Part 7 of Creation of Canada covers the last two years of the American Civil War, 1863-1865, and how that had a really impactful effect on Canada's future as a colony or as an independent nation.
00:02:51.100It covers, obviously, the last two years of the American Civil War, 1863, 1865, and how that had a really impactful effect on the direction that Canada was going as a colony or as an independent nation, etc.
00:03:07.360It gets into all the reasons that led to Confederation.
00:03:16.840There's four major points or so that they bring up in this episode.
00:03:21.680The first, the American Civil War, and all of the reasons, really, that have come up before.
00:03:27.220You know, threat of American annexation.
00:03:30.600You know, desire to establish an economic union among Britain's colonies in North America.
00:03:37.360The desire to build a transcontinental railroad, which you could only do with the latter occurring.
00:03:46.540The, you know, Quebec not being interested in independence because it would have led to their annexation or them being swallowed by the United States.
00:03:56.540So we'll get into all these topics tonight.
00:04:00.360And then, yeah, there's only two more episodes left in the series.
00:17:55.800A concern also shared by his French compatriot, Georges Etienne Cartier.
00:18:01.800Their colleague, John A. MacDonald, felt that only wider economic horizons could make Canada solvent.
00:18:09.800The scattered British North American colonies had obvious potential.
00:18:23.800If only they could be economically associated.
00:18:26.800But could you ask MacDonald, ever have economic cooperation without political unity?
00:18:33.800A united British North America would be more than a bridge.
00:18:38.800The St. Lawrence system would have a Canadian hinterland, instead of competing with New York for the trade of the American West.
00:18:47.800And if a united British North America could be created, a British-backed transcontinental railway, advocated by men like Edward Watkin in London, would be a more appealing proposition.
00:19:01.800For such a railway would be not only a link in a worldwide system, but also the spine of a new transcontinental nation.
00:19:09.800Desperate for credit, Galt had proposed a general federation in 1858.
00:19:19.800But London had shown limited enthusiasm for a scheme it felt premature.
00:19:24.800Meanwhile, Edward Watkin's International Financial Society had acquired a major interest in the debt-ridden Grand Trunk Railway and in the Hudson's Bay Company.
00:19:34.800There was method in the financial madness of this shrewd underwriter and reorganizer.
00:19:40.800Soon he was lobbying everywhere for the notion that federation would completely revitalize British North America's economic prospects.
00:21:17.800In Richmond, Southern leaders knew by 1864 that their strategy for winning Britain's support had failed.
00:21:25.800Mighty King Cotton, who was to have won recognition, had been shackled.
00:21:31.800And the Union Eagle was tearing at the Confederacy's vitals.
00:21:35.800In Canada's larger towns, Confederate agents had been working to crystallize anti-Northern feeling.
00:21:46.800Well financed, they operated from the better hotels.
00:21:50.800Typical was George Sanders, a fanatical Confederate, whose legitimate propaganda seemed something else to the anti-Canadian press of the North.
00:22:00.800But by the fall of 1864, the hotel lobbies were full of rumors that more serious schemes were afoot.
00:22:13.800Tension grew as Union agents tried to watch the Confederates, and Canadian agents tried to watch everybody.
00:22:22.800Finally, in mid-October, a group of desperate Confederates descended from Canada to raid the town of St. Albans, Vermont.
00:22:45.800This brought a roar of rage from the North.
00:23:00.800But in a few days, the Confederate criminals were arrested by Canadian authorities.
00:23:05.800In Washington, where four years of war had stretched nerves to the breaking point, it was hardly surprising that the eagle screamed.
00:23:19.800For long enough, it had felt itself surrounded by enemies on all sides.
00:23:23.800The cocksure France of Napoleon III, Britain, the ancient foe, and now her nasty offspring.
00:23:34.800It was hardly surprising that some angry congressmen were willing to back any sort of countermeasure, even a military one.
00:23:42.800But Secretary of State Seward, while agreeing to suspend the rush-baggett agreement, preferred to play for concessions from an embarrassed Lord Monk.
00:23:55.800Unfortunately, a preliminary hearing of the St. Albans raiders ended abruptly when they were released on technical grounds by the Canadian judge.
00:24:12.800Soon, a renewed wave of anger enabled the congressional enemies of free trade to win adoption of a resolution terminating the reciprocity treaty.
00:24:38.800There was no lack of will, it seemed, for taking John Bull by the throat.
00:24:49.800The bitter American election of late 1864 helped inflame the crisis, for strong words made good politics.
00:24:57.800Lincoln did win a second term, but four years of war had taken a terrible toll, and the weary president wanted only to end the conflict.
00:25:09.800So the administration tried to limit the scope of retaliation against Canada, suggesting she had been careless rather than hostile.
00:25:18.800Early in 1865, the Canadian legislature was summoned by Lord Monk, who had been working to counter American extremists.
00:25:32.800Soon, watchful newspapers in the North reported the passage of a new act closely regulating the movements of aliens in Canada.
00:25:54.800Confederate dreams of Anglo-American war might have come true if General Dix's dangerous order to ignore the Canadian border had stood for very long.
00:26:34.800Soon, Seward quietly reinstated the Rush-Baggett Agreement.
00:26:38.800Reciprocity, however, was gone beyond recall.
00:26:41.800Amidst all this, the Canadian legislature debated the Confederation scheme, which English and French Canadians saw rather differently.
00:26:51.800The English of Upper Canada had grown steadily in self-confidence.
00:27:00.800For some time, they had felt themselves ready for a fuller nationality.
00:27:04.800And they looked with approval on the efforts of the political tailors in London to get their gangling colonial lads into more grown-up talks.
00:27:13.800Unification by peaceful means contrasted sharply with the doleful plight of poor Colombia.
00:27:24.800Real sympathy could hardly conceal a certain smugness.
00:27:30.800Nor could the Canadian image of America remain unaffected by the inflammatory propaganda of North and South, inspired by mutual hate.
00:28:39.800And although graft and corruption were really worldwide, they were apt to think of them as distinctively American.
00:28:46.800That this brash customer could still be taken in hand by John Bull was reassuring.
00:28:54.800And who else but John could talk to Sam on equal terms.
00:29:00.800John Bull should stay in the picture, English Canadians felt, even as they welcomed Federation.
00:29:05.800For French Canadians, the issue of Federation was not so simple.
00:29:15.800For them, the British presence was not the result of choice, but the consequence of a lost imperial war.
00:29:22.800There had been military surrender to superior British power, but no spiritual surrender.
00:29:32.800British troops maintained British sovereignty.
00:29:35.800And men like Sir John Colburn, who crushed their revolt in 1837, symbolized the brutal fact of alien occupation.
00:29:48.800So whenever the Yankee cousin twisted the British lion's tail, radical French opinion was apt to enjoy it.
00:29:54.800But a Roman Catholic clergy of great ability had taken over leadership of the struggle to preserve the French Canadian nation.
00:30:05.800Church leaders had never forgotten the devilish forms in which the American revolutionaries had depicted Catholicism.
00:30:13.800Nor that extremist opinion in Protestant America was intent on making the church sever its ties with Rome.
00:30:20.800Homage to the Pope became servility in the ugly caricatures of American alarmists who felt endangered by creeping Catholicism.
00:30:40.800Bugaboo about a world-embracing Catholic imperialism was widespread in America.
00:30:44.800Yet despite anti-American feelings, some church leaders were hesitant, and among many laymen there were doubts about giving up a union where they had been equals for a federation where they would be a minority.
00:30:59.800Their leader was A. A. A. Dorian, who attacked the federation scheme as a monster, whose many English-speaking heads would swallow a helpless Quebec.
00:31:13.800French Canadian leaders in federal politics would soon become French-speaking Englishmen, he said, sacrificing Quebec to the majority.
00:31:25.800But Georges Etienne Carchet, Macdonald's French lieutenant, thought otherwise.
00:31:32.800If the association between English and French in Canada could not be developed, annexation to the United States would follow, reducing Quebec to political impotence.
