Is Canadian confederation a lie?
Our country was founded in 1867 as a federation of provinces
Canada is a confederation. True or false? False. 99.9 per cent of Canadians, including the Government of Canada, our politicians, political parties, press and professors get this wrong almost all of the time.
Canada is a federation and has been a federation since 1867.
As we honour the 199th birthday of Sir John A. Macdonald on Saturday there will be, once again, much ado about some obscure confederation with Canada and its founding fathers. Sir John, born in Glasgow ( and the father of three children), with George Etienne Cartier and other honourable nation- builders, fathered The Federation of The Dominion of Canada.
To quote the second sentence of The British North American Act of 1867: “Whereas the Provinces of Canada ... have expressed their desire to be Federally united into one Dominion under the Crown ...” How can this possibly be misconstrued to mean anything other than a federation? If we continue to accept this ultimate legal distortion, we invite much greater and more harmful aberrations in our future.
Is confederation a lie? Well, in Canada, it’s not the truth. It’s one of the highest, legal, democratic concepts ever to evolve. So much so, that the U. S. was founded as a true confederation where all residual — and yet to be defined — powers remained with the uniting state. Macdonald, who witnessed the horrors of the Civil War in which the Confederates lost, sought to learn from their experience. Therefore, he acquiesced to Cartier’s dream of a binding federal union from the start, on July 1st, 1867.
Thanks Sir John for a strong, united Canada. Congratulations on forging a true federation and happy birthday, eh! MICHAEL JOHN CHARETTE Oakville