Riendeau A Roger E. Brief History of Canada

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADA

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factories and mills and which was already home to the majority of the

more than 1 million French Canadians living in the United States by

1900. Furthermore, the Catholic clergy discouraged emigration from

the province, preferring instead to encourage the colonization of north-

ern Quebec (Silver 1997).

A limited French Catholic presence and rising concerns about cul-

tural homogeneity of a growing population shaped the emerging

schools question in the North-West Territories. The North-West Ter-

ritories Act of 1875 allowed both Protestants and Catholics to establish

schools and to share in public funds for education. The act also allowed

the use of both English and French as languages of instruction. By the

1890s, however, French had been reduced to the language of instruc-

tion only in the early years of the declining Catholic school system.

Bowing to pressure from Henri Bourassa, grandson of Louis-Joseph

Papineau and emerging as the leading French-Canadian nationalist in

Quebec, Laurier included an educational clause in the Autonomy Bills

of 1905 restoring the original separate school system of the North-West

Territories and incorporating it into the newly created provinces of

Alberta and Saskatchewan. Widespread Anglo-Protestant protest, high-

lighted by Sifton’s resignation, prompted Laurier to negotiate a com-

promise resolution similar to that achieved in the case of the Manitoba

School Question. While Sifton felt uneasy enough about Laurier’s han-

dling of the issue to refuse to return to the Cabinet, Bourassa denounced

the compromise as an infringement on rights previously enjoyed by

French-Canadian Catholics in the West. He further argued that they

should have the same rights that English Protestants in Quebec were

granted at the time of Confederation. The controversy over western

schools soon subsided as Bourassa and other French-Canadian nation-

alists essentially abandoned any hope of spreading their cultural inﬂ u-

ence to the West and focused on coping with the social and economic

impact of urbanization and industrialization in Quebec. But the cul-

tural bitterness incited by the schools questions would not be forgotten,

especially as the controversy over Canada’s imperial defense commit-

ments further aroused nationalist passions in the general election of

1911 (Brown and Cook 1974).

External Relations and National Unity

The prosperity of the wheat boom era also prompted a reconsideration

of Canada’s national status in light of changing relations with Britain

and the United States. Canada was a self-governing nation in the realm

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of domestic affairs, but it remained a colony in matters of international

relations. Accordingly, the Dominion could only negotiate with other

countries under the auspices of the British government, which con-

ducted diplomatic relations for the empire as a whole. This continuing

colonial status was not disputed at the time of Confederation because

the new nation wanted to maintain the security of imperial defense,

which appeared vital in the wake of Anglo-American tensions during

the 1860s. The expectation was that, as in the colonial era, Britain

would maintain an imperial garrison as the ﬁ rst line of defense and that

the Canadian militia would supply auxiliary forces (Preston 1970;

Stacey 1977). In 1870, Prime Minister Macdonald surmised that,

because of Canada’s weakness in the face of an overtly expansionist

southern neighbor, “It will be a century before we are strong enough to

walk alone.”

Obviously disagreeing with Macdonald, the British government

decided to withdraw its garrisons from Canada in 1870–71, leaving the

naval base at Halifax as the only British military presence. Disappoint-

ment over this decision was magniﬁ ed by the Treaty of Washington in

1871, which demonstrated the precariousness of dependence on the

imperial authority to act on Canada’s behalf. The indignation over the

apparent British willingness to sacriﬁ ce Canadian interests in order to

maintain American friendship, however, was tempered by the realiza-

tion that the struggling young Dominion was still heavily reliant on

imperial economic and military support. Therefore, for the ﬁ rst three

decades of nationhood, Canada was in the ambivalent position of wish-

ing to maintain the security of the imperial tie while aspiring to greater

control over national affairs.

The rise of imperialist sentiments during the 1880s and 1890s

renewed British interest in closer relations with its self-governing colo-

nies, of which Canada was the largest and oldest. Joseph Chamberlain,

who was appointed colonial secretary in 1895, became the leading

advocate of more centralized administration of the British Empire in

order to enhance its strength and unity in world trade and defense.