00:31:43.800The British connection was invaluable, said Carchet. Had not the best ally against local abuse of French rights always been the British crown?
00:31:57.800As for Quebec, it would move ahead with the expansion of the new Canada and its railways. Railways in which, as it happened, Carchet had investments.
00:34:37.800And in Richmond, the great emancipator was welcomed by former slaves.
00:34:41.800But the troubled and far-seeing president, even with the cheers of the victors ringing in his ears, never ceased to brood over the future of the defeated.
00:34:56.800The South's physical power lay largely in ruins.
00:34:59.800But could its racial philosophy be as easily destroyed as its railroads and factories?
00:35:06.800Could the South be brought to trust the future rather than a haunted and corrupting past?
00:35:13.800Only by a peace of reconciliation, said Lincoln.
00:35:17.800And he ordered that Confederate prisoners be returned quickly to their homes.
00:35:21.800Lincoln had said, with malice toward none, with charity for all, let us strive to bind up the wounds.
00:36:25.800And now that Lincoln was gone, what sort of men, Canadians were asking, might it serve?
00:36:39.800Andrew Johnson, the new president, was thought a weak and troubled character.
00:36:45.800Behind him stood Ulysses Grant and Phil Sheridan, masters of war.
00:36:50.800And Thaddeus Stevens, who hated the Confederates, and felt the time had come at last for the court of American opinion to put the Confederacy's erstwhile friends on trial.
00:37:06.800Louis Napoleon and those scoundrels, Punch, and the editor of the Times.
00:37:11.800But it was the score at sea that most needed settling in the American view.
00:44:55.800And free territory only awaited settlers.
00:44:59.800They were into the Rocky Mountains now, into the rugged lands which would soon form states like Colorado.
00:45:09.800And to the North, they were pushing into the Nebraska Territory.
00:45:16.800Further North still, another thrust of American expansion pushed across the Upper Missouri toward British North America.
00:45:26.800An old drama had a repeat performance in these lush future farmlands.
00:45:35.800There were the heroes, new claimants, eager to move westward.
00:45:39.800There were the victims, the prior claimants, blocking the road.
00:45:40.800The heroes were real. The victims were real. The ending, as always, the same.
00:45:49.800In the East, a frenzy of construction had made the 50s a golden age of railway building.
00:45:50.800In the East, a frenzy of construction had made the 50s a golden age of railway building.
00:45:51.800In the East, a frenzy of construction had made the 50s a golden age of railway building.
00:45:52.800In the East, a frenzy of construction had made the 50s a golden age of railway building.
00:45:56.800In the East, a frenzy of construction had made the 50s a golden age of railway building.
00:46:01.800In the East, a frenzy of construction had made the 50s a golden age of railway building.
00:46:06.800In the East, a frenzy of construction had made the 50s a golden age of railway building.
00:46:13.800In the East, a frenzy of construction had made the 50s a golden age of railway building.
00:46:19.800By 1860, the railroad network, reaching to the Mississippi, Missouri, reflected American development.
00:46:39.800But men like Grenville Dodge were inspired by a truly imperial vision.
00:46:45.800The railway must be extended in one great push right across the Great Plains.
00:46:55.800Into them would move new millions, pursuing the American dream and building the last best west of all.
00:47:06.800Dodge's schemes were followed closely in Canada.
00:47:09.800During the war, he had one backing for his Union Pacific scheme,
00:47:14.800which anticipated their own dream of a transcontinental railway.
00:47:19.800To the mountains of Utah, the Union Pacific was now pushing westward.
00:47:24.800While out of California, the Central Pacific drove to meet it, not far from Salt Lake City.
00:47:30.800It was clear that by the end of the 60s, rails would indeed span the vast and lonely west.
00:47:57.800In Congress, meanwhile, there had been a revival of the spirit of manifest destiny.
00:48:06.800Republican radicals like Thaddeus Stevens had set a tone which could hardly be described as kindly.
00:48:13.800Strident Ben Butler could talk as if the unification of the continent was the logical completion of the task he had begun as a general against the Confederacy.
00:48:26.800Another general turned politician was Nathaniel Banks, whose bill for the entry of Canada into the Union was too much even for anti-British congressmen.
00:48:41.800And Uncle Billy Seward reaffirmed his belief that the whole continent would soon be American.
00:48:48.800Early in 1867, in an agreement with the Tsarist government, Seward bought Russian Alaska, 4,300 miles of coastline, and 375 million acres of land, all for $7,200,000.
00:49:06.800But with only a few primitive native inhabitants, Alaska didn't seem much of a bargain.
00:49:16.800Only its implacable coldness and barrenness impressed many politicians in Washington.
00:49:22.800It was Seward's folly, many said, and the clever Russians had sold Uncle Billy a big lump of ice.
00:49:35.800In fact, Uncle Billy had placed potential American pincers around the vast western emptiness of British North America.
00:49:48.800Rapid progress on the Union Pacific also implied that Canadian expansionists had no time to lose.
00:50:00.800Already, the railroad was making expansion westward more rapid and more ruthless.
00:50:06.800Also underway was the savage extermination of the buffalo, which drove the Indians to a desperate and last-ditch resistance.
00:50:25.800Helplessly, the defeated and discouraged Indians watched as the steam monsters rolled on.
00:50:40.800The fast new trains meant the traditional overlander could now be followed by a new breed of settler, less hardy perhaps, but no less eager.
00:50:50.800There seemed no limit to those westward bound.
00:51:00.800But with the Civil War over, the doors of the American house were open again.
00:51:05.800Now, they came crowding from every corner of Europe.
00:51:09.800The greatest mass migration in the whole of history.
00:51:12.800Soon, the Union Pacific would close the last gap in its construction.
00:51:29.800While another transcontinental line, the Northern Pacific, with possible connections to Red River and British Columbia, was being talked of.
00:51:39.800Would not the human tide flowing across these lines soon overflow into the still empty lands of British North America, bringing American sovereignty with it?
00:51:50.800The harsh and stubborn wilderness north of Lake Superior made prospects for a railroad seem bleak.
00:52:11.800So, if change came at last to the lands beneath the Northern Lights, would it not come under the stars and stripes, rather than the Union Jack?
00:52:21.800And if American expansionists ever persuaded their government to annex the British Northwest as a land bridge to Alaska, who would stop them?
00:52:31.800There was danger, too, in the East, where the bizarre Fenian antics, aimed at freeing Canada from Britain, were instead making her cling closer to her protector.
00:52:56.800Fenian propaganda actually strengthened Canada's will to survive.
00:53:01.800But in Washington, hostile congressmen, who had brushed aside Canadian efforts to save reciprocity, were confident that its loss would wreck Canada's economy and force her into the Union.
00:53:15.800Many prosperous Canadians had rallied to the support of reciprocity, in the belief that it was indispensable.
00:53:22.800They, and reciprocity's American supporters, had called on Washington to renew the treaty at a great gathering in Detroit.
00:53:30.800So, when Washington said no, near panic made annexationist thoughts stir again in some Canadian minds.
00:53:40.800Meanwhile, hawkish orators, south of the border, were reminding audiences of their destiny to rule the continent.
00:53:52.800And Secretary of State Seward did seem to many Canadians to be out to put the label U.S. on all of North America.
00:57:00.800The British North America Act clearly committed Canada to a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom.
00:57:14.800This meant constitutional monarchy with the supreme executive power vested in the reigning sovereign.
00:57:21.800It meant, too, the British tradition of the supremacy and sanctity of Parliament.
00:57:28.800And it meant, finally, adherence to the British Cabinet system under which the Prime Minister and his Cabinet must normally be elected to Parliament and be responsible to it.
00:57:45.800John A. Macdonald, the Canadian Prime Minister, had privately longed for a new dominion with one all-powerful central parliament, as in Britain.
00:58:06.800Canada had to preserve a multiple identity.
00:58:09.800And a unitary state was totally unacceptable to Quebec.
00:58:13.800For an example of divided sovereignty, Macdonald had to look not to unitary Britain, but to Federal America.
