The agreement that the resolutions must be accepted or rejected as a whole led Dorion to complain that the power of parliament to amend legislation was curtailed. What value had the debate, if the resolutions were in the nature of a treaty and could not be moulded to suit the wishes of the people's representatives? The grievance was not so substantial as it appeared. The Imperial parliament, which was finally to pass the measure, could be prompted later on to make any alterations strongly desired by Canadian public opinion.
Why were not the terms of Confederation submitted to the Canadian people for ratification? The most strenuous fight was made in parliament on this point, and in after years, too, constitutional writers, gifted with the wisdom which comes after the event, have declared the omission a serious error. Goldwin Smith observed that Canadians might conceivably in the future discard their institutions as lacking popular sanction when they were adopted, seeing that in reality they were imposed on the country by a group of politicians and a distant parliament. In dealing with such objections the reasons given at the time must be considered. The question was discussed at the Quebec Conference, doubtless informally.[[1]] The constitutional right of the legislatures to deal with the matter was unquestioned by the Canadian members. Shortly after the conference adjourned, Galt in a speech at Sherbrooke[[2]] declared that, if during the discussion of the scheme in parliament any serious doubt arose respecting the public feeling on the subject, the people would be called upon to decide for themselves. The Globe, which voiced the opinion of Brown, said:
If on the assembling of Parliament the majority in that body in favour of Confederation shall be found so large as to make it manifest that any reference to the country would simply be a matter of form, Ministers will not, we take it, feel warranted in putting the country to great trouble and expense for the sake of that unessential formality.
When challenged in parliament the government gave its reasons. The question of Confederation had, in one form or another, been before the country for years. During 1864 there had been elections in eleven ridings for the Assembly and in fourteen for the Legislative Council. The area of country embraced by these contests included forty counties. Of the candidates in these elections but four opposed federation and only two of them were elected. Brown stated impetuously that not five members of parliament in Upper Canada dare go before the people against the scheme. No petitions against it were presented, and its opponents had not ventured to hold meetings, knowing that an enormous majority of the people favoured it. This evidence, in Upper Canada, was accepted as conclusive. In Lower Canada appearances were not quite so convincing. The ministry representing that section was not a coalition, and the Liberal leaders, both French and English, organized an agitation. But afterwards, in the campaign of 1867, Cartier swept all before him. It was also argued that parliament was fresh from the people as recently as 1864, and that though the mandate to legislate was not specific, it was sufficient. The method of ascertaining the popular verdict by means of a referendum was proposed, but rejected as unknown to the constitution and at variance with British practice.
Parliament finally adopted the resolutions by a vote of ninety-one to thirty-three in the Assembly and of forty-five to fifteen in the Legislative Council. Hillyard Cameron, politically a lineal descendant of the old Family Compact, supported by Matthew Crooks Cameron, a Conservative of the highest integrity and afterwards chief justice, then moved for a reference to the people by a dissolution of parliament. But after an animated debate the motion was defeated, and no further efforts in this direction were attempted. That an eagerness to invoke the judgment of democracy was not seen at its best, when displayed by two Tories of the old school, may justify the belief that parliamentary tactics, rather than the pressure of public opinion, inspired the move.
Fortune had smiled upon the statesmen of the Canadian coalition. In a few months they had accomplished wonders. They had secured the aid of the Maritime Provinces in drafting a scheme of union. They had made tours in the east and the west to prepare public opinion for the great stroke of state. They and their co-delegates had formulated and adopted the Quebec resolutions, on which a chorus of congratulation had drowned, for the time, the voices of warning and expostulation. And, finally, the ministers had met parliament and had secured the adoption of their scheme by overwhelming majorities.
But all was not so fair in the provinces by the sea. Before the Canadian legislature prorogued, the Tilley government had been hurled from power in New Brunswick, Joseph Howe was heading a formidable agitation in Nova Scotia, and in the other two provinces the cause was lost. It seemed as if a storm had burst that would overwhelm the union and that the hands of the clock would be put back.
[[1]] See the remark of McCully of Nova Scotia that the delegates should take the matter into their own hands and not wait to educate the people up to it—Pope's Confederation Documents, p. 60.