Le Métis in Saint-Boniface, along with a print shop, bookstore, and legal practice. Also in 1871, he became the first president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Saint-Boniface. The same year, he was elected Speaker of the Assembly of the province of Manitoba, and later held other positions, including attorney general, provincial secretary, Minister of Public Works, etc. As his influence extended, he was appointed as the first superintendent of Manitoba’s Catholic schools in 1871–72, and he also played an important role on the board of directors of the Société de colonisation du Manitoba (dedicated to the settlement of the West by

302

claude couture

French-speakers). From 1877 to 1887 he was the first vice-chancellor of the University of Manitoba.13 Despite his best efforts, Royal was unable to prevent French influence in Manitoba from rapidly eroding during the 1870s. In Royal’s view, the French Canadians and French-speaking Métis should have formed a strong block, but this alliance was constantly under threat. A majority of immigrants were English-speakers, leading to a quick decline in the number of French-speakers as a percentage of the province’s population. The Métis and French Canadians did not always agree. In particular, the Métis accused the French Canadians of failing to understand their specific demands. Royal ensured that the promises made to the Métis at the time of the Manitoba Act were kept, in particular those concerning forest concessions. He never stopped calling for an amnesty for the participants in the 1869–70 rebellion, and defended Ambroise Lépine in court after he was accused in 1874 of murdering Thomas Scott. The jury of six French-speaking and six Englishspeaking members found Lépine guilty, but made a recommendation of mercy. Judge Edmund Burke Wood, however, sentenced Lépine to death by hanging. Governor General Lord Dufferin, a future viceroy of India, commuted the sentence to a prison sentence of two years. Then, in 1875, Lépine and Louis Riel were offered an amnesty in return for a five-year banishment from Canada. Lépine refused and spent two years in prison, while Riel opted for exile. During this whole period, Royal publicly displayed his support for the Métis, but in private he was wary of too much general mobilization and the radicalism of certain key figures, including Riel.14 Royal’s political career in Manitoba symbolizes perfectly the failure of the principles underlying the seventy-two resolutions made at the Quebec Conference, in particular paragraphs 43.6 and 46, the basis for the future sections 93 and 133 of the bna Act. At the provincial level, in 1879, Royal had to resign from the cabinet of John Norquay after French-speakers were placed in a political minority.15 He was elected as a federal mp in 1882 and re-elected in 1887, and was therefore a Conservative mp in 1885 when the second Métis uprising occurred. Although sympathetic to the Métis cause, he could not intervene and said nothing in Parliament. He was severely criticized for his silence.16 When a wave of sympathy for Riel swept Quebec in the fall of 1885, Royal, at the request of Monsignor Taché, actually spoke against the movement in Parliament. Last, in 1888, as a reward for his loyal ultramontane and conservative services, Royal was ap-

h i s to r i a n s roya l a n d d u c l o s de celles

303

pointed lieutenant-governor of the North-West Territories. Once again, despite his high office, Royal was unable to prevent the use of French from being abolished in the territorial assembly. In 1889, he gave in to pressure from the English-speaking majority and did nothing in 1890 to prevent Ottawa granting the assembly the right to choose a single language for its debates – which was obviously English.17 Royal’s term as lieutenant-governor of the North-West Territories ended in 1893. He hoped to be appointed to the Senate, but Monsignor Taché, whom Royal had always served faithfully, put someone else’s name forward. A humiliated Royal returned to Montreal where, after working for a time at La Minerve, he died in 1902. Ten years before his death he had been elected to the Royal Society of Canada, an honour that did something to assuage his bitterness.18 His book Histoire du Canada de 1841 à 1867 was published posthumously in 1909. However, in 1894 he had published a short but far more incisive essay that reflected his disappointment but also his unshakeable attachment to the principles established in 1864 at the Quebec Conference.19 For example, Royal asks: “What is a nation?”20 and replies: “A nation may comprise within its pale several different languages and religions without any diminution of its unity.”21 He continues: In spite of the lapse of ages, England, France, Austria, Russia, never succeeded in fusing completely the races and tongues that went to the making of those powers … History shows that the nations thus formed are among the pose prosperous, the most long-lived and the most energetic, and that if a country vaunts itself (like Italy, for example) of the purity of its race, it is clear that the absence of new blood is most often the cause of weakness in social and political development.22

A little further on he asks, “Now, if we apply to Canada the test of our definition can we claim that there is such a thing as a Canadian Nation?”23 and replies, “Like Australia, like the neighboring republic, Canada is a British colony to which the Mother Country has sent its swarms of emigrants, lent its capital, and communicated its form of government. But it also differs from those communities in some essential respects and presents peculiar characteristics found in neither of them.”24 In Royal’s view, “Canada is a federation of States distinguished from each other by diversity of customs, traditions and social development, and by difference of origin, of religion and in some cases

304

claude couture

of language. From this diversity arise the rigid necessities of a mixed society. The very essence and logical source of this federal régime are found in the respect and protection guaranteed by all the members of it to the religion and national rights or each provincial unit.”25 He specifies: “Thus the act of 1867 decreed that the laws of the federal Parliament should be printed in both languages, French and English, and that the separate school system should be continued in the two Canadas, – this provision being affirmed by an organic clause.”26 Only to add: “Alas, the Protestant majority in 186427 refused to go further and the Catholic minorities of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were left at the mercy of the generosity or the fanaticism of their respective majorities.”28 He also notes that “Neither Mr. Goldwin Smith nor Mr. D’Alton McCarthy shows any deep ethnological knowledge when, settling the future destinies of Canada, they announce their intention of eliminating one of its nationalities because it mars the general uniformity. On the contrary it is this very diversity in unity which constitutes the Beauty, the strength and the distinct physiognomy of the Canadian Confederation.”29 The moral strength of 1867, forged at the Quebec Conference of 1864, is also described by other authors; the second example I would like to present is that of Alfred De Celles. alfred duclos d e c e l l e s Alfred Duclos De Celles was born on 8 August 1843 in Saint-Laurent, Lower Canada. He died on 5 October 1925 in Ottawa.30 After distinguishing himself in his studies, De Celles began a career as a journalist on 18 February1867 at Le Journal de Québec. Like Royal, in addition to working in journalism, De Celles studied law at Laval University and was called to the bar on 12 July 1873.31 At the same time, as a conservative, he followed the same path as Royal and joined the staff of La Minerve. A few years later he obtained a prestigious position as assistant librarian at the Parliamentary Library in Ottawa, replacing Antoine Gérin-Lajoie.32 In 1884, the death of Alpheus Todd, the parliamentary librarian, triggered a crisis as groups of French conservative and English-speaking mps vied to have their own candidate appointed. As a compromise solution, two positions were opened, one for Alfred De Celles and the other for Martin Joseph Griffin.33 Although De Celles was a Conservative, his position did not change when Liberal Wilfrid Laurier took power. On the contrary, he got on

h i s to r i a n s roya l a n d d u c l o s de celles

305

well with Laurier, and published some of his speeches a few years later. In 1897, he was one of Canada’s delegates to the International Library Conference in London.34 He was also an active member in various cultural organizations, including Le Cercle des Dix, a body that discussed history, literature, science, and geography.35 De Celles was a prolific writer, and is probably best known for his historical work Les États-Unis: origine, institutions, développement,36 published in 1896, which earned him the prize of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in Paris.37 He also penned some important biographies, of Louis-Joseph Papineau and Sir George-Étienne Cartier, for the series Makers of Canada, published in 1910 by George Nathaniel Morang.38 He was involved in other prestigious projects, including Canada and Its Provinces and Chronicles of Canada.39 He published a highly eulogistic biography of LaFontaine40 and, as mentioned above, the collected speeches of Laurier41 just before his death in 1925. In his biography of Cartier, De Celles writes: Cartier’s colleagues, responsible at the Quebec Conference for drafting a union project acceptable to all, set to work with a light heart, since their provinces had nothing to lose in the enlarged sphere in which they would henceforth live. The position of the French Canadians was entirely different. They risked finding themselves, in the new order, at the mercy of the majority, generous and liberal at present, but soon to become oppressive and persecutory.42

Concerning the role played by Cartier, in particular at the Quebec Conference, De Celles notes: For most people, a single parliament would meet the country’s administrative and economic requirements. Cartier believed otherwise, and did not hide his unshakeable opposition to a legislative union. From his point of view, the new state had to be organized on the basis of a federative regime in order to leave each group with autonomy over the matters essential to its provincial existence … After long discussions, the majority, faced with Cartier’s determination, finally rallied to his proposal, so that it is possible to state that although the idea of uniting the English provinces was not his alone, the shape to be given the government can be traced to him.43

306

claude couture

In 1918, in a short essay, Les constitutions du Canada,44 De Celles had already advanced the same idea about Cartier’s role, in particular at the Quebec Conference, and the “dualist” nature of the 1867 foundation. In this essay, De Celle, like Royal, remained extremely conservative and prudent, and wrote with great emotion: Cartier, who was on a trip, forty years ago, near Toronto, noted the anxiety of the farmers when they saw him wherever he went. Doffing his hat one day before a worried group, he said in his habitually brusque way, “As you can see, I have no horns; if I had time to remove my boots, you would see that my feet are not cloven.” In the end we were seen more as what we were. However, we would still not say that all eyes have been opened there; alas, in recent years, contagious feelings toward us have again emerged, and no-one dares to apply an anti-septic. We had an opportunity, in Ottawa in 1893, to see an unforgettable spectacle. All of Canada’s liberal centres were represented by their delegates in the capital under the presidency of their leader, Mr. Laurier. In the streets one met only long streams of politicians from Ontario and the Maritimes. The Anglo-Saxon race was in full bloom. What astonished and dazzled us and filled our hearts with pleasure was that, taking into account their former prejudice and racial antipathy, all these French-haters bore on their chest the portrait of a French Canadian, our compatriot Mr. Laurier. And among them there were certainly the sons of those who, in 1840, demanded the disappearance of the French Canadians. This simple fact took on, in our eyes, the proportions of a national rehabilitation. What progress since Cartier’s trip.

In short, as described by two different authors and, especially in the case of Royal, two key conservative actors from the period 1867–1920, the ideal behind the moral foundation of the Quebec Conference, to use the expression coined by LaSelva, was under threat only a few years after 1867, despite the leading political roles played by individuals such as Cartier, Royal, and Laurier. How can the “tragic” aspect of this “neglect,” to use another of LaSelva’s expressions, of the moral foundations of Canadian federalism be explained?

h i s to r i a n s roya l a n d d u c l o s de celles

307

the imperia l c o n t e x t Cartier’s vision has been called a “small lottery”45 by some and an “impotent thought”46 by others, and in general the French-Canadian leadership at the time of the Quebec Conference has been assessed quite harshly. In contrast, another author, Eve Haque, instead of seeing the federal institutions and the notion of French/English bilingualism as signs of the French Canadians’ capitulation, recently interpreted the principle as a French/English colonial heritage founded on a hierarchy of cultures in Canada. In Haque’s view, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism of the 1960s introduced the principle of a hierarchy of cultures: for dominant colonial cultures, language is important for preserving culture, whereas for all other cultures, language is not important.47 In international French-language studies, the French colonial imaginary has been widely discussed, constantly, but inaccurately, presented as a “more human” form of colonialism than the British version, especially after the violent Indian mutiny of 1857–58, which occurred barely seven years before the Quebec Conference.48 In the paradigm of post-colonial studies of the French-speaking world, published in English, Quebec is simply a reproduction of France49 with a tendency to present itself as morally superior. 50 Once again, in this literature, today’s official bilingualism is only a vestige of an equal French/ English colonialism. In fact, reading the works of Cartier, Royal, or De Celles, it is clear that these nineteenth-century “Canadians” paid no attention to French colonialism at the time, doubtless because they were entirely captivated by the British universe and their place within it as a colony. In one sense, at least from this angle, their position reflects a “break” with France and also, automatically, a “break” with the dominant feature of British colonial culture at the time, then at its zenith – the sentiment, widely shared by the elite in Great Britain, whether liberal, utilitarist, or to a lesser extent, conservative, of their own cultural and moral superiority.51 This points to a need to explore the context of the period 1850–1920 more thoroughly to see how small a chance the “Canadian” ideal of diversity as the moral foundation of Canadian federalism had of being heard, and to see how the belief of Cartier, Étienne Parent, and other contemporaries in the harmonious development of French Canada within the British system neglected that key feature