Certainly, the underlying assumptions of imperial unity—Anglo-Saxon

superiority and identity with a glorious empire rather than an obscure

colony—were appealing to many English-speaking Canadians. More-

over, the Canadian government actively participated in the Colonial

Conferences associated with Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887

and Diamond Jubilee in 1897, and Ottawa hosted another meeting of

colonial premiers and British cabinet leaders in 1894. Laurier could

also point to the measure of imperial preference included in his tariff

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policy of 1897 as a manifestation of Canada’s willingness to play a key

supporting role within a reconstituted British Empire. However, Can-

ada was reluctant to undertake commitments that would ultimately

compromise national independence. For this reason, Laurier rejected

Chamberlain’s proposals for an imperial council that would reduce

Canada’s legislative autonomy and for a speciﬁ c ﬁ nancial pledge in sup-

port of the British navy.

Although Laurier recognized that when Britain was at war, Canada

was legally obliged to follow, he was determined that Canada should be

the sole judge of the commitment to be made to imperial defense (Page

1987). The outbreak of the Boer War in South Africa in 1899 brought

the issue to a head. Chamberlain saw the clash between the British

Cape Colony and the rebel Boers, descendants of the original Dutch

settlers in the republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State, as an

opportunity to demonstrate to potential European adversaries that Brit-

ain could call upon military support and unity from its self-governing

colonies. Canadian imperialists responded enthusiastically to the pros-

pect of sending troops overseas to ﬁ ght alongside British forces. The

governor-general, Lord Minto, and the British-appointed commander

of the Canadian militia, Major General Edward Hutton, assumed that

Canada would heed the call to arms and had no difﬁ culty enlisting

English-speaking recruits.

While expressing sympathy for the British military effort, Laurier

repudiated Minto and Hutton by insisting that the Canadian Parliament

still had to decide on the nature and extent of the nation’s commitment

to imperial defense. Laurier was acutely aware of the imminent prob-

lem of national unity aroused by the Boer War. French Canadians were

opposed to participation in a distant imperial war that posed no appar-

ent threat to Canadian security. Prime Minister Macdonald had used

this same argument to reject a British request for Canadian troops to

participate in a military expedition to the Sudan in 1885. Furthermore,

French Canadians tended to identify with the Boers’ struggle for libera-

tion from their imperial oppressors. In response to imperialist accusa-

tions of disloyalty to Britain, French Canadians insisted that they were

merely afﬁ rming a truly Canadian nationalism.

The Laurier government compromised by sending a voluntary force

of 1,000 men to serve under the British command, stipulating that this

decision should not be “construed as a precedent for future action.” By

the end of the Boer War in 1902, another 6,300 Canadians had volun-

teered under private auspices or through direct recruitment on behalf

of the British government. Laurier’s policy was attacked by English

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imperialists as an abdication of Canadian responsibility and by French

nationalists as submission to British pressure. Bourassa resigned his

parliamentary seat in protest and became Laurier’s leading nationalist

adversary in French Canada. The passionate rhetoric on both sides

eventually ran its course, and the controversy did not prevent Laurier

from achieving a decisive victory in the national election of 1900. Nev-

ertheless, the Boer War controversy gave the ﬁ rst indication that Can-

ada’s involvement on the world stage would be an additional source of

internal cultural conﬂ ict (Brown and Cook 1974).

During the Colonial Conference of 1902, Laurier continued to

oppose Chamberlain’s plan for greater imperial unity in defense and

government and to press for the revival of imperial trade preferences as

an alternative to a proposed customs union. Although Laurier agreed to

regular Canadian participation in further meetings to be known as

Imperial Conferences convened at four-year intervals, he was con-

cerned that such consultation with Britain on foreign affairs would

involve Canada in implied commitments without commensurate inﬂ u-

ence over decisions. For the Imperial Conferences to be truly consulta-

tive, Laurier believed, Canada should be granted greater control over its

foreign relations. But Britain resolutely refused to impair the unity of

imperial diplomacy. The liability of diplomatic subordination for Can-

ada once again became apparent during the Alaska boundary dispute.

