Published by The Royal Bank of Canada

The Great Co-operators

Meet the Member for Rimouski, RobertBaldwin. And the Member for North York,Louis Lafontaine. Together they achievedhome rule for Canadians. If you don’t knowtheir names, that’s because they did it theCanadian way...

[] Here and there you may find things that beartheir names: a school, a park, a tunnel, an electoralriding. People familiar with these places are unlikelyto have more than a vague idea of who Robert Bald-win and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine were. If theyhad accomplished what they did in another coun-try, whole cities might be named after them. Butthis is Canada, and the reason they are almost for-gotten is that they arrived at their accomplishmentin typically Canadian style.

Like the liberators whose statues grace the capi-tals of the post-colonial world, Baldwin and Lafon-taine gained self-government for their people.Unlike those liberators, they did so without cost-ing the people a gunshot wound or a widow’s tear.They waged a gruelling struggle against powerfuland stubborn forces, but they never gave a thoughtto violence. Not the least of their legacy to futuregenerations of Canadians was to establish a nationaltradition of resolving constitutional disputes bypeaceful means.

They were men of moderation personally as wellas politically. Baldwin was a fine-featured, soft-spoken lawyer from an affluent Toronto family;Lafontaine, also a lawyer, was the handsome sonof a politically prominent farmer in Quebec. In thedays of their great struggle when they were in theirthirties, both were widowers who immersed them-selves in the hard work of political leadership.Neither had much individual ambition. Bothbelieved in selfless co-operation, which is why theirnames are inseparably linked.

The few personal details about them to be foundin the history books make up a picture of everything

that is admirable in the Canadian character --admirable and unexciting. Baldwin is described asserious, thoughtful, kind and modest; Lafontaine assober, steady, determined and reserved. Even thegreat cause for which they stood was presented ina drab understatement. Elsewhere in the world, itmight have been couched in a ringing slogan like"power to the people!" Baldwin and Lafontainecalled it "responsible government."

It is unfair but natural that history should placethese subdued personalities in the shadows of twomore spectacular characters who failed where theysucceeded. In 1837, William Lyon Mackenzie andLouis-Joseph Papineau led armed rebellions againstthe governors and ruling cliques of Upper andLower Canada respectively. Though Baldwin andLafontaine shared the rebel leaders’ desire for self-government, they could not go along with theirrepublican and revolutionary views.

The Lower Canadian revolt proved a special actof folly. Papineau and his Patriots started it to giveFrench Canadians more political power. It ended inthe loss of what little power they had, with civilrights suspended in the primarily French-speakingcolony. Sent by the British cabinet to inquire intothe trouble, Lord Durham concluded that the onlysolution to the racial problem at its roots was toassimilate the French into the English Canadian cul-ture. He recommended that Lower Canada be for-cibly merged with its English-speaking counterpart.The Act of Union passed by the Imperial parliamentto create the combined Province of Canada in 1840sought to hurry this process along by grossly dilut-ing French Canadian strength at the polls.

At the time of the merger, Lower Canada had apopulation of 630,000 to Upper Canada’s 470,000.Yet the number of seats in the joint assembly of thenew Province were apportioned equally. The capi-tal was placed in English-speaking Kingston, andEnglish was declared the sole language of legisla-tive business. When the Province’s first governorgeneral, Lord Sydenham, appointed his eight-manExecutive Council, not a single French Canadianwas granted a portfolio.

Lord Sydenham believed that French Canadianswere viscerally and uniformly disloyal to the Brit-ish Crown and incapable of self-government. Hewrote that "despotism would be far the best thingfor Lower Canada," then set about exercising adespotism over the entire Province by ignoring theprinciple of majority rule.

Canadians today are so accustomed to living withthat principle that many assume it has always beenfollowed in this country. It implicitly decrees thatthe governor general represents the sovereign in alargely ceremonial capacity. The governor generalis bound to consent to the policies of the cabinet.The cabinet must answer to the majority of Mem-bers of Parliament. If a cabinet cannot commanda majority in Parliament, it must resign to makeway for one that can.

This system had fundamentally been in effect inGreat Britain since 1688, when the English peopledeposed a despotic king and replaced him withanother who would heed the wishes of Parliament.But the British government would never admit thatit could be applied to a colony, which is the mainreason Britain lost its American colonies in 1776.

Sydenham’s only concession to the lessons of thepast was to replace the former aristocratic cliqueswith a coalition-style Executive Council whosemembership spanned the political spectrum. Sincethey could be expected always to be at one another’sthroats, it was an ideal arrangement for a governorwho intended to divide and rule.

