|
A New Nation |
Nova
Scotia Balks | The
Northwest Territories |
Manitoba & Riel | Federal
Provincial Relations | British
Columbia | Prince Edward Island
| The Washington Treaty |
Scandal |
Liberal Interlude |
The National Policy |
The Railroad |
Immigration |
Rebellion |
Transition
Confederation had been achieved but the
anti-confederation forces were strong in some areas of
the new country. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had been
vey hesitant about joining in 1865 but with generous
funding from the Canadas to counter American money
supporting the anti-confederation forces, the two
colonies had become a part of the BNA Act in 1867.
On September
18th, 1867 Nova Scotia held its elections for both the
Provincial Legislature and the Federal government. The
provincial election returned only 2 pro-Canada members
out of 38 while in the Federal results only one pro-Canada
member, Charles Tupper, was elected out of 18. Joseph
Howe had run in the Federal election as an
anti-Confederationist and had won. Macdonald had won
good support in every other part of Canada so on
November 7th, 1867 when the Canadian Parliament convened
for the first time, his only real source of dis-comfort
was from the Nova Scotia members.
One of the first
orders of business was to pass the Bill which approved
the building of the Inter-colonial Railway which would
connect Nova Scotia with the Ontario and Quebec and
hence open up new markets for all. This made little
impression on Howe who was determined to see Nova Scotia
out of Confederation. Howe developed several arguments
to achieve this objective and on February 14th 1868
departed for London to lay them in front of the Imperial
authorities. Howe was joined by three other
anti-confederationists, the Premier of Nova Scotia,
William Annand, J.C. Troop, and H.W. Smith. Once
Macdonald realized what was going on he quickly
dispatched Charles Tupper to London to counter the
efforts of Howe.
Howe tried every
avenue he could to convince the Colonial Office to
repeal the inclusion of Nova Scotia in Confederation
including having John Bright propose a motion to form a
Royal Commission to investigate the appeals of Nova
Scotia in both the House of Lords and the House of
Commons. Both motions were decisively defeated. By June
Howe realized that he was not going to achieve his aim
of pulling Nova Scotia out of Confederation. He met with
Tupper in London who booked passage back to Canada on
the same ship that Howe was booked on. They had many
talks while on board and slowly Howe was brought around
to accepting the fact that Canada was not going to let
Nova Scotia go and that perhaps he could achieve more
inside the government as a Cabinet Minister than outside
as an anti-confederations.
In August John A Macdonald, Tupper,
Cartier and the tentative leader of the opposition in
the Federal government John Sandfield Macdonald all
travelled to Halifax to appeal to Howe to join the cause
of Canada. By August of 1869, Howe was ready to
compromise and he was sworn in as a Cabinet Minister in
MacDonald's government. ova Scotia also received
an increase in their Federal subsidy to match that given
to New Brunswick. The anti-Confederation forces in
Nova Scotia had been decisively turned back. |