00:58:25.800Macdonald knew that after 1783, chaos and violence had almost destroyed the First American Confederation, whose central government had been too weak.
00:58:35.800So he looked to the Federal Constitution of 1787, which had set up a stronger central government with certain specific powers.
00:58:45.800But the various states were left with all the rest, including unspecified and potential rights.
00:59:02.800Inevitably, the steady accumulation of rights by the states led to such a growth in their stature that the whole federal structure tottered.
00:59:11.800Conflicting sovereignties and states' rights running amok, Macdonald felt, underlay the tragic sectional conflicts of recent American history.
00:59:29.800The monarchist in Macdonald had little taste for the American presidential system.
00:59:41.800The American chief executive, he felt, was a creature of the electorate and too open to influence.
00:59:48.800Macdonald did adopt the American federal system, but allotted unspecified powers to the center so that any future growth in sovereignty would be safely Federal.
01:00:01.800Macdonald was pleased with his new creation, rather an odd Anglo-American beast, some thought.
01:00:07.800But he felt that he had obtained all the advantages of British central government within America's Federal system.
01:00:21.800How did Uncle Sam react to the political events which so pleased Macdonald?
01:00:26.800The truth was that the problems of Reconstruction permitted him little more than passing comment.
01:00:36.800The new nation was left undisturbed to take pride in the dignified opening of the new Dominion Parliament.
01:00:44.800Confederation was just starting to walk, and the many fathers were filled with admiration.
01:00:51.800Confederation was just starting to walk, and the many fathers were filled with admiration.
01:00:57.800Already in the new toddler, they saw a bold and independent young man who would take his proper place beside John Bull and Uncle Sam.
01:01:08.800The dashing young man would still be British, of course.
01:01:12.800But surely Sam would now see that John Bull and his offspring were different people.
01:05:09.380They, like we saw all the reasons for it within that episode.
01:05:16.520Fears that, you know, the U.S. would eventually, like, get around to its manifest destiny of trying to conquer the entire American continent.
01:05:25.980Fears that, you know, Britain couldn't continue engaging in, you know, the policing of its empire globally at the scale that it had grown to.
01:05:38.520You know, a desire for greater autonomy among Canadians in general.
01:05:44.940The idea that the disparate, you know, ununited colonies of British North America were going to be susceptible to all kinds of economic and political pressures from the United States and potentially other forces, right?
01:06:31.960The Canadians don't gain control over their foreign policy until the 1920s.
01:06:36.480They don't get an actual bill of rights until Diefenbaker in the, what is that, the late 50s, I think.
01:06:43.380So, you know, this is just, you know, the first step in Canada becoming an independent nation.
01:06:50.940And obviously, you know, one thing the episode that we just watched does really well is summarizing all the different, you know, things that have been brought up over the first six parts of this series and kind of, you know, showing how it was not something that happened in a vacuum.
01:07:10.960You know, these, these reasons persist and a lot of them persist even to today.
01:07:16.100So, as we've spoke about, particularly in the episode about annexationism and reciprocity.
01:07:22.940So, anyways, let's get into some of the clips that I pulled for this episode.
01:07:27.940I'll do, sorry, I'll do the super chats that came in while we're doing that.
01:09:08.960But although Anglo-American tension remained dangerous,
01:09:12.340complacent Canadian politicians couldn't even agree on a stronger militia bill.
01:09:17.080Some felt that they had a sure defense in the Confederate Army, which was now invading the North.
01:09:22.620Yeah, so we actually talked about this a little bit in the last episode.
01:09:29.380This idea that, you know, Britain did not leave Canada hanging out to dry and was always there whenever it was needed,
01:09:36.280because this happened multiple times, you know, dozens of times, really, over the course of a century,
01:09:42.640where the threat of American invasion was there and Britain was there to supply troops and a navy to help defend it.
01:09:50.500So, you know, there's that that's where you get that kind of reciprocal love that comes particularly in the First World War,
01:09:58.780where you have Canadians in, you know, a massive outpouring of patriotism for the United Kingdom,
01:10:04.180signing up well above, you know, what they were per capita in in the United Kingdom.
01:10:10.400I think only I think it was only Australia that had a higher per capita enlistment in 1914 than Canada among all the colonies.
01:10:19.340So, yeah, like Canadians were quite patriotic towards Britain and the empire in this time period.
01:10:27.440And that's because of things like that, like the you know, these stories would have been passed down.
01:10:32.360And the War of 1812, we even saw that in the War of 1812 episode,
01:10:36.620they were doing celebrations the way we do today for World War One and World War Two up until the 1960s.
01:10:42.400And they still continue to this day, though, although they're much smaller in scale, obviously.
01:10:46.780But yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing in that clip as well is, you know, the note that for their own reasons,
01:10:55.240the, you know, English loyalists, the Quebecois, the Irish and, you know, various other, you know, British populations in the British North American colonies were not interested in annexationism.
01:11:11.140And when it did arise, it was always a small faction predominantly constrained to the the merchant class more than anything.
01:11:19.240They were the ones that flirted most often with American annexationism because they wanted preferable trade circumstances.
01:11:31.240All right. But obviously, the Irish in particular were a problem because of the United States.
01:11:38.000And this this obviously continues, but we'll get into the Irish, the Fenians and the ramifications,
01:11:44.440a little bit of the ramifications anyways, that that had back in Europe as well in the new Union armies.
01:11:51.140None were more capable or more dashing than the Irish.
01:11:55.000But even as they rose to distinction in the service of the Union, many a homesick Irishman brooded on another cause,
01:12:02.020Irish freedom and the Fenian Brotherhood.
01:12:09.120The roots of Fenianism lay in the harsh soil of Irish misery.
01:12:14.440Overpopulation and the failure of the potato crop had produced stark famine in the hungry forties.
01:12:21.140Hundreds of thousands of helpless and demoralized people perished, despite desperate relief efforts.
01:12:36.440Rebellion had followed in 1848, but it was ill-organized and ineffective and had been easily crushed.
01:12:44.440So, obviously, in this time period, 1840s and well into the 1850s and 60s, Irish immigration to North America,
01:12:58.720but particularly the United States, was extensive.
01:13:42.060And, obviously, this is, so part of the reason this became a problem for the British,
01:13:47.940which we'll get into a little bit more, is that you had large portions of a population that were now incredibly hostile towards you,
01:13:56.700not only receiving military training, but also able to organize freely in the United States in a way that they weren't able to in Ireland.
01:14:06.560And so, a lot of people may not be familiar with this.
01:14:09.520I'm sure a lot of you are, but part of what led to organized resistance in Ireland was the degree of organizing that was going on in the United States.
01:14:29.760there was a huge American component to this that was supporting it financially, militarily, politically from America.
01:14:37.000So, you know, this continues well into, you know, you'll see this depicted a lot in, like, I think, like, a lot of TV shows, like, criminal, you know, thriller shows will do this kind of stuff.
01:14:50.740So, like, there's a little bit of this in Peaky Blinders.
01:14:53.720You know, Sons of Anarchy, I think, has a segment on this going into, like, you know, the 2000s and stuff like that.
01:15:03.980So, and you'll see that, too, it still exists today, particularly in New England, but even bands like Dropkick Murphys, they glorify, you know, the support for the IRA from America and stuff like that.
01:15:19.960So, yeah, it was a problem for the British because now you had this, obviously, this huge segment of the population able to freely, you know, plot your downfall in a country that you had no ability to address.
01:15:34.380So, the impact was significant, to say the least.
01:15:39.360The other thing that I thought was interesting in that clip, too, is they said, you know, despite extensive relief efforts, hundreds of thousands of people starved.
01:15:48.080I don't know if you'd get that opinion from the Irish that there was extensive relief efforts.
01:15:52.280I don't think that they would be so, they would feel that that statement was accurate, but I think, you know, you get a little bit of that bias coming in there where, you know, it's a Canadian program that's, you know, more favorable towards, you know, British colonial rule, the British Empire and stuff like that.
01:16:13.640So, you get that English spin or that, you know, United Kingdom spin, even in, you know, from the Canadian perspective.
