Riendeau A Roger E. Brief History of Canada

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A BRIEF HISTORY

OF CANADA

SECOND EDITION

ROGER RIENDEAU

A Brief History of Canada, Second Edition

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ISBN-10: 0-8160-6335-4

ISBN-13: 978-0-8160-6335-2

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Text design by Joan M. McEvoy

Cover design by Semadar Megged/Anastasia Plé

Maps by Jeremy Eagle

Printed in the United States of America

MP Hermitage 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents

List of Illustrations v

List of Maps vi

Preface to the Second Edition vii

Preface to the First Edition ix

Acknowledgments for the Second Edition xiv

Introduction xv

1 The Natural Domain 1

2 Accidental Rediscovery (986–1608) 18

3 The Colonization of New France (1608–1663) 34

4 Royal Government and a Distinct Society (1663–1760) 50

5 Clashing Empires and Frontiers (1663–1760) 64

6 The Challenge of Imperial Rule in British North America

(1760–1783) 81

7 The Emergence of Colonial Communities (1783–1850) 101

8 The Expanding Colonial Economy (1815–1850) 121

9 From Oligarchic Rule to Responsible Government

(1815–1850) 135

10 The Road to Confederation (1850–1867) 156

11 Nation-Building Aspirations and Strategies (1867–1885) 180

12 The Clash of Nationalisms and the Resurgence of

Regionalism (1867–1896) 201

13 The Wheat Boom and National Expansion (1896–1914) 218

14 The Conﬁ rmation of Nationhood (1914–1931) 238

15 A Society Transformed (1880–1930) 261

16 The Perils of Depression and War (1930–1945) 281

17 An Expanding Nation in the Age of Afﬂ uence (1945–1958) 301

18 The Search for National Unity (1958–1972) 323

19 Conﬂ ict and Confrontation in the Age of Anxiety

(1972–1984) 341

20 The Illusion of Consensus (1984–2007) 358

Appendixes 386

1 Basic Facts about Canada 386

2 Chronology 390

3 Bibliography 405

4 Suggested Reading 415

5 Federal Election Results, 1867–2006 424

Index

427

List of Illustrations

Plains buffalo rift 11

Ojibway Indians shooting the rapids 13

John Cabot medallion 22

Jacques Cartier 26

Map of New France, 1632 41

Quebec, ca. 1640 48

Bishop Laval greeting Marquis de Tracy and Jean Talon 56

Exile of Acadians from Grand-Pré 75

General Wolfe climbing the Quebec citadel 78

Transfer of power, 1760 80

Joseph Brant (Thayendanega) 96

Buttonwood tree watercolor by Phillip John Bainbridge 107

Upper Canadian homestead 112

Early 19th-century road travel 130

Joseph Howe 138

Robert Baldwin and Louis Lafontaine 153

Fathers of Confederation at the Quebec Conference,

October 1864 172

Canadian Paciﬁ c Railroad through the Selkirk Mountains 199

Louis Riel and Métis compatriots at Red River 208

First Interprovincial Conference at Quebec, 1887 216

Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier on the hustings 236

Women at work during World War I 243

Mackenzie King and Canadian delegates at the League

of Nations 257

Nellie McClung 273

Pauline Johnson 277

Prairie drought in the Great Depression 283

On to Ottawa Trek, 1935 286

James Shaver Woodsworth 287

Mackenzie King, May 8, 1945 296

C. D. Howe, 1952 308

Joey Smallwood 313

Tommy Douglas 314

Liberal prime ministers present and future 331

René Levesque 339

Paul Henderson leads Canada to hockey victory over the

Soviet Union 345

Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope 357

Atlantic Ocean oil platform at Hibernia 381

Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul 383

Governor-General Michaëlle Jean and family 384

List of Maps

Regions of Canada 3

Native Cultural Areas 9

Routes of Explorers 19

French Exploration of Great Lakes, Seventeenth Century 42

Boundaries of Quebec, 1763 and 1774 89

Loyalist Settlement before 1800 102

Provinces of Canada, 1867 and 1873 181

Alaska Boundary Dispute, 1903 234

vii

Preface to the

Second Edition

ight years have passed since the original publication of A Brief

History of Canada. That so much of historical signiﬁ cance has trans-

pired in Canada in that time points to the obvious need of an updated

edition. In addition, the highly favourable audience response to the

ﬁ rst edition suggests that A Brief History of Canada, true to its title,

is successfully fulﬁ lling its purpose to introduce North Americans in

particular and people around the world in general to a fascinating and

complex country consistently rated as one of the most attractive and

stable places in which to live and conduct business. Further highlight-

ing this new edition are production and design enhancements that have

helped to make Facts On File’s Brief History series so informative and

readable.

The latest developments in Canada’s history are incorporated into a

revised chapter 20, the ﬁ nal chapter of the book, which features a com-

pletely new concluding section entitled “National Ambivalence in the

New Millennium.” Indeed, Canada has thrived economically and

socially since the turn of the 21st century in spite of a lack of political

direction and vision. The faltering national party system of the 1990s,

described in the ﬁ rst edition of A Brief History of Canada, has been

complicated by a realignment of political forces and the prevalence of a

scandal-plagued government more preoccupied with staying in power

than with providing leadership and inspiration. Political indecision and

inconsistency has also affected Canada’s relations with its closest neigh-

bour and most important trading partner, raising doubts about its

capacity and commitment to work with the United States in the global

struggle against terrorism.

On the other hand, the entrepreneurial spirit of the Canadian people

over the past ﬁ ve years has enabled the country’s high-tech industrial

economy, with a substantial trade surplus, to enjoy the best overall per-

formance among the Group of Eight (G8) nations. In the process, the

provincial economies have become more diversiﬁ ed and thus less depen-

dent on the national government to redistribute resources, effectively

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADA

viii

transforming the face of regionalism in Canada. Even the threat of

Quebec separatism has weakened as economic prospects have strength-

ened. Primarily because of immigration, the population of Canada

increased by more than 1.6 million, or 5.4 percent, the highest growth

rate among G8 nations between 2001 and 2006. Ironically, as Canada

continues to build its reputation as one of the most multicultural

nations in the world, more and more of its people are declaring their

nationality to be “Canadian.” This organic sense of nationalism, sprout-

ing from the bottom-up rather than imposed from the top-down, as the

new introduction and conclusion to this book suggest, is perhaps the

single most important, even if unheralded, historical development in

contemporary Canada.

The second edition of A Brief History of Canada remains conscious of

the key strengths of the original edition. Even though it offers more

information, the new edition is still far and away the most compact

account of the entire course of Canadian development from the prehis-

toric emergence of Native civilization to the rise of a dynamic urban

and industrial nation at the beginning of the third millennium. The

book maintains a scholarly tone, but with an emphasis on clarity and

coherence of presentation. The central role of the historian is to instill

a sense of order out of the chaos of the past and to make the past come

alive so that it can inform the present and the future. The informative

and readable quality of this new edition has been enhanced by the addi-

tion of many more photographs and maps. Furthermore, appendixes

offer the reader easy access to basic facts about Canada, a chronology

of historic events, a bibliography, and suggestions for further reading

that include the most recent research on the subject. As in the ﬁ rst edi-

tion, a comprehensive index serves as a convenient reference guide to

the plethora of details packed into a concise and appealing volume.

With all of these features and more, A Brief History of Canada, Second

Edition is intended to be the ﬁ rst book to read either to satisfy curiosity

or to stimulate further interest in learning about the complexities and

subtleties of this unique land and people in the northern half of North

America.

Preface to the

First Edition

istory is essentially a story. So Professor J. M. S. Careless, an emi-

nent and inﬂ uential Canadian historian, told me when I was one

of his graduate students at the University of Toronto a quarter-century

ago. Professor Careless, whose own history of Canada, written nearly a

half-century ago, was entitled Canada: A Story of Challenge (Macmillan,

1953), was trying to convey to me that history is not merely a collec-

tion of past events highlighting the great achievements of great people,

that history must be more than an account of past politics and, above

all, that history must not succumb to the temptation of serving the

interests of current politics. The central role of the historian is to instill

a sense of order out of the chaos of the past and to make the past come

alive so that it can inform the present and the future. How can we intel-

ligently judge where we are and determine where we are going if we do

not have a clear understanding of where we have been? I have endeav-

ored to heed this advice in telling my story of Canada.

True to its title, A Brief History of Canada undertakes the ambitious

challenge of recounting in a single volume the development of a some-

what enigmatic land in the northern half of North America from the

prehistoric emergence of Native civilization to the rise of a modern

urban and industrial nation at the end of the second millennium. To

attempt to accomplish this objective in such a compact volume sug-

gests that this work is meant to be introductory in nature, aimed par-

ticularly at general readers who may have little familiarity with

Canadian history. The hope is that this book will provide both Canadian

and non-Canadian readers with the incentive to become more inter-

ested in Canada and to appreciate its complexities and subtleties.

Indeed, Canada is a fascinating country because of its paradoxical

qualities. On the surface, it appears to be a northern extension of the

United States, with many similarities in historical origin, geographical

features, cultural background, political system, and socioeconomic val-

ues. However, when one probes beneath surface appearances, numer-

ous subtle differences that help to account for the existence of two