Gough Barry M. Historical Dictionary of Canada
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350 • RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT
rest of the federation in relation to Québec’s population/seat ratio.
Though designed to guarantee “rep-by-pop” and ensure Québec’s
representation irrespective of its population, it additionally stipulated
that no province could lose a seat unless its population lessened by
more than 5 percent relative to the national population of the previ-
ous census.
The subsequent decline of population in the Maritimes and in
Saskatchewan brought political pressure from these regions to
avoid anticipated electoral losses. In 1915, a constitutional amend-
ment established the senatorial floor rule. Under this, a province’s
number of seats in the Commons could never fall below its number
in the Senate. Within a century, New Brunswick, Prince Edward
Island, and Nova Scotia were at or near this equivalency. In 1946,
the 5 percent decline rule was abandoned. See also PARLIAMEN-
TARY SYSTEM.
RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT. This doctrine shaped in British
North America had vast implications for government liberalization
and eventual decolonization in other parts of the British Empire.
Its adherents, specifically Robert Baldwin and L. H. Lafontaine,
argued for local controls on matters of local responsibility, including
patronage (control over the civil list). Central to their argument was
that the legislature should decide upon the ministry to take control of
the affairs of the government. Put differently, it meant that the execu-
tive had to have the confidence of the legislature.
The concept, a reversal of all that had gone before, was recom-
mended by Lord Durham and advanced by Joseph Howe. In 1846,
the Colonial Office issued instructions that the governors of British
North American provinces were to accede to the will of the assembly.
This was first done in Nova Scotia and later in Lower Canada and
Upper Canada, effective 1848. Prince Edward Island acquired
responsible government in 1851, New Brunswick in 1854, and New-
foundland in 1855. See also GOVERNORS GENERAL.
RIEL, LOUIS (1844–1885). Leader of the Métis during the Red River
Rebellion and North West Rebellion, Louis Riel remains one of the
most controversial of Canada’s historical figures. He has been styled
a martyr, hero, saint, traitor, and lunatic. Riel was born at Red River,
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RIEL, LOUIS • 351
Assiniboia. A studious youth, he was sent to Québec for education
in law and the priesthood but completed no formal training in these
fields. He returned to Assiniboia, where his father was a leading
advocate of local and Métis rights. A fiery orator, Riel was secretary
of the Métis National Committee that denied Canadian attempts to
exert sovereignty. He drafted declarations of independence, of Métis
rights, and of compromise—intended demands for Manitoba as a
Canadian province. He fled to the United States to escape capture
after the Red River Rebellion.
Although elected as a member of Parliament for a federal riding in
the new Province of Manitoba, in 1873 and 1874 he was denied his
seat. He went to live in Montana, where he taught school on the Sun
River Reservation. In 1875, he was granted amnesty on a condition of
a further five years of exile. In his exile, he suffered a nervous break-
down and experienced delusions about being a messiah. He planned
to set up an independent republic in the North American west with
its own pope.
In 1884, Riel returned to lead the Métis rising in 1885. He was
caught by Canadian authorities and tried for high treason. At his trial,
he would not let his lawyer make a plea on the grounds of insan-
ity. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Although the jury
recommended clemency, after reprieves and a mental examination,
Riel was hanged 16 November 1885 in Regina, the capital of the
Northwest Territories. He was buried in the St. Boniface Cathedral
graveyard, Winnipeg. His is a sad life of unfulfilled hopes, of physi-
cal and mental illness, of lost causes.
In his time, English Canadians remembered him for his implica-
tion in the institution of martial law that brought about the death of
Orangeman Thomas Scott. By contrast, French Canadians tended to
view his life as that of a martyr, and outrage at his execution brought
nationalist and provincial rights activist Honoré Mercier to power
in Québec in 1886. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald would do
nothing to save Riel, “though every dog in Québec bark in his favor.”
But that Riel was killed for political reasons is hard to credit. Still,
Riel remains one of the most complicated, enigmatic personalities in
Canadian history. In 1998, in a controversial move, the Government
of Canada offered a pardon to Riel as part of its “offer of reconcilia-
tion” to Canada’s aboriginal peoples.