308

claude couture

of the British imperial system, inseparable from the English language and Protestant religion. As I mentioned in another text written with David Chandonnet,52 understanding this period means, from a francophone perspective, addressing more adequately the worldwide colonial order in which Canada held a non-central place. India was the fundamental component in the nineteenth-century British Empire, as it had been since 1757. Everything the British did in India over a period of two centuries came to colour their management of the rest of the Empire, including Canada. As Chandonnet and I point out, the British colonial order in Canada cannot be interpreted without looking more closely at the English-speaking, Protestant community scattered around the globe during the nineteenth century and characterized by a vivid collective belief in cultural superiority and domination. The British Empire in the nineteenth century, as the most powerful of all the western colonial empires, acted as a barometer for the advent of modernity, in the sense that the British intellectuals at this turning point each helped define modernity and saw it, almost unanimously, as an important “national” trait.53 Prominent among these intellectuals were James Mill and his son, John Stuart Mill. As examples of relevant material reflections of an imaginary community, some books by James Mill and John Stuart Mill were reprinted every year after they were first published, even up to the present day. Books such as History of British India54 by James Mill, first published in 1818, and Elements of Political Economy,55 published in 1821, were on the reading lists for students at Cambridge and Oxford for over a century. In La formation du radicalisme philosophique,56 a book by Elie Halévy published in France in 1901, which was a key reference for Eric Stokes in his book The English Utilitarians and India57 half a century later (1959), Jeremy Bentham and James Mill are described as the originators of an authoritarian radicalism, another important aspect of British colonial thought in the nineteenth century. India, or more specifically the relationship between the British and the Indian sub-continent that began in 1757, was therefore at the heart of the development and, especially, the representation of “modernity.” Scottish-born James Mill, after several unsuccessful careers, suddenly achieved fame when his History of British India58 was published in 1818. Shortly after, Mill became a bureaucrat in the office of the East India Company in London, India House, and then director of the department of the examiner of Indian correspondence59

h i s to r i a n s roya l a n d d u c l o s de celles

309

until his death in 1836. The East India Company was founded in 1600, and after Clive’s victory over the French at Plassey in 1757, the company became extremely powerful thanks to its possessions in India. After 1757 the company essentially administered Bengal; at first it was given responsibility for collecting taxes, and then it simply took the place of the local authorities.60 During the first decades of its administration of Bengal, the corruption of the company’s officers, who were systematically underpaid but free to receive “gifts” from the Indian elite, and a general lack of efficiency in commercial matters, were compensated by the colossal amounts collected as taxes from peasants and tradesmen. Later, profits were generated from the sale of Indiangrown opium to the Chinese and the sale of textiles and saltpetre, but only after certain measures taken by the British had destroyed Indian competition61 in these areas. Last, the Regulating Act of 1773, the socalled Pitt’s India Act of 1784 and the changes made by Lord Cornwallis to the governance of the East India Company in 1786 and to its justice system in 1793 in the Cornwallis Code, created the framework for colonization by a private company under strict state supervision until 1858. The company’s commercial inefficiency, basically reduced since the 1830s to tax collection, combined with the horrors of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, led the British government to take direct control of operations in India in 1858. This was the context in which the Mills, father and son, worked and in fact earned their living as employees of the company at India House in London. The relationship with India, even at a distance, imbued their thoughts and the concepts they went on to develop even though, in the case of John Stuart Mill, his Autobiography62 remains extremely discreet about the thirty-five years he spent at India House. Both men had a profound influence on the company’s policies during the nineteenth century. It is possible to distinguish four major periods in the evolution of the British administration of India from 1757 to 1947, matching the four main periods of the British Empire during the same years. In the first period, from 1757 to 1806, there was some indignation in London about the military and financial growth of the East India Company in Bengal. Charles James Fox, leader of the Whig party, and Edmund Burke, a member of the same party and a famous author, went so far as to table a motion in the British Parliament in 1788 to impeach Warren Hastings, the Company’s governor in India. Two problems were raised: corruption, reflected in the fact that Hastings

310

claude couture

had amassed an immense private fortune, like his predecessor Lord Clive; second, the sovereignty of a foreign state. The investigation was heard over a period of seven years and finally, in 1795, Hastings was acquitted.63 It is important to note that Hastings showed deep respect for the complexity of Indian culture, and even ensured that the East India Company applied Indian laws and customs in India. Although enemies, Hastings and Burke shared an admiration for Indian culture, even though that admiration was gradually declining in the late eighteenth century. Under Lord Cornwallis, a legal system was put in place, in particular in the Cornwallis Code of 1793, which promoted a racebased social hierarchy dominated by the British.64 As the eighteenth century drew to a close, the sympathy and respect shown by Burke and Hastings for Indian culture had practically disappeared. The death of Charles Fox in 1806 led to a realignment of the Whig party on positions that were less conciliatory, especially toward India. Between 1806 and 1834, the second period of governance, a degree of respect for India’s ancient culture and complexity was replaced at the turn of the nineteenth century by deep-seated hostility. The British declared themselves morally outraged by practices such as sati,65 the immolation of a widow by fire, as well as child slavery, organized corruption, etc., and developed an extremely powerful sense of cultural superiority. James Mill’s History of British India had an enormous influence in consolidating this perception. Mill severely criticized the orientalists in India, by which he meant erudites who had studied several Indian languages and developed a strong admiration for Indian culture. Mill was especially critical of Sir William Jones, an orientalist who had held a judicial position in Calcutta, for his overly conciliatory approach to an inferior culture. For James Mill, only an authoritarian, enlightened British bureaucracy could lead the Indian masses out of their backward existence and replace the corrupt elite classes.66 This second approach and period of development in the British Raj also saw the emergence of a discourse based on the idea of the precocious and advanced modernity of Anglo-Protestant culture compared with the rest of Europe. The relationship with India was a determining element in the definition of this superior modernity, sometimes to the detriment of a serious analysis of the actual achievements of the Empire from an economic point of view.67 The third period, from 1835 to 1858, began with the reforms made by Sir Thomas Macaulay, a friend of Lord Durham, in the 1830s, in particular in the field of education. The idea of creating a middle class

h i s to r i a n s roya l a n d d u c l o s de celles

311

of Indian bureaucrats to act as intermediaries between the administrative elite of the East India Company and the Indian masses, described as superstitious and backward, matched the ideas of John Stuart Mill on indirect governance via an anglicized Indian class.68 According to Lynn Zastoupil, an analysis of the brief submitted by Mill69 when the East India Company was closed down in 1858 shows quite clearly his attachment to the “enlightened” bureaucracy of the East India Company and his firm belief that only this bureaucracy was able to govern Indian and introduce progress.70 However, this period ended in catastrophe, despite the presence of this “enlightened bureaucracy.” The great mutiny of 1857,71 exactly one century after Clive’s victory, combined with the fact that the East India Company, under its new 1833 charter, was more closely supervised by the British state, precipitated its closure and the transfer of its powers in India to the British Crown. The fourth period lasted from 1858 to 1947, or almost one century, during which a stable approach to India and the Empire was applied. This was also a period of territorial expansion, especially in Africa; commercial expansion, especially in China; and intensive emigration, as 15 million Britons left the British Isles to settle on other continents. After the mutiny in 1857, the British were less inclined to be tolerant. Their belief that they were dealing with backward barbarians was almost unanimous, except in the case of reformers such as Alfred Zimmern and John Buchan,72 who dreamed of a multicultural empire where each culture would be treated with more respect. During this period, intellectuals and civil servants, in particular those connected with the liberal or utilitarian movements, or sometimes both, played a key role in defining the empire’s policies and role. One such intellectual was James Fitzjames Stephen (1829–1894). Stephen’s father had been Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, a post later held by Lord Acton. Stephen himself studied at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.73 He was Virginia Woolf ’s uncle. After graduating from Cambridge, he practised law and journalism and contributed to a number of magazines, including the Saturday Review, founded in 1855. The circle of intellectuals he frequented included Sir Henry Maine, his former professor at Cambridge, and Goldwin Smith, who later played an important intellectual role in Canada,74 in particular following the publication of his Canada and the Canadian Question75 in 1891. After being recommended by his friend Henry Maine, Stephen accepted the post of legal advisor to the British viceroy in India. He spent two and a half years in India

312

claude couture

and was responsible for a major codification of British and Indian law, a task undertaken by his predecessor Maine,76 who himself had written some important works and the classic Village-Communities in the East and the West.77 This book by Maine had a deep influence on the British intellectual community and, in later years, on the social “sciences.” According to Ronald Inden,78 Maine expressed the reductive vision of India held by western intellectuals more effectively than anyone else. In Maine’s view, the Indian village was set in time and constituted a relic from the past. In addition, the essence of the Indian village was its collective identity, a trait that showed the lower stage of development reached by India, or any comparable society, compared with Victorian Britain, where society was based on the rights of individual owners. Stephen’s work in India led to the publication, in 1873, of an essay criticizing John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty of 1859. In his book, mockingly entitled Liberty, Fraternity, Equality,79 Stephen defined himself as a disciple of Bentham and Hobbes and accused John Stuart Mill of abandoning the principles of utilitarianism because of a lack of critical perspective on the principles of the French Revolution. Stephen believed that the human condition was too complex to be reduced to a simple principle of liberty, and that Mill’s new principles would lead to anarchy. Stephen was also convinced that only an authoritarian power could channel the complexity of the human condition. Concerning India, Stephen did not believe that its population would ever be able to govern itself in a modern manner, even with access to education, and that an authoritarian presence should be considered both indispensable and permanent.80 This authoritarian approach appears to have characterized the Empire from 1858 until it disappeared in the mid-twentieth century, whether in its treatment of India, its policy of expansion in Africa and treatment of the African population, or even the imitative way in which White dominions, such as Canada or Australia, treated their Indigenous populations. Of course, some conservatives in Great Britain had opposed slavery, for moral reasons, from the end of the eighteenth century, but this does not obscure the brutality of the British administration around the world, especially after 1858. Similarly, the way in which the moral foundations of Canadian federalism were improperly interpreted by numerous British Canadians after 1867 could be added to this list. For example, the idea of cultural diversity as expressed by Cartier and Royal had little chance of being

h i s to r i a n s roya l a n d d u c l o s de celles

313

heard at a time when the British Empire was at its peak and an imperial culture based on an unshakeable feeling of ethnic and cultural superiority was being developed. concl u s i o n Within the cultural web of the British Empire described by historians of the “new imperial history,”81 Canada was a relatively unimportant element, but one that was strongly infused with imperial and Victorian influences. Taking a broad view of the history of the Empire and of Canada, several ideas founded on the principle of cultural superiority, not only over the peoples of Asia or Africa but also over other Europeans, were defended by nineteenth-century British liberals and utilitarians (let us not forget that influential figures such as James Fitzjames Stephen, despite his criticism of On Liberty, were Liberal party supporters).82 In contrast, some conservatives, following Burke, appeared more concerned with maintaining an approach based less on so-called progress and more on respect for other cultures, such as, paradoxically, certain Canadian conservative imperialists of the later nineteenth century in Canada.83 When we look at the administration of India, whether through the writing of James Mill or the brief presented by John Stuart Mill in 1858,84 or at the legal reforms of Stephen and his political publications, it appears that this curious mixture of utilitarian and liberal ideas was characterized by a hierarchical conception of cultures, an authoritarian tendency, and an abstract representation of rights, regardless of whether they were defined as natural rights or, in a utilitarian fashion, measured in terms of general material well-being, clearly disconnected from any specific context. This strange combination of ideas was, of course, found throughout the web of empire, including Canada. Conservatives such as Cartier, despite being involved at the same time in Canada’s material “progress,” in particular through their railway interests, directly or indirectly took up the tradition of criticizing “progress” launched by Edmund Burke through the defence of and respect for communities. At the precise time when they attempted to apply this vision of diversity and refusal of “racial” unity, their chance of success was low given the weight of the Empire’s cultural network, dominated by one fundamental idea: the almost ethnic monopolization of modernity and “progress” by an English-speaking, largely Protestant group.

