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In April of
1873 Macdoanld was faced with a vote of censure
over the Pacific Railway scandal by the Canadian
Parliament but before the vote could be taken he
resigned. Alexander Mackenzie was asked by the
Governor General to form a Government which he
did but in 1874 he called a general election
which he fought mainly on the Pacific Railway
scandal and won the election by 173-33 seats.
Unfortunately for Mackenzie, just
as he was celebrating the victory of the Liberal
party, a worldwide recession was setting in. The
result of this economic downturn was a decrease
in the demand for Canadian product, the dumping
of excess foreign products in Canada and in
addition to these negative factors Canada suffer
poor crop production that year. Mackenzie
dispatch George Brown to Washington in 1874 in
an attempt to renew some sort of reciprocity
with the United States but failed and the
Liberal government was forced to resort to
raising protective tariffs on imports.
Mackenzie
sought to reduce the growing Federal deficit by
cutting costs and the first target of this
policy was the transcontinental railway. He did
not believe that the government could afford to
build the railway and instead tried to minimize
the costs by building short sections between
water transportation links as an interim
measure. British Columbia became very
disillusioned with their agreement that would
have seen the railway built within 10 years and
started to take about secession from
Confederation. Mackenzie made overtures to
British Columbia as an attempt to renegotiate
the railway deal which only inflamed the
situation more. Finally, the Governor General,
Lord Dufferin, made a trip to British Columbia
in an attempt to mediate the situation and
insure that British Columbia remained within the
British Empire as a part of Canada.
The intercolonial railway from
the Maritimes to Quebec was completed at
government expense and a link to the American
railways in Minnesota built from Winnipeg while
a slow start was made on a section from Fort
William to Winnipeg with some surveying done in
many areas across the county with little actual
building.
The
development of the Canadian Government did make
tremendous strides during this periods with the
establishment of the Supreme Court of Canada in
1875 and the reform and regulation of Federal
elections with rules demanding expenditure
accountability, and the elimination of
requirements for owning property in order to run
for Parliament. The North West Mounted Police,
which were to be come the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police. were also established. The Northwest Act
provided for government regulation and rule of
the Northwest territories and the Homestead Act
provided for the easy acquisition of land by
settlers in the west.
Mackenzie also began the process
of expanding Canadian participation in it's own
foreign policy and in that vain he insisted that
Canadians be included in any negotiations with
foreign powers over issue that effected Canada
as Sir John A. Macdonald had during the drawing
up of the Washington Treaty. The other battle
which Mackenzie fought and won was the limiting
of the powers of the Governor General in actual
policy formation and governing. Mackenzie was
offended when the Governor General interfered in
both the Railway issues in British Columbia and
the over the decision about how to handle the
executioners of Thomas Scott. The British
Government instructed Lord Dufferin to restrict
his involvement in domestic affairs and the
trend was set.
By the time it was getting close
to another election Mackenzie had extinguished
much of the goodwill that had welcomed his
election in 1874 and with the colourful
Macdonald back in control of the Conservative
Party, Mackenzie was turned out of power in 1978
and the Liberals would not get a taste of it
again until Laurier. |
