My research into the career of John A. Macdonald was assisted by a Government of Canada Faculty Enrichment Award. I record appreciation to conference and visiting speaker funds of Brock, Edinburgh, Fraser Valley, Galway, and Ryerson Universities. Kirk Howard encouraged me to write this book, and his colleagues at Dundurn Press have efficiently steered it to completion. Thanks are owed to many individuals, including Elizabeth and Robert Andrews, Ann Barry, Colin M. Coates, Vivien Hughes, Robin Jeffrey, J.K. Johnson, Barbara J. Messamore, Brian and Anne Osborne, Grace Owens, Simon J. Potter, Peter B. Waite, and Donald Wright.

      Introduction

      Only Make a Beginning

      On July 1, 1867, John A. Macdonald became Canada’s first prime minister. Confederation, as the process was called, split the existing province of Canada, formed in 1841, allowing its two sections, Upper and Lower Canada (Canada West and Canada East), to form the separate units of Ontario and Quebec. They joined New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to become the Dominion of Canada. A talented lawyer, efficient administrator, and prominent figure in Upper Canadian politics, Macdonald had played an important role in creating the new political union.

      His family had arrived in Kingston, Ontario, when he was five years old, after the failure of his father’s business in Scotland. They continued to struggle in Canada. At fifteen, he became a clerk in a law office, and worked his way to the top. Years later, a friend confided that he too wanted to become a lawyer, but doubted whether he had the time or resources to study. Macdonald offered sage counsel: “only make a beginning, and you will get through some way or other.” He applied that philosophy to projects such as Confederation and the transcontinental railway, with a combination of determined optimism and practical caution that earned him the grudging nickname “Old Tomorrow.” John A. Macdonald died in office in 1891 after leading the Dominion for nineteen of its first twenty-four years. By then, Canada had expanded to the Pacific and acquired three more provinces (Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island). Newcomers settling the prairies (the future Alberta and Saskatchewan) disrupted traditional lifestyles, and in 1885 some Métis and Native people rose in revolt. It was ironic that Macdonald’s final years were overshadowed by the tragedy of the Riel uprising, since his political philosophy of deal-making compromise had been shaped by the shocking experience of Upper Canada’s 1837 rebellion. Although he rarely spoke of his experience of serving in the government forces in that minor civil war, he learned an enduring lesson about the fragility of Canadian society.

      Of course, Canada has changed since Macdonald’s day. The title “Dominion” was no accident: Macdonald intended Ottawa to be the boss, with the provinces as subordinates, not federal partners. The centrepiece of his later years was the Canadian Pacific Railway, completed in 1885 to stiffen the transcontinental nation with a steel spine. Canada’s rail network still handles bulk freight, but trains carry more tourists than travellers. The railway formed part of Macdonald’s National Policy, the 1879 protective tariff that encouraged western Canadians and Maritimers to buy goods mainly manufactured in Ontario and Quebec, a structure finally discarded in the Canada-U.S. Free Trade pact of 1988. John A. Macdonald forged the Conservative Party as a powerful instrument to govern Canada by mobilizing support among both its English- and French-speaking citizens. But, after his time, the party generally failed to win support in French Canada. Political parties evolve