314

claude couture

notes 1 Samuel LaSelva, The Moral Foundations of Canadian Federalism: Paradoxes, Achievements and Tragedies of Nationhood (Montreal & Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1996). 2 Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 3 LaSelva, Moral Foundations, 8. 4 Ibid., 12. 5 Ibid., 20. 6 Ibid., 40. 7 Sir George-Étienne Cartier, in Joseph Tassé, Discours de Sir Georges Cartier (Montreal: Sénécal et fils, 1893), 406 (speech delivered 29 October 1864). 8 Ibid. 9 A.I. Silver, “Royal, Joseph,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed 1 August 2014, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/royal_joseph_13E.html 10 Ibid. 11 Robert Painchaud, Un rêve français dans le peuplement de la Prairie (SaintBoniface: Éditions des Plaines, 1986). 12 Silver, “Royal, Joseph.” 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Painchaud, Un rêve français, 232. 17 Silver. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Joseph Royal, A Republic or a Colony? Some Remarks on the Present Crisis (Montreal: Sénécal et Fils, 1894), 19. 21 Ibid., 26. 22 Ibid., 28–9. 23 Ibid., 31. 24 Ibid., 32. 25 Ibid., 81. 26 Ibid., 82. 27 The Quebec Conference. 28 Royal, A Republic or a Colony? 81–2. 29 Ibid., 37. 30 Fernande Roy, “Duclos De Celles, Alfred,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography,

h i s to r i a n s roya l a n d d u c l o s de celles

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50 51

52

315

vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed 3 August 2014, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/duclos_de_celles_ alfred_15E.html. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Alfred D. De Celles, Les États-Unis: Origine, institutions, développement, 3rd ed. (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1925). Ibid. De Celles, Papineau. Cartier. The Makers of Canada (Toronto: Morang & Co., 1910). See also: Macdonald. Cartier. The Makers of Canada (Toronto: Morang & Co., 1912) and Cartier et son temps (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1925). Roy, “Duclos De Celles, Alfred.” Alfred D. De Celles, La Fontaine et son temps (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1907). Alfred D. De Celles, Discours de Wilfrid Laurier: 1896–1911 (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1920). Alfred D. De Celles, Cartier et son temps (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1925), 85. Ibid., 86. Alfred D. De Celles, Les constitutions du Canada (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1918). Stéphane Kelly, La petite loterie (Montreal: Boréal, 1999). Gérard Bouchard, La Pensée impuissante: Échecs des mythes nationaux canadiensfrançais (Montreal: Boréal, 2004). Eve Haque, Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework: Language Race and Belonging in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012). Nicola Frith, The French Colonial Imagination: Writing the Indian Uprisings, 1857– 1858 (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014). On certain specific aspects of French colonialism, see: Frederick Cooper, Citizenship between Empire and Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014). Charles Forsdick and David Murphy, Postcolonial Thought in the French-Speaking World (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009). See the chapter by Mary Jean Green. From the time of Edmund Burke, a critical conservative view of modernity, based on the defence of traditions and communities, had developed in Great Britain in opposition to the views of the liberals and utilitarists. Claude Couture and David Chandonnet, Vingt ans après Charlottetown: L’ordre libéral au Canada (Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2013). A passage from the book is adapted here for this chapter.

316

claude couture

53 See Claude Couture and Paulin Mulatris, La nation et son double (Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2012). 54 James Mill, History of British India (Atlantic Publishers, 1990) (first edition 1818), volumes 1, 2, and 3. 55 James Mill, Elements of Political Economy (London: H.G. Bohn, 1821). 56 Élie Halévy, La formation du radicalisme philosophique (Paris: F. Alcan, 1901). 57 Eric Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959). 58 James Mill, History of British India. 59 Lynn Zastoupil, John Stuart Mill and India (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994). See the first chapter titled “James Mill and India.” See also Javed Majeed, “James Mill’s The History of British India: A Reevaluation” in J.S. Mill’s Encounter with India, ed. Martin M. Moir, Douglas M. Peers, and Lynn Zaspoutil (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 53–71. 60 Alan Ryan, “Introduction” in J.S. Mill’s Encounter with India, ed. Moir, Peers, and Zaspoutil (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 3–17. 61 Among other things, the East India Company had the power to tax its Indian competitors. 62 John S. Mill, Autobiography (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, & Dyer, 1873). 63 Nicholas Dirks, The Scandal of Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). 64 James Mill, History of British India, 3: 315–425. 65 Lynn Zastoupil, Rammohun Roy and the Making of Victorian Britain (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2010). Sati was a highly controversional issue, and the British used it as an example of Indian barbarity. However, it is important to note that the practice had already been forbidden several centuries earlier by the Mughal emperors Akhbar and Aurangzeb. In addition, the immolation of widows was limited to a few regions and had almost completely disappeared when the British took control in the eighteenth century. However, it re-emerged under British rule, and in the early nineteenth century about 400 suicides or immolations occurred each year. 66 For a more in-depth view of this aspect, see Claude Couture and Paulin Mulatris, La nation et son double (Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2012). 67 Ibid. 68 Zastoupil, John Stuart Mill and India, 190. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, The Great Uprising in India, 1857–58: Untold Stories, Indian and British (Rochester: Boydell & Brewer, 2007).

h i s to r i a n s roya l a n d d u c l o s de celles

317

72 Donald Ipperciel, “Britannicité et multiculturalisme canadien,” Revue internationale d’études canadiennes, 2012, 45–6, 277–306. 73 Frederick Rosen, “Jeremy Bentham on Slavery and the Slave Trade,” in Utilitarianism and Empire, ed. Bart Schultz and Georgios Varouxakis (New York: Lexington Books, 2005). 74 Goldwin Smith (1823–1910) held the prestigious position of Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford from 1858 to 1866. In 1868, he accepted a position at Cornell University, and in 1871, he settled in Toronto. 75 Goldwin Smith, Canada and the Canadian Question (London: McMillan, 1891). 76 Sir Henry Maine had been, among other things, vice-chancellor of the University of Calcutta. 77 Henry Maine, Village-Communities in the East and the West (New York: Arno Press, 1889) (first edition 1871). 78 Inden, Ronald, Imagining India (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990). 79 For a recent edition, see: James Fitzjames Stephen, Liberty, Fraternity, Equality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 80 Rosen, “Eric Stokes, British Utilitarianism and India,” 28–9. 81 Antoinette Burton, The Trouble with Empire: Challenges to Modern British Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 82 Ipperciel, “Britannicité et multiculturalisme canadien,” 301. 83 Rosen, “Eric Stokes, British Utilitarianism and India,” 29. 84 Zastoupil, John Stuart Mill and India, 169.

Representations of Confederation: Research Prospects anne trépanier

The Confederation project in Canada is often presented by its heralds as an unhoped-for opportunity, a momentum in a political situation conducive to a redefinition of the group of ancient and new colonists, or to say it differently, of recent and old subjects of the British Crown. Conjugated on the topos of profit and loss, Confederation was a calculated risk, resulting from the tension between imagined danger, on the one hand, and imagined membership in a great people, on the other. Editorials, speeches in Parliament, and the cartoons reproduced in the newspapers of the time reflected these representations, mirroring the imaginative world of a group of mixed heritage and experiences seeking to redefine itself. The objective of this chapter is to identify the various themes that emerge from a broad-based study of the main cartoon images available to the newspaper readers and future citizens of soon-to-be Canada in the period leading up to Confederation in 1867, taken from a particularly colourful sample of newspapers published in Upper and Lower Canada between 1 December 1865 and 3 July 1867, with a few earlier and later examples. This period marks the beginning of the history of the cartoon in French Canada, and coincides with the peak of the partisan press. In Lower Canada alone, thirty-three different French-language satirical newspapers were published between 1837 and 1890. Historical studies of the press in Canada covering the period 1864– 67 were an important source, and the work of Peter Busby Waite, who unearthed the debates contained in 377 newspapers of the time, cannot be overlooked. The potential readings and interpretations Waite proposes offer many insights into the imagination and self-identity of

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

319

these fledgling Canadians. The analyses of Yvan Lamonde focus on the source material present in the body of the text, giving access to the political colour of the archive, to use the expression coined by Arlette Farge. Both authors, however, opt to look at Canada as it has developed, geographically and ideologically: in isolated pockets. After noting, like many others, that the question of Confederation has been dealt with at two key moments by both English-language and French-language historians, namely at its birth and at its centenary, this project was designed as a way to understand the state of the broader social discourse at the time, now that we can reflect on the 150th anniversary of Confederation. It is not possible to study representations of the future Canada in isolation, whether from a documentary, disciplinary, or regional point of view. The Confederation project, because of its political nature and its impact on the Canadian imagination and identity, crosses all boundaries. This question is relevant because, without taking the risk of seeing the fears and differing projections of Canada collide, a critical and enlightened commemoration of the Canadian Confederation would be invalidated or reduced to a “for or against” approach with a regional, or even ethno-historic, resonance. With its speeches filled with vivid descriptions of reality, its depictions of situations supported by cartoons containing explicit metaphors, the nineteenth century in Canada was an image-filled time. Politicians, priests, and editorialists seized on the figures of a fantastical bestiary to describe an intellectual movement, personify an idea, or animate a debate. For example, Yvan Lamonde selected the following excerpt to present the weapons used by the adversaries of liberalism. In a harangue against Dessaules, the chairman of the Institut canadien de Montréal, Monsignor Bourget had the following announcement read in all his parish churches: “So let us now pray that the abominable monster of rationalism, which has once again raised its hideous head in the Institute and is attempting to spread its venom through a brochure that repeats the same blasphemy as that which resounds in that seat of pestilence, will harm no-one.” The emerging Canada is filled with tension, and dominated by a feeling of peril and calculated risk, in which the questions of nationality, virtue, and unity are personified, the better to celebrate or demolish them. Some caricaturists wielded the editorialist’s pen as skillfully as the engraver’s knife, leading Mira Falardeau and Richard Aird to comment

320

anne trépanier

that “the entire period during which satirical newspapers emerged was marked by the association between leading writers and the first caricaturists.” This chapter deliberately expands the notion of visual representation to include texts with striking literary imagery. Although textual images and cartoons are sometimes symmetrically opposed and interesting to analyze for their own merits, they often support each other and create a broader space for visual representation than when they are considered as belonging to two separate genres. A picture is worth a thousand words, of course, but words can also help create new pictures – and on it goes. Cartoons borrow their structure from a figure of classical rhetoric, namely analogy, redrawing the boundaries of reality, and presenting strong images to the mind’s eye that sometimes suggest new metaphors for editorialists and opinion writers. I will consider our corpus of cartoons as forming part of a broader current, a social discourse feeding into the imagination of a society and defining its boundaries, based on the idea of Marc Angenot that “true censorship is the unthinkable.” This article presents two key themes underlying representations of Canada, as revealed by a large-scale research project currently underway – first as a monstrous aggregate, and second as a story of women and families. the sou rc e s To discover some historical representations of Canada from the years just before Confederation, to highlight the opinions, fears, and dreams that the idea of Canada inspired in “pre-Canadian” society during the nineteenth century, I consulted a range of newspapers contemporary with the Confederation project. The sample of representations of monsters and the figures of women and families comes from a careful examination of texts in the main corpus of newspaper articles and cartoons from the four regions that would unite as the Canadian Confederation. Editorial cartoons were introduced into Canada at an early date, via the British magazine Punch in 1840. They have been studied closely by several authors, but in particular and most recently by Bruce G. Retaalck. Retaalck identifies “graphic shaming” as a feature of the Canadian editorial cartoons inspired by Punch, describing it as a way of reinforcing a group’s hegemony by setting moral codes and hierarchies of gender and ethnicity. We have taken the same approach here, al-

