Dear Sir or Madam:
Today, we write to you of the reason for Canada’s emergence. As a nation state, Canada’s start was a bit of an oddity. Most states we know of today were created by the collapse of empires, popular local uprisings, or expansionist conquest. The old joke goes that we are the one country who received their independence by asking nicely; and that is not far from the truth. The British North America Act, 1867 (BNA Act) which established the Dominion of Canada was passed by the British Parliament and took effect in 1867. But why exactly did the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia ask to be combined, and why did Britain grant them their wish?
Another longstanding joke with some historical truth is how much we as Canadians define ourselves based on not being the United States. In the early to mid 1800s there was a real fear that small, independant colonies could fall, one by one, to an expansionist United States.1 In the old Imperial system, Britain invested money into garrisoning troops, both to prevent outside aggression and to keep internal peace.2 By the middle of the century, there was less appetite for expansion and the expense that came with it. Britain was tired of war over North America and the northern States were increasingly anti-British; especially after Britain’s choice to stay neutral (with tacit support for the South) in the American Civil War. A unified, self-governing colony without potentially provocative British garrisons was seen as a diplomatic way for Britain to quietly withdraw from North America and leave behind a presence strong enough to block expansion, but not so strong as to make the States feel threatened.3
For the settlers in the colonies, economic matters were important in the push for confederation. For the smaller Maritime colonies, the interest was primarily in the creation of a rail link that would increase trade along the St. Lawrence.4 For the Colony of Canada (after Confederation, Ontario and Quebec), the interest was to justify expansion into Rupert’s Land (the area surrounding Hudson’s Bay, along with what are the modern prairie provinces and Northern Territories). The creation of a legislative union was championed by Edmund Walker Head, Governor General of British North America in the 1850s, as a way to create a framework to add that land and other western colonies to Canada.5
While economics and the American threat were important motivators, the influence of cultural matters cannot be denied, especially in the case of the region that would become Quebec. The establishment of Confederation and the division of powers embedded in the BNA Act were influenced by opposing forces such as Joseph-Charles Taché, who favoured a union with other colonies in order to divide the Colony of Canada [Upper and Lower Canada] and protect the French Canadian identity.6
Ultimately, establishing the Dominion of Canada by the BNA Act was pursued because it made sense for Imperial Britain, and for the colonies. A larger, unified nation can better expand its economy and protect its territory. Additionally, a federated nation can better allow for people to retain their cultural distinctiveness among the Anglo- and Francophone settler populations.
Your Humble and Obedient Servants,
The Dominion
1Cole Harris, The Reluctant Land (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008) at 448.
2Ibid at 455.
3Ibid at 450-1.
4Ibid at 450.
5Ibid at 449.
6Ibid.
