Parti Canadien - Creation of The Parti Canadien

Creation of The Parti Canadien

The British Government established two oligarchic governments, or councils, to rule what is today Quebec and Ontario, then called Lower and Upper Canada. Upper Canada ruled by the Family Compact and Lower Canada ruled by the Chateau Clique. Both groups exerted monopolistic, un-contested rule over economic and political life. The councils were corrupt in their nature by strengthening their dominance by personal use of funds which eventually led to infrastructural problems around Upper and Lower Canada including, land distribution, poor road conditions and lack of education funding. Continuous frustration between the councils and the legislative assemblies over language differences and Lower Canada's discontent for treatment of French problems led to the beginning of the Parti Canadien. English merchants and politicians in Canada pushed for an assemblage of the Canada's, which would lead to the assimilation of the French. Louis-Joseph Papineau rallied with the people of Lower Canada to sign a petition against the proposition. Papineau later sailed to Britain to propose the petition to the British Government and rally for the rights of the people of Lower Canada only to have the issue heard with little action to follow. Later, parliament created the Canada Land and Tenures Act which abolished the feudal and seigneurial systems in British North America. The act left property rights of many land owners in limbo and created much confusion and conflict in Lower Canada where the French Civil Code was in action, and thus infuriating the French people of Lower Canada even more. In July 1830, word of a liberal revolution in France sparked the youth of Lower Canada as liberalism was non-existent in Canada at the time. Upper and Lower Canada governments tried to resolve the recent uprising and tension with fail even further distancing the French people of Lower Canada from the English of Upper Canada.