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

321

though my objective is not to decry the political use of racialized or female figures in the cartoons selected, but rather to set the boundaries of what was thinkable at the time. The corpus includes cartoons and illustrations from La Scie, which became La Scie illustrée in 1865; from Le Perroquet; and also from Grinchuckle, Grip, and Punch in Canada; editorials and opinion pieces were culled from Le Pays, Le Canada, Eastern Chronicle and Pictou County Advocate, L’Avenir, Le Défricheur, Le Canada, and The Ottawa Times. My documentary research was primarily guided by the magisterial and successive works of P.B. Waites and Yvan Lamonde; the primary sources were consulted on microfiches in the newspaper archives of Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. In the corpus studied, the image of peril and calculated risk refers back to the theme of unity or rupture in geographical and national, and even identity-based, terms. The idea of Confederation is shown as a whole – the monster – or in parts (heads); the family is shown through its members, opening the way to hierarchies and tensions between husband, wife, and children – and also to female rivalry. transferring fea r to n e w s p r i n t “In North America, we are five different peoples living in five different provinces,” said George-Étienne Cartier in 1865. This definition places national groups on the map of an imaginary Canada, as different in real life as they were in the regional newspapers: the French Canadians, Irish, Scots, English, and First Nations, whether Catholic or Protestant. The range of population groups and interests was expressed in monstrous fashion in several satirical newspapers, but the first political cartoon signed by a French-Canadian artist is certainly La Confédération, published in La Scie on 2 December 1864 (Figure 1). The Confederation debate is carried on behind closed doors. The main decision-makers discuss matters that will affect the entire population of the British North American colonies, but only a few echoes leak out. Another caption illustrates the situation perfectly: “Confederation is a question that keeps thinking people in suspense,” La Scie illustrée, 24 March 1865 (Figure 2). Journalists were locked out of the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences, and these opinion-makers were quick to describe the secret deliberations as a “beast,” as ideas of national importance were publicly kept secret. The game of rebus, a phonetical and graphical game in which readers enjoyed decoding a message hidden in a series of pictures, was used to show Confederation as a secret,

Figure 1 “La Confédération,” La Scie, 2 December 1864.

worrying project, especially in a mise en abyme: suggested by the rebus, where the meaning is hidden unless all the parts come together. “Quebec will be the capital of the Confederation” in La Scie illustrée, 31 March 1865 (Figure 3). This amusing patchwork contains images such as the wharf: where will we arrive? after a crossing from where? what will we leave? the beak of the American eagle; the rats, referring to vice, peril, and flight; the song, la, la, la, a mixture of false innocence and blackmail … Between the syllables and the images, Confederation is given several definitions: a one-way trip, overpowering music, pestilence … The words and images form an act, like the scenes evoked by cartoons as their style evolved toward a more unified story. In the wood engraving “Confederation” (Figure 1), the point made is literary. Jean-Baptiste Côté was “focused on the message.” The characters are established and the plot is easily discernable: Confederation

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

323

Figure 2 “Confederation is a question that keeps thinking people in suspense,” La Scie illustrée, 24 March 1865. Lac – on fait D – rat scie on – haie – t – une question – qui tient les spirits (liquor) en suspens. “La Confédération est une question qui tient les esprits en suspens,” La Scie illustrée, 24 March 1865.

is a monstrous beast ridden by a certain George Brown while two other figures, Cauchon and Cartier, appease the monster with incense. The first in a long series of references to the hydra, it prepares the way for cartoons that create a bridge between words and opinions, between mental images and visual representations, in a more assured way. Cartoons – a comic exaggeration of a person’s character or physical particularity, or the incarnation of an idea – often apply two techniques: metonymy and synecdoche. To depict Confederation as an aberration of nature, the hydra or octopus is the most frequently used image, in both texts and cartoons. Animals with multiple heads or tentacles are used in all the colonies in British North America to signify danger; examples include “The octopus. Will we strike off all these heads?” in L’Électeur, 28 July 1866 (Figure 4) and and the warning alluding to the hydra: “Confederation

324

anne trépanier

Figure 3 “Quebec will be the capital of the Confederation” in La Scie illustrée, 31 March 1865. Qui – bec – ce rat – LA (in capitals) deux la – con fait des rats – si (the musical note) – on. “Québec sera la capitale de la Confédération,” La Scie illustrée, 31 March 1865.

will place each French Canadian in the presence of not two Englishspeakers, but seven.” On 7 September 1865, The Ottawa Union published an editorial entitled “The Liberal Party”: We are also asked to be silent while a nation is being born; but seeing its hydrahead we fear the malformation of the creature. Head on the Pacific; heels on the Atlantic, with its left arm grasping the north pole and its right looking to Washington, we fail to be convinced of the strength of its ligaments that are expected to hold its ghost-ship’s carcass together. The scheme is utopean, quixotic, chimerical, and will continue so while impoverished Upper Canada remains the only fountain worthy of being drained. What is Upper Canada worth today?

These representations clearly recall the first known political cartoon, Benjamin Franklin’s Join or Die, published in the Pennsylvania Gazette on 9 May 1754 (Figure 5). Although Franklin was taking a stand against the colonies’ lack of unity, did the image of a segmented snake lead to some of the most vivid arguments against Confederation? It would appear so, based on a description penned by one of the main oppo-

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

325

Figure 4 “La pieuvre. Abattrons-nous toutes ces têtes?,” L’Électeur, 28 July 1866.

nents of the Confederation project, Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion: “A country without depth, like that which it is proposed to form here, has not its like under the sun. It would be vulnerable at all points along its frontier of 1,600 to 1,800 miles. In geographical form it would resemble an eel […] Nothing would be easier than to cut it into little pieces, and none of the parts so sliced off could send help to the others.” This makes it possible to ask whether representation does not belong to two fields: cartoon expression and rhetorical effect. The images of the alldevouring hydra are associated with reptiles and other similar creeping creatures, as the visual expression of perversity and evil. The themes of virtue and morality can also be viewed through the lens of our main focus of peril and calculated risk. Eve is never far from the serpent, especially when the Garden of Eden is under threat – the country prior to change! In another two illustrations, women are in danger. In “Annexation,” published in Le Perroquet on 17 June 1865 (Figure 6), a young woman is on her knees, subjected by force and under threat from Blue Beard, the letters US tattooed on his arm, obviously just about to cut her head off with a sword labelled “annexation.” In this political fairytale, an elderly lady, wearing glasses and waving her handkerchief, answers the

326

anne trépanier

Figure 5 Benjamin Franklin, “Join or Die,” Pennsylvania Gazette, 9 May 1754.

cry “Anne! Sister Anne! Can you see nothing coming?” resignedly: “I can see horsemen – a long way off !” And in “Aurora,” published in L’Électeur on 15 September 1866 (Figure 7), two women are fleeing a group of over-eager sailors. The women of Quebec are apparently in danger. The sailors are depicted as “lions,” “eyeing maidens on St. John Street” with their “languorous poses” and “aristocratic manners,” while “bowing so low as to dislocate their backbone.” The editorial is clear: “It is time the government ensured they are sent to the lakes of Upper Canada.” From woman in danger to woman as a source of danger is but a step, which the cartoonists quickly took by amplifying certain aspects of the discourse against Confederation and mocking the arguments in its favour. The vampire in “Confederation and John Bull,” a cartoon published in L’Électeur in 1867 (Figure 8) is eminently monstrous, while ending up as a feminine figure. The caption reads: I am the chrysalis from which an English monarchy will emerge, implanted in the New World. Although I am just a larva, I will

Figure 6 “Annexation,” Le Perroquet, 17 June 1865.

grow into a Gorgon of iniquity. I am not a democratic ideal, as was first thought. No – I am born of infamy. I implement, John Bull, the system given pride of place in your politics, I absorb nationalities and mother countries, I sacrifice them on the altar of the egoism of the things that are sacred. In fact, I am a prostitute. a family a f fa i r Turning away from the image of the prostitute, and aiming derision at the optimistic hope of a great united nation, the image of the family now comes into play. The representation of a forced marriage counterbalances the monsters, and women are the first to be concerned by both danger and the spirit of conservation. The personification of

Figure 7 “L’Aurore,” L’Électeur, 15 September 1866.

Figure 8 “La Confédération et John Bull,” L’Électeur (n.d.), 1867.

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

329

Canada as a baby is mainly known from the period following Confederation; paternity is rarely represented, except when John Bull reassures his offspring concerning the Fenians in “John Bull to his son, Young Canada,” Grinchuckle, 28 October 1869 (Figure 9), or a better-known example from the McCord Museum collection, in which the child “Confederation” is fought over by numerous politicians claiming fatherhood: “Confederation! The much fathered youngster” in Grip, 1886 (Figure 10). However, as early as 3 February 1849, the satirical magazine Punch in Canada had set the scene for political cartoons, placing youth in a candid and naive role, and women as the bearers of malice. “Young Canada delighted with Responsible Government” (Figure 11) shows a woman – a disenchanted United Canada – who drops the well-known tools for childhood education such as La Fontaine’s Fables – attacking French Canadians not only for their difficult connection with France, a country whose injustices and power relationships La Fontaine denounced, in particular concerning the monarchy – but also targets the name LaFontaine, who was closely tied to the Act of Union, a political act that prefigures, in some ways, the later union of the Confederation. The scene shows an elderly woman waving a doll – responsible government, under the amused gaze of a toddler. On the floor lies the royal crown that the doll could have worn. Confederation was planned to provide a powerful common denominator by uniting the provinces of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia; each was expected to retain a degree of control over its own affairs. However, since the memory of the union of Upper and Lower Canada was still fresh, and since annexationism was in fashion, the image of a forced marriage had resonance. The four provinces entering Confederation in 1867 had not yet partaken of the “imagined community” that the Canadian nation would later become, but images of what it could be contributed to its creation. As Yvan Lamonde asks: what did “being Canadian” mean a century after the Conquest? One answer was given by Le Pays, assimilating the intended consequences of the union of Upper and Lower Canada to outline an argument that would have a long life: “To ensure that a social and patriotic balance is maintained, we must divide our affections between the two joint mother countries and the true homeland, namely the Canadian homeland. We must appear to be, and act as, Canadians above all.” The 9 January 1866 edition of Le Canada showed that differences persisted despite the political union:

330

anne trépanier

Figure 9 “John Bull to his son, Young Canada,” Grinchuckle, 28 October 1869.

Since the union, the boundary line between Upper and Lower Canada has been purely imaginary. But with respect to morals, customs and social niceties, it is clear that the two provinces are a long way from having been assimilated one with the other. Considered from this point of view the comparison changes and the boundary line is no longer the old border … There is the population of the western end of the peninsula which, either because of its more frequent contact with the Americans for some other cause, is essentially different from the rest of Canada. It has its niceties and its manners. The difference between its way of living and our own is striking for anyone who takes the trouble to travel a little through these diverse populations.

