Union Of Upper And Lower Canada
| Part of a series on the | ||||||||||||
| History of Pre-Confederation Ontario |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Timeline | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Upper Canada Topics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Province of Canada Topics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Province of Ontario topics | ||||||||||||
| Ontario portal | ||||||||||||
The Province of Canada, United Province of Canada, or the United Canadas was a British colony in North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham in the Report on the Affairs of British North America following the Rebellions of 1837.
The Act of Union 1840, passed July 23, 1840, by the British parliament and proclaimed by the Crown on February 10, 1841, merged the two colonies by abolishing the parliaments of Upper and Lower Canada and replacing them with a single one. In the aftermath of the Rebellions of 1837, unification of the Canadas was driven by two factors. Firstly, Upper Canada was near bankruptcy due to a lack of stable tax revenues, and needed the resources of the more populous Lower Canada to fund its internal transportation improvements. And secondly, unification was an attempt to swamp the French vote by giving each of the former provinces the same number of parliamentary seats, despite the larger population of Lower Canada. Although Durham's report had called for both the Union of the Canadas and Responsible Government (i.e., an independent local legislature), only the first was implemented. The new government was to be led by an appointed Governor General accountable only to the British state. Responsible Government was not to be achieved until the second LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry in 1849.
The Province of Canada ceased to exist at Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867, when it was redivided into the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. From 1791 to 1841, the territory roughly corresponding to modern-day Southern Ontario in Canada belonged to the British colony of the Upper Canada, while Labrador and the southern portion of modern-day Quebec belonged to the colony of the Province of Lower Canada (until 1809, when Labrador was transferred to the colony of Newfoundland). Upper Canada was primarily Anglophone, whereas Lower Canada was Francophone.
Read more about Union Of Upper And Lower Canada: Impact of Responsible Government, Population, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words union of, union, upper and/or canada:
“[Let] the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened; and the disguised one, as the Serpent creeping with his deadly wiles into paradise.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)