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352 • ROBINSON, JOHN BEVERLEY
ROBINSON, JOHN BEVERLEY (1791–1863). A lawyer, politician,
and jurist, Robinson was a member of the Family Compact, the so-
ciopolitical elite of Upper Canada. In the wake of the War of 1812,
Robinson became attorney general of Upper Canada and later chief
justice. He tightened regulations, thereby classifying Americans as
aliens to deprive them of property and civil rights. President of the
Executive Council in 1830, he was, during the Rebellions of 1837,
instrumental for the execution of two Upper Canada rebels and the
banishment of 25 others.
ROSS, MALCOLM (1912–2002). Described as “CanLit’s great care-
taker” by the Globe and Mail (30 November 2002), Ross was an aca-
demic and editor who popularized Canadian writing in the late 1950s.
He held the belief, or vision, that there was a Canadian identity, Ca-
nadian art, and Canadian literature. He grew up in Fredericton, New
Brunswick, and after university (undergraduate, post-graduate) went
to work with John Grierson, head of the National Film Board. He
then turned to academic life, teaching at the University of Manitoba,
Queen’s University (where he resurrected the floundering literary
magazine Queen’s Quarterly), and later Trinity College, University
of Toronto. He persuaded Jack McClelland of McClelland and
Stewart, the Canadian publishers, to launch the hugely influential pa-
perback series New Canadian Library, with Ross as editor. He wrote
many books on Canadian identity, arts, and culture. He was made an
officer of the Order of Canada in 1976 and received numerous other
awards, including 11 honorary degrees. A superb teacher, he was also
a noted academic administrator. He died in Halifax.
ROUGES. The reform party of Canada East that emerged from the late
1840s was known as the Institut Canadien or the Rouges. Influenced
by American republicanism and French radicalism, the Rouges were
led successively by Louis Joseph Papineau and A. A. Dorion.
They opposed confederation. Later they allied with the Clear Grits
to form the federal Liberal Party. In Québec, they were opposed by
conservative and Roman Catholic forces.
ROY, GABRIELLE (1909–1983). Celebrated as a novelist at home
and abroad, Roy was born to a large family in St. Boniface, Mani-
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ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE • 353
toba, and attended convent school. Going to Europe to study drama
and escape an unhappy family life, she began her writing career. She
returned to Canada, settled in Montréal, and became a journalist. Her
great novel Bonheur d’occasion (1945) established her reputation; it
was published in New York in 1947 as The Tin Flute. It opened an
era of realism in literature and was all about a working-class family
of Montréal’s Saint-Henri district. La Petite Poule d’Eau (1951)—
Where Nests the Water Hen (1951)—tells about francophone life in
rural Manitoba. It contains the classic line that the further north you
go, the easier it is to love. She wrote many other books, children’s
stories, and short stories. She married Marcel Carbotte, and they
lived their later years in France and Québec City, home for the
rest of her life. She received many prizes, including France’s Prix
Fémina. Her autobiography, kept under wraps until her death, La Dé-
tresse et l’Enchantment (1984), appeared in English as Enchantment
and Sorrow (1987); it tells of her life between hope and despair and
of love and its price of pain.
ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE. See CANADIAN AIR FORCE.
ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE (RCMP). This police
service—originally called the North West Mounted Police, a term
used until 1920—was founded by the government of John A. Mac-
donald in 1873. Its expressed purposes were to provide security in
the North West Territory in the aftermath of the Red River Rebel-
lion of 1869–70. That territory became part of Canada on 15 July
1870, which did not include the small Province of Manitoba (created
by the Manitoba Act, 12 May 1870). Its incipient headquarters were
in Regina (it became headquarters, Northwest Territories Council,
from 1883). Regina became the base of training and operations.
It was natural that law and order would follow in the wake of ter-
ritorial expansion. The Canadian government, too, feared American
expansion north from Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Montana. In
addition, liquor traffickers were active north of the 49th parallel.
Missionary demands required a response. Treaties with Indians
(Treaties 1–7, and others signed by 1877) allowed for the expansion
of agriculture, immigration, settlement, and railway construction in
lands adjacent to the 49th parallel. The formation of the RCMP was
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354 • ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
commensurate with all these historical dimensions and forces. In a
famous march in 1874 from Ontario, known as “the law marches
west,” this paramilitary force (numbering 274 personnel) went to the
North West Territory by cart, horse, steamboat, and raft. Modeled
on the Royal Irish Constabulary, Canada’s Mounted Police were in-
tended to be dissimilar from the U.S. Cavalry, the powerful, coercive
force of U.S. expansion into American Indian areas.
Mountie posts were set up at numerous locations, including
Moose Jaw, Swift Current, Maple Creek, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge
Whoop-up, Fort Macleod, and Calgary. Some of the posts were of
a transitory nature. Fort Walsh, for instance, in the Cypress Hills,
Saskatchewan, was built in 1875 by “B” troop under James Mor-
row Walsh, and used for eight years. During that time, the police
extended law and order to the region, dealt with whisky traders, with
local tribes, and with the thousands of Sioux who sought refuge in
Canada after confrontations with the U.S. Cavalry at the Little Big
Horn, Montana. With the coming of the railway, the signing of trea-
ties, and the return of the Sioux (the famed warrior leader Sitting Bull
left in 1881) to the United States, Fort Walsh was dismantled and
abandoned in 1883. The expansion of posts, particularly in northern
latitudes, was equally commensurate with Canadian commercial and
political ambitions.
In 1885, long-standing discontent among Indians and Métis
against Canadian government indifference to their poverty, disrup-
tion of political economies, unfulfilled promises, and much else
exploded in what is known as the Saskatchewan or Northwest Re-
bellion of 1885. The buffalo, staple of the plains Indians and Métis
diet, was in fast decline. The RCMP found itself on the receiving
end when fighting began near Duck Lake on 26 March. A mounted
and militia force found itself defeated; soon the whole area was in
Métis or Indian hands except for weakly held positions at Prince
Albert, Battleford, and Fort Saskatchewan. The rebellion ended on
2 July with the surrender of Big Bear. The role of the RCMP in the
pacification was considerable, and while the army could return to
its barracks, the police remained as the support of the civil power.
Thereafter a position of benevolent authority was assumed by the
RCMP, the force being a direct representative of the Canadian gov-
ernment and the NWT Council.
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ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE OF CANADA • 355
Historians cite the end of violence as the end of the frontier west in
Canada. But the era of settlement and of European immigration was
only just beginning, and the contrast with the U.S. frontier experience
is startling. By that time, the RCMP was a force of 1,000. In 1919,
the Parliament of Canada acted to merge the Dominion Police into
the RCMP. The RCMP assumed greater roles in provincial polic-
ing. Some provinces, notably Québec, retained their own provincial
police, while British Columbia disbanded its own provincial police
and entered into a leasing arrangement with the RCMP in 1950.
Civic police continued in many and perhaps most Canadian cities.
Newfoundland adopted the RCMP in 1950.
In the modern era, the RCMP took on an iconic character. Urban
and suburban policing began, with Ottawa and Regina as joint train-
ing headquarters. The uniforms and riding skills of the Mounties are
legendary; the Musical Ride, famous. In 1974, women were admitted
into the force.
Dark clouds came over the reputation of the RCMP with the Cold
War, and the storm gathered further after the end of the Cold War.
The scope of the RCMP expanded to include drug enforcement,
investigations of economic and syndicate crimes, counterterrorism,
investigations into spying such as the Igor Gouzenko affair, and
counterespionage. See also SECRET SERVICE.
ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY. See CANADIAN NAVY.
ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE OF CANADA (RMC). The RMC
was established in Kingston, Ontario, in 1874 to educate and train
Canadian officers. The training and education reflected those of Brit-
ish military schools, notably Sandhurst, as the RMC was originally
staffed by British officers. In the early years, RMC graduates were sent
to Britain to serve with the British Army. After 1919, RMC graduates
were required to join the permanent force or the militia. In 1979, the
RMC began admitting female cadets. In 1995, upon the closure of the
Collège Militaire Royal (St. Jean, Québec) and Royal Roads Military
College (Victoria, British Columbia), it again became Canada’s only
military college with university degree-granting status. The largest un-
dergraduate degrees are awarded in science and engineering; there is a
postgraduate program in War Studies. See also CANADIAN ARMY.
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356 • RUPERT’S LAND
RUPERT’S LAND. See HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY; MANI-
TOBA; NORTHWEST TERRITORIES.
RUSH-BAGOT AGREEMENT (1817). The Rush-Bagot Agreement
(or Convention) was a sequel to the Treaty of Ghent. After the War
of 1812, Great Britain and the United States agreed to establish
limits on the number of naval vessels in the Great Lakes and Lake
Champlain. The limit was two ships each on the upper lakes, none
to exceed 100 tons or to have more than one 18-pound gun, and
one each on Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain. This was the first
arms limitation treaty in history. In reality, demilitarization of bor-
der fortifications and the equally important seaboard naval defenses
was a lengthy, gradual process that did not produce general mutual
disarmament until after the Treaty of Washington, 1871. In fact,
“the myth of the unguarded frontier” was developed by the Canadian
historian Charles P. Stacey.
RYERSON, ADOLPHUS EGERTON (1803–1882). An educator
and reformer, Ryerson was born in Norfolk County, Upper Canada,
of a Loyalist family. In 1825, he became a Methodist preacher, and
in 1829 editor of the Christian Guardian, organ of the Wesleyan
Methodists. He attacked the exclusive claims of the Church of Eng-
land, led by Rev. John Strachan, to the clergy reserves. He strongly
opposed, as a Loyalist, William Lyon Mackenzie and the rebels of
the 1830s. He supported the administration’s electoral victory under
Governor Charles Metcalfe in 1844.
Ryerson’s powerful, reforming, and Methodist personality and
character led to further significant contributions: first president of
the University of Victoria College (then at Cobourg) in 1841; chief
superintendent of education for Upper Canada in 1844 (held to
1876); and founding editor of the Journal of Education. He was the
architect of the public school system of Ontario, and he had wide
influence across Canada, mainly in western provinces and the ter-
ritories. Ryerson Press became the imprint for the United Church of
Canada but was later purchased by McGraw-Hill. He wrote a history
of the Loyalists (1882) and a history of Canadian Methodism (1882).
Ryerson University, Toronto, is named after him.
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SAILING SHIPS • 357
– S –
SABLE ISLAND. Canada’s “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” at the edge
of the continental shelf, Sable Island has been the center of intensive
exploration for oil and natural gas. Uninhabited except for lighthouse
keepers, wild horses, and seasonal Coast Guard personnel, it has an
important maritime heritage in ship casualties. A natural gas pipe-
line began moving the commodity to market (destination Portland,
Maine) in 1999.
SACHS HARBOR (IKAAHUK). One of many Inuit communities,
Sachs Harbor, or Ikaahuk, is on Banks Island in the Arctic Archi-
pelago. Thule house ruins indicate Inuit occupation about 500 years
ago. Visited by Royal Navy explorers Frederick Beechey (1820) and
Robert McClure (1851), it became a permanent Inuit community in
1929 when three Delta Inuit families sailed in their own schooners to
Sachs Harbor, where they trapped white fox. This prosperous trad-
ing and trapping community became the site of a Royal Canadian
Mounted Police detachment post in 1953.
SAGARD, GABRIEL (?–1650). Missionary, traveler, and historian
Gabriel Sagard came to Canada in 1623 as a friar in the Recollet
order. He traveled to Huron country, living there for a year or so
(1623–24). He returned to France and wrote two fine books: Le
Grand voyage au pays des Hurons (1632) and L’Histoire du Canada
(1636), both published in Paris. The former is a valuable ethnology
of the Huron and recounts the demanding lives of the missionaries.
The latter incorporates the former book but adds considerable detail
on the arrival of the Jesuits in Canada, the capture of Québec by
the English (1629), and France’s temporary abandonment of the
colony. Sagard was the first religious historian of Canada. He left
the Recollets sometime shortly after 1632 and may have joined the
Franciscans. The Recollets were excluded from Canada when France
regained control from the English in 1632.
SAILING SHIPS. Much of Canada’s early history occurred during the
great age of sail, when sailors “under canvas” crossed the Atlantic
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358 • SAILING SHIPS
on expeditions of trade, settlement, and exploration. By the mid-19th
century, Canada had become a principal seaborne nation. Canada’s
ports were crowded with sailing vessels, and its shipbuilding yards
flourished. Canada’s ships sailed every major ocean and visited every
major port doing the world’s business. Over 4,000 ships, each ex-
ceeding 500 tons burthen, were built in Canada. In 1878, Canadian-
registered ships numbered 7,196 and totaled more than 1.3 million
tons. Among the nations, Canada stood fourth in seagoing tonnage.