Among the councillors was Robert Baldwin, whohad emerged as the leading theorist of responsiblegovernment. Baldwin disputed that it was impos-sible to have a British-type constitutional monar-chy in a colony. Essentially all it would take wasan understanding that the governor general, like theQueen he represented, would "reign but not rule."

The great fear among British statesmen andCanadian loyalists was that responsible government

would lead to a republican system and thence toindependence from Britain -- and thence, some said,to absorption into the American republic. Baldwinargued that, on the contrary, internal self-government was the only way of keeping the Brit-ish connection intact in the long run.

The link with Britain was important to thecolonists. The government in London provided sub-sidies for public works such as roads and canals. Bri-tain maintained a sizeable army in Canada as adeterrent to American invasion. Britain was by farthe largest export market for Canadian produce,which entered at preferential tariff rates.

Beyond these practical considerations, manyEnglish Canadians were passionately loyal to theCrown. Both Upper Canada and the English areasof Lower Canada contained a high proportion ofrecent British immigrants and people of UnitedEmpire Loyalist stock. To them, any departurefrom the established system of British rule was tan-tamount to treason. They feared and despised theFrench Canadians who were in the majority.

Saving the country fromthe fate of Gandhi’s India

They found their champion in Sydenham, whowas resolved that no such "disaster" would occur.When Baldwin accosted him on the subject ofministerial government, he said that it was simplyout of the question. He pointed out that the Provin-cial assembly held at least five different factions,none of which qualified as a proper political party.The two-party system in Britain meant that thecabinet could speak for the elected majority. InCanada, none of the factions had a majority, andthey were so far apart in their thinking that any coa-lition among them would be unlikely to last for long.

Baldwin replied that at least, the largest groupin the House should be represented on the Execu-tive Council. These were the French Canadiannationalists under the absentee leadership of LouisLafontaine. Lafontaine had been defeated in an elec-tion in April, 1841, which the governor general hadshamelessly rigged to minimize the number ofFrench Canadian members. Sydenham’s attempt toprevent the growth of a strong opposition to hisautocratic rule backfired ironically. For in June,

1841, Baldwin resigned from the Council to joinforces with Lafontaine.

The latter had fiercely denounced the ProvincialUnion as a scheme to destroy the French Canadiannationality. Had he been of the temper of Papineau,he might have sown the seeds of civil war. But Bald-win -- who, incidentally, was to become Lafon-taine’s best friend -- convinced him that the placeto fight for the restoration of French rights waswithin the system. The first step would be to com-bine Lafontaine’s Lower Canadian Reformers andBaldwin’s like-minded followers in a party thatcould wield a majority capable of unequivocallyexpressing the popular will.

Lafontaine’s decision to enter into this alliancewas, according to historian W.L. Morton, "one ofthe most crucial in Canadian history. He might haveled the French members in a boycott of the Union;he might have led them in a permanent oppositionbloc in the House. His decision to work with theEnglish Reformers saved Canada from the fate ofGratton’s Ireland and Gandhi’s India, and made aplural and liberal society possible in British NorthAmerica."

If the merger was to work, however, Lafontainehad to have a seat in the House. Following theaccepted custom of the day, Baldwin had run in tworidings in the recent election and won in both ofthem. He resigned his "spare" seat in North Yorkin favour of Lafontaine, who was elected in Septem-ber, 1841, by a healthy majority -- "a vivid illus-tration of how political principle had been put beforeracial sentiment," as Morton wrote.

The new party pressed hard for ministerial rule,but Sydenham adroitly held it off until his suddendeath that September. His successor, Sir CharlesBagot, immediately asked the obvious question ofhow you could run a government without a risk ofcivil strife if the majority of the people, the FrenchCanadians, had no voice in its executive branch. Heinvited Lafontaine and two of his lieutenants to jointhe Council, but Lafontaine refused to serve withoutBaldwin. After much manoeuvring, Lafontaine andBaldwin formed an administration along ministeriallines in January, 1842.

It was not technically a responsible government,but it was the first time a governor had agreed tofollow the advice of a "cabinet" drawn mainly from

the majority party. Certainly it was close enoughto majority rule to arouse furious opposition amongthe loyalist politicians and press. Bagot was excori-ated not only in Canada, but in Britain. The stormwas still raging when he died in May, 1843.

In the meantime, outraged Tories had relievedBaldwin of his seat in a riotous byelection. A LowerCanadian member resigned his seat in Rimouski,and -- despite the fact that he always had a strug-gle speaking French -- Baldwin ran in it and won.It was a curious situation -- the Catholic, French-speaking leader of one section of the provincerepresenting a Protestant, English-speaking consti-tuency in the other section, and vice-versa. The elec-tors of North York and Rimouski alike had decidedthat there were bigger issues in the country thanreligion or race.