The Klondike gold rush precipitated a dispute over the boundary

between Canada and Alaska, which had never been clearly established

when the United States purchased the territory from Russia in 1867.

While the major goldﬁ elds were deﬁ nitely within Canadian territory,

access to them from the Paciﬁ c Ocean was not as certain. At the center

of the dispute was control over the main entrance to the Yukon and the

Klondike River district, the port of Skagway and the inlet leading to it

known as Lynn Canal, both located in the panhandle or coastal strip.

The boundary claims of both countries included Skagway and the head

of the Lynn Canal, thereby allowing them to control the lucrative trade

generated by the gold rush. In the wake of U.S. president Theodore

Roosevelt’s threat to send in American troops, the dispute dragged on

until 1903 when it was referred to a joint commission of six ofﬁ cials.

While Roosevelt appointed three representatives who had publicly

opposed any compromise, the British government appointed two Cana-

dians and the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Alverston. As was the

case with the Treaty of Washington, Britain appeared to put Anglo-

American friendship ahead of the Canadian claims inasmuch as Lord

Alverston voted with the U.S. members of the commission. Thus, the

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234

Alaska boundary dispute revived anti-American sentiments and dem-

onstrated Canada’s need to control its own external relations (Thomp-

son and Randall 2002).

The establishment of a Department of External Relations and an Inter-

national Joint Commission in 1909 were noteworthy, albeit limited, steps

in that direction. While the responsibility for policy-making remained

with the British Foreign Ofﬁ ce, the new department assumed some of the

administrative functions relating to the Canadian government’s growing

relations with other countries, principally Britain and the United States.

Designed to facilitate direct Canadian-American negotiations on mutual

problems, the commission consisted of three Canadian representatives,

appointed by the Crown on the recommendation of the Canadian gov-

ernment, in addition to the three American delegates. The responsibili-

ties of the commission included the international waterways, boundaries,

and any other matter raised by the governments of the two countries. The

absence of a British delegate among the Canadian contingent represented

a signiﬁ cant departure from the bodies that had negotiated the Treaty of

Washington and the Alaska boundary dispute.

Canada’s relations with Britain and the United States became the

focus of the national election of 1911. Imperial relations were compli-

cated by the escalating rivalry for European naval supremacy between

Britain and Germany. As the threat of war mounted, Britain renewed its

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appeal for colonial contributions to the imperial naval ﬂ eet. Instead of

a direct contribution of money to the Royal Navy over which Canada

would have no inﬂ uence, Laurier preferred to build a distinctly Cana-

dian naval force. Accordingly, in 1910 he introduced the Naval Service

Bill to establish a naval college to train ofﬁ cers and a Canadian navy

consisting of ﬁ ve cruisers and six destroyers that could be placed under

British command in the event of war.

What Laurier thought would be a suitable compromise for a contro-

versial national and international issue turned out to satisfy neither the

imperialists nor the French-Canadian nationalists. While the imperial-

minded Conservatives favored the development of a national naval

force in the long run, they ridiculed the “tin pot navy” as a disgrace to

Canada’s role within the empire and called for an immediate response

that included a direct ﬁ nancial contribution to the British ﬂ eet as it

prepared for war. At the same time, Bourassa led the French-Canadian

opposition to the bill on the grounds that the proposed Canadian navy

would only encourage British militarism, which would inevitably draw

Canada into European conﬂ icts. Although the intense opposition from

both sides did not prevent the comfortable Liberal majority in Parlia-

ment from easily passing the bill, the controversy would come back to

haunt Laurier in the national election of the following year.

