Part 3 (1/2)

The later constitutional issues were chiefly disputes between the Dominion and the province of Ontario They were not merely differences of opinion on abstract constitutional points They were in large part struggles for power and patronage between two very shrewd practical politicians, Sir John {67} Macdonald and his one-tiston, Oliver Mowat, for le as to the western boundary of Ontario The dividing line between the old province of Canada and the territories purchased from the Hudson's Bay Cootiations a co of one representative of the Doether with the British aave a unanimous award in 1878, an ahich the Dominion refused to carry into effect Other provinces were involved The Dominion had presented Manitoba with much of the territory in dispute, and the conflict as to jurisdiction between that province and Ontario nearly led to bloodshed; while Quebec was stirred up to protest against the enlargement of Ontario, which would make Ontario, it was said, the preponderant power in the Doainst what he termed the dishonourable course of the Do with the Hudson's Bay Company for its lands, it had contended that the old province of Canada extended far west and north, but now it took {68} precisely the opposite stand As for Quebec's interest, he continued: 'I do not fear the appeal that will beon both parties and should be carried out in good faith

The consideration that the great province of Ontario ether lay aside as unfair, unfriendly, and unjust'

The Govern the award, and forced an appeal to the Privy Council, only to have Ontario's claim fully substantiated, and the total area of the province confirmed as more than double what Sir John Macdonald would have allowed it

The next issue put to the test the power of the Dominion to veto provincial laws It was, in form, merely a dispute between two luher up on the strea tolls, timber-slides built by the other lower down But, as Edward Blake declared in 1886, this was 'of all the controversies between the Dominion and the provinces, by far the most important from the constitutional point of view, for it involved the principle which ulate the use by the Doislation' When in 1881 a court of {69} justice in Ontario held that the luher up fro that all persons possessed, and were thereby declared always to have possessed, the right denied by this judgment

This measure was at once disallowed by the Dominion Government Then the Privy Council upheld the contention of the Ontario Government as to what the law had been even before the act was passed; and, when in 1884 the provincial legislature again passed the same act, the Dominion conceded the point Thereafter the veto power has been used only when Dominion or Imperial interests were concerned, or when a statute was claimed to be beyond the power of the province to pass The wisdo only the local interests of the citizens of a province has been left to the judgulation of the liquor traffic provided the next battle-ground

In 1876 Ontario had passed the Crooks Act, which took the power of granting licences froave it to provincial commissioners Two years later the Do counties power to {70} prohibit the sale of liquor within their limits The constitutionality of this act was upheld in 1882 in the Russell case, and Sir John Macdonald concluded that if the Dominion had power to pass the Scott Act, the province had not the power to pass the Crooks Act 'If I carry the country,' he declared at a publicin 1882, 'as I will do, I will tell Mr Mowat, that little tyrant who has atte hold of every office from that of a Division Court bailiff to a tavern-keeper, that I will get a bill passed at Ottawa returning to the municipalities the power taken from them by the Licence Act' At the next session the M'Carthy Act was passed, providing, not for municipal control, but for control by federal cohest courts held in 1883 and 1884 that the Ontario measure ithin the power of the province, but that the M'Carthy Act was beyond that of the Dominion Once more 'the little tyrant' had scored!

The Dominion Franchise Act of 1885 was the last important measure which need be noted in this connection By the British North America Act the Dominion was to adopt the provincial franchise lists for its elections {71} until parliament should order otherwise Sir John Macdonald decided, after eighteen years' use of the provincial lists and six half-hearted attee this situation, that the Dominion should set up its own standard, in order both to secure uniformity and to preserve the property qualifications which Ontario and the other provinces were throwing overboard The Opposition contended that this was an attack upon provincial rights The argument eak; there could be no doubt of the constitutional power of the Dominion in this matter Better founded were the attacks of the Opposition upon specific clauses of theupon governovernment control, and the proposal to put the revision of the lists in the hands of partisan revising barristers rather than of judges The 'Conservatives' proposed, but did not press the point, to give single women the franchise, and the 'Liberals' opposed it After months of obstruction the proposal to enfranchise the western Indians was dropped,[2] an appeal to {72} judges was provided for the revision of the lists, and the income and property standards were reduced