Marriage is the first and most persistent family-related illustration of this political association. The Eastern Chronicle and Pictou County Advocate (Nova Scotia) published humorous wedding, birth, and death notices for Confederation using two of the themes covered in this article: maid-

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

331

Figure 10 “Confederation! The much fathered youngster,” Grip, n.d, 1886.

ens and monsters stand alongside each other to personify the history of the young country. Married – On Monday morning last, at Ottawa C.E., by the British Parliament, assisted by Canadian Rebels and Annexationists and home-born Traitors, in all her midsummer beauty, the young and fair Nova Scotia and “big brother” Canada. Contrary to all the principles of Liberty, the young lady was forced into what her friends consider to be an unhappy union. She was beautiful and rich; her suitor was old, crabbed and almost bankrupt, – constantly given to harboring persons

332

anne trépanier

Figure 11 “Young Canada delighted with Responsible Government,” Punch in Canada, 3 February 1849.

obnoxious to Mrs Brittania, and frequently breaking out into fits of rebellious rage. As the match is considered to be very inauspicious one for the fair and blushing bride, her friends, who are numerous, powerful, and well-disciplined, intend shortly to take prompt and decided steps to procure a divorce. No cards. Born – On Monday morning last, at 12 […] a.m., (premature) the Dominion of Canada – illegitimate. This prodigy is known as the infant monster Confederation, and is called by one of the fond parents, D’Arcy McGee, the “skeleton of an Em-

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

333

pire.” – The flesh and sinews are supposed to have corroded in consequence of the infant several times falling into champagne and brandy during seasons of “exhaustive festivities.” The skeleton of the monster is fearfully long, but very slim and narrow, especially about the chest. It is feared it will not live long, as it even now in a precarious state of health, and in danger of being devoured by some cannibalistic animals owned by Uncle Sam. The head – Nova Scotia – is the only part of the body that exhibits real signs of vitality; and strange to say, several eminent Doctors have given it as their opinion that the head must and will be separated from the remainder of the skeleton, in which case the former will grow and flourish into a healthy man, and prove a worthy descendant of Mrs Brittania. Died – At 12 o’clock midnight, on Sunday, the 30th day of June, John Bluenose*, aged 118 years on the 21st day of that month. During a long and prosperous life, the deceased enjoyed much personal respect. His vast resources and means of accumulating wealth had unfortunately, during the last few years, attracted the envy of corrupt men in the Northern Hemisphere. His premature and untimely death, it is said, has been hastened by some of his own children – Doctor “Poison-Bag” and three members of the legal profession, who have for a short time been studying quackery, and for whom this fond parent had amply provided, had they only been content. The sudden demise of this old gentleman is lamented by a large majority of loyal friends. It is not the part of Christian mourners to dive into futurity, but the unfair death of their lamented friend, is a matter of great doubt and uncertainty in regard to his future wellbeing. His remains have been conveyed to Canada for interment, whither also his vast wealth had been surreptitiously transferred by his supposed murderers, and will be followed to the grave by a few of his renegade children, accompanied by D’Arcy McGee and Monsieur Cartier, for whose heads a large sum of money had been offered by the old gentleman’s friends in England. We understand that a last will and testament had been many years ago drawn up by a professional friend in Britain, conveying his untold wealth and resources to his loyal children in Nova Scotia, and not dreaming that parricidal and rebellious hands should cut short the thread of life, had no time given him to ask their consent, though beseeching his assassins

334

anne trépanier

to afford him an opportunity to do so. If there are any creditors of the old gentleman (other than those mentioned), his mourning friends desire that their accounts, duly attested to, be sent in to Adams G Archibald, the Executor of the Estate, or to the President and Secretary of the United States, who will be prepared, five years after date, to discharge the same. – Non requiescat in pace.

The 14 January 1865 edition of Le Perroquet (Figure 12) contains one of the first political cartoons comparing the British North American colonies to a family. The caption reads as follows: “Signing of the marriage contract between the two brothers, Upper and Lower Canada, to Miss New Brunswick and Miss Nova Scotia – adoption of the young Prince Edward Island – The ceremony was for family only – the neighbour who was not invited was not content.” The cartoon depicts a double wedding between the two Maritime colonies and the two central Canada colonies. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are shown as brides marrying two brothers, Upper and Lower Canada. Prince Edward Island is present at the ceremony, shown as an infant, too young to play a role in the adult world, placed under the protection of its older cousins. The United States is personified by the soldier at the door keeping brother Jonathan at a distance. The mother country, Great Britain, is honoured by the family portraits on the wall of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. If a wedding provides the perfect theatre to mime the rational and reasonable alliance of two neighbours, Upper and Lower Canada, the fact that they are personified as men underlines their responsibility toward their mother countries, while the depiction of the two other colonies as female highlights their dependency, and even their submission to the decision-makers. What are the weapons of the female characters used by cartoonists at the time? Without attempting a critique that belongs in the realm of feminist studies, it is interesting to note the shift in the cartoons’ rhetoric – as the creature of Adam, the female character is used to depict ingenuousness and frivolity or, worse, vice and self-interest. women and da n g e r For example, the 29 April 1865 edition of Le Perroquet presented “The political question from a woman’s point of view” (Figure 13), a cartoon comparing Upper Canada and Lower Canada. They are depicted here

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

335

Figure 12 “Signature du contrat de mariage,” Le Perroquet, 14 January 1865.

as women greedy for power and interested in luxury and tourism, whatever the source of the opportunity, whether a captain in favour of Confederation or another captain, Annexation to the United States. The grand debate on the Confederation project could be summarized under three headings: parliamentary representation, an elected Legislative Council, and the rights of religious minorities. But, as pointed out by Yvan Lamonde, “the reference to the dangers of annexationism and the need to build a railway able to create a country from east to west show that, as the US Civil War drew to a close, the United States and its power of attraction were a concern for Canadians.” The caption reads: Lower Canada: “My dear, I am for Confederation because, afterwards, we will go to London, we will visit the Tower and you will take me to dance at the Cremorn, which is said to be so delightful and so distinguished! and then because we will get divorced, won’t we, my dear?” The Captain answers: “Oh! Yes!!!” His near-identical reflection, Upper Canada, appears to eye the United States as she says: “I am for Annexation, because my darling will take me to New York, to drink

336

anne trépanier

Figure 13 “La question politique du point de vue des femmes,” Le Perroquet, 29 April 1865.

Lager-Beer at Atlantic Gar(den) and to see the museum … And, then, there will be fewer formalities … won’t there, my dear?” To which the Captain replies: “All right!!” If the women mention the attractions of London or the US, it is only to convey criticism of English virtue and American puritanism. The monarchy was, for Cartier, a defensive barrier against American defects and vice. But the cartoonist CharlesHenri Moreau showed the vices available on both sides of the political decision … while still defending annexationism, the position clearly taken in “The women, Upper Canada and Lower Canada, with John Bull” (Figure 14), published a few weeks later. Cartier, as the defender of the Confederation project, stressed the difference between the British heritage preserved in Canada under the Union and the popular initiatives of the United States: “The distinction, therefore, between ourselves and our neighbours, was just this: – In our Federation the monarchical principle would form the leading feature, while on the other side of the lines, judging by the past history and present condition of the country, the ruling power was the will of the mob, the rule of

337

Figure 14 “Les femmes, Haut Canada et Bas Canada, avec John Bull,” Le Perroquet, 27 May 1865.

the populace.”1 Without straying too far from the moral codes of the period, it is easy to see that these feminine figures both promote the idea of divorce, which was still an infamy for the French Canadians. Marriage, and family and national unity, were themes that would inspire many cartoonists. We agree with Yvan Lamonde that after the censoring of L’Avenir in 1849, and then of Le Pays in 1858, the Bishop of Montreal continually opposed liberal ideas: “he described Le Pays as anti-Christian because it had no religious principles, as anti-Catholic because it failed to respect the Church, as anti-social because it supported the overthrow of legitimate governments, and as immoral because it was in favour of plays and novels that conveyed doubtful representations of marriage.” The Conference of 1 December 1864 on the principle of nationalities summarized a generally held opinion: “the fundamental principle of

338

anne trépanier

nationality is, of course, the interest that binds together all the inhabitants of a given country; it is the obvious motive of obtaining the greatest facility of moral or social relations; it is the logical conclusion that every person has an interest in preserving domestic harmony”; this opinion appears to have been widespread. The idea of a nationality that was undying, indestructible, and, above all, insoluble in a greater unity, whether or not there was a coalition, resurfaced after the Quebec Conference. One newspaper, La Scie illustrée, published a striking illustration of this opinion, combined with an alert against paganism and even idolatry of the blinding Sun God – Heliogabale! – Perspective offered to families by Confederation, 23 February 1865 (Figure 15). The rebus of 31 March 1865 once again hinted at the Sun God in a play on words in French: “La Confédération est dans les plus grands désastres (dans le plus grand des astres)” (Figure 16). The figure of divorce, associated with the British monarchy, acted as a synecdoche to gather together everything in the Confederation that appeared deceitful, non-virtuous, and contrary to divine law. To remain virtuous and avoid losing its identity, did Canada East have to reject all its suitors? A few weeks later, on 27 May 1865, the cartoonist took up the same theme from “The women, Upper Canada and Lower Canada, with John Bull” (Figure 14), this time in a more direct mockery of the stereotypical citizen in favour of Confederation – whose umbrella signals his English origins – and the caption: “John Bull: Money! Soldiers! What need have you of all that, my dear daughters! Does my moral protection not suffice? Who would dare visit you at my side? My dears, I would sacrifice everything for your happiness! Everything, including my umbrella! But don’t ask me for money or soldiers!” The man – the figure of the responsible decision-maker – becomes guilty of placing the woman in danger. The desire for preservation embodied in the feminine characters is confronted with abuse from men. “The Blessings of Confederation” (Figure 17), an ironic picture published in Le Perroquet on 18 March 1865, illustrates the crisis of responsibility for the values of the nation, represented here by the poor woman on the left surrounded by her children. Wilfrid Laurier stated in Le Défricheur that Confederation would be “the tomb of the French race and the ruin of Lower Canada.” In the centre of the image a medal bearing the inscription amen is broken. “So be it!” the image appears to cry in desperation … In the cameo, a cherub and a dog, symbols of purity and faithfulness respectively, appear as chipped vessels. The cartoon is subtitled “Divorce.” Morality and the Catholic faith were, after all,

Figure 15 “Perspective que la Confédération donne aux familles,” La Scie illustrée, 23 February 1865.

Figure 16 “La Confédération est dans les plus grand désastre (dans le plus grand des astres),” La Scie illustrée, 31 March 1865.

340

anne trépanier

Figure 17 “Bienfaits de la Conféderation,” Le Perroquet, 18 March 1865.

for the French Canadians, the guardians of culture and nationality! The caption reads, on the left, “Charity, I beg of you!!”; an outdoor scene at night shows a woman surrounded by children, battling the weather. Heavy snow is falling; on the right, a potbellied man takes his ease by the window of a well-furnished room and congratulates himself: “A good thing, my word! this Confederation! I’ve taken advantage of divorce to get rid of my wife and kids! Kate! A brandy punch … Ah! Ah!” country or h o m e l a n d In 1867, Le Défricheur, owned by Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion, was the first newspaper to publish the Canadian constitution, which is condemned as a disaster for Lower Canada’s autonomy: On March 10, 1865, at the legislative assembly of the United Canadas, 91 members voted for the Confederation project and 33 against; the English-speakers of Upper and Lower Canada, the French-speaking conservatives and moderates gave the project its majority. Of the 49 French Canadian members, 27 voted for Confederation and, of the 49 ridings with a French-

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

341

speaking majority, 25 voted for and 24 against. On the 13th, Le Pays wrote: “It was during this memorable night that the most iniquitous and most degrading act the parliamentary regime has seen was committed since the treachery of the Irish members who sold their country to England for positions, hours and gold.” The Confederation project received royal assent on 1 March 1867 and will come into force on 1 July of that year.

