150 years since the British North America Act was passed
2017 marks the 150th year of the Confederation of Canada; where in 1867, the British North America Act was given royal assent by Queen Victoria, and created the Dominion of Canada.
The Canadian Government has already announced a yearlong initiative to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the Confederation of the nation, beginning with the New Year’s Eve celebration in Ottawa, branded under the “Canada 150” banner.
The Ontarion discussed the significance of the sesquicentennial with University of Guelph history professor, Dr. Alan Gordon.
“It’s part of democratic citizenship to know where you are coming from, what this country is about and how it developed,” said Gordon in regards to the importance of celebrating this milestone.
Gordon discussed the challenges in celebrating the Canadian Confederation.
“If you think about what we’re actually celebrating, it’s the taking effect of a piece of British legislation that put together three colonies into four provinces, and half the British North American colonies didn’t want to join in the first place”.
Gordon predicts that the birth of the Canadian nation will be on prominent display rather than the gradual act of nation-building that created Canada.
“Canada wasn’t a country that was born so much as it was something to have evolved over time,” with nine provinces and territories joining confederation after 1867, Gordon explained. “Confederation is a process, it’s not just something that happened at one point.”
Unlike American independence, which was the end result of the Revolutionary War against Britain, the founding of Canada arose from a series of meetings and legislation to organize the formation of the new nation. After the Fathers of Confederation met in Charlottetown in 1864, where “all they really decided was to meet again,” they went to Quebec City where they formulated how Confederation would work, which led to years of negotiations between the colonies.
Once the necessary legislation made its way to London in 1867, it passed without much resistance or attention in the British Parliament.
Gordon discussed how Canada Day, while important to our own national identity now, wasn’t originally a historic event.
“On July 1, 1867, nothing really happened. We didn’t even have a federal government yet; the election wasn’t until later in the year. All that really happened was that a piece of British legislation took effect.”
It was only through economic benefits, like the promise of the CPR railroad, that Canada would—as our national motto states—stretch “from sea to sea”.
While originally met with little fanfare, the Confederation of Canada has evolved to take on great importance for the Canadian national identity.
“Canadians have come to embrace these stories. Though I could be cynical about it, and say, ‘This is what actually happened and it’s not what people think it is,’ people have come together as Canadians, and we do understand ourselves to have a national identity.”
The national identity of Canadians, however, is not a set image, but rather an ever evolving definition.
“Canada today is not the Canada it would have been in the 1950s.”
While there have been efforts to establish a Canadian culture, such as the Massey Commission in 1949, which institutionalized the CBC and Canada Council, Gordon said that the catalyst for the creation of a Canadian national image would have been 50 years ago with the celebration of Expo 67.
“The Centennial was when we started looking at being something distinctively Canadian and actively constructing a Canadian identity.”
As the Canadian government promotes initiatives to celebrate the sesquicentennial, Gordon explains how each government, regardless of party policies, uses their nation’s history as a tool to promote their own governing party’s values.
“The events that created the mythology, are serving [the government’s] own interests, and their own ideologies.”
For Gordon, the last 10 years of Canadian politics and their relation to history have been “Fascinating. Very frustrating, but fascinating.”
Photo by Mariah Bridgeman/The Ontarion.