Government of Canada

“ Ministers had for some time directed their attention to the subject, and on the 4th of March Pitt moved for leave to bring in a bill for regulating the government of Canada, and entered into a minute detail of every provision which he meant to propose. He proposed to divide Canada into two provinces, Upper and Lower, and to establish distinct legislatures; the division being meant to separate the parts which were chiefly inhabited by French Canadians, from those inhabited by more recent settlers. The legislature of each province was to consist of a council and house of assembly. ”

“ Canada will be a free and independent state. It can form alliances with France and the United States. The Canadians will choose their own government; they will themselves name the members of the legislative body and the executive power. The veto will be abolished. All persons who have obtained the right of citizenship in Canada can be named for all offices. The Corvées will be abolished. Commerce will enjoy a more extensive liberty. There will be no longer any privileged company for the fur trade. ”

“ The government of Canada continued to be a despotism, pure and simple. The Supreme Council, consisting of the governor, the intendant, the bishop, and at different times from three to twelve councilors, stood between the people and the King of France, transmitting the King's will to the people, the people's wants to the King ”

“ Constitutions and systems of government are good or bad according to the kinds of people to which they are applied, the stage of development which they have reached, and the particular circumstances existing at a given time inside and outside the land. It was only with much hesitation that representative institutions had been given to Canada; and one governor and another, bearing in mind the conditions which had preceded the War of Independence, had laid stress on the necessity of having a strong Executive, and on the growing danger of colonial democracy. ”

“ In a despatch written to the colonial minister by the Canadian delegates,—members of the Cartier-Macdonald ministry—who visited England in 1858 and laid the question of union before the government, they represented that "very grave difficulties now present themselves in conducting the government of Canada"; that "the progress of population has been more rapid in the western province, and claims are now made on behalf of its inhabitants for giving them representation in the legislature in proportion to their numbers" ”

“ It is needless to state with any degree of precision the bounds and limits of this extensive country, for we should humbly propose to your Majesty that the new Government of Canada should be restricted so as to leave, on the one hand all the lands lying about the great lakes and the sources of the rivers which fall into the River St. ”

“ Exuberant forest growth is always characterized by some fungus and dry rot. How has Canada escaped so much of this fungus excrescence of representative government? To get at the reason for this it is necessary to trace back for a little space the historic growth of Canada's form of government. We speak of Canada's constitution being the British North America Act. As a matter of fact, Canada's constitution is more than an act—more than a dry and hard and inflexible formula to which growth must conform. ”

“ It is a striking fact that since Canada attained to a united voice on public questions, since confederation imposed upon her the necessity of dealing with internal difficulties and forming a large judgment on common affairs, not only has no serious difficulty arisen with the Colonial Office, but the deliberately expressed opinion of the Canadian Government has, as a rule, given a general direction to British policy in dealing with external matters which concerned Canada. ”

“ The peasantry found old rules relaxed and unaccustomed freedom. Strength was nowhere in evidence in Canada. The forts were falling into ruin; the English soldiers were few; there was the King’s Government without the backing of the King’s men; the old subjects were a small number of men, of whom a large proportion were noisy, disloyal, adventurers; the new subjects were not held in submission, but not admitted to confidence. On the other hand, the French Canadians had recent and undeniable evidence of the goodwill of the British Government in the passing of the Quebec Act. ”

“ There being only thirty thousand inhabitants in the whole province, small as the Parliament was, the people, if not fairly, were at least sufficiently represented. It is somewhat doubtful, nevertheless, that a constitution which gave only a quasi-sovereign to Upper Canada, neither directly, nor, as the Governors of Canada now are, indirectly responsible to the people, could have been the very image and transcript of the British Constitution. There was a misty resemblance to that celebrated and unwritten form of government, in the erection of three estates—King, Lords, and Commons—and no more. ”

“ Assuming that the population of Canada had been homogeneous and of British descent, and assuming that Canada had been a single, well-defined colony, so that no question of subdivision could arise, it would still have remained a most difficult problem to decide within what limits political representation should be given and how far it should involve responsibility and real self-government. The British demand in Canada was for institutions to which Englishmen had always been accustomed, and which the old North American colonies of Great Britain had enjoyed. ”

