Why Did Canada Become a Nation

Before 1867 we were separate colonies’ of Britain. There were five main reasons behind our confederation. In this essay I will explain these main topics political, the railway, trade, American expansion, and the changing of the British attitude.

Our first topic I will discuss is about the political problems that were happening. Our first problem was that they parties could never agree on a law because each party was separate there was none that was working together. The next was that they could never decide on a good government, Canada had 12 different governments in 4 years. To make the change of the confederation the parties Clear Grits the Tories and Parti Bleu joined together to make one big party so they had an advantage when voting for different laws. The first agreement they had as a combined party was to