Responsible Government
No formal provision for responsible government was included in the Act of Union 1840. Early Governors of the province were closely involved in political affairs, maintaining a right to make Executive Council and other appointments without the input of the legislative assembly.
However, in 1848 the Earl of Elgin, the then Governor General, appointed a Cabinet nominated by the majority party of the Legislative Assembly, the Baldwin-Lafontaine coalition that had won elections in January. Lord Elgin upheld the principles of responsible government by not repealing the Rebellion Losses Bill, which was highly unpopular with some English-speaking Loyalists who favoured imperial over majority rule.
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Famous quotes containing the words responsible and/or government:
“Ambitious men spend their youth in rendering themselves worthy of patronage; it is their great mistake. While the foolish creatures are laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink under the weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are wealthy in words and destitute of ideas, astonish the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little knowledge.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“What happens in a strike happens not to one person alone.... It is a crisis with meaning and potency for all and prophetic of a future. The elements in crisis are the same, there is a fermentation that is identical. The elements are these: a body of men, women and children, hungry; an organization of feudal employers out to break the back of unionization; and the government Labor Board sent to “negotiate” between this hunger and this greed.”
—Meridel Le Sueur (b. 1900)