Further dividing the nation was the renewed controversy over reci-

procity with the United States, a policy that had been the goal of the

Canadian government since the termination of the original agreement

in 1866 (Masters 1983). Responding to yet another American rejection

of reciprocity in 1897, Laurier boldly declared: “There will be no more

pilgrimages to Washington.” The subsequent economic boom, which

redeemed the high-tariff National Policy, rendered reciprocity less

urgent than it had appeared in the last third of the 19th century. By

1910, however, the United States had become more interested in free

trade with Canada, partly in response to the growing north-south trade

fueled by the opening of the northern resource frontier. The settlement

of the long-standing ﬁ sheries dispute by the International Court that

same year had also helped to build goodwill between the two North

American neighbors. When the American government formally offered

to negotiate reciprocity, Laurier saw an opportunity to appease western

agrarian agitation against national economic policies.

Western farmers had been especially persistent in their demands for

lower freight rates and tariffs. The Laurier Liberals attempted to address

the former grievance through the Crow’s Nest Pass agreement of 1897,

in which the federal government awarded the CPR a subsidy to build a

THE WHEAT BOOM AND NATIONAL EXPANSION

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADA

236

branch line to Nelson, British Columbia, in return for lowering freight

rates between the West and central Canada. As far as the tariff was

concerned, farmers resented having to buy their agricultural imple-

ments and other manufactured goods in a closed protected market and

to sell their wheat in an open competitive market. To exert pressure on

government, the farmers organized various provincial or regional Grain

Growers’ Associations and in 1909 formed the Canadian Council of

Agriculture. The council’s demand for tariff reform convinced Laurier

that he could make signiﬁ cant political gains by balancing the National

Policy with reciprocity (Fawke 1957).

Early in 1911, the Canadian and American governments concluded

a trade agreement that in effect renewed the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854.

The proposal provided for the free entry of Canadian natural products

into the United States, while American manufacturers beneﬁ ted from a

lower Canadian tariff. The two countries agreed to implement free

trade through concurrent legislation rather than by a treaty so that

Canada could avoid seeking British approval. But while reciprocity

passed through the U. S. Congress, the agreement encountered vigor-

Shown here campaigning in Berlin (Kitchener), Ontario, in 1908, Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841–

1919) was Canada’s ﬁ rst French-Canadian prime minister. His service as prime minister from

1896 to 1911 remains Canada’s longest unbroken tenure in that ofﬁ ce.

(Library and Archives

Canada C-000463).

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ous opposition in the Canadian Parliament. A group of Liberals led by

Clifford Sifton abandoned Laurier and sided with the Conservatives,

who feared that the achievement of reciprocity would prolong the 15-

year Liberal ascendancy. Outside of Parliament, the Canadian Manufac-

turers Association along with powerful railway, banking, and

commercial interests that were ardent supporters of the National Policy

waged an emotional campaign that associated reciprocity with disloy-

alty to the imperial tie, the threat of American annexation, and the

lingering bitterness over the Alaska boundary dispute. The Canadian

opponents of reciprocity were helped by the rhetoric of American sup-

porters of the agreement such as the speaker of the House of Represen-

tatives who proclaimed: “I am for it, because I hope to see the day when

the American ﬂ ag will ﬂ oat over every square foot of the British North

American possessions clear to the North Pole” (Masters 1983, 18).

Thus, Laurier became trapped in a nationalist cross ﬁ re during the

national election campaign of 1911. In Ontario, Laurier was branded as

a continentalist amid the Conservatives’ rallying cry, “No Truck or

Trade with the Yankees”; he also incurred the imperialist wrath over

his handling of the naval controversy. Yet in Quebec, Laurier was

accused of being too much of an imperialist for his authorship of the

Naval Service Bill. As the Liberals went down to defeat at the hands of

the Conservatives led by Robert Borden, it became apparent that Lau-

rier was an unwitting victim of the prosperity of the age and an evolv-

ing sense of nationalism. The east-west trading system of the National

Policy was working effectively, thereby rendering interest in north-

south trafﬁ c less pressing. Moreover, the question of Canada’s survival

was giving way to an assertion of national conﬁ dence that was increas-

ingly suspicious of foreign domination and entanglements. Canada’s

stature within the international community would be put to the test

with the outbreak of World War I.