Inconsistently, in soeneral standards was permitted The Franchise Act of 1885 re of the Liberals to power in 1896, when it was repealed without regret on either side

Suddenly the scene shi+fted, and, instead of the dry and bloodless court battles of constitutional lawyers, the fire and passion of are The rebellion itself was an {73} affair of but a few brief weeks, but the fires lighted on the Saskatcheept through the whole Dominion, and for years the smoke of Duck Lake and Batoche disturbed the public life of Canada

Long years before the Great West was more than a naeurs and Scottish adventurers had pushed their canoes or driven their Red River carts to the foot of the Rockies and beyond They had mated with Indian women, and when in 1870 the Do preserve of the Hudson's Bay Company, many of their half-breed children dwelt on the plains The co in of settlers, and the rapid dwindling of the vast herds of buffalo which had provided the chief support of the half-breeds, er possible The econo the needed readjusthtened by the political difficulties due to the setting up of the new Dominion authority Then it was on the banks of the Red River that these half-breeds, known as Metis, had risen under the firebrand Riel in arime Now, in 1885, {74} it was on the North and South Saskatchewan There nuroups of the Metis had made their settlements And when the Canadian authorities caovernes accorded them In Manitoba, after the insurrection of 1870, the dual clainized As part Indian, they had been given scrip for 160 acres each, to extinguish the Indian title to the land, and as part white men, they were each allowed to homestead 160 acres like any other settler The Metis in the North-West Territories now asked for the sas left as they were, long narrow strips of land facing the river front, like the settlements on the St Lawrence, with the houses sociably near in one long village street, rather than to have their land cut up into rectangular, isolated farms under the survey system which the Canadian Government had borrowed from the United States

The requests were reasonable Perhaps a narrow logic could have shown inconsistency in the demand to be considered both white and Indian at once, but the Manitoba Act had {75} set a precedent Only a few thousand acres were at stake, in a boundless land where the Government stood ready to set aside a hundred oodwill of the half-breeds was apparent to Canadians on the spot, especially now that the Indians, over who restless because of the disappearance of the buffalo and the swar in of settlers

Yet the situation was never adequately faced The Mackenzie Government, in 1877, on the petition of a hundred and fifty Scottish half-breeds at Prince Albert, agreed, where settlee system, to conform the surveys in hars were so confirmed

Two years later the Macdonald Govern of scrip to the half-breeds of the North-West on the saiven to those in Manitoba So far so good Then calect, of clerkly procrastination, and of half-concessions The French half-breeds passed resolution after resolution, sent to Ottawa petition after petition and delegation after delegation, but in vain The Governot the act which it had itself passed in 1879 Nor were the half-breeds theain Father Andre and other ed their claied them Charles Mair of Prince Albert, one of the first of Ontario's settlers in the West, appeared at Ottawa four times before the outbreak, to try to waken the Government to the seriousness of the situation[3] The North-West Council sent strong h sorievances were redressed, in piecerapple adequately with the difficult questions presented by the es of civilization, to understand the disputes, the real wrongs, the baseless fears When in 1883 Blake in the House of Coht down for two years; when in 1884 Caation, the reply was that there was nothing to investigate

What was the cause of this neglect? At bottonorance of the West There was not in the Cabinet a man who knew its conditions and needs The Metis were two thousand miles away, and they had no votes, for the North-West Territories were not then represented at Ottawa For five years Sir John Macdonald hi over the cares of a busy department, added to the office of prime minister, he made the mistake that Mackenzie had made But while Mackenzie put in ten to fourteen hours a day at departmental routine, at the expense of his duties as leader, Macdonald did his work as leader at the expense of his depart it to time to solve, but some problems proved the ave up {78} the portfolio, but his successor, Sir David Macpherson, effected little change Late in 1885 Thoetic and sympathetic administrator, became minister, but the mischief was then already done

