Confederation and the Early Federal Era (1867–1896): National Policy, Western Expansion and French Canadians
From 1867 to 1896 the exam tests how three colonies became a federation, how Macdonald's National Policy tried to build a national economy, how the West was annexed and settled, and how French Canadians reacted to both.
Confederation
Causes: political deadlock in the United Province of Canada (equal representation, double majority), railway debts, the American Civil War and Fenian raids, British pressure to cut defence costs, and the need for a domestic market and a railway. The Charlottetown and Quebec conferences (1864) produced the 72 Resolutions; the BNA Act (1 July 1867) divides powers: s.91 federal (residual, POGG, disallowance), s.92 provincial (education, property, civil law), s.93 protects denominational schools, s.133 protects French and English in Parliament and the Québec courts. Québec keeps its civil law; education stays confessional.
National Policy (1879)
Three pillars: protective tariffs on manufactured goods, a transcontinental railway (CPR completed 1885), and immigration and settlement of the West. It builds eastern industry but raises costs for farmers and Westerners, feeding grievance.
The West
Rupert's Land purchase (1869) triggers the Red River Resistance; the Manitoba Act (1870) creates a bilingual, denominational province. Numbered treaties (from 1871), the Indian Act (1876), the North-West Mounted Police and the railway open the plains. The North-West Resistance (1885) ends with Riel's trial and execution, rallying French Canadian nationalism and dividing the country.
French Canadians and the federation
Québec's Church and elites accept Confederation as a guarantee of provincial autonomy, but crises accumulate: Riel (1885) and the Manitoba Schools Question (1890–96). Laurier's compromise (1897) restores some separate-school rights but not language rights.
Worked example
A source shows Macdonald arguing that tariffs keep "the great manufacturing interests" at home. Reasoning: identify the author (prime minister, Conservative, 1878 election), purpose (sell the policy), context (post-1873 depression) and limit (a speech is rhetoric, not proof of effect). Then corroborate with trade and settlement statistics: tariffs raised revenue and protected textiles but did not by themselves populate the West.
Traps
- Reducing the National Policy to the railway.
- Claiming the BNA Act contained a bill of rights.
- Confusing s.93 (schools) with language rights.
- Dating Riel's execution to 1870 rather than 1885.