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238

THE CONFIRMATION

OF NATIONHOOD (1914–1931)

anada made an impressive debut on the world stage during World

War I. The outstanding performance of Canadian soldiers on the

battleﬁ elds of Europe and the continued expansion of the national

economy in support of the war effort further advanced the cause of

Dominion autonomy. On the other hand, national unity suffered in

the wake of the conscription crisis of 1917, which sparked a clash of

nationalisms between the English and French cultural communities

and altered the course of Canadian electoral politics. During the mostly

prosperous 1920s, the balance of the Canadian economy clearly shifted

from agriculture to industry with the further expansion of manufactur-

ing and the northern resource frontier. The uneven distribution of the

beneﬁ ts of post-war growth and prosperity, however, contributed to the

revival of regional discontent expressed through the Winnipeg General

Strike of 1919 and the rise of the western Progressive Party and the

Maritime rights movement. Determined to shape a distinct sense of

Canadianism that was free of imperialism and sensitive to continen-

talism, the Liberals under Mackenzie King continued the quest for

national autonomy and the reconstitution of the British Empire into

a Commonwealth of Nations, ultimately achieved by the Statute of

Westminster in 1931.

The Great War

As Europe drifted toward war, the Borden administration was faced

with the same question of imperial defense that had contributed to

Wilfrid Laurier’s defeat. Convinced that a military crisis existed over-

seas, Prime Minister Robert Borden introduced a new Naval Aid Bill in

1912 that abandoned Laurier’s plan for a Canadian navy in favor of an

emergency contribution of $35 million to cover the cost of three battle-

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ships to be built and equipped in Britain. Apart from this emergency

aid, Borden expected that any permanent defense measures would be

contingent upon a greater Canadian voice in deciding imperial foreign

policy. Despite strong opposition in Quebec, Borden’s Naval Bill passed

the House of Commons, only to be blocked by the Liberal-dominated

Senate in 1913. But before the naval question could be settled, the long-

anticipated war erupted in Europe.

When Britain declared war in response to Germany’s invasion of

neutral Belgium in August 1914, Canada, as part of the empire, was

automatically at war. Initially, support for the war effort was virtually

unanimous as both English and French Canada recognized that the

defeat of Britain and France by Germany would severely jeopardize

Canadian growth and security. Few Canadians questioned the recruit-

ment propaganda and newspaper reports that depicted the war in terms

of a struggle between democracy and tyranny. Without opposition,

Parliament passed the War Measures Act, which gave the federal gov-

ernment broad emergency powers to suspend civil liberties and to

regulate any aspect of society or the economy deemed essential for the

conduct of the war. The early enthusiasm for the war effort and the

acceptance of sweeping state power was also based on the assumption

that the war would be a short-lived skirmish resulting in a decisive

Allied victory (Brown and Cook 1974).

Within the ﬁ rst two months of the war, Canada’s standing army of

only 3,000 was reinforced by more than 30,000 volunteers to form the

Canadian Expeditionary Force, which became the First Canadian

Infantry Division. The First Division was thrust into unimagined trench

warfare and had to withstand the ﬁ rst poisonous chlorine gas attacks

outside the small Belgian town of Ypres in 1915. Ultimately, four divi-

sions were organized into a distinct Canadian Corps that distinguished

itself in battle after battle on the western front, notably the Somme in

1916 and Passchendaele and Vimy Ridge in 1917. The Canadian Corps

was also instrumental in the ﬁ nal, successful Allied attack, especially

during “Canada’s hundred days” from August 4 to November 11, 1918,

when troops broke through the fortiﬁ ed Hindenburg Line and pushed

across the Belgian border to reach Mons on Armistice Day.

Thousands of other Canadians served with distinction in the British

and Allied armies. Canadians were among the leading “aces” who

engaged in man-to-man air combat in the service of the Royal Flying

Corps, the forerunner of the Royal Air Force. For example, the legendary

Billy Bishop was credited with shooting down 72 German ﬁ ghters,

earning him the coveted Victoria Cross, while Ray Brown reputedly

THE CONFIRMATION OF NATIONHOOD