01:16:20.860So, but yeah, I'll get into the Fenians here.
01:16:24.820Ruthless evictions had been justified by the oppressive landlord class as the only solution to Irish overpopulation.
01:16:32.640The dispossessed cotters had no choice but to emigrate.
01:16:37.260With them, they carried a deep hatred of England.
01:16:40.280And this had found expression in the Fenian Brotherhood.
01:16:45.020By 1863, it was powerful enough to hold a convention and declare a Republic of Ireland free from Britain.
01:16:53.900In pursuit of this great dream, the Fenians fostered a mood of conspiracy and violence and called for the use of terror against England.
01:17:06.900Funny enough, I spoke about that briefly in the last episode.
01:17:10.280The, arguably the first terrorist attack in Canadian history was actually carried out by a Fenian in 1841.
01:17:18.560And it was against the Sir Isaac Brock monument in Niagara that, you know, we actually went, we, well, it's not the same one because it was partially destroyed.
01:17:28.220But the one that we went to, uh, in Niagara this summer with the boys, uh, that was bombed by an Irishman, um, who was working with, uh, uh, William Lyon McKenzie.
01:17:40.480So interesting little tidbit there, like this is a, a real, uh, prolonged issue for sure.
01:17:48.500Um, but yeah, they, like that kind of captures that clip, you know, demonstrates what I was just kind of talking about, that you have these mass organizations of men in the United States that would not have been permitted in British controlled Ireland.
01:18:02.800And so this allows them to start pooling resources and collectivizing, uh, in ways that they, they weren't able to before.
01:18:10.000So, um, but yeah, we'll come back to the Fenians obviously later in the episode.
01:18:16.020Um, but yeah, now the shift that we go to here is, you know, this is arguably a much bigger topic than, I don't know if, you know, I care to try to break down, but you have this shift.
01:18:37.300Uh, we spoke about it briefly in the last episode as well, this shift from British imperialism being one of hard power, which is a military and naval presence, you know, globally, um, direct rule over her colonies and territories, uh, through governor generals, um, and, uh, you know, colonial governments and stuff like that.
01:19:02.420The British Raj or the, you know, the, you know, the East India company, uh, who held direct control over, over the territories that they occupied.
01:19:11.600So more of like your classic imperialism, right.
01:19:15.640Um, in this time period, you're starting to see a shift towards the more modern form of imperialism, which is, uh, imperialism through the dollar, uh, which, you know, you could see the attraction of it.
01:19:28.880Um, in this time period, you know, the most.
01:19:32.420Profitable thing for Britain when it came to, um, you know, her empire was not necessarily extracting resources from it.
01:19:39.680It was, uh, accruing markets to sell the, you know, millions of manufactured goods that were being produced there every, you know, week, every month.
01:19:50.640Uh, you know, having those markets was more valuable than the resources that you could necessarily, you know, you might be able to extract from any of these one territories.
01:19:58.820So the idea that you would be, you know, the problem with imperialism is that it tends to garner a lot of, uh, animosity, uh, rebellions, revolutions, uprisings.
01:20:14.900You know, there's problems and these are not good for business.
01:20:18.400Obviously they are very disruptive towards trade, uh, and, uh, you know, your profits.
01:20:24.760So this is where you get that push towards a softer form of imperialism that's done through, you know, favorable trade negotiations, um, you know, giving them, giving these territories, limited, uh, governance over their own, uh, people.
01:20:39.840In their own, uh, territory so that, you know, they're, they're satisfied with the arrangement, but you have the preferable trade, uh, circumstances with them.
01:20:49.660So this is like, you know, this is why you see Britain move towards a more laissez-faire attitude towards, uh, governance of its territories in this time period.
01:21:01.620But behind the Roman facades of British finance, there was already at work a new kind of imperialism, whose origin lay in the ever-expanding productivity of British capitalism.
01:21:20.120Skilled muscle and pounding machinery had turned all England into a workshop whose products were of a variety and volume which dwarfed anything ever known before.
01:21:31.620A determined new breed of men, investors and financiers, rather than owners, discussed in their drawing rooms and clubs, new concepts, like the climate of investment.
01:21:45.820Soon, politicians were feeling their influence.
01:23:25.140But, uh, yeah, obviously this leads to this shift in, you know, imperialism is partially what leads to, you know,
01:23:32.580the British wanting to not be so involved in Canada and, you know, give it its independence.
01:23:38.660Um, they didn't want to continually have to keep a, a naval and military presence within, uh, British North America.
01:23:47.160It was, uh, provocative towards the United States and it was incredibly expensive and they weren't necessarily getting the revenue out of those colonies that they needed to, to justify it.
01:23:59.160This is where you see them start to shift away, um, you know, from, from that kind of approach in British North America.
01:24:08.120So, in certain British business circles of the 60s, there arose the vision of a world-girdling system of communications.
01:24:16.660It was a truly imperial vision, which looked to the imperial government for support and subsidy.
01:24:22.040British North America had a vital role to play in this system, as a bridge between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
01:24:30.620It could become part of a shorter route from London to the Orient.
01:24:35.140The link, of course, would be a transcontinental railway, at the moment, no more than a dream.
01:24:41.840So, obviously, this is the, at least the precursor to the vision that would be Canada, uniting a transcontinental, um, you know, dominion that was loyal to the British Empire, um, through the spine of a railroad.
01:24:59.640And, uh, obviously, that, that is what came to pass, but, uh, you can see, you know, the, the, the, these, there's a lot of, um, especially in modern times, there's a lot of disdain for more economic-minded, uh, leaders, uh, people who focus on trade and profit.
01:25:22.260Um, you know, because there's a desire to kind of return to a, a more, um, traditionally, you know, the traditional sense of what it is to be honorable and a leader and whatnot.
01:25:37.960But, you know, these, these men had vision, like they, like, think of the ramifications of these, these visions, not just in Canada, but in Australia, New Zealand, you know, across the entire British Empire.
01:25:49.860Like they united, you know, through trade and infrastructure, uh, you know, basically the entire planet.
01:25:57.540So, um, you know, I, I get where the, the kind of, uh, distaste for, for this attitude comes from, but, you know, it, it was a pretty, a pretty grand vision.
01:26:36.840The whole reason that, you know, the, the prairie provinces exist in their modern form is because of, uh, you know, an endeavor taken on by the Canadian government, not the British government.
01:26:51.120And it was Canadians who initially populated it.
01:26:54.220So, um, I think that, you know, I don't want to get into it necessarily again, but I do think it is important to establish this.
01:27:02.400I think that Albertans and, uh, you know, a lot of people who live in the prairie say, I've kind of forgot that their roots are Canadian.
01:32:28.640During the war scare of 1861, Britain had shown that she would not abandon Canada to the United States.
01:32:35.260But she didn't care to go on repeating the demonstration.
01:32:38.660Moreover, it was clear that the Union was going to win.
01:32:42.120What if she found in the British presence to the North an excuse for settling old scores?
01:32:47.480But if Britain were to withdraw, it must be without loss of prestige in the eyes of the United States.
01:32:52.940Canadian Federation seemed a basis for just such a withdrawal with honour.
01:32:58.640A stronger Canada standing on its own might be acceptable to the United States.
01:33:05.660Yeah, and this is obviously, like, this obviously did come to pass.
01:33:10.340So, you know, the British position here was that, you know, if we are not, we don't have a military and naval presence in North America anymore.
01:33:22.940While maintaining an economic and political union with our colonies in North America.
01:33:28.240That would be less provocative to the United States.
01:33:33.580And they might then be less, you know, they would be less encouraged to take a hostile position towards both us and Canada.
01:33:45.440And obviously, that is what came to pass, although it was a risk or a gamble.
01:33:52.200And that we'll see this in the next episode, because this is the time period where essentially permanent peace is established between Canada and America till today.
01:34:02.780Through the Treaty of Washington in 1871, which is the Treaty of Washington in 1871, which is the topic of the next episode.
01:34:36.360Again, it's one of these ones where it's Canadians taking shots at Americans.
