Canada under British Rule 1760-1900

by John George Bourinot

Lord Durham's report on the affairs of British North America was presented to the British government on the 31st January, 1839, and attracted an extraordinary amount of interest in England, where the two rebellions had at last awakened statesmen to the absolute necessity of providing an effective remedy for difficulties which had been pressing upon their attention for years, but had never been thoroughly understood until the appearance of this famous state paper. A legislative union of the two Canadas and the concession of responsible government were the two radical changes which stood out prominently in the report among minor suggestions in the direction of stable government. On the question of responsible government Lord Durham expressed opinions of the deepest political wisdom. He found it impossible "to understand how any English statesman could have ever imagined that representative and irresponsible government could be successfully combined….To suppose that such a system would work well there, implied a belief that the French Canadians have enjoyed representative institutions for half a century, without acquiring any of the characteristics of a free people; that Englishmen renounce every political opinion and feeling when they enter a colony, or that the spirit of Anglo-Saxon freedom is utterly changed and weakened among those who are transplanted across the Atlantic[3]."

[3: For the full text of Lord Durham's report, which was laid before Parliament, 11 February, 1839, see English Parliamentary Papers for 1839.]

In June, 1839, Lord John Russell introduced a bill to reunite the two provinces, but it was allowed, after its second reading, to lie over for that session of parliament, in order that the matter might be fully considered in Canada. Mr. Poulett Thomson was appointed governor-general with the avowed object of carrying out the policy of the imperial government. Immediately after his arrival in Canada, in the autumn of 1839, the special council of Lower Canada and the legislature of Upper Canada passed addresses in favour of a union of the two provinces. These necessary preliminaries having been made, Lord John Russell, in the session of 1840, again brought forward "An act to reunite the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, and for the government of Canada," which was assented to on the 23rd of July, but did not come into effect until the 10th of February in the following year.

The act provided for a legislative council of not less than twenty members, and for a legislative assembly in which each section of the united provinces would be represented by an equal number of members—that is to say, forty-two for each or eighty-four in all. The number of representatives allotted to each province could not be changed except with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members of each house. The members of the legislative council were appointed by the crown for life, and the members of the assembly were chosen by electors possessing a small property qualification. Members of both bodies were required to hold property to a certain amount. The assembly had a duration of four years, subject of course to be sooner dissolved by the governor-general.

Provision was made for a consolidated revenue fund, on which the first charges were expenses of collection, management and receipt of revenues, interest of public debt, payment of the clergy, and civil list. The English language alone was to be used in the legislative records. All votes, resolutions or bills involving the expenditure of public money were to be first recommended by the governor-general.

The first parliament of the United Canadas was opened on the 14th June, 1841, in the city of Kingston, by the governor-general, who had been created Baron Sydenham of Sydenham and of Toronto. This session was the commencement of a series of parliaments which lasted until the confederation of all the provinces in 1867, and forcibly illustrated the capacity of the people of Canada to manage their internal affairs. For the moment, I propose to refer exclusively to those political conditions which brought about responsible government, and the removal of grievances which had so long perplexed the imperial state and distracted the whole of British North America.

In Lord John Russell's despatches of 1839,—the sequence of Lord Durham's report—we can clearly see the doubt in the minds of the imperial authorities whether it was possible to work the system of responsible government on the basis of a governor directly responsible to the parent state, and at the same time acting under the advice of ministers who would be responsible to a colonial legislature. But the colonial secretary had obviously come to the opinion that it was necessary to make a radical change which would insure greater harmony between the executive and the popular bodies of the provinces. Her Majesty, he stated emphatically, "had no desire to maintain any system of policy among her North American subjects which opinion condemns", and there was "no surer way of gaining the approbation of the Queen than by maintaining the harmony of the executive with the legislative authorities." The new governor-general was expressly appointed to carry out this new policy. If he was extremely vain, at all events he was also astute, practical, and well able to gauge the public sentiment by which he should be guided at so critical a period of Canadian history. The evidence is clear that he was not individually in favour of responsible government, as it was understood by men like Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Howe, when he arrived in Canada. He believed that the council should be one "for the governor to consult and no more"; and voicing the doubts that existed in the minds of imperial statesmen, he added, the governor "cannot be responsible to the government at home" and also to the legislature of the province, if it were so, "then all colonial government becomes impossible." The governor, in his opinion, "must therefore be the minister [i.e. the colonial secretary], in which case he cannot be under control of men in the colony."

