Financial Issues In Building The Canadian Pacific Railway

The cries of the voices of many Canadians following British Columbia joining Confederation on July 1st, 1871 made Prime Minister Macdonald’s promise come true in building the Canadian Pacific Railway. This railway would link Eastern Canada with Western Canada, thus, so connecting this nation together, finally creating a nation that was strong and united. The biggest problem the Canadian government would have to face was the many financial issues following the plan to build a railway. The years after British Columbia joined Confederation, Canada will struggle with a financial situation due to the poor planning and building of the railway that will set the government back financially, and the construction will harm Canada as a nation. The biggest

At that time, there was no knowledge of how to get across Northern Ontario or through the Rocky Mountains by rail17. Therefore, one safe thing to do was to set up a program for a very respectable set of surveys so that the decisions could be made with knowledge18. This way, planning would proceed as scheduled and construction would be slowed down in order to plan a safe and effective way to link Canada. However, money was being spent with all these surveyors being sent out, and there was little to show for it19. The intention of the money was to construct the railway, yet money was being depleted from the government’s grant and there was no start in construction. The necessity to hire surveyors was that the railway had to be an “all-Canadian route”20, meaning that the railway must run through Canada, therefore not extending into the United States. This way, Canada would be independent and strong from annexation to the United States. However, the problem that Canada faced was that within Canada there were two areas especially difficult for railway building21. Surveyors must locate a route through 2,500 miles of rock in the Canadian Shield and pass the tall mountains of the Rockies in British Columbia22. This was the primary reason that large amounts of money was gone from government’s pocket, and construction was not able to start. The survey was itself a mammoth task23, and by the summer of 1871 over eight hundred men in twenty-one teams were in the field24. The large amounts of surveyors costed money, and very little new land being discovered by hiring them. Altogether, the total cost of surveying totalled $37 million28. The real construction of the railway had not even started, and yet large amounts of money had been used just to find a suitable route through