01:34:39.920But this actually does capture the attitude and you still see this today.
01:34:44.720You still see this kind of like this is, I think it's important to just keep pointing out that the, a lot of the attitudes that Canadians have towards Americans are deeply rooted.
01:34:54.340And, you know, whether they're accurate or just or, you know, even productive and they're not productive, but understanding that the, the perspectives that even modern Canadians have of America, the American system, you know, American culture or the, like the American political style is deeply rooted.
01:35:19.940And you see this in this clip summarizes it pretty well.
01:35:24.340The uninhibited side of American politics had confirmed traditional anti-Republican prejudices among English Canadians.
01:35:36.740And although graft and corruption were really worldwide, they were apt to think of them as distinctively American.
01:35:43.140That this brash customer could still be taken in hand by John Bull was reassuring.
01:35:52.620And who else but John could talk to Sam on equal terms?
01:35:57.960John Bull should stay in the picture, English Canadians felt, even as they welcomed Federation.
01:36:03.160So again, you get the Canadian perspective, like this still exists today in some capacity, right?
01:36:12.840Funny, you know, it exists more on the left than it does on the right, but this is a traditionally conservative or nationalistic or patriotic Canadian view.
01:36:23.380More than it is like a shit lib, you know, view of America.
01:36:29.080So that, that is, I think, interesting.
01:36:32.060But yeah, the other part of that clip as well, that's worth noting is, this is where you get that kind of bond of like, okay.
01:36:38.580You know, Canadians want independence, they want, you know, more control over their own affairs, but they also don't want, they don't want to cut ties with Britain.
01:36:51.380Which is why we have the crown, which is why we have this connection that exists, which is why all of our institutions are British.
01:36:58.540For better or worse, whether you like it or not, that is the reality of Canadian history.
01:37:03.040That's why things are the way they are.
01:37:04.640And, you know, people bitch and bemoan, you know, that a lot of the time in modernity, but there was good reasons for it at the time.
01:37:15.200And, you know, even if you feel it's no longer necessary, it is our tradition, it is our history.
01:37:33.900Okay, this is a long clip, so I apologize, but it's just, it's really well done.
01:37:41.800And it basically summarizes the position of Quebec from, you know, the, basically the entirety of, you know, its existence, right?
01:37:52.380From New France up until the current point that we're in.
01:37:55.940It goes over all of the, I'm just going to play it because it really is, but this really summarizes Quebec's position in 1865.
01:38:05.760So give this one, you know, pay attention to this one, you know, it really summarizes it all perfectly.
01:38:12.820For French Canadians, the issue of federation was not so simple.
01:38:18.300For them, the British presence was not the result of choice, but the consequence of a lost imperial war.
01:38:25.840There had been military surrender to superior British power, but no spiritual surrender.
01:38:32.820British troops maintained British sovereignty, and men like Sir John Colburn, who crushed their revolt in 1837, symbolized the brutal fact of alien occupation.
01:38:47.440So whenever the Yankee cousin twisted the British lion's tail, radical French opinion was apt to enjoy it.
01:39:00.220But a Roman Catholic clergy of great ability had taken over leadership of the struggle to preserve the French Canadian nation.
01:39:07.560Church leaders had never forgotten the devilish forms in which the American revolutionaries had depicted Catholicism, nor that extremist opinion in Protestant America was intent on making the church sever its ties with Rome.
01:39:26.340Homage to the Pope became servility in the ugly caricatures of American alarmists who felt endangered by creeping Catholicism.
01:39:37.560A bugaboo about a world-embracing Catholic imperialism was widespread in America.
01:39:50.340Yet despite anti-American feelings, some church leaders were hesitant, and among many laymen there were doubts about giving up a union where they had been equals for a federation where they would be a minority.
01:40:02.980Their leader was A. A. A. Dorian, who attacked the federation scheme as a monster, whose many English-speaking heads would swallow a helpless Quebec.
01:40:17.800French-Canadian leaders in federal politics would soon become French-speaking Englishmen, he said, sacrificing Quebec to the majority.
01:40:26.820But Georges-Étienne Carchet, MacDonald's French lieutenant, thought otherwise.
01:40:33.820If the association between English and French in Canada could not be developed, annexation to the United States would follow, reducing Quebec to political impotence.
01:40:46.780The British connection was invaluable, said Carchet.
01:40:51.920Had not the best ally against local abuse of French rights always been the British crown?
01:41:01.100As for Quebec, it would move ahead with the expansion of the new Canada and its railways.
01:41:07.500Railways in which, as it happened, Carchet had investments.
01:41:31.000But Dorian supporters lost out to Carchet is by a narrow margin.
01:41:34.800With the results of the debate now clear, the Church felt it should throw the full weight of its authority behind the majority decisions.
01:41:44.980The choice was simply the lesser of two evils, necessary for self-preservation.
01:41:50.240So, as I said, like, that's a really good summary of just Quebec, basically, from, you know, 1763 up until the current point in time, so 1865.
01:42:10.040The influence of the influence of the Catholic Church, you know, the feelings of not wanting necessarily to be in, you know, an English union, but understanding the practical necessity of having protection of the British Empire.
01:42:22.560Because they were always more favorable to French rights and the rights of the Catholic Church in Canada than, you know, America would have been.
01:42:31.260The understanding that it was better to be a bigger fish in a small pond as opposed to a small fish in a big pond.
01:42:41.240So the idea that, you know, if they had gained the union with the United States, they would have been a tiny minority among English and other European groups, obviously.
01:42:52.140As opposed to in Canada, they were still a minority, but a much larger minority than they would have been in the context of the United States.
01:42:58.500As well as aversion to just, you know, anti-American sentiment towards, obviously, you have a lot of, you know, wasps, right?
01:43:07.160So, you know, there's a lot of hostility towards the Catholic Church, which was very, obviously, influential at this time period in Quebec.
01:43:15.840And that remained true up until, you know, the post-war era.
01:43:20.360So, it's just a really good summary of it.
01:43:24.180One thing that I did want to point out as well, because it's not mentioned in this series, if it is in the later episode, I don't think it is.
01:43:32.840But one thing that's very interesting about Georges Etzien-Cartier, and I think it's important for the context of discussing why he was in favor of Confederation and why he had the views that he did,
01:43:43.560is that he was actually part of the 1837-1838 rebellions in Lower Canada.
01:43:48.580He was a follower of Louis-Joseph Papineau when he was a younger man.
01:43:53.460And the reason that's important is because, you know, he was exiled to Vermont.
01:43:59.660Like, this is somebody that had fought against, you know, British rule in Lower Canada.
01:44:04.760And I think that experience obviously would have played a huge role in shaping his view and understanding that that kind of opposition to British rule was not going to get you what you wanted.
01:44:18.060And that, in fact, the British were actually fairly benevolent imperial masters that had really not been hostile towards the French.
01:44:27.320Now, they weren't necessarily giving them everything they wanted over, you know, the English in British North America, but they certainly weren't directly attacking their culture and heritage.
01:44:37.480And so I think Georges Etzien-Cartier realized through his, you know, experiences with Republican ideals.
01:44:43.680And like you see this a lot, you know, radicals in their youth that, you know, become much more pragmatic and understand how politics actually works.
01:44:52.640And, you know, what's best. So I think Georges Etzien-Cartier had, you know, that kind of experience.
01:44:58.980You know, something to just, you know, provide more context there.
01:45:03.820And he was willing, he was the biggest French champion, obviously, of Confederation.
01:45:07.820So an important character that doesn't, you know, isn't discussed as much as maybe he should be.
01:45:14.200All right. Another thing here, too, it's come up a bunch of times, and I just figured I might as well clip it and just make a quick note, is the Monroe Doctrine.
01:45:36.920Some of you are probably familiar with this. It's a quick clip. I'll just play it.
01:45:40.060Some raucous voices suggested that the Monroe Doctrine should apply to these Europeans, too.
01:45:46.740Might not the victorious Union commanders now look northward and find new uses for their veterans?