When the assembly met it was soon evident that the Reformers in that body were determined to have a definite understanding on the all-important question of responsible government; and the result was that the governor-general, a keen politician, immediately recognised the fact that, unless he yielded to the feeling of the majority, he would lose all his influence. There is every reason to believe that the resolutions which were eventually passed in favour of responsible government, in amendment to those moved by Mr. Baldwin, had his approval before their introduction. The two sets of resolutions practically differed little from each other, and the inference to be drawn from the political situation of these times is that the governor's friends in the council thought it advisable to gain all the credit possible with the public for the passage of resolutions on the all-absorbing question of the day, since it was obvious that it had to be settled in some satisfactory and definite form. These resolutions embodying the principles of the new constitution of Canada, were as follows: (1) "That the head of the executive government of the province, being within the limits of his government the representative of the sovereign, is responsible to the imperial authority alone, but that, nevertheless, the management of our local affairs can only be conducted by him with the assistance, counsel, and information of subordinate officers in the province. (2) That, in order to preserve between the different branches of the provincial parliament that harmony which is essential to the peace, welfare and good government of the province, the chief advisers of the representative of the sovereign, constituting a provincial administration under him, ought to be men possessed of the confidence of the representatives of the people; thus affording a guarantee that the well-understood wishes and interests of the people, which our gracious sovereign has declared shall be the rule of the provincial government, will on all occasions be faithfully represented and advocated. (3) That the people of this province have, moreover, the right to expect from such provincial administration, the exertion of their best endeavours that the imperial authority, within its constitutional limits, shall be exercised in the manner most consistent with their well-understood wishes and interests."

On the 4th September, 1841, Lord Sydenham met with a serious accident while riding, and as his constitution had been impaired for years he died a fortnight later, to the regret of all political parties. He was succeeded by Sir Charles Bagot, a Conservative and High Churchman, whose brief administration was notable for the display of infinite discretion on his part, and for his desire to do justice to the French Canadians even at the risk of offending the ultra-loyal party, who claimed special consideration in the management of public affairs. Responsible government was in a fair way of being permanently established when Sir Charles Bagot unhappily died in 1843 of dropsy, complicated by heart-disease; and Lord Metcalfe was brought from India to create—as it soon appeared—confusion and discord in the political affairs of the province. His ideas of responsible government were those which had been steadily inculcated by colonial secretaries since 1839, and were even entertained by Lord Sydenham himself, namely, that the governor should be as influential a factor as possible in the government, and should always remember that he was directly responsible to the crown, and should consider its prerogatives and interests as superior to all local considerations.

When Lord Metcalfe assumed the responsibilities of his post, he found in office a Liberal administration, led by Mr. Baldwin, the eminent Reform leader of Upper Canada, and Mr. Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine, afterwards chief justice of Lower Canada and a baronet, who had been at the outset, like all his countrymen, opposed to the union, as unjust to their province. What originally excited their antagonism were the conditions exacted by the legislature of Upper Canada: an equality of representation, though the French section had a population of two hundred thousand more than the western province, the exclusion of the French language from the legislature, and the imposition of the heavy debt of Upper Canada on the revenues of the united provinces. But unlike Mr. Papineau, with whom he had acted during the political struggles in Lower Canada, Mr. Lafontaine developed a high order of discreet statesmanship after the union, and recognised the possibility of making French Canada a force in government. He did not follow the example of Mr. John Neilson, who steadily opposed the union—but determined to work it out fairly and patiently on the principles of responsible government.