Daniel Heidt (ed.) - Reconsidering Confederation: Canada’s Founding Debates, 1864-1999

2018 Daniel Heidt

University of Calgary Press

2500 University Drive NW

Calgary, Alberta

Canada T2N 1N4

press.ucalgary.ca

This book is available as an ebook which is licensed under a Creative Commons license. The publisher should be contacted for any commercial use which falls outside the terms of that license.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Reconsidering confederation : Canadas founding

debates, 1864-1999 / edited by Daniel Heidt.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77385-015-3 (softcover).ISBN 978-1-77385-016-0

(open access PDF).ISBN 978-1-77385-017-7 (PDF).

ISBN 978-1-77385-018-4 (EPUB).ISBN 978-1-77385-019-1 (Kindle)

1. CanadaHistoryConfederation, 1867. I. Heidt, Daniel

(Daniel Henry), 1985-, editor

FC474.R37 2018 971.049 C2018-904065-3

C2018-904066-1

The University of Calgary Press acknowledges the support of the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund for our publications. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada. We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

This book has been published with the support of the Crabtree Foundation.

Copyediting by Francine Michaud

Cover design, page design, and typesetting by Melina Cusano

1 |

Daniel Heidt

2 |

J.R. Miller

3 |

Daniel Heidt

4 |

Marcel Martel, Colin M. Coates,
Martin Pquet, and Maxime Gohier

5 |

Phillip Buckner

6 |

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

7 |

Patricia E. Roy

8 |

P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Ken S. Coates

9 |

Bill Waiser

10 |

Raymond B. Blake

11 |

P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Andr Lgar

Canada, with its current provincial and territorial borders.

Historical Treaties of Canada. Developed from Canada, Historical Treaties of Canada, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada ,https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/DAM/DAM-INTER-HQ/STAGING/texte-text/htoc_1100100032308_eng.pdf.

British North Americas settler political boundaries as they existed in 1867. Developed from Natural Resources Canada, Map 1867, Library and Archives Canada , https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/confederation/023001-5005-e.html.

The Charlottetown delegates, 1 September 1864. photograph by George P. Roberts, LAC, C-000733.

The Red River settlement, 1870, showing the locations of the predominantly French and English parishes. Developed from: Gerhard J. Ens, Homeland to Hinterland: The Changing Worlds of the Metis in the Nineteenth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 11; Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 91; Norma Jean Hall, The People, The Provisional Government of Assiniboia , https://hallnjean2.wordpress.com/resources/definition-provisional-government/the-people-electorate/; George Stanley, The Birth of Western Canada: A History of The Riel Rebellions , 2 nd edition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961), 14.

Manitobas expansion, 18701912. Reproduced with permission from John Welsted et al. Manitoba: Geographical Identity of a Prairie Province, The Geography of Manitoba: Its Land and Its People , eds. John C. Everitt, Christoph Stadel and John E. Welsted (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1996), 5.

The BC delegation of Dr. J.S. Helmcken, Dr. R.W.W. Carrall and J.W. Trutch departing for Ottawa to negotiate the terms of union with Canada. Image PDP00488 by Robert Banks, courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and Archives.

Yukon miners being chased from power by the Yukon Council and Ottawa monsters. Dawson Daily , 19 May 1903.

The North-West demanding justice for the North-West. The Grip , November 1883.

The proposed province of Buffalo. Reproduced with permission from Bill Waiser, Saskatchewan: A New History (Calgary: Fifth House, 2006).

Laurier as the proud father of two provincial twins. Montreal Daily Star, 23 February 1905.

The Ottawa Delegation of the National Convention, 1947. Photographer: G. Hunter. LAC, MIKAN 3362966.

Anti-Confederate Campaign, 1948. Courtesy of the Rooms Provincial Archives Division, George Carter Collection, Box 5, MG910.

The Confederate , 31 May 1948, 3.

Rt. Hon. Louis St. Laurent speaking during the ceremony which admitted Newfoundland into Confederation. Ottawa, Ontario, 1 April 1949. LAC, MIKAN 3408569.

Canada at the beginning of the 20 th century, before the federal government created Alberta as well as Saskatchewan, and extended the northern boundaries of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Developed from Natural Resources Canada, Map 1898, Library and Archives Canada , https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/confederation/023001-5009-e.html.

Northern NDP MP Peter Ittinuar. NWT Archives/GNWT. Department of Public Works and Services/G-1995-001: 0539.

Nunavut, as established in 1999. Reproduced from: Nunavut with Names, Natural Resources Canada , http://ftp.geogratis.gc.ca/pub/nrcan_rncan/raster/atlas_6_ed/reference/bilingual/nunavut_names.pdf.

The Northwest Territories after the establishment of Nunavut in 1999. Reproduced from: Northwest Territories with Names, http://ftp.geogratis.gc.ca/pub/nrcan_rncan/raster/atlas_6_ed/reference/bilingual/nwt_names.pdf.

This books genesis can be traced to the origins of The Confederation Debates , which sought to familiarize Canadians with the debates that shaped their countrys founding during the past one and a half centuries. The project digitized roughly nine thousand pages of text from local and federal legislatures debating the admission of each province or territory into Confederation, between 1865 and 1949, as well as the Numbered Treaties and records of their negotiation, and posted these records to our legacy website hosted by the University of Victoria (http://hcmc.uvic.ca/confederation/).

From the outset, contributors from across the country diligently worked to package portions of these records into educational mini-units, social media posts, and other deliverables, and the projects leadership recognized that the records would be much more meaningful if they were accompanied by primers concerning each province, territory, and Treaty areas entry into Confederation.

Towards this end, a group of Canadas leading historians congregated at St. Jeromes University in February 2017 to share and discuss papers detailing each province, territory, and Treaty areas journeys into Confederation. Everyone was impressed by the collective strength of the research as well as the thoughtful analysis emphasizing a common (though diverse) pursuit of local autonomy, and the decision was quickly made to submit the papers for scholarly publication. The result is Reconsidering Confederation .