01:45:57.060So the news that the great armies of the Union were to be demobilized quickly was greeted with joy.
01:46:03.980With the utmost relief, Canadians saw the victors head for home.
01:46:10.060So I only clipped that to discuss briefly the Monroe Doctrine and its importance, not just in this time period, but it's something that remains important up until, I don't know, the 1960s and 70s.
01:46:25.420You'll even see some of it. You'll hear a quote, I think, like JFK invoked it at one point or not invoked it, but, you know, alluded to it.
01:46:33.300So if you're not familiar, you know, it's from President Monroe, 1823, and the Monroe Doctrine was basically an assertion that the preeminent power in the entire Western Hemisphere should be the United States and that the United States would actively oppose any, you know, attempts to
01:46:53.180found new colonies by European powers.
01:47:00.180It was basically a hostile doctrine towards European imperialism.
01:47:05.180And so there's parts of it, you know, essentially what it would lead to is like backing, you know, rebel forces in the Western Hemisphere.
01:47:15.180And so you see this come up actually quite a bit.
01:47:18.180It comes up with Mexico, it comes up with Canada in the 1830s, 18, the 1837, 1838 rebellions.
01:47:27.180People allude to, you know, the Monroe Doctrine of backing rebels against European empires, etc.
01:47:33.180One of the more impactful, you know, events that it had a role in was the Spanish-American War.
01:47:44.180So if you're not super familiar with that, basically at this at that point, Spain was putting down rebellion in Cuba.
01:47:51.180And this is it was invoked like the concept of the Monroe Doctrine was invoked and America was aiding Cuban rebels.
01:47:58.180Right. So it comes up, you know, in the 19, like during the Cold War, it'll come up again with like, what is it?
01:48:11.180I think like Panama and Nicaragua in a different way, but yeah.
01:48:19.180So, yeah, I just thought I would address that.
01:48:30.180And then we're back to the Fenians here.
01:48:33.180So this is again, it's one thing that really drove through, you know, the push towards Confederation,
01:48:40.180which was these, you know, rowdy American factions that were not really under the control of the American government.
01:48:49.180But one group, the fanatical Fenian Brotherhood was now ready to begin its own war.
01:49:03.180The rapid disbanding of the Union armies made battle hardened Irish veterans suddenly available.
01:49:10.180Many, without immediate work, were easily recruited into the anti-British Brotherhood.
01:49:16.180Soon there were widespread rumors that the Fenian plotters were up to something big.
01:49:24.180I obviously the the sketches and images that they use throughout this series are cutting and pretty harsh.
01:49:37.180The one that gets me, though, is the way they draw the Fenians.
01:49:41.180Oh, it's there. It's almost like they're leprechauns, like they're little like malformed, like with the like the stove top hats.
01:49:51.180And I don't know, they just look like leprechauns, like malformed leprechauns.
01:49:57.180And I don't know if that's intentional, like I don't know if that's just them trying to be cutting or if they like that the archetype of the leprechaun already existed or something.
01:50:07.180Or if that's where the archetype of the modern, you know, depiction of leprechauns comes from this kind of like squat, you know, little hat with the long tails on the coat.
01:50:18.180Yeah. So I don't know. That made me laugh.
01:50:26.180Yeah, but obviously, so this was what leads to the Fenian raids.
01:50:32.180And they were deadly. There was I don't know if you'd call them pitch battles.
01:50:36.180I think the way that they're depicted in some of the sketches and paintings from the day are probably hyperbolic.
01:51:41.180Yeah, sir. I'm just trying to fix my panel here.
01:51:48.180Yeah. So obviously, this is, again, something that kind of accelerated Confederation.
01:51:54.180It produced a lot of people or a lot of, you know, Canadians who are supportive of Confederation as a result.
01:52:04.180I think they mentioned earlier that this was particularly impactful in New Brunswick, which obviously shares a border with, you know, the New England area where a lot of these raids are being staged.
01:52:13.180And I can't remember the exact border crossing points, but it was more to the east than, you know, the Niagara region, as far as I recall.
01:52:21.180So, you know, this has an effect on New Brunswick wanting, you know, to be more politically unified with the rest of the British colonies in North America for defense purposes, obviously.
01:52:33.180And yeah, like this is something that goes on.
01:52:35.180You know, the results of this, you know, it may be not super impact.
01:52:38.180Obviously, the impact of Canada is it leads, you know, to more support for Confederation, but the impacts, the greater impacts of this ripple on well into the, you know, 1960s and 70s in Ireland during the Troubles and shit like that.
01:53:38.180Um, yeah, this next clip I included as well, because it's actually shows again, we've talked about it, maybe not on this stream, but I've certainly spoken about it in Twitter spaces and my, my other stream, but it's where you get this difference in attitude towards, you know, ethnic makeup between Americans and Canadians, or at least what became those ethnicities.
01:54:06.180During this time period, part, again, part of what accelerates, you know, Canadian, uh, unity is this idea that America is growing very fast and it's spreading and it's spreading into the West and there's nothing to really prevent it from being able to move northward into the open prairies, um, that were not settled in Canada.
01:54:27.180And part of the reason that America was able to expand so quickly is because there was a huge spike in, in immigration from all over, not just the British Isles, obviously, but all over Europe.
01:54:38.180So we, we talked earlier about how, you know, the 1840s and fifties, you see a huge spike of Irish immigration into America, the 1860s and seventies lead to a huge spike of Eastern European, you know, German, uh, there's a lot of Italians coming at this point.
01:54:54.180And so this is where you get the difference.
01:54:56.180Canada did not experience that, that kind of immigration to Canada until like the post-war era, like the post-World War II era.
01:55:06.180Um, and even then it was in the sixties and seventies.
01:55:09.180So basically after we get, you know, the, the, the multicultural doctrine, that's whatever we started seeing it.
01:55:15.900So this is where you get this kind of idea that, um, Americans tend to, to more towards like, uh, a pan European nationalism, whereas Canadian nationalism is more rooted in the British and French identity.
01:55:29.680And that, you know, not understanding that is a real big misstep for, um, you know, nationalists, even if they are, uh, they do tend towards a more white identitarian or pan European nationalist perspective of Canada.
01:55:45.740If you don't understand the history of it, this is where you, you make missteps in communicating it to, uh, the Canadian audience and why it becomes harder.
01:55:54.160So, um, yeah, I just figured we'd watch this clip and even, uh, funny enough, the, the way it's depicted here is actually kind of vulgar and cutting.
01:56:04.500Like, I don't know what the, the root of, you know, the image that's used in this is, like if it's a British one or a Canadian one, or, uh, even it could be a, uh, like a genuine, like American one, because obviously there was some, uh, quite a few Americans who were opposed to this too.
01:56:18.780You see this illustrated in something like gangs of New York would build a butcher, right?
01:56:23.780This kind of like anti Irish sentiment, like anti other European, like he, he viewed the American nation as an ethnos that was rooted in, you know, it's Anglo-Saxon identity, not as something that, uh, it was open to all.
01:56:37.240And that, that sentiment existed in, in America in this time period.
01:56:40.360And so, you know, they, there was a lot of people who opposed mass immigration, uh, in that period as well, because they thought it was diluting what it meant to be American.
01:56:48.080And, you know, there's maybe some validity to that.
01:56:52.740There seemed no limit to those westward bound, but with the civil war over, the doors of the American house were open again.
01:57:01.760Now they came crowding from every corner of Europe, the greatest mass migration in the whole of history.
01:57:10.360Soon, the Union Pacific would close the last gap in its construction, while another transcontinental line, the Northern Pacific, with possible connections to Red River in British Columbia, was being talked of.
01:57:38.080You can see, I basically already summarized that clip, but yeah, it's, it shouldn't be understated how important that was.
01:57:45.820And this is where you get a lot of look at Americans, particularly on the East coast are probably more familiar with this or, you know, would, would know that maybe a lot of Canadians would, but there is a lot of tensions in the major, uh, metropolitan areas.
01:58:01.080In this time period, there's a huge spike in organized crime and stuff like that.
