The Challenge of Confederation SS9 – 4/10/17

The Advantages of Confederation: Eastern Canada After achieving responsible government, the next major step for Canada was confederation It’s supporters believed that it would bring economic prosperity to the colonies because tariffs between the colonies could be removed, allowing them to trade with each other A united Canada could also build an intercolonial railway to connect the colonies with each other, something too expensive for each colony to do on its own This would also allow goods and agriculture from Canada East/West to travel to Europe from Halifax, Nova Scotia instead of the US state of Maine

The Advantages of Confederation: Western Canada In Western Canada, the major advantage of Confederation was to stop American annexation The colony of British Columbia and the territory of Rupert’s Land were isolated from the other colonies, and many feared that the US would try to take them over Many Americans believed in the idea of Manifest Destiny, the idea that their country was meant to control all of North America Furthermore, the US now had a massive army after their civil war, and Britain had privately supported the southern states By joining together, the British colonies in North America could united against a potential US invasion

Challenges in Canada East/West But perhaps the most important reason for Confederation was to improve the government of the colonies; although responsible government had been achieved, the colonies still had inefficient government Most members of the legislative assemblies were independent; this meant that they would support their own issues instead of grouping together to support their party This meant that if the ruling party did something unpopular, it would almost always be defeated and an election would be called This meant that a government rarely had a chance to actually govern Between 1849 and 1864, there were 12 different governments in power

Challenges in Canada East/West Furthermore, bills in Canada had to pass a double majority, meaning they had to be approved by both Canada East and West. Since many bills often supported only one language group, the other province would always vote against it This made passing laws almost impossible, since no one could agree on anything, especially English and French-speaking Canadians. Political gridlock was a fact of life Under Confederation, this would be solved by giving a central government power over matters that concerned all Canadians, while each province would have its own legislature to deal with issues that affected itself.

Challenges in Canada East/West To try and solve this, George Brown, leader of the Clear Grits proposed rep by pop (representation by population), which would mean that the amount of members an area would sent to a legislature would be determined by its population This was popular in Canada West, but hated in Canada East, because the French-speaking population was now smaller than the English If rep by pop was adopted, the French feared they would be under the complete control of Canada West’s Anglophone population

Challenges in Atlantic Canada At first, the Atlantic colonies believed they were independent and mature colonies that did not need confederation They also had closer economic connections with the US and Britain than the rest of Canada For Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island, they had no need for a railway because they weren’t connected to the rest of the colonies Nova Scotia had already achieved responsible government, so it did not believe it needed the political advantages of Confederation New Brunswick also already had responsible government, and less than 5% of its trade was with other colonies At this point, they actually wanted to form their own union separate from Canada