“ But, apart from business re-organization, it was most essential to explain everything to the Government of Canada; and to ascertain the views of political parties, and of industrial interests, as, also, of religious bodies, as to future government. In dealing with these questions, I had to assume an authority which was to have been confided to a delegation, to consist of Captain Henry Glyn, Colonel Synge, and myself. ”

“ If the Canadian people will honestly unite in carrying out measures proposed by the Government for the good of the country, irrespective of self-interest and party prejudices, they must, before the close of the present century, become a great and prosperous nationality. May the blessing of God rest upon Canada and the Canadian people! ”

“ The beauties of colonial irresponsible government were as discernible in Upper Canada, where there were no seditious, English-hating, Frenchmen, as in Lower Canada. A private gentleman, two editors of newspapers, a member of parliament, a captain in the army, and a judge had experienced some of the benefits derivable from a constitution, the very transcript and image of that of Great Britain, managed by a General of Division and a clique of placemen. ”

“ I considered, therefore, that by reserving the Bill, I should only cast on Her Majesty and Her Majesty's advisers a responsibility which ought, in the first instance at least, to rest on my own shoulders, and that I should awaken in the minds of the people at large, even of those who were indifferent or hostile to the Bill, doubts as to the sincerity with which it was intended that constitutional Government should be carried on in Canada ”

“ He advised that Canada should be given Responsible Government, that is, the Governor should choose for his advisers the men having the confidence of the people’s representatives. Besides, he recommended that Canada should have only one Parliament instead of two, and suggested the Union of all the British provinces in North America under one Parliament. ”

“ The liquor traffic, for instance, is subject to the local option of restriction; religious liberty prevails; education is practically free and unsectarian; the franchise is enjoyed by all citizens; members of the parliament are paid for their services; and though the executive department of the government is under the control of a governor-general appointed by the queen, the laws of Canada are made by its own statesmen, and a state of practical independence prevails. ”

“ Canada was governed as far as possible like a province of France. In the early days of the colony, when it was under the rule of the Company of the Hundred Associates, the governors practically exercised arbitrary power, with the assistance of a nominal council chosen by themselves. When, however, {163} the King took the government of the colony into his own hands, he appointed a governor, an intendant, and a supreme or—as it was subsequently called—a sovereign council, of which the bishop was a member, to administer under his own direction the affairs of the country. ”

“ In some directions the science of government is more highly developed in Canada than in any other country in the world. A notable instance of this is in the administration and disposal of public land. ”

“ Without an agent the Assembly would be deprived of the right of petition. An agent was especially necessary to the people of the province, because endeavours were even then being made to prejudice the imperial government, and the British nation against Canada, and endeavours were being made to effect a change in the free constitution which had been conferred upon Lower Canada, by means of a union of the two Canadas, the language, laws, and usages of the two provinces being entirely distinct. ”

“ Every effort should be made to bring about so desirable a result, and the subject will doubtless engage in the future, as it has done in the past, the anxious consideration and wise action of the Canadian Government, who have a right to appeal to the President of the United States and his advisers, to relieve them from the incubus of the presence in our territories of so many of the wards of that Government, and who are without the means or opportunities of obtaining a livelihood for themselves. ”

“ Give the people back their old laws and customs in civil matters, let them feel thereby secure in their property, take a few Canadians into the service of the Crown, enlist in the King’s forces ‘a few companies of Canadian foot, judiciously officered’, ‘hold up hopes to the gentlemen, that their children, without being bred up in France, or in the French service, might support their families in the service of the King their master,’ and, at any rate, some proportion of the French Canadians would be found loyally attached to the British Government. ”

“ The development of Canadian territory, or of British territory immediately adjacent to it, could never be a matter of indifference to the Government or people. Though young in years, still Canada cannot forego those aspirations regarding the future which are naturally suggested by the magnificent domain which, stretches along the northern portion of the Continent. It is for Canadians to occupy and eventually to govern it, and any means which point to the furtherance of an object which may be called spontaneous in the Canadian mind must engender solicitude and evoke encouragement. ”