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The Working of Confederation1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Extract
The word “Confederation” is often used in a restrictive sense to refer merely to the “British North America Act”; in this restricted sense, it refers to the constitution of Canada. In its broader sense, it should refer to the union of the entire population of Canada, grouped together, on the one hand into provinces, and on the other hand into Canadians of French and English descent, for the attainment, the development, and the protection of interests common to all, while safeguarding for each group, whether province or race, the rights and traditions peculiar to it. These two understandings of Confederation are indispensable for a better comprehension of the attitude of French Canada towards it.
Two lines of thought as to the understandings, agreements, pacts, or contracts—call them what you like—which were satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily formulated by the British North America Act must be noted. While for the majority of Anglo-Canadian constitutional authors the pacts of 1864, 1865, and 1866 were primarily made between provinces, one of which happened to be populated for the most part by Canadians of French descent, for French-Canadian constitutional writers these pacts were at one and the same time agreements between the four original provinces on the one hand and between the two great races on the other hand. The fact that Sir George Etienne Cartier and other French Fathers of Confederation did not, at the time, foresee that at some future date the provinces of Canada other than Quebec would also be populated by an important number of French Canadians, and that they consequently directed all their efforts for the safeguarding of the rights of French Canadians to securing for the province of Quebec the largest possible amount of independence, does not, in our opinion, change the above views on the matter.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , August 1937 , pp. 335 - 354
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1937
Footnotes
page 335 note 1
This paper must be considered as an expression of my own views on Confederation; but I believe them to be the views, expressed or latent, of a great majority of my fellow citizens of French descent. In its preparation I have been greatly assisted by the notes of Professor Jean Bruchési who was to have prepared a paper on this subject but whose appointment as assistant secretary of the province of Quebec made it impossible for him to do so.
References
page 336 note 2 Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces (Quebec, 1865), p. 32.Google Scholar
page 336 note 3 Confederation Debates, p. 32.
page 337 note 4 A. A. Dorion in Confederation Debates.
page 337 note 5 Macdonald, J. A. in Confederation, being a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Documents bearing on the British North America Act, ed. SirPope, J. (Toronto, 1895), p. 55.Google Scholar
page 337 note 6 Confederation Debates.
page 338 note 7 Ibid.
page 338 note 8 Canada, House of Commons Debates, 1890, col. 745.
page 338 note 9 Ghapais, Thomas, Cours d'Histoire du Canada (Quebec, 1919–1934), vol. VIII, p. 158.Google Scholar
page 338 note 10 Groulx, Abbé L., La Confédération Canadienne (Montreal, 1918), p. 106.Google Scholar
page 340 note 11 Quebec Statutes, 1934.
page 340 note 12 See Scott, F. R., “The Privy Council and Mr. Bennett's ‘New Deal’ Legislation” (Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. III, 05, 1937, pp. 234–41).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 340 note 13 Toronto Star, Feb. 2, 1937.
page 340 note 14 Ibid.
page 341 note 15 Le Devoir, Montreal, Feb. 1, 1937.
page 341 note 16 Kennedy, W. P. M., Essays in Constitutional Law (Oxford, 1934).Google Scholar
page 346 note 1 B.N.A. Act, section 92, 13.