Bagot was replaced by Sir Charles Metcalfe, whohad held governorships in India and Jamaica. Withthe support of his superiors in London, Metcalfe didall in his power to turn back the clock. He withheldRoyal assent to bills passed by the assembly byreferring them to the British cabinet. He made hisown appointments to public offices without consult-ing the Executive Council. When Metcalfe rejectedtheir protests, Lafontaine and Baldwin led theCouncillors out of office in November, 1843.

The resignation precipitated the deepest politi-cal crisis short of rebellion yet seen in the Canadas.It was hotly debated on both sides of the Atlantic.Stripped of its subtleties, the issue was the old oneof whether a governor could run the country in defi-ance of the elected majority. From the vantagepoint of today, it is surprising how many peoplethought that he could -- and should. An influentialminority believed in the God-given existence of anatural ruling class whose members knew betterthan the people what was good for them. The oldline Tories who clustered around the governorthought that they had a right and even a duty tocorrect the errors of the democratic rabble.

Metcalfe tried for some months to manage theprovince’s affairs with the aid of appointees, butsuch was the unrest that he was forced to call anelection. The governor’s supporters captured mostof the Upper Canadian seats. The moderate Conser-vative William Draper formed a coalition govern-ment which represented a majority in the assemblybut was riddled with internal differences among itsconstituent factions. When Metcalfe, dying of

cancer, retired in November, 1845, he left behind animpotent government shorn of its popularity.

The Oregon Boundary dispute had raised thethreat of war with the United States, so the nextgovernor general, Lord Cathcart, was an apoliticalprofessional soldier sent to strengthen Canada’sdefences. When the danger receded, Cathcart wasreplaced by Lord Elgin, a young, bright, well-connected Scottish peer. Though a Conservative,Elgin was appointed by the new Liberal Govern-ment in Britain. Its Colonial Secretary, Earl Grey,favoured letting the British North American colo-nies conduct their own internal affairs.

A controversial bill putshome rule to its acid test

The capital had been moved to Montreal. Elginarrived there in January, 1847, to find Draper’shouse of cards about to topple. The inevitable endof this misalliance came in April that year. Draper’sadministration was replaced by a Tory-dominatedmakeshift ministry which included only one FrenchCanadian. Elgin put a merciful end to it by callingan election for January, 1848.

The Reformers won a decisive majority in bothsections of the province. Lafontaine and Baldwinin effect became joint premiers of the Union, eachin charge of policy for his own section. Theyinstalled a cabinet composed solely of members ofthe majority party. The governor general confirmedthat he would bind himself by their advice.

Home rule had come to Canada at last -- or hadit? After passing a flood of overdue and much-needed legislation, the ministry introduced a bill tocompensate claimants in Lower Canada forproperty losses suffered in the rebellion. A similarbill covering such losses in Upper Canada had beenpassed in 1846 by a Conservative administration,but now the Tories objected that there was a possi-bility that French-speaking property owners whohad been rebels themselves would be "rewarded fortheir treason." The bill was nonetheless passed bya large majority, and responsible government camein for its acid test.

The Tories appealed to the governor general todisallow the act. Elgin himself believed the legisla-tion to be "inopportune," but he refused to roll itback because it had been approved by a parliamen-tary majority. When he gave it Royal assent onApril 25, 1849, his carriage was pelted with eggsand stones by a mob of English-speaking Mont-realers. The mob went on to burn down the legisla-tive buildings.

The Rebellion Losses Act could still be disallowedby the British cabinet. A mission of high Torieswent to London to lobby against it, but Earl Greyand his colleagues refused to interfere. The sig-nificance of the episode was that all the tactics thathad previously prevailed against responsiblegovernment now failed -- loyalist rhetoric, appealsto the governor and to Britain, even violence. Intheir last frenzy, the privileged cliques were conclu-sively defeated. Canada had become a land "whereone man’s vote was as good as another’s, and wherethe will of the majority was the ultimate sanction,vas historian Arthur Lower wrote.

The self-effacing authors of this historic turn ofevents, Lafontaine and Baldwin, retired frompolitics two years later. Their great work was com-plete. Though Nova Scotia achieved responsiblegovernment a few months before the Province ofCanada, it was according to the formula worked outby Baldwin as early as 1836.

That formula was later applied around the worldto provide a comfortable half-way house for formerBritish colonies on the road to nationhood. NeitherBaldwin nor Lafontaine wanted full independence,but they opened the way to a peaceful evolutiontowards that historical inevitability.

It was the Canadian way, reasonable and cau-tious, and the men who found it exemplified thesenative characteristics. Unfortunately, it is also theCanadian way to take little interest in our nationalheroes. If people like Lafontaine and Baldwin weregiven the recognition they deserve, we might findless need to agonize over our national identitytoday.