ipl-logo

Why Was Confederation Necessary For Canada

1362 Words6 Pages

The Dominion of Canada was not born because of a revolution, or a sudden outburst of nationalism. Whatsoever, it was created with a series of conferences and orderly negotiations, which eventually formed Canada. The process of negotiating to make Canada happen was not easy. Each colonies/dominions had their own terms and conditions that must be met in order for them to be part of the Canada that is known to us today. Confederation was necessary for Canada because in the 1860s there were many problems amongst the colonies. At that time, the Province of Canada alone was facing many critical problems there was a division among the English and French speaking population. Other colonies also needed assistance to develop a larger market and without …show more content…

Before confederation, Quebec was known East Canada. In 1858, co-prime minister of the Province of Canada George-Étienne Cartier was in favour of splitting up the two Canadas into separate provinces, and to be governed under one federal government. Cartier and other pro-Confederation forces in Canada East gave numbers of reasons on why confederation was needed to form. Firstly, the political deadlock had made the Province of Canada nearly impossible to be governed. People believed in that Confederation would allow the newly formed federal government to make national decisions, while letting individual provinces to deal. Québec would be able to protect French Canadian interests if they were a self governing province. Secondly, Confederation would help to strengthen their economy. Lastly, for mutual benefits the construction of a railway was necessary, with the railway, colonies economy will boost together.Confederation was never as enthusiastically embraced in Quebec as it evidently was in Ontario, about 40% of the members from Quebec voted against Confederation. Almost half of the newspapers in the province strongly opposed to the idea of joining Confederation. Politicians such as Jean-Baptiste-Eric Dorion were one of the leaders in the opposing force, he lead many French Canadians to resist the formation of Confederation; He founded the newspaper L’Avenir and used as a sword to attack Confederation. “I oppose Confederation …show more content…

Quebec joined Canada with the promise of culture protection; so to Quebec money was important, but the French Culture was something they cannot bear to lose. Unlike Quebec, BC joined Confederation mostly because of they are needing financial support since the colony was not declining economically. To get out of that state, they proposed the want of a transcontinental railway and for Canada to pay off all of their debts in exchange for them to join Canada. (3) However, the Dominion of Canada was more British than French, so the progress of pursuing Quebec to become part of Canada with rather more difficult when it came to dealing with BC. Whatsoever, the two provinces did have similarities on their reasons to join Confederation; that was to avoid being taken over by the US. They US was looking for ways to expand and none of the British North American colonies wanted to be absorbed by it, so they joined together to defend themselves from the Americans.

Show More
Related
578 Words | 3 Pages

Whereas, the Quebec conference was a plan to develop a detailed plan for confederation in which it said there was one vote per colony except east and west Canada where they got two. Then Prince Edward Island started to worry about representation due to a small size. After that it then adopted the seventy-two resolutions and that was a plan of what the government will look

Read More
487 Words | 2 Pages

Having a British colony as a neighbor made people on both sides of the border uneasy. The Americans were waiting for Canada to “(reject) the artificial rule of a foreign empire”(198), while Britain was waiting for The United States to collapse and beg them to rejoin the empire. While both waited for the others eventual fall, other factors led to them to war.

Read More
180 Words | 1 Pages

with confederation we will have more taxes which means more money for the colonies together. we could do a lot more like building a railway connecting Canada west and east together, then we could transport goods and let people travel between colonies a lot faster. we also will be able to expand to the west and build

Read More
117 Words | 1 Pages

As British Columbia became larger talks about it joining confederation began to arise. Confederationists began to propose the idea of BC joining Canada, but a large amount of people also wanted to join the United States or maintain ties with Britain. A hearing was held that had equal sides anti-confederationists and confederationists. Just then Governor Seymour died and Anthony Musgrave was appointed to become his replacement. Musgrave went around to the annexationists and anti-confederationists winning them over and getting terms from them.

Read More
684 Words | 3 Pages

Newfoundland made the right decision in joining Canada in 1949 because in return they were given the promise of prosperity and security due to family allowance, higher standards of living and relief of debt. When Newfoundland joined Confederation, it was by far the the poorest province. Billions of dollars of equalization payments later and investments into the province by the Federal Government, now means Newfoundland is richer than the average Canadian province and has not qualified for equalization payments since 2008. The first reason why Newfoundland made the right decision in joining Canadian Confederation was because Canada relieved Newfoundland of the financial debt burdening it.

Read More
1125 Words | 5 Pages

As a country Canada’s strengths included, gaining autonomy through persevering and showing just how mature and ready Canadians were to be in charge of their own army; and be recognized as a separate country from Britain. Another one of Canada’s strengths was how calmly autonomy was achieved after the war. Canada did not need to make a fuss about becoming their own country because it was obvious that they were already ready for that. Their proof was presented in how they planned and executed their battles, and fought alongside Britain to successfully defeat

Read More
756 Words | 4 Pages

These isolated rebellions showed how the Canadians were opposing the authority and control of the British over Canada The rebellions led Upper and Lower Canada to recognize a common cause and they combined Upper and Lower Canada to create a single Canada in the Act of Union in 1840. In addition, a drive for a greater Canadian confederacy grew out of the need for a common defense, the necessity of determining a solution to the problem between the French and British people. When the Maritime provinces, which were seeking union among themselves, called the Charlottetown conference in 1864, delegates from the other provinces of Canada attended. Later in the year, another conference was held on October 1864 in Québec City called the Quebec conference and it helped shape the new Canadian government by creating a Bicameral legislature. The Québec conference helped lead to Canada’s independence because it was refining and focussing on the 72 resolutions and deciding on the broader issues discussed in the Charlottetown conference

Read More
585 Words | 3 Pages

Following the Revolutionary War, America had just gained independance from Great Britain and needed to form a new government. The Articles of Confederation were established as an attempt to create a government that was unlike Britain’s. Unfortunately, the Articles of Confederation had several weaknesses. When in the process of repairing those weaknesses, the Federalists and the Anti-federalists formed. The Articles of Confederation were very weak as well as useless to America and because of this, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists could not agree on a new type of government.

Read More
232 Words | 1 Pages

Areas divided into Saskatchewan and Alberta. Alberta joined the Confederation in the same year with Saskatchewan. Difficulties for joining the Confederation were how many provinces Canada would create and a financial arrengement. The creation of Alberta led an immigration boom. A variety of languages were spoken in Alberta

Read More
663 Words | 3 Pages

The two American leaders are Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery. Arnold was the one who actually got to Quebec. Furthermore, The American Revolution editors say “ For more details Arnold reached the city”. Why this important is because if he didn’t get to the city there would be no chance of capturing Quebec. The other leader Montgomery was killed during the battle.

Read More
692 Words | 3 Pages

At a time many thought that the effects of a revolution would cause another one. The Articles of Confederation was the center of attention for this problem. After the fight for Independence the new America had to have a type of government. The Congress of this newly established nation created the Articles of Confederation. Of course problems would arise due to the ability of them knowing what they didn’t want when they should’ve known what the should have.

Read More
166 Words | 1 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.

Read More
1076 Words | 5 Pages

Gabriela Velazques Professor Peshkoff 28 October 2015 The Articles of Confederation: States prevail, Congress fails to The Article of Confederation was a promise for united colonies, but it did not take long for the promise to change. The colonies had no clear intentions of running as a union due to its previous history with Great Britain. Colonies wanted to remain together, just not under one authority. The Articles of Confederation remained as the first constitution of the United States for less than a decade after various disagreements arose between states, and also Congress.

Read More
1286 Words | 6 Pages

The greatest factor that the article to persuade me in agreeing with the Rocher’s statement was how the article was structured, for example when discussing the differences between the French and English scholars and how it affects political decisions. The article first labeled Quebec’s autonomy approach by citing the Tremblay commission and discussing how the commission's views on philosophical, historical, judicial, and instutionalital justifications influenced the priority of autonomy from the rest of Canada. After showing background and distinguishing these key ideas, the article showed the contrast with the opposing English scholar view and how the two views clashed with one another. From there, Rocher highlighted that with these two separate priorities on the agenda, the true normative qualities of Canada’s federal system could not discussed, as well as problems with the federal system (levels of autonomy per province) were not capable of being solved. If Canada wishes to keep its place as one of the paradigm examples of liberal democracy and a successful federal state on the world stage, then it must put forth adequate resources and time to solving these

Read More
672 Words | 3 Pages

They extended the providence of Quebec to span west of the Mississippi, north towards the Hudson Bay and all the way up to the islands at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, preventing colonial expansion. The Quebec Act also denied the colonies the right to an elected legislative assembly. The British did not realize that the Quebec Act would impact the Middle and Southern colonies too. The British wanted to make New England listen to them and stop their shenanigans and scare the other colonies into listening to parliament but, that did not work. The colonies united after the Intolerable Acts to form the Committee of Correspondence.

Read More

More about Why Was Confederation Necessary For Canada

Related Topics

Open Document