But they often found it difficult to avoid political deadlocks that plagued the Assembly because of its underlying Catholic and Protestant divisions. To avoid stalemates, Macdonald and Cartier came to depend upon one another to deliver votes from their respective sides of the House. Eventually a political alliance was formed. Brown owned the most influential newspaper in Upper Canada - The Globe - and used it unfailingly to voice his distrust of what he saw as Catholic scheming and his dislike of political conservatives, especially John A.
He never passed up an opportunity to ridicule Macdonald. On an occasion when Macdonald wore the ceremonial British civil uniform to meet with visiting royalty, Brown wrote, " A great deal of time has been wasted by John A. Macdonald in learning to walk, for the sword suspended to his waist has an awkward knack of getting between his legs, especially after dinner.
Macdonald than a sober George Brown. Facing severe financial problems and worsening health, he traveled to Britain to recuperate. In London, Brown changed his attitudes towards Confederation. Although cities were growing in the old centres of Halifax and St. Lawrence, and a strip from Kingston to Toronto along the north shore of Lake Ontario, more than 80 percent of Canada's people lived a rural life.
They travelled on dirt trails and corduroy roads, churned their own butter, sewed their clothing by the dim light of coal oil lamps and cultivated their farms with scythe and oxen. The politicians of the day, like John A. Between and , five separate coalitions had tried to govern the Canadas. In the meantime, the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island had been discussing the idea of a union among themselves.
The first Charlottetown Conference in September was originally planned as a meeting to debate this idea of Maritime union. Macdonald, Cartier and Brown invited themselves to the conference to try to sell their idea of a larger union of all the British North American colonies. For seven days they took control of the agenda and made their persuasive arguments. The main points of the Canadian proposal were continued loyalty to Britain; a strong federal government, but provincial control over local affairs; representation in the Lower House or Assembly based on population; and an Upper House or Senate to provide regional representation.
See also: Act of Union. But the union had failed to contain the growing ethnic and religious tensions in the two colonies.
The political system was coming close to paralysis. Canada West and Canada East were given the same number of seats in the colonial legislature. But Canada West had fewer people than Canada East. This meant English-speaking Canadians were over-represented in the legislature.
The system was designed to protect the English-speaking minority in the united colony from French Canadian dominance. The goal was to assimilate French Canadians to English Canadian culture and norms. Immigration from Britain and Ireland in the s and s created huge population growth, mostly in Canada West.
By , Canada West's population exceeded that of Canada East by more than , people. It was now the French Canadians who were over-represented in the legislature. A growing number of English Canadians regarded this as unfair. French Canadian politicians were determined to protect their language , culture and religion from English- Protestant influences.
They made alliances with those in Canada West who supported the idea of responsible government. This was a more democratic system of government. It was responsible to the elected members of the legislature rather than to British-appointed governors. They were closely connected to the Catholic Church. This gave them considerable control over the levers of power. They had succeeded in turning a political system that was designed to assimilate them to their advantage.
Many were hostile towards and suspicious of Roman Catholicism. As a result, the province became increasingly unstable. It lurched from one cobbled-together government to another, in an atmosphere of seething resentments and fears. One possible solution was to replace the balancing of legislative seats between Canada East and West with representation by population. This approach was championed by George Brown.
Where they lived or what language they spoke would not matter. Governments would reflect the wishes of the majority of voters in the whole united province. Such an arrangement, however, was completely unacceptable to many French Canadians. Many believed rep by pop would reduce them to a minority in an expanding English-speaking, Protestant province.
This could have potentially disastrous consequences for their religion, language and culture. The Reformers in Canada West insisted on individual rights. But this ran headlong into French Canadian determination to protect their collective rights. It was simply to dissolve the union. There was also the chance that dissolving the union would make the new provinces easier to annex into the United States. Not surprisingly, Britain opposed anything that might weaken its North American empire.
British opposition to dissolving the union would be difficult to overcome. But this would only work if each region elected like-minded majorities. That possibility was extremely unlikely.
Given the difficulties with these approaches, George Brown became increasingly drawn to the idea of a federal arrangement between Canada East and Canada West. This would involve the creation of two separate provinces. They would be linked by a new federal parliament. In , Brown introduced the idea in the Province of Canada legislature. He got nowhere.
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