Upper Canada and the Road to Nationhood

Canadian Government Today Today, who chooses the people that form our government? If the people don’t like what our government is doing, what can we do about it? Ultimately, who is higher, the government or the people? Today, we are free to vote for whoever we want to, speak freely about issues that matter to us, and the government is responsible to us, the people

Quebec gets Divided In 1791, Britain passed the Constitution Act, which divided the province of Quebec into two parts, French-speaking Lower Canada, and English-speaking Upper Canada This was to provide the French Canadians with a province where they could maintain the seigneurial system while allowing the loyalists to settle in Upper Canada This also gave each province its own separate government

The government of Upper Canada Ultimately, the most powerful people in government were still the British king and parliament; all laws passed by them would have to be obeyed by the government in Canada. In British North America overall, the king was represented by the governor general. In Upper Canada specifically, the government consisted of a lieutenant governor, the executive council, the legislative council, and the legislative assembly. The first three were all appointed by the British. On the other hand, the legislative assembly was voted on by all male citizens of Upper Canada who also owned property. This made it seem like a democracy on the surface.

The Power of Veto However, the governor and his councils held all the power in Upper Canada because they could veto any law or regulation that the legislative assembly proposed To have the power of veto means that you can simply stop or reject a law or regulation passed This meant that no matter what the legislative assembly wanted to do, it could simply be stopped by the governor, meaning that Upper Canada was not a true democracy Many democracies today, like the United States, and its individual states allow their leaders to veto laws but are still considered democracies; why do you think this is so and not with Upper Canada?

Rule by the Few In addition, the province’s executive council came almost entirely from a group called the Family Compact They were mostly loyalist settlers and their descendants who had moved to Upper Canada after the American Revolution, and they made up the social and cultural elite of the province Because the executive council directly advised the governor, they would make sure only laws that benefitted them directly would pass They wanted the government to build canals, improve business, and allow land speculation to continue; things that benefitted them directly

Land Use This political system made the general population of Upper Canada frustrated Most of them were involved in some way with farming, and land speculation caused the price of land to become expensive Land speculators would buy as much land as they could, thus reducing the amount of land freely available to farmers and driving up the price. This meant that they would make large profits when they did choose to sell their land while making it expensive for farmers

A typical township in Upper Canada The blank spaces represent publicly available land The dark spaces represent land set aside for the Anglican church and the government, which could not be developed or used in any way without permission from the government If you were a farmer in Upper Canada, what reasons can you think of that this would frustrate you or make your life more difficult?

Crown and Clergy Reserves Furthermore, nothing was being done about crown and clergy reserves, land that was set aside for the government and church. They were often unused, which further reduced the amount of available land…. Why would the Family Compact not be interested in changing this system? …and made the land the Family Compact already owned even more expensive They also blocked the development of roads, because the land set aside could not be developed This frustrated farmers and other settlers too, because they had to make long winding routes to get anywhere

The beginnings of Change Robert Gourlay, a Scottish land agent, conducted a survey of farmers in Upper Canada, and why they were frustrated Working with the settlers, he created a list of grievances and a petition to change Upper Canada’s land policies How do you think the government reacted? In response, Gourlay was arrested and expelled from Canada; the government was not interested in reforming its ways However, this had the effect of strengthening opposition against the Family Compact, and a new leader would come to take Gourlay’s place

William Lyon Mackenzie became the new leader of the reform movement after Gourlay was expelled He was much more radical than Gourlay and other members of the reform movement They believed change could happen by simply debating and negotiating with the government Mackenzie bought a newspaper called the Colonial Advocate and published articles that directly criticized the government and the Family Compact He also wanted a new form of government, one that would still be loyal to Britain but was based on the United States His outspoken nature led to young members of the Family compact ransacking his office, but this only drew more supporters, leading to his election to the legislative assembly in 1828