01:58:05.180It's where you get the precursors to things like the mafia and, uh, you know, Irish, the Irish mob and stuff like that in Boston.
01:58:12.620So like there was a, a legitimate reason why a lot of, you know, you could call them heritage Americans in that time period were hostile towards Italians and Greeks and, um, the Irish and a lot of the people that were making their way there.
01:58:54.080That's where the Anglo-Saxons came from, or at least some of them was it, I think it's the, is it the Jutes that came from, you know, Denmark or close to like, these people are so saying like Anglo-Saxon and Norman, like they're very similar, like would have been able to understand each other's languages.
02:00:00.700This, the reason I have this long clip is because it's a very good summary of all of the things that have been discussed that lead to confederation.
02:00:08.040So just, you know, to reiterate it one more time, we just kind of go through all the problems that are developing.
02:00:12.500There was danger too in the East where the bizarre Fenian antics aimed at freeing Canada from Britain were instead making her cling closer to her protector.
02:00:28.460Fenian propaganda actually strengthened Canada's will to survive, but in Washington, hostile congressmen who had brushed aside Canadian efforts to save reciprocity were confident that its loss would wreck Canada's economy and force her into the Union.
02:00:49.020Many prosperous Canadians had rallied to the support of reciprocity in the belief that it was indispensable.
02:00:58.020They and reciprocity's American supporters had called on Washington to renew the treaty at a great gathering in Detroit.
02:01:06.020So when Washington said no, near panic made annexationist thoughts stir again in some Canadian minds.
02:01:15.020Meanwhile, hawkish orators south of the border were reminding audiences of their destiny to rule the continent.
02:01:26.020And Secretary of State Seward did seem to many Canadians to be out to put the label US on all of North America.
02:01:45.020This whole continent shall be, sooner or later, within the magic circle of the American Union, Seward had said.
02:01:54.020Mightn't such a man see in the Fenian wild men convenient agents for expansion?
02:02:01.020The fear that hatred of Britain might merge with American continental ambitions made Canadians feel they still needed a friend.
02:02:16.020Perhaps the hovering eagle was deterred only by the lingering prestige of the British lion.
02:02:26.020Yeah, it's just a good summary of the time period in particular when it comes to Canadian American relations and then the desire to, you know, maintain a connection with the British Empire.
02:02:38.020And not just cut, you know, cut all ties or cut all political and economic ties like that.
02:02:47.020The last clip here is just, again, this is important to understand that, you know, a lot of people obviously have a respect for Johnny McDonald because they consider him kind of the father of the fathers of confederation.
02:03:05.020But what's important is that he was a skilled diplomat, he was a visionary and that it was he who both, you know, was the architect and the major builder of confederation.
02:03:18.020And so he had a skilled approach and there's you can see the I'll play the clip.
02:03:25.020But what's important to look at here is the reasons for how confederation and government was constructed in this time period made perfect sense.
02:03:35.020So, as time has gone by, you can see how some of the things that were put in place in the 1860s have come back around now and have started to become a hindrance to the, you know, the betterment of, you know, Canadian life and relations between provinces and regions and stuff like that.
02:03:59.320So, I'll just play the clip and then I'll get into it.
02:04:04.320John A. Macdonald, the Canadian Prime Minister, had privately longed for a new dominion with one all-powerful central parliament as in Britain.
02:04:20.320Canada had to preserve a multiple identity and a unitary state was totally unacceptable to Quebec.
02:04:27.320For an example of divided sovereignty, Macdonald had to look not to unitary Britain, but to federal America.
02:04:38.320Macdonald knew that after 1783, chaos and violence had almost destroyed the First American Confederation, whose central government had been too weak.
02:04:49.320So, he looked to the Federal Constitution of 1787, which had set up a stronger central government with certain specific powers.
02:05:00.320But the various states were left with all the rest, including unspecified and potential rights.
02:05:07.320Inevitably, the steady accumulation of rights by the states led to such a growth in their stature that the whole Federal structure tottered.
02:05:25.320Conflicting sovereignties and states' rights running amuck, Macdonald felt, underlay the tragic sectional conflicts of recent American history.
02:05:42.320The monarchist in Macdonald had little taste for the American presidential system.
02:05:53.320The American chief executive, he felt, was a creature of the electorate and too open to influence.
02:06:00.320Macdonald did adopt the American federal system, but allotted unspecified powers to the center so that any future growth in sovereignty would be safely federal.
02:06:15.320Macdonald was pleased with his new creation, rather an odd Anglo-American beast, some thought.
02:06:21.320But he felt that he had obtained all the advantages of British central government within America's federal system.
02:06:34.320Yeah, so you can see in that clip, like, everything about that is perfectly sensible.
02:06:41.320At the time, having a strong central government when you have, well, one, part of the problem that, you know, the British colonies had in general was a lack of a strong central government in the region.
02:06:52.960So having, you know, how many, how many colonies were there?
02:06:58.120Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, you know, Newfoundland, having all these colonies with their own kind of governor general or some kind of, you know, leadership appointed by the empire.
02:07:14.220And then, you know, minor elected assemblies and stuff like this was part of the problem.
02:07:19.920It was too, there was no centralized authority that could, you know, have a vision and pursue it, you know, for all of the colonies, you know, mutual benefit.
02:07:33.000So he understood that he needed a strong central government.
02:07:36.480Now, obviously, the problem with that would have been, as they mentioned in the clip, that a lot of these colonies would not have gotten on board with that, specifically Quebec, if there was a unitary government, as it's put.
02:07:50.020So there's, you know, typically two types of central governments.
02:07:52.680There's a unitary government or a federal government.
02:07:55.360Unitary means, like, it's one government.
02:07:57.600So an example of that would be like France.
02:08:09.700So mixing those two systems just made sense.
02:08:13.120Now, the problem with this is that I'm sure a lot of us can see today that this has come around and has started to bite us in the ass.
02:08:20.460And this is where you get a lot of the rising tensions between, you know, say, the Western separatists and Ottawa or Ontario.
02:08:29.200At the time, it was perfectly sensible that Alberta would not have the ability to, you know.
02:08:36.900It was a project of the Canadian state.
02:08:40.240So the idea that you would give it autonomy or even something resembling autonomy just doesn't make sense, especially whenever there's barely any settlement there.
02:08:48.020And what you're trying to do is bring it into a unified fold so that you can build massive infrastructure projects like the Transcontinental Railway or even just roads and things like that, bridges, etc.
02:09:00.780So this is a building period and, you know, it's not practical as we saw actually in one of the earlier episodes.
02:09:08.000A great example of that is in the, you know, post-war of 1812 era, there's a huge infrastructure, you know, building period within Canada.
02:09:17.300Canals, canals, bridges, you know, sluice, you know, irrigation systems, etc.
02:09:24.000And the French weren't really on board with this because they felt it didn't benefit them.
02:09:29.280They felt that it was beneficial to the English and English merchants in particular.
02:09:33.860But as we, you know, that's a very limited and narrow-minded view because, you know, obviously now that those infrastructure projects benefit everybody.
02:09:42.540So, you know, you need a strong central government if you want to, you know, get into the business of nation building.
02:10:30.460Funny enough, we have a lot of the problems that they were experiencing in this time period, but just, you know, modern versions of it.
02:10:36.380It's time to figure out a new version of this thing as opposed to tearing it apart or annexing parts of it off to the United States or, you know, basically allowing it to be turned into a third world homeless shelter.
02:11:16.620So, yeah, there is something that needs to be done here.
02:11:20.200And until Canadians, you know, come to that conclusion that we need to renegotiate this thing, it's not going to happen.
02:11:25.820The other reason it's not going to happen either is because we don't have capable fucking leaders.
02:11:29.620There is not a single, there's not a single fucking leader in this country that would even broach the subject of maybe we should have a new confederation.
02:11:40.600Maybe it's time for various, you know, interests across the entire country to come to the table and renegotiate, you know, the conditions of confederation.
02:11:53.800And maybe if we engage in this process, you know, in modernity with, you know, the reference to what was done in 1867, we would be able to accomplish this.
