Confederation For Newfoundland Case Study

166 Words1 Pages
Joe Smallwood had led the campaign for Confederation for Newfoundland. He became the first premier of the tenth province. The decision to join had not been an easy one for Newfoundlanders. It came after several years of debate on their political future. In 1948 they had two referendums, they voted on three choices. The first referendum didn 't have a majority vote. The second vote was for the most popular options: responsible self-government or confederation with Canada. 52% of the islanders were in favour of joining confederation and 48% were for responsible self government. Government workers thought they would lose some of their power of Newfoundland joined Canada. Merchants were afraid Canadians would move in on their markets. Fisheries,