Canada had an abundance of good timber—tamarack, spruce, and
especially pine—near to shipyards, which were established in secure
harbors and river mouths. Canada also possessed good ship designers
and shipwrights, and builders were able to sell their vessels to U.S.,
British, Norwegian, and other seaborne traders. Canadian vessels
were given the highest quality rating—14 years A.1—by the marine
insurer Lloyd’s of London.
Canadian ships were built at numerous locations. The coastal
trader Northwest America, built by John Meares, was launched at
Friendly Cove, Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, in 1788. The first
lumber carrier, the Columbus, 3,690 tons, was built at Île d’Orleans
in 1824. The 2,459-ton William D. Lawrence, launched at Maitland,
Nova Scotia, in 1874, was the largest wooden full-rigger built in
Canada. Other famous ships of this period include the Marco Polo,
launched at Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1851, which made her
name trading to Australia during the gold rush; the square-rigger
Canada, 2,137 tons, launched at Kingsport, Nova Scotia, in 1891,
which ended her worldwide trading career in 1926; and the square-
rigger City of Toronto, built in the Great Lakes. Canadian ports con-
structed a variety of smaller commercial craft. Victoria, for instance,
built sealing vessels; ports on the St. Lawrence River built one- or
two-masted traders. Atlantic yards built whalers and sealers and fish-
ing and trading schooners such as the Bluenose. York and Mackinaw
boats were built for specific needs determined by geography.
Canada also built naval ships. The three-decker HMS St. Law-
rence, launched at Kingston, Ontario, in 1814, displaced 2,304 tons
and was intended to carry 119 guns and 1,000 men. HMCS Venture,
built in Nova Scotia in 1937, was a three-masted schooner for officer
training. At important centers from Halifax to the lower Great Lakes,
smaller naval vessels were built, maintaining shipbuilding traditions
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STE.-MARIE AMONG THE HURONS • 359
dating from René La Salle’s Griffon, launched on the Great Lakes in
1679, and the British brig Ontario, launched at Oswego, New York,
in 1755.
The age of sail came to an end gradually with the introduction of
steam propulsion and iron hulls, masts, and yards. Paddle steamers
came first to the St. Lawrence in 1809, to the Great Lakes in 1817,
and to the Pacific coast in 1835. In 1831, the Québec-built Royal
William became the first merchant ship to cross the Atlantic primar-
ily under steam. Canada’s shipbuilding industry made the transition
to steam and iron. The 200-year era of Canadian ships under canvas
came to an end, and with it came the nostalgia of an age when Canada
was known for its great sailing ships.
STE.-MARIE AMONG THE HURONS. Now a celebrated historic
tourist attraction near Martyrs’ Shrine, Midland, Ontario, Ste.-
Marie among the Hurons was a Roman Catholic mission to the
Huron, commenced in 1615 by Recollets and renewed in 1634 by
the Jesuits. Superior Jean de Brébeuf established the mission to the
Wendat, or Huron, people. In 1638, Jerome Lalemant, another Jesuit,
arrived as the new superior. By 1639 (the date usually specified as the
founding date of Ste.-Marie), 13 fathers were active in the stockaded
mission, which served as a base for a cluster of outstations. It was a
place of rest and repair for the Jesuits. In 1648, at its highest position
of prominence, Ste.-Marie among the Hurons housed 19 priests and
various assistants. The French planted gardens and imported live-
stock from Québec.
From this post, the influence of the Jesuits spread among other
tribes, including Petun, Nipissing, Ottawa, and various Algonquin
bands. The geographical site was superb but also a source of weak-
ness. Situated on or near the river route from Montréal via the
Ottawa and French rivers, with rich agricultural soil, the Huronia
missions became a key to French expansion in Georgian Bay, Lake
Huron, and to the southwest and northwest. The Huron were great
traders as well as farmers; their prominence in the Great Lakes area
increased.
The Iroquois, ambitious for greater fur trading wealth in the
lands north and west of Huronia, had designs on the Huron and the
trade opportunities of the northwest. With the Huron-Iroquois wars
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