Path To Confederation

Act of Union 1840 United Upper and Lower Canada under one government They became known as East & West Canada Started with equal representation As English population increased they demanded representation by population This angered the French

Act of Union Cont… It was unfair Upper Canada had fewer people and higher debt The French language was banned However Louis Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin worked together to make it fairer Tensions between French and English caused political stalemate

Calls for Federation By the 1850’s there were movements within the government to unite all the BNA colonies By 1864 a coalition government led by George Brown, John A. MacDonald and George-Etienne Cartier were pushing for Confederation This would strengthen the colonies as a whole

Britain’s Support By this time the British Empire was in decline They wanted to get rid of financial responsibility for their colonies Also they wanted strong colonies in light of the American Civil War which was taking place (1861-1865)

The Maritimes At the same time in 1864 NS (Charles Tupper) and NB (Samuel Tilley) were trying to convince PEI (John Gray) to join a Maritime Confederation They were geographically separate from the rest of BNA and could be stronger by joining Tilley and Tupper suggested a conference in Charlottetown

The Charlottetown Conference The coalition government of Brown, MacDonald and Cartier crashed the party While NS and NB were arguing for a Maritime Confederation, they argued for a BNA Confederation The Maritime provinces warmed to the idea of a larger union

Quebec Resolutions Oct. 1864- 33 members from BNA met in Quebec to discuss the details of union They tried to learn from the mistakes of France and USA Strong central government Rep-by-pop Senate would have equal rep Most of the resolutions were written by John A. MacDonald

Opposition While the idea of Confederation was popular in East/West Canada, it was quite unpopular in the Maritimes NFLD and PEI both found no support from their populations and did not pursue it

Opposition in NB While Tilley wanted to join the voters of NB did not like the idea His party lost an election in 1865 of which Confederation was the main issue The new government fell apart in a year and a new election was called in 1866

NB Cont… At the same time in 1866 a small Irish-American “terrorist” group known as the Fenians launched raids on British colonies This caused enough fear that Tilley was able to convince NB of the need for a Union with central Canada

Issues in NS Tupper was in a good position He wanted confederation and he was in power in NS He did not need to call an election until 1867 so he drove Confederation through despite opposition

NS Cont… The loudest voice of opposition was Joseph Howe He believed that Confederation served the purposes of Central Canada over the concerns of the smaller Maritime region He argued that Tupper should call an election on the issue Howe also petitioned Britain directly to stop Tupper, but no action was taken In the end NS was dragged into the deal by Tupper

BNA Act During the three years after the Charlottetown conference the leaders of Canada, NB and NS worked on drafting an agreement In March of 1867 the BNA Act was passed into British Law Canada became a sovereign nation on July 1, of that same year The Act was signed by Ontario, Quebec, NS and NB