For the supporters of Confederation, the future Canada offered a viable platform for the survival of the French Canadian faith, language, and culture in Canada. For others, such as the radical liberals of the Institut canadien, there was a desperate need to find another way to express national belonging. The illustration in La Scie on 24 December 1864 was clear: “Nationality is suffocating them!” (Figure 18); it shows three supporters of Confederation – Langevin, Cartier, and Cauchon – suffocated by a flag-scarf by which they are also bound. Eleven years earlier, the Institut had hosted the speaker Charles Daoust, who asked: What is this nationality the people cling to as if by instinct? Is it the French language? No! Is it religion? No! Ancient, disfigured laws, truncated by statute? No! Is it the blue wool hat, the oxhide shoes, the coat in home-woven fabric? Is it the old-fashioned sleigh, the pipe and the parish priest, as we read recently in an Upper Canada newspaper? Clearly not! What, then, is it? … It is neither language, nor religion, nor laws, nor any institution taken individually; it is the essence, the abstract, the unseizable form of all of the above, it is the cult of the homeland, it is the religion of the tomb.

The idea of Confederation exercised, over some people, a centripetal force. Instead of welcoming existing nations and offering the people something greater than a cultural nation to share, an image painted in glowing colours by the annexationists, it appears that the main argument was presented as a dilemma. Either the French-Canadian cultural nation had to be protected – in unchanged political form – or it had to be betrayed by a rejection of tradition, meaning the end of moral sense. This image of Cartier, “Which hat will Mr. Cartier wear?” appeared in L’électeur on 2 June 1866 (Figure 19). The caption reads: “Over his hood, mitre and tiara, which hat will Cartier wear? It cannot be his stocking cap, he has rejected everything it stands for.” The editorialist

342

anne trépanier

Figure 18 “La Nationalité les étouffe!!,” La Scie, 24 December 1864.

in Le Canada warned its readers on 21 December 1865: “You would have to be crazy or a traitor, or both, to want to break the ties that ensure our safety in the present and that allow us to prepare for the future.” It is possible to state that the institutional mechanisms of the United Canadas gave birth to the “two solitudes,” renamed by the 1867 Confederation as the “two founding peoples” and seen as the pillars of the Canadian nation, two brothers celebrating their marriage on the same day. Or alternatively, Confederation was seen as the end of that principled equality, but instead, the start of a “forward march” in which the French-Canadian nation and its national qualities would be held hostage, like war tribute, as shown on the cover page of the musical satire La Confederation – Quadrille (Figure 20) by Léon Casorti. Of course, the decisive moment arrived on the road to Confederation

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

343

Figure 19 “Quel bonnet M. Cartier mettra-t-il?,” L’Électeur, 2 June 1866.

in 1867, despite the tortoise, “Express,” pulling the wagon of Confederation, and its new members, whipped on by the Upper Canadian beaver. When did this moment in history occur? It came right in the middle of the nineteenth century, at a time when romanticism was at its height, when the serials of Eugène Sue and the novels of Victor Hugo were found in every newspaper, when a new relationship with the past, with time, with memory, and with traditions and stories arose from the invisible centre of the imagination of the soon-to-be-born country… If, during this period, history developed like a specific literary genre with a new historical conscience, it also contained a recognition of the fact that the past was different from the present and future and that traditions could be chosen and not simply inherited. In this way the opinion press reflected an imaginary world formed between polarized ideas – ultramontanism, liberalism, and political fashions that combined virtue, democracy, the common good, and nationhood in two opposing projects, Confederation and annexation to the United States.

Figure 20 Confédération Quadrille, Léon Casorti.

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

345

a c apital m at t e r One last example of mise en abyme mobilized to imagine the Confederation project illustrates the interesting question of the new capital’s location. The choice of a new national capital for Canada can be seen as a synecdoche for the Canadian Confederation, a rhetorical device shared with the art of the cartoon. Quebec City was the capital of French North America during the New France period, and went on to become the capital of Lower Canada and of the United Canadas. It then shared this role between 1851–55 and 1859–65 with Kingston (1841–44) and Montreal (1844–49). After the burning of the parliament building in Montreal on 25 April 1849 in a boastful and hateful action by the captain of a volunteer corps of firemen, Parliament moved to Toronto (1849–51, 1855–59). Then, in 1857, Ottawa was chosen as the capital of the United Canadas. This was the subject of mockery, as shown in “Parliament,” published in La Scie illustrée, 20 October 1865 (Figure 21). The caption reads: Stadacona-Cartier, seat of government, Ottawa. Stadacona – Listen, Georges, take my pin. Cartier – Say nothing, I’ll bring it back next year. Ottawa – At last! I’ve got it! Now I have something to heat you with.

The final move of the seat of government of Ottawa was not a good sign for La Scie illustrée which, on 27 October 1865, depicted the permutation of the capital in the Wandering Jew (departure of the government) (Figure 22), nor for the Ottawa Union, which described Ottawa as a curiosity on 27 October 1865: A city contemporary usually extremely reticent, dry and deep as a draw-well, came out yesterday with a column of gushing eloquence on the confederation question. Codfish and Carriboo, Esquimaux, and the icy regions, are jumbled up in refreshing style in this singular production. The cream of the joke is that confederation is set down as the one thing needful to make Ottawa a paradise. How Ottawa can be benefitted by the establishment of six seats of Government apart from itself, and two of them in Canada, is a mystery which none but a profound logician, such as our contemporary, can explain.

346

anne trépanier

In the years leading up to Confederation, newspapers in the four colonies described the jostling to become the national capital as a “beauty contest” between aristocratic Toronto, prosperous Montreal, sophisticated and “ancient” Quebec, and Ottawa, a place with natural beauty but no history. Ottawa was often shown as a candid, beautiful, but wild girl. Its rivals, Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto, had nothing to be envious about, to the extent that the figure of Ottawa as the new capital would be a mise en abyme representation of the new Canada, leaving plenty of room for the French-Canadian heritage … The editorial in Le Canada on 21 December 1865 stated: Clearly, Ottawa is a predestined choice, a city particularly favoured by Nature and our statesmen. Ottawa herself, if not overly pretty, despite the beauty of her site and the charming landscapes all around, must be astonished at what she has become in so short a time. She was recently named as the seat of the Canadian government, the future capital of the great North American Confederation whose foundations were laid at the Quebec Conference. … As we freely admit, Ottawa has none of the historic, venerable patina that, with legitimate pride, we enjoy seeing in the old city of Quebec; she has none of the refinement, luxury, pompous civilization, and ceaseless commercial activity that distinguish Montreal. [Ottawa] brings to mind no glorious memories, no great deeds done by our forefathers, and is not a storehouse for the considerable trade plied on the St. Lawrence. The heroic struggles that marked the period of French domination have left barely any traces here … Ottawa is, of course, the central point between Upper and Lower Canada and serves as a kind of hyphen between the two provinces … The magnificence of the site where the city is built cannot be surpassed. These are the leading attributes of this new capital, and they are the equal of many others in the eyes of most men of our time at least, for whom the cult of the past and national glory are bereft of both attraction and profit. Our contemporaries have seen its birth and progress; it has grown up under their eyes.

The fable of the child, of the immature but natural young woman under strict guidance recalls the principal arguments of the cartoons mentioned above. This state of affairs still came under attack from

Figure 21 “Parlement,” La Scie illustrée, 20 October 1865.

Figure 22 “Juif errant (départ du gouvernement),” La Scie illustrée, 27 October 1865.

348

anne trépanier

Dorothea Doggerel in New Brunswick in February 1865, on the grounds that the federation was like a giant spider’s web and Ottawa like an older sister ready to attract her younger, naive, submissive, and servile sisters. In The Federation spider’s web; a seriocomic, politic, Doggerel painted an ironic picture of this new grand capital, inspiring a metaphor that would become popular in the Maritimes to describe the tensions and dangers of the federation’s appropriation of the Maritime provinces: the fishing net and spider’s web. There is a little scattered place In Canada the West, ’Tis called in Indian, “Ottawa” And’t has been greatly blest. Nature has been most bountiful In everything that’s grand, And art is now contributing With no unsparing hand. Oh! little “Bytown!” favored spot! Why seek’st thou to combine These happy Colonies in one, To worship at thy shrine? Is Canada so ill at ease She needs a Doctor’s skill? Must, too, a Druggist her attend, To aid him with a pill? To her four sister Colonies In haste, for help she flies; Such nurses, and such treatment prompt, A desperate case implies – A sovereign remedy they’ve found – A plaster famed, they say, Which for a time at least, ‘tis hoped, The haemorrhage will stay – A Federation sugared pill, “Good both for man or critter,” Till dosed “ad nauseam,” she’ll find The sweet, but coats the bitter.

The Ottawa Times was no kinder to Ottawa. In an ironic poem with bilingual highlights published on 21 December 1865, the construction

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

349

Figure 23 “Arrivée des employés du gouvernement à Ottawa,” La Scie illustrée, 10 November 1865.

of the parliamentary buildings and the chaos in which the local population lived, echoed in several cartoons (“Arrival of government employees in Ottawa,” La Scie illustrée, 10 November 1865 [Figure 23]), heralded an even greater disorder – the political disorder caused by the mixing of races, reflected in the poet’s bilingual name, Jean-Baptiste Bull. He was introduced in humorous fashion by the journalist: *[Note by the editor of the above epistle – If the reader should detect peculiarities in the pronunciation of my estimable friend, Mr. Jean Baptiste Bull, he will naturally, attribute the same to the fact of his mixed origin. In this, the reader’s judgement, as usual, would be quite correct. Mr. Bull’s father, as the name implies, was of old English stock, with an Irish graft: his mother was a Fraser of the district of Quebec – a Canadian race derived from a gallant Scottish Ancestor. Through these four great connexions, it is the boast of Mr. J.B.B. to claim affinity with the best families in the World. – T. OT., M.D.]

“A Poetical Epistle” From Jean Baptiste Bull, Now at the seat of government, to a friend in the country. At length I find time for a word Mon Ami!

350

anne trépanier

We have had such a furniture fuss! Mrs. B. declared herself quite of poor Richard’s belief, That removals are life’s deepest sources of grief. When we came to unpack, why the box of Pandora, (Which had, underneath, summit good to restore her!) What a prospect of bliss to that prospect of ours, With its fissures and fractures, its gloom and its showers. N’importe, here we are, just in sight of the Buildings, With their turrets and towers, their carvings and gildings. Though I own I dislike over ornamentation in the home of our new non-embelishing nation; Yet these Buildings grow on you, and seen day by day Like the country they typify, spreading their sway; ’Twas but Monday last, all nations being present, We discussed the whole thing – some grumbling, some pleasant, When to one of the croakers, a sweet brogue says, “Honey, “At least ye’ll admit ye’ve the worth of your money.” Sans doute, there are left ’tis a plain notoriety, Many gaps in the streets, and a few in society – You may tell to our friends, there are vacancies mental, And mural and rural, but not governmental. There’s a theatre, where we all gathered to see Shylock “done” – to the death º by good old Joe L——. Old Joe has a notion! God bless his good heart, That, since Macklin, no actor so shines in that part; But the fact is, as all of his auditors know, Who rejoice in his friendship, he shines most in Joe. But the theme that inspired me’s, the theme of the day, The new paper of Davis, at last under way: I send No. 1, and I think you’ll say it is Quite up to the standard in the best of our cities; – Davis, bold as a lion, has run up his colours, And asks for your countenance, also your dollars; Conservative, Liberal, every man Jack; – Who stands for the flag, stands at Davis’ back: Believe me, or else there’s no reason in rhymes, We shall show unbelievers, we too have our “Times” But I bore you my friend, and my paper is full – Au revoir for the present, yours J. Baptiste Bull.

