The Canadas
As in Nova Scotia, the influx of Loyalists to Quebec from the United States
during and following the American Revolution intensified demands on the
part of new settlers in the St. Lawrence region for the establishment of
representative government there. Such reforms were opposed by the established
French-speaking community in Quebec who feared that their interests would
be subordinated to those of the small, but powerful, English-speaking community
which had come to dominate the commercial life of the colony. Nevertheless,
the British authorities eventually yielded to the pressure exerted by the
Anglo merchants of Montreal and their supporters elsewhere in the colony
and passed legislation, the Constitution Act (1791), dividing Quebec into
two separate colonies, with the Ottawa River separating Lower Canada, with
its French-speaking majority to the east, and, to the west, Upper Canada,
populated mainly by English-speaking Loyalists and other immigrants from
Britain and the US (including many "late Loyalists" attracted by the cheap
land and other benefits offered by the British for those relocating to
British North America). The same legislation granted a form of representative
government to both these new colonies.
These new arrangements did little to create political stability in the
St. Lawrence region of British North America. At least until the end of
the War of 1812, the Canadas faced the very real threat of invasion from
the United States. Internally, there were bitter conflicts among opposing
interest groups. In Lower Canada the focus of such conflict was, of course,
the continuing tension between the French-speaking majority (largely agricultural
and working-class) and the Anglos who ran the commercial and official affairs
of the colony). In Upper Canada the conflict revolved around a similar
elite (comprising members of the "Family Compact" who dominated its commercial
life and some highly conservative clerical and lay officials appointed
to office by the colonial authorities in London) and supporters of a reform
movement seeking a more broadly-based system of representation and, utlimately,
responsible government. These internal conflicts led to open acts of rebellion
in both the Canadas in 1837. To make matters worse, there was also persistent
conflict between the two new colonial governments, particularly with respect
to the undertaking of public works, such as investments in transporation
infrastructure in the larger St. Lawrence region.
The turmoil in the Canadas became of sufficient concern to the British
authorities that they commissioned an investigation, carried out by Lord
Durham, who recommended that the two colonies be united under a single
colonial administration. This was done by the Act of Union which established
a single colony, the Province of Canada, with two parts, one, formerly
Lower Canada, now named Canada East and the other formerly Upper
Canada, Canada West. As Britain began to distance itself from its colonial
commitments in North America, in 1848 Canada was given responsible government.
But none of this resolved the underlying conflicts in the colony. Given
equal representation from each of its constituent parts, the new colonial
government found itself deadlocked on the important issues it had to deal
with, including those aimed at mitigating the devastating economic impact
of Britain's abandonment of the system of imperial preferences for colonial
exports in the 1840s. It was out of what appeared to be a hopeless struggle
to find a political solution to this impasse that leaders in Canada West
and Canada East embarked on the negotiations which were to lead to the
creation of a federal union of the British North American colonies in 1867.
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