In its defence the Governed that no half-breed had actually been dispossessed of his river-front clai scrip had already received land in Manitoba It contended further that the agitation of the half-breeds was fanned by white settlers in Prince Albert, eager to speculate in scrip, and hinted darkly at round, in Canada and elsewhere No attempt was es or to bring the guilty to justice Doubtless the grievances were not so great as to justify rebellion; the less excuse, then, for not curing as curable Doubtless, also, this was not the first tiy or vision, and had it not been for the other factor in the situation, Louis Riel, no heavy penalty ht have followed But unfortunately, luck or Nemesis, the other factor was verydelay, the Metis looked {79} again to Riel, then living in exile in Montana He was the one half-breed with any ue world beyond the Lakes

Early in the summer of 1884 James Isbester, Gabriel Dued seven hundred miles to Montana, and laid their case before hily to his erratic ambition His term of banishanize the Metis

Still the Govern of Riel and the influence he wielded Riel at once set to work to fan the discontent into fla half-breeds drew back, he soon gained re coion, with himself as prophet, threatened to dethrone the Pope, and denounced the local priests who resisted his caant Bill of Rights, and endeavoured to enlist the support of the Indian tribes Still all the Government did was to send, in January 1885, a commission to take the census of the half-breeds, preparatory to settling their clai in the House of Commons, on March 26, 1885, Sir John Macdonald et both Indian scrip and white man's homestead On the very day that this refusal was reiterated the first shot had been fired at Duck Lake, where a superior force of insurgents under Riel and Du twelve, and seized the supplies in the government post Open rebellion had come for a second tiy On the 6th of April, ten days after Duck Lake, instructions were telegraphed froht, and to allow occupants to acquire title by possession At the same time troops were hastily mobilized and speeded west over the broken stretches of the Canadian Pacific Railway The young volunteers faced danger and hardshi+p like veterans In spite of the skilful tactics of Riel's lieutenant, Gabriel Dueneral, the volunteers soon crushed the half-breeds and prevented thefar

Once the back of the revolt was broken, the storm broke out in Eastern Canada In one {81} way the rebellion had made for national unity

Nova Scotia and Ontario and the West had thrilled in coain was onisonism which for a time threatened to wreck the Dominion The two provinces saw different sides of the shi+eld Ontario saw the e up revolt, and cried for surievances which had stirred the ina in Septeuilty of treason, with a recommendation to mercy The Queen's Bench of Manitoba confirmed the verdict, and the Governrant a pardon or to commute the sentence to imprisonment On the 16th of November 1885 Riel's chequered existence ended on the scaffold at Regina

Now the stored with renewed fury The Liberal party all held the Government responsible for the outbreak, but were not a unit in conde the execution of Riel By clever tactics the Governence Early in the session {82} of 1886 a Quebec Conservative, Auguste Philippe Landry,the execution The Liberals had intended to shi+ft the discussion to the record of the Government, but before they could propose an aevin,any further motion Forced to vote on Landry's resolution, ht, sided with the Government; Blake and Laurier took the other side

The crisis brought Wilfrid Laurier to the front Hitherto he had been considered, especially in Ontario, as a man of brilliant promise, but not yet of the stature of veterans like Blake and Mackenzie and Cartwright But now an occasion had come which summoned all his latent powers, and henceforth his place in the first rank was unquestioned

It was an issue peculiarly fitted to bring out his deepest feelings, his passion for liberty and straightforward justice, his keen realization of the need of harlish, a har He had faced a hostile Quebec, and was to face it again, in defence of the rights of the English-speaking {83} provinces Now he faced a hostile Ontario, and told Toronto exactly what he told Montreal In the greatof protest which was held in the Champ de Mars in Montreal on the Sunday after Riel's execution, Mr Laurier took a leading part, and a year later he spoke before a great audience in Toronto and pressed hoainst the Governht and justice, rights which were admitted as soon as they were asked by bullets'

But it was in the House of Coht of the the Blake's indict to Sir John Macdonald, he analysedto the contention that the grievances were petty and that Riel alone was to blame, he made a pointed contrast: