The Canadian Confederation

by Johnny Jr., Apr 10, 2008

The word Confederation means the act of joining together in an alliance. The Canadian Confederation was the result of several conferences and many driving forces that united the thirteen British colonies in British North America to become Canada.

What Were the Causes of the Canadian Confederation?

There were many reasons that the Canadian Confederation was brought to peoples' attention as a helpful and necessary step forward to keep the divided British North America standing together, instead of trying to make due divided up into thirteen separate colonies.

The Civil War

One of the reasons that the Canadian Confederation came to be was because of the Civil War. Although British North America wasn't directly involved in this war against the North and the South in America, they did give the South a helping hand now and then, that made the North even more upset with BNA, as they were already walking on treacherous ground after the American Revolution.

BNA would help out the South by letting them creep up and bunk down above the North, and start surprise raids on the North. This really irked the North, and gave the South some unfair advantages. When questioned, BNA acted dumb and pretended as if they didn't know what the North was talking about.

On top of that, BNA supplied the South with free ships to use against the North. This completely ticked off the North.

Even though the North won the Civil War, they were still infuriated at what BNA did to help the South, so there was always the feeling that a surprise attack from the North was inevitable on BNA. However, the North knew from experience that the BNA had an army to be feared, so they were hesitant.

After the American Revolution, there were many out-of-work soldiers from the colonies, who got nothing from the war except their right to keep BNA. So, the thought of a Confederation came to mind, so that there would be only one large army to take care of, instead of attempting to make thirteen small armies function properly, and less money to be used for all these armies, so it would all be spent on a large army, saving the government money.

Political Deadlock

East Canada and West Canada had almost equal voters, which made things very irritating and hectic in Assembly. Whenever something came up at the assembly, votes were always incredibly close, which made it extremely difficult to pass bills or laws. The government came to a halt because of this, causing a political deadlock.

The Conferences

The Charlottetown Conference, September 1864

The politicians from the Province of Canada managed to convince the politicians from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island to at least consider a larger union between them. They all agreed to meet again to discuss Confederation. The next conference was to be held in Quebec City.

The Quebec Conference, October 1864

This conference surrounded how the new country would be run. The decisions that they all came to agree on were named the Quebec Resolutions. Although Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland both took part in the making of the Quebec Resolutions, they both decided after the conference not to join the Confederation at that time.

The London Conference, December 1866 - January 1867

This was the last of the three conferences leading up to the Confederation of Canada, and it took place in London, England. The leaders of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the Province of Canada had to take the rough draft of the Quebec Resolutions from the Quebec Conference, and come up with a final agreement.

The product of this conference was a document which was named the British North America Act. Once the British Parliament approved the act, Confederation could start.

Confederation, July 1, 1867

Finally, after three conferences and years of the idea floating around in the politicians' heads, the Canadian Conference came to be on July 1st, 1867. Canada was formed with four provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario (The Province of Canada had split into Quebec and Ontario). It took 132 years for the nine other provinces and territories to join up and create the Canada that we now know today.