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

351

conclu s i o n s I will be so bold as to borrow this last line to conclude: “Au revoir for the present – my paper is full.” Filled with mental images and embellished with illustrations, this study of opinion pieces and satirical cartoons has uncovered a number of themes, including monsters and representations of women. After analyzing this sample of images and texts from newspapers and satirical journals in both French and English, published in the four colonies on the eve of their union in the confederative pact, I suggest that a set of mental images of Confederation existed rhetorically in the years 1865–67. Its favourite themes were danger and calculated risk, assembled against the background of hope: hope that being and becoming were not contradictory, hope of political virtue, hope of belonging to a political entity that transcended or erased continental, national, parish, or family-based notions. These cartoons and image-creating texts make it possible to report on the imaginary political world of these soon-to-be Canadians, and to outline the matrix of representations common to the opinions circulating in all four of the colonies that joined Confederation on 1 July 1867. By choosing to represent conflicting opinions in the guise of women in danger or as a source of danger, or by creating monstrous pictures, partisan newspapers created an imagined community based on archetypes and stereotypes that already did not belong to the British or French colonial sphere. During this period, the press operated in a patriarchal social world, whether liberal, conservative, or Victorian. Writers and illustrators used female representations to address their target audience, masculine, like them. As we have seen, it was only the nation or Confederation that changed sex or age. A babe in arms or toddler when a new province was acquired, the nation was male and adult when shown in negotiations with outside powers. When Canada or one of the colonies of British North America was in a position of power, it was shown as a man; when in danger or jeopardy, it was represented as a woman. This image, still prevalent today, developed from the metaphors of marriage and family deployed by satirical artists in the nineteenth century, when marital and familial relations between the new provinces, its American neighbours, and British allies illustrated the power relationships between the regions. Between fears and dreams of a kingdom in Canada, the text and images of this future Canada effectively convey the “general mood of

352

anne trépanier

the country.” Visually speaking, these hydra, octopuses, Gorgons, and eels express fears and concerns about Confederation. Daughters of marrying age and pure, wild virgins are some of the hypotyposes shown in the newspapers to depict the dreams of a Confederation embodied in the city of Ottawa, scheduled to become the seat of the central government. The images suggested by the texts offer a new way to see the role of parliament, democratic representation, and ministerial stability. The British North America Act, passed in 1867, brought together New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Canada West (today’s Ontario), and Canada East (the Province of Quebec) under a federative constitution. Would the resolutely modern tension that resulted from this new citizen identity revive regional identifies? Would it force political, religious, and ethno-cultural groups to draw back, supported by the idea of non-contradiction between being and becoming? This is the historical spirit I used to scrutinize the balance of tensions at the heart of this new representation of Canada as they inform us of the identity-linked definitions and forces at work. Central to the examination of our sample are the questions of representation and of what constitutes culture and loyalty, which oriented our reading of opinion pieces and satirical images. Since national identity is understood as a construct, crafted using public representations of the past that communicate the stories, myths, and symbols needed to bond a community through a shared sense of historical continuity, this study is able to contribute to the history of the process of building the Canadian national identity though a shared system of symbols and myths revealing the fears and tensions generated by the discussions surrounding the Confederation project. Taken as a whole, the image-laden texts and visual representations – cartoons and illustrations – tell the story of the development of a non-federated imaginary world, but one covering all the areas to be bound together in 1867. My aim was to develop a project inspired by the work of Marc Angenot to survey the state of the social discourse on a given question. The imaginary world of Confederation is a concept that, from its inception, has crossed all barriers, languages, and territories; fears and dreams know only hierarchical and gender-based barriers. The nation can be understood in a myriad different ways: as a group of people living in a given country, the formation of a single political and economic unit; a large number of people sharing the same history, the same ancestors, a culture, and a language; or a relatively large number of people organized under a single, generally independent government, a country. It

r e p r e s e n tat i o n s o f c o n f e d e r ation

353

could be a federation or a confederation! In the field of national definition, the development, conservation, preservation, and promotion of a national identity has been ongoing since the nineteenth century. Sprawling like tentacles, petrifying, rhetorical seduction and predation share the desire to merge contrary elements and create something new: a unified nation, a continent-wide race, a supra-nation. These are the new players to be revealed, and perhaps to fear, when it comes to rethinking a political affiliation. The importance of satirical images helps form public opinion to move statues from their base, overturn rocks, and shift the meaning of words – this is metaphor, causing images to travel. However, it is still important for political reflection to avoid shortcuts, which must remain the tool of cartoonists. note 1 Documents of the Canadian Constitution, 1759 –1915, ed. W.P.M. Kennedy (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1918), 618–29.

Contributors

éric bédard is professor of history at teluq University, Montreal.

michael behiels is professor of history at the University of Ottawa.

eugénie brouillet is professor of law and vice-principal (research, creation, innovation) at the Université Laval.

phillip buckner is professor emeritus (history) at the University of New Brunswick.

andré burelle is a former high civil servant for the Government of Canada, based in Montreal.

david r. cameron is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto.

rachel chagnon is a professor in the legal sciences department at Université du Québec à Montréal. marc chevrier is professor of political science at Université du Québec à Montréal.

claude couture is professor of social sciences and Canadian Studies at the Campus Saint-Jean, University of Alberta, Edmonton.

356

alain-g. gagnon holds the Canada Research Chair in Quebec and Canadian Studies at the Université du Québec à Montréal. louis-georges harvey is professor of history at Bishop’s University, Lennoxville. stéphane kelly teaches at the Cégep Saint-Jérôme.

jacqueline d. krikorian is professor of political science at York University.

guy laforest is the director of the École nationale d’administration publique, Quebec City. yvan lamonde holds a James McGill Chair in History at McGill University.

félix mathieu is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

christopher moore is an historian and political commentator based in Ottawa. françois rocher holds the Jean-Luc Pepin Research Chair in Canadian Political Institutions at the University of Ottawa.

paul romney is a well-established historian who has taught in the Department of Canadian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

anne trépanier is a professor at the School of Canadian Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa.

robert vipond is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto.

Index

Act of Union (of 1840), 4, 13, 49, 53, 62–3, 66, 87, 110, 119–20, 127, 136, 154–5, 197, 200, 209, 223, 252–3, 255, 259, 267, 269 American Civil War, 7, 12, 52, 76, 82, 85, 107, 110, 114, 121, 124 Archibald, Adams G., 144, 212n15, 334 Australia, 38, 51–2, 58, 85, 92, 303, 312 autonomy, 4, 7, 13, 15, 18, 37–9, 49– 50, 54, 60, 80 , 93, 111, 123, 130, 136, 147–8, 154, 155–6, 158–9, 161, 163, 168, 176, 179, 183, 185, 202, 228, 243, 257, 270, 305, 340 Baldwin, Robert, 57, 59, 61, 69n60, 254, 297n20 binational(ism), 4, 10, 189 Bleus (the), 80, 146, 236–40, 246, 248 Bonenfant, Jean-Charles, 11, 24n4, 67n30, 120, 138n4, 139n8, 139n16, 140n25, 187, 213n49, 215n88, 215n91, 215n95, 216n, 100 Bourget, Ignace, 238, 319 Britain. See United Kingdom British, 60, 169, 320, 336; citizenship/ subjects/nationality, 18, 93, 156, 196, 268, 318; constitution, 32, 288– 9; domination and rule, 4, 8, 39, 52, 80, 128, 308–11; elite, 207, 235, 241, 245–6, 248, 208, 312; Empire

and colonies, 14, 19, 29, 30, 31, 36– 40, 49, 52, 56, 62–4, 83, 93, 111, 118, 120, 122, 124, 126–9, 134–7, 194, 201, 209, 214, 225, 243, 290, 303, 307–8, 313; immigrants or settlers, 54, 59, 63, 125, 134, 153, 253, 271, 300; political institutions, 29, 30, 34–6, 40, 42, 52, 58, 105, 160, 165, 180, 188, 190, 200, 208, 245, 254, 307, 309, 331, 338 British North America Act (of 1867), 3–4, 9, 12, 21nn8–22, 38, 75–6, 82, 122, 128, 136, 155, 179, 234, 270, 276–7, 278n7, 283–5, 287, 291–4, 295nn2–6, 306, 340, 352 Brown, George, 5, 12, 15–16, 32, 57– 8, 60–1, 77, 80–1, 87, 93, 99n12, 105, 110, 117, 120–1, 139n3, 143, 147, 150n4, 151n8, 152–5, 158–9, 162–73, 175n24, 176, 176n7, 184– 6, 202, 208, 212n15, 241, 246, 323 Burke, Edmund, 35, 124, 204, 302, 309–10, 313, 315n21 Canada East, 12, 14, 16, 24n4, 56, 59, 118–20, 124, 126–7, 131–3, 135–8, 179, 182, 190, 199, 201, 204, 207, 209, 252, 254, 329, 338, 352 Canada West, 12, 16, 56, 72, 76–7, 117, 120, 132, 154, 179, 182, 190, 199, 201, 209, 254, 329, 352

358 Canadian federation, 3, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 135, 180, 210, 229, 252, 273, 286 capitalism, 4, 21n5, 230, 249n3 Careless, J.M.S., 15, 153, 162–73, 241 Cartier, George-Étienne, 5, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21n8, 24n4, 30, 39–41, 60–1, 73, 80, 95n10, 97n5, 104, 106, 111, 117–29, 131–3, 135–8, 139n3, 139n11, 146, 184, 202–3, 207–8, 212n15, 217n13, 222, 224–5, 239, 242, 244, 246–9, 265, 267–9, 271– 3, 276–7, 279nn2–3, 300–1, 305–7, 312–13, 321, 323, 333, 336, 341, 343, 345 Cauchon, Joseph-Édouard, 13–14, 30– 1, 37, 41, 104–14, 124, 217n13, 232, 341 centralization, 10, 11, 14–16, 31, 40, 97n9, 109, 111–14, 122–3, 147–8, 161, 163–4, 169, 172, 181, 183, 200–1, 204, 209, 216n16, 216n115, 223, 235, 242, 273, 275 Chapais, Jean-Charles, 124, 212n15 Chapais, Thomas, 21n4, 44n13, 67n42, 185–6, 212n37, 212n39, 260n4 church(es): British, 75; Catholic(s), 5, 7, 12, 14, 42, 72, 110, 118, 119, 125– 8, 130, 132, 135, 137, 146, 154, 170, 181, 183, 185–6, 194–6, 203, 208–9, 215, 217, 221, 238, 239, 247, 249, 250, 259, 269, 271, 279, 301, 304, 321, 337–8; of England, 72, 153; and state, 64, 106, 170, 184, 186, 202; ultramontanism, 109, 127, 301–2, 343; and Vatican, 64 citizenship: Canadian Act, 93–4; supranational, 18, 268–9, 271, 273, 280n2 confederalism, 82 conservatism, 104, 119, 120, 180 consociational dualism, 13, 50, 62–3 Constitution Act (of 1791), 4, 49, 96, 153, 269 Constitution of 1867. See British North America Act (of 1867)

index Creighton, Donald, 5, 15, 61–2, 75, 78, 140n18, 152–3, 157–65, 172–3, 175n24, 183–4, 242, 284 culture: American, 74, 276; British, 72, 74, 80, 307; constitutional, 292; duality, 5–6; French-Canadian, 80, 109, 276, 340–1; in India, 310; imperial, 311, 313; local, 147, 199; majority, 277, 307; minority, 272, 307, 313; as nation component, 275–6, 352; political/public, 15, 149, 229, 235–6, 251n16, 274, 277, 280n9, 288; regional, 17, 235; responsibility, 123; threat to, 199