02:12:43.180What interests them is policies that are going to be popular with the electorate that get them voted back in in the next election.
02:12:53.020And that's why they don't have vision.
02:12:55.860They don't look towards things like this.
02:12:58.720And whenever they do, whenever they talk about generational, you know, infrastructure projects or, you know, generational policies that will, you know, shepherd Canadians into a more prosperous future or some bullshit, it's always, you know, to our detriment, to the benefit of someone else.
02:13:14.920It was just gaslighting, but, yeah, it's time to address the problems of confederation in the modern context and come to a new conclusion.
02:13:27.080If we did that, there would be less problems with Alberta separatism.
02:13:31.220There would be less, you know, issues with what's going on in the poverty of the Maritimes.
02:13:37.480There would be a better sense of what it means to be Canadian.
02:13:43.760So I think it's time to engage in this project.
02:13:46.520And, yeah, I'll just leave it at that, really.
02:13:53.580Shamrock Sheikh says liberal democracy is not the way.
02:13:55.920Well, liberal democracy was never the intention with the confederation.
02:14:01.420It was the opposite of liberal democracy.
02:14:54.560One thing I was going to mention is I think it's hilarious because at one point they talk about, you know, the Fenians, the Irish.
02:15:00.440You know, and their hatred of the British and coming over to, you know, Canada and the perception that these people are just fomenting violence and rebellion and terrorism.
02:15:13.880And that there's no connection to the Canadian people and this has nothing to do with us, blah, blah, blah.
02:15:21.140And the first thing that jumped into my mind when I heard that was Calistan, right?
02:15:25.300You have this diaspora population that has set itself up, that is using our territory as a base to organize with, a level of organization that they would never be afforded in India, you know, the way that the Irish would not have been able to organize the way that they did in Ireland, that they were in America.
02:15:47.000And then use our territory as a staging ground to carry out terrorist attacks and murders, just violence in general against, you know, targets within our country.
02:15:59.220Now, the targets in this case are typically Indian politicians or, you know, diplomats or influential figures in general, which you can make the argument of why those people here to begin with.
02:16:09.980But I did think that that was funny is like, we, did we not, we should have known this, right?
02:16:15.960Well, a lot of people did know this and they were just ignored, but the idea that you would bring in that kind of population into your country and expect no issues is just, it's, you know, it's not incompetence, it's intentional malice.
02:19:17.900Uh, Leifner says, what will be the next history lessons?
02:19:23.780Um, I'm still trying to decide what I want to do.
02:19:27.160I think I might do some shorter stuff.
02:19:29.900Um, maybe like some, some biographical, uh, things I think would be.
02:19:36.680Nice to do is one thing that we don't really get to do in this series is get more in-depth on a lot of these figures.
02:19:43.480I try to add, like, you know, as I was talking about Etienne Cartier tonight, um, try to add a little bit more there just so you get an idea of who this was, but they just kind of like brush over, like, right.
02:19:53.680Uh, even Johnny McDonald, like that, what, what, what amount of screen time does he have, uh, in this episode on confederation five minutes?
02:20:04.480Um, they don't, they don't even really get into his life.
02:20:07.780So I think it might be worth doing some kind of biographical stuff on influential figures.
02:20:14.480Um, and a lot of people find that stuff interesting too, as opposed to more like chronological history.
02:20:20.240It's more of like an accounting of, you know, great figures.
02:20:26.520Um, there is some, uh, different documentaries that exist or like biographies, I supposed to be the better way of describing it that exist on YouTube for Canadian figures that are like series.
02:20:41.460So maybe we could look at that, but part of the reason I don't like that is because a lot of them are produced more recently and the people that they choose and how they choose to portray them is not, uh, exactly.
02:22:05.780This doesn't even seem complicated to me.
02:22:07.520It's like, why can't we like, I'm just, why can't we all just be like, should we just renegotiate this thing?
02:22:16.820Like we're not beholden to what was decided in 1867.
02:22:21.620We can address it and, you know, within the spirit of it, you know, figure something out.
02:22:28.240Now, I don't think that's possible at the current juncture.
02:22:32.060I don't think that you can actually have a good faith conversation about renegotiating confederation in the spirit and in the vision of the fathers of confederation.
02:22:41.380One, with the politicians that we have right now, and two, with the demographics that we have right now.
02:22:47.040So I think we're, we're going to need some kind of transitionary period that would even allow us to have that conversation properly and, you know, engage in that process.
02:22:57.380So, like, I'm not, it's a pipe dream right now.
02:23:04.660Canadians need to be way more organized at the grassroots level if you want to do that.
02:23:10.140And there, there needs to be, Canadians need to overcome their apathy towards politics if you want that.
02:23:20.860A lot of people, if you came to them and you said, we need a new confederation and, like, I've done this before.
02:23:27.980So there's a ton of things that you could do that would improve confederation even in its current state.
02:23:33.400One, you could have elected fucking senators and you could make it so that they are provincially nominated and that every province has an equal number of senators.
02:24:09.140If instead of having these backbenchers that just sit there and tow the party line for 30 fucking years, they were actually, you know, oh, you have, you know, three terms to get stuff done or whatever it is, 10 years, 12 years.
02:24:21.760That's the maximum amount of time that you can sit in parliament as a, as a, as a member.
02:24:50.260Wouldn't that be crazy if you were able to actually recall a member of parliament for not doing what they're supposed to be doing?
02:24:56.960And I'll give you an example right now.
02:24:59.020Wouldn't it be interesting if the constituents of the riding that that fucking chink man, uh, was in that just crossed the floor?
02:25:07.480What do you think would happen if, if somebody was able to institute recall legislation right now and challenge his, his validity of the validity of his seat?
02:25:17.280Oh, maybe he would be a lot less hesitant to take the fucking whatever deal he was offered by the liberals, right?
02:26:03.960Now, again, I don't think you're going to be able to do that because even if you had political willpower, um, like, let's say you had some kind of grassroots lobby group to do this.
02:26:15.120I don't think that anyone would pay them any attention at all.
02:26:17.580I think if you had a hundred thousand people behind it, I don't think that they would give a shit.
02:26:22.360Uh, and the reason we know that is because we've seen this before with a ton of different topics, uh, Canadians, you know, through petitions, through, you know, uh, surveys and polls, they'll tell you what they want and they just get ignored.
02:26:36.400So what you need is a more militant, uh, segment of the population to actually start pushing and, and, you know, exposing, uh, you know, the powers that be for what they are, uh, in a way that goes well beyond making a YouTube video.
02:26:51.180Um, saying, look how corrupt they are.
02:26:54.620Uh, it needs to be much more confrontational and that's not something that Canadians are typically, you know, Canadians typically don't rock the boat with, uh, politics.
02:27:02.180So, um, but yeah, you like, there's all of these ideas are, are, um, things that are typically popular, um, with Canadians.
02:27:16.400If you say we should have a, the, the, the thing, if I say we should have an elected Senate, right.
02:27:22.420And it should have equal representation among all the provinces as a balance to, you know, Quebec and Ontario.
02:27:30.340And the, you know, the fact that, you know, what is it two third or sorry, uh, like half of the MPs in the country are from Quebec and Ontario.
02:27:40.520I forget what the exact breakdown is, but you get what I'm saying.
02:27:43.900Um, so they are going to tend to pass legislation that is beneficial to them in the house more than, you know, benefits other provinces.
02:27:52.680But if you have that Senate as a balancing, uh, you know, apparatus, that, that would be much less of a problem.
02:28:03.900Most people, when they hear that brought up, they, they will agree with that of all political stripes.
02:28:08.640They'll be like, yes, that would actually be a good fix to the problems that exist within the mechanics of the current system.
02:28:14.640So the problem is that a lot of the times they, the new, this is why we need a new confederation.
02:28:23.660The objection that you'll get typically comes from some of the larger provinces like BC, Ontario, and Quebec.
02:28:29.940And they'll say like, why should, if we get two senators, why should Saskatchewan get two senators?