Dominion of Canada's Foundation

The Canadian Confederation was the process of establishing a new government within Canada during the 1860s. This was when three British colonies became the four provinces that would join under one government called the Dominion of Canada which was formed on July 1st, 1867. The provinces in the Dominion consisted of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. This event in history became important to Canadian society and was a turning point that lead to the current Canada. Even with this knowledge, the question rises: Why was Confederation so important to Canada? What lead to it? Was it truly necessary in Canadian history? In this paper, the importance of the Canadian Confederation will be discussed through its context and the events and

In the year of 1867 the nation we know as Canada came into being. The Confederation in this year only came about after things had been overcome. Many political and economic pressures were exerted on the colonies and a federal union of the colonies seemed to be the most practical method of dealing with these pressures and conflicts. While Confederation was a solution to many of the problems, it was not a popular one for all the colonies involved. In the Maritime colonies views differed widely on the topic. Some were doubtful, some were pleased, others were annoyed and many were hopeful for a prosperous future.1

As time goes on, some countries become more relevant in the global sphere while others start to fade away. Canada is a country that only becomes more relevant as time goes on. Since being granted full sovereignty, Canada has had a growing role as a major world player. Much of their international growth has to do with its close ties to the United States and the United Kingdom. However, the country has also undergone huge change and refocusing on a domestic level. With influence from both Europe and the United States, Canada has a very unique system of governing. This paper will focus on a few major areas of Canada. It will look into the history of Canada, the structure of its government, its politics, and many of the major issues it faces today.

Beginning with the Articles of Confederation, our nascent country began its path to self-governance. No longer “property” of the British Empire, the task at hand was how to effectively govern these newly formed states. Apparently a fan of symmetry, the

Smith argues for the Crowns’ significance in three particular areas: federal and provincial relations, executive dominance, and its influence on organizing political power in Canada. The following paragraphs will examine the viability of Smith’s claims in each of these three domains. It will be argued that although Smith’s claims of Crown centrality are of substance,

It is easy to look at this time frame as a period of dishonesty, noticeable greed, and unrestricted entrepreneurship. However, this should be seen as the formative period of the United States when framers moved into a metropolitan culture that was dominated by industrial companies. The economy seen remarkable progress thanks to the trade and industry transformation. The US Economy was growing at an alarming rate in the late 19th century. Even with the Panics like 1893, the economy recuperated rapidly and still continued to flourish.

During the era of Pre-Confederation Canada, Upper Canadians and Lower Canadians showed very different views on the state of Canada. Notably, Upper Canadians struggled to hold fast to social class, down-right refusing to remove barriers of social class in order to remain within the jurisdiction of the privileges of Britain. Consequently, a common view on the country at the time wasn’t that of Canada – an individual colony on its own, but as a wasteland to be conquered. Hence, Upper Canada was focused on construction and urban development, rather than industry.

The focus of this investigation will be “To what extend did the conflict between cultures and all they contain (languages, traditions, races) fuel the formation of the Canadian Confederation?” and will analyze how the different cultures, races, languages, and traditions fueled the formation of the Canadian confederation. There are a variety of reasons why the Canadian confederation formed, but I believe the conflict between the different cultures in Canada was a very large cause in the formation of the Confederation. I will research the specific conflicts in culture that were occurring in Canada pre-Confederation. How these conflicts affected the current government and life in Canada. Why Canadian leaders saw these conflicts as a reason to

For those looking at Canada from an outside perspective they may assume that Canada had a long political fight with its British motherland to gain its patriation given their ties from colonialism. However, that was not particularly the obstacle Canadians had, provided that the Statue of Westminster gave Canada its opportunity in 1931. In fact the obstacles Canadians had at the time were other provinces failing to agree with one another on how to proceed from there on. Only in 1982 were these disagreements resolved. However, this paper is not focusing on how it was resolved, because much of that is well-known. This paper will focus on why it took Canada so long to patriate by examining failed attempts on agreeing on the domestic amending formula.

When taking the time to review the early beginnings of Canadian history through the events that would go onto lead to confederation, it is possible to realize the intent that is found in regards to the founding of the country from being a collection of colonies for the British Empire. This all in all establishes and investigation to the economic, social, political, and environmental events/ideas to go on to understand the nature of the formation of Canada, as well as the influences that would go on to the development of the national identity.

This first primary document, “The Duty of Canada at the Present Hour” written by Henri Bourassa, a Frenchman with a strong drive towards Canadian nationalism and war based economic model to pursue the concentration of personal wealth. Although Bourassa has a

With the aim of enticing British Columbia in joining the recently formed Dominion of Canada rather than succumbing to the rule of the United States of America, Prime Minister Sir John A. McDonald promised a transcontinental railway in return. The ulterior purpose behind the multi-million dollar project was connecting regions within Canada and initiating the act of nation building. Nevertheless, a project built upon the hopes of a unified nation quickly escalated to one projecting actions that dictated segregation. Discrimination of Chinese workers through the implementation of a head tax, political unrest within government parties and rebellions such as the Pacific Scandal, created a site of contradiction in regards to Canada’s ulterior motive; perpetuating divisions within residents instead. In this way, the great expedition of the Canadian Pacific Railway became a paradoxical phenomenon under the realm of the unification it intended to nurture and segregation it ultimately

In this inquiry, we were to evaluate the following topics and rearrange in the order of the importance of the creation of the Dominion of Canada and the expanse of the territory. The following list represents my opinion of what is most important to the creation or confederation (I will be using both words in the case of Canada and not America) of Canada:

As a member of the government, I pressed for a federal union of the British North American colonies that would end the awkward political structure and allow Ontario and Quebec to regain their separate legislatures. Like many other "fathers of the confederation", I attended the Quebec Conference in 1864 and was part of the Canadian Delegation sent to England in 1865 and 1866 to negotiate the final terms of the British North America Act, 1867. Unable to support either the Conservatives or the Liberals led by Alexander Mackenzie, so I retired from Parliament in

Yet, despite this critical shortcoming, curiously, the common denominator in the framing of a national Canadian identity is nevertheless institutional, even by detractors, and completely sidesteps the implication of Parliament’s unclear role. Canadian self-consciousness, presuming such a concept exists, is fickle. Outside Quebec, George Grant in Lament for a Nation lampooned the notion of an indigenious Canadian identity as a failed but tried experiment, an identity of statist Tory conservativism never meant to be in a divided nation, let alone to stand manifest in a converging North America. Parliament, Grant argued, failed to live up in practice to its ideal – but his mid-1960s requiem for an independent Canada did not fully materialize, or at least not yet. Institutionally-speaking, other theories implied Canadian national sovereignty was born an accident in the making. Both Seymour Lipset and Louis Hartz swapped Canadian agency in defining its own “Canadianism” for the coattails of the American War of Independence, the former as Canada the foundational bulwark of the Loyalist counter-revolution and the latter as the fragments of the European revolution itself. Key to all three theories is the role of federal institutions, whose political role for its most predominant cousin is stubbornly not defined. Put in other words, the exception is not