D’Arcy McGee, Thomas, 12, 14, 30–1, 37, 118, 121–2, 125–38, 140n6, 141n9, 196, 208, 212n15, 223, 242, 249, 277, 279n2, 332, 333 decentralization, 10, 12, 14, 77, 81, 119, 122, 124, 148, 200 democracy: acceptance of, 90–2, 107– 9, 149, 227, 343; British, 89, 287; of concordance, 50; consociational, 60; direct, 9; and federalism, 12, 30, 32, 34, 300; multinational, 10; representational/parliamentary/republican, 9, 33, 59, 149, 185, 240, 254, 260, 287; and sovereignty, 11, 201, 292 Dorion, Antoine-Aimé, 21n8, 31, 33, 49, 57–61, 65n1, 111, 112, 115n3, 120–1, 135, 147–8, 159, 184, 186, 188, 202, 204–5, 222, 224, 226–9, 232, 234, 236, 239, 241 Dorion, Jean-Baptiste-Éric, 204, 225–6, 228, 239, 243–5, 247, 325, 340 Duclos De Celles, Alfred, 19, 300, 304–7 Durham Report. See Lord Durham English Canadian(s), 5, 6, 80, 94, 181 ethnicity, 265, 276, 320

Fathers of Confederation, 12, 15–16, 18, 25, 29–31, 33, 35, 37, 39–42, 76, 79–82, 84–5, 87, 90–3, 97–100,

index 104, 113, 179–80, 183, 208, 210, 220, 229, 241, 249, 251, 265, 270– 1, 297, 300 federalism: American, 157, 163–4, 166, 259; asymmetric, 139n9; Canadian, 10, 20, 50, 160, 181, 187, 288, 292, 294, 299, 306, 312; colonial/ British domination tool, 13, 42, 51–2, 82; constitutional, 287; and democracy, 12; executive, 143, 209; historical debate, 35–6, 104, 111–12, 127, 130, 183, 185, 206; implementation, 9; multinational, 10, 265, 269, 271, 273, 276–7; and republicanism, 134– 5; territorial, 269 First Nations, 4, 71, 129, 348, 321 founding fathers. See Fathers of Confederation French Canadian(s), 4, 6, 21, 24, 53, 55, 56, 59, 64, 73, 76, 103, 107, 109–11, 114, 118–21, 124, 126, 135, 137, 185, 197, 203, 206, 208, 221, 223–4, 237, 239, 240, 250, 254, 267, 275, 307, 321, 324, 340– 2, 346 Galt, Alexander Tilloch, 5, 12, 14, 31, 39, 47n5, 84, 117–18, 120–2, 126– 38, 212n15, 286, 296n5 gender, 91, 320, 352 Grand Trunk Railway (railroad), 16–17, 85, 106, 118, 122, 127, 222, 224–6, 240–2, 244, 246, 248 Great Britain. See United Kingdom Groulx, Lionel, 11, 21n4, 24n34, 54– 5, 67n28, 186, 212n40, 212nn44–5, 279n13 House of Commons: Canadian, 19, 64, 86, 88, 209, 290; British, 58, 88–9

identity, 4, 5, 10, 12–14, 16, 19, 43, 71, 73, 80, 82, 93–4, 100n4, 121, 123, 133, 135–6, 152, 181, 184, 189, 194, 196, 198–9, 208, 282, 299– 300, 312, 318–9, 321, 338, 352–3

359 India, 8, 51, 72, 302, 308–13; Rebellion of 1857, 63, 307, 309, 311 Indians (North American). See First Nations indirect rule, 51

LaFontaine, Louis-Hippolyte, 21n8, 57, 59, 61, 104, 119–20, 136, 253, 259, 301, 305, 329 Langevin, Hector, 124, 147, 212n15, 341 language, 10, 12, 19, 80, 106–7, 109, 111, 120, 126, 133–4, 138, 156, 172, 185, 197, 205, 221, 238, 266, 268, 272–7, 284, 286, 288, 290, 294, 303–4, 307–8, 310, 319, 341, 352 legislative assembly, 9, 18, 31–2, 34, 37–9, 53–6, 58–62, 64, 74–6, 86, 90, 92, 99n2, 99n12, 110–12, 114, 119, 124–6, 132, 134, 153, 164, 171, 190–1, 193, 199, 209, 214n9, 216n10, 222, 224, 227, 236, 238–9, 241–2, 252–3, 271–2, 278n4, 290, 303, 340 legislative council, 17, 19, 33–4, 42, 60, 62, 64, 88, 89–90, 126, 151n8, 190, 194, 205, 209, 227, 229, 249, 253–4, 278n4, 290, 303, 335 legitimacy, 3, 34, 63, 139n11, 149, 187, 189, 274, 285 liberalism, 120, 319, 343 Lord Durham, 17, 54, 88, 120, 209, 218n129, 223–5, 265–7, 300, 310 Lower Canada, 4, 24n4, 31, 36, 42, 54–7, 59–61, 64, 70–1, 80, 99n12, 110, 117–18, 120, 123, 125–6, 132–3, 137–8, 155–6, 185–6, 188, 197, 199, 201–5, 217n13, 220–1, 223–5, 227–8, 235, 237, 246, 248, 254, 256–60, 266–7, 269, 271–2, 278n4, 278n7, 279n2, 304, 318, 329–30, 334–6, 338, 340, 345–6 Macdonald, John A., 5, 30, 32, 35–7, 39–40, 42–3, 57, 60–2, 72, 76,

360 79–80, 83, 87, 99n12, 117, 119–21, 123, 127, 129, 136, 139n3, 144, 148, 150n10, 159, 161, 165–7, 172, 184, 208, 212n15, 213n9, 234, 242, 246, 248–9, 265, 267, 269, 271, 272, 279n3, 291, 296n9 majority: ethnic/linguistic/religious, 12, 14, 15, 118, 133–4, 170, 201, 204, 254, 272, 276, 277, 300, 302–4; government/parliamentary/political, 34, 53, 54, 56, 58–63, 72, 75–6, 79, 86, 88–9, 94, 97n9, 136, 145–6, 149, 154–5, 182, 198, 202, 205, 209, 222–4, 226–7, 237, 245, 254, 278n4, 305, 340–1 Maritimes, 13, 71, 77–9, 94n3, 127, 181, 189, 195, 206, 306, 348 minority(ies), 14, 34, 40, 42, 49, 53–5, 64, 88, 91, 103, 118, 126, 128, 130, 132–4, 137–8, 145, 154, 159, 170, 195–6, 201–2, 204–6, 208–9, 217n12, 240, 246, 254, 260, 267, 272, 277, 300, 302, 304, 335 Morton, William, 6, 70, 78, 86, 182–3, 242 Mowat, Oliver, 15, 22n8, 36, 42, 79, 124, 147, 151n5, 152–3, 155–7, 159–62, 165, 169, 172–3, 174n22, 176n4, 212n15 multiculturalism, 276–7, 311 nationalism, 76, 221, 274 New Brunswick, 7, 12, 16, 33, 35, 36, 79, 81, 92, 121, 137, 144, 146–8, 150n2, 166, 179, 181–4, 190–7, 208–10, 213n9, 226, 233, 243, 267, 270, 285, 304, 329, 334, 348, 352 New Zealand, 12, 31, 37–9, 51, 58, 80, 82, 133 Newfoundland, 9, 94n3, 144, 146, 150n2, 190, 225–6, 243, 286 Nova Scotia, 7, 12, 16, 30–1, 36, 72, 79, 82, 90, 100n2, 121, 144–9, 150n2, 179, 181, 183, 188, 190, 194–8, 207–9, 226, 233, 267, 285– 6, 288, 304, 329–31, 333–4, 352

index Ontario, 77, 103, 137, 154–6, 159, 171, 189–90, 195, 233, 248–9, 306, 352 Papineau, Louis-Joseph, 17, 18, 104, 107, 118, 121, 240, 252–60, 305 Patriotes, 18, 59, 63, 104, 118, 246, 250n9, 254, 256, 261n6, 266 pluralism, 4, 6, 14, 138, 275–6 Prince Edward Island, 7, 9, 30, 79, 90, 121, 144, 146–7, 150n2, 150, 181, 183–4, 188, 190, 226, 267, 286, 334 Privy Council, 33, 43, 82, 163, 270, 273 Quebec (province/nation/society), 3, 4–5, 10–12, 14, 16–17, 49, 62–4, 78, 80, 103, 117–19, 123–4, 126, 133, 135, 138, 147, 180, 186, 189– 90, 195, 209–10, 222, 229–30, 233, 235–7, 239, 245–6, 249, 265, 273– 7, 280n5, 302, 307, 326, 352 Quebec Act (of 1774), 4, 269, 279 race, 126, 137, 197, 201, 223, 265–6, 268, 271, 275, 277n3, 300, 303, 306, 310, 338, 349, 353 Reds. See Rouges (the) religion, 106, 109, 112, 121, 125–6, 133, 137, 197, 271–2, 300, 303–4, 308, 341 Riel, Louis, 114, 301–2 rights: collective, 269, 277; cultural/ language/education, 132, 134, 18, 269; English (settlers’/minority), 63, 156, 274; individual/citizens’/civil, 75, 81, 94, 123, 156, 159, 170, 188, 207; local, 132, 153, 205, 229, 257, 269, 274–5; mining, 190; minority, 40, 132, 137, 170, 206, 216n16, 240, 272, 301, 335; national, 304; natural, 207, 313; property, 159, 312; provincial/state, 15, 136, 147, 154, 156–7, 161–2, 167, 172–3, 181, 183, 196, 198, 204–5, 273; to self-determination, 4

index Rouges (the), 16, 31, 49, 106–7, 120, 135, 151n2, 184–6, 199, 201–2, 236, 239, 240, 246, 248, 250 Royal Proclamation (of 1763), 4 Royal, Joseph, 19, 238, 300–4, 306–7, 312 Senate. See legislative council Supreme Court, 8, 32–3, 36, 45n2, 62, 97n12, 237, 273, 278n7, 292, 295n6 Taché, Étienne-Paschal, 12, 24n4, 31, 57, 61, 121, 124, 202, 208, 212n15, 242, 268, 278n5, 301–3 Tilley, Leonard, 12, 77, 79–81, 92, 146, 190–3, 212n15, 226 Tupper, Charles, 12, 36, 39, 75, 77, 79–81, 144–5, 148, 194–6, 212n15, 288 ultramontanism. See church(es): ultramontanism Underhill, Frank H., 5, 184–5, 233 United (Province of) Canada, 3, 4, 5, 7, 16, 25, 66, 68, 70, 73, 74, 76, 78, 85, 88, 90, 92, 93, 100, 104, 106, 110, 111, 121, 122, 163, 164, 169, 170, 199, 203, 209, 212, 220, 225, 233, 234, 241, 243, 252, 266–7, 271–2, 278, 279, 329

361 United Kingdom, 7, 12, 18, 30, 37, 46n8, 51, 53, 63, 56, 70–5, 77, 79, 82–3, 85–6, 88–9, 86, 91, 93–4, 109, 112, 124–5, 129–30, 134, 142, 148, 153–4, 158, 168, 187, 193, 196, 223, 233, 235, 243, 245, 248, 285, 287–8, 291, 300, 307, 312, 315n22, 333–4 United States, 5–7, 11–12, 14, 17, 29, 32, 34, 39–41, 47nn9–10, 50, 53, 64, 71, 74–5, 79, 83, 89, 97n8, 104, 106–10, 112, 114, 118, 122, 124, 127–8, 130, 132–4, 142, 155, 157, 167, 180–1, 192–4, 206, 237, 240, 245, 247–8, 252–3, 256, 258–9, 261n12, 267, 276, 280n8, 284–5, 289, 292, 334–6, 343 Upper Canada, 15, 54–7, 60–1, 71, 75, 77, 120, 123–7, 137, 152–3, 156, 163, 170–1, 184, 197, 201, 217n13, 225, 243, 246, 254, 257, 267, 269, 271–2, 278n4, 324, 326, 334–6, 338, 341 women, 19, 90, 91, 320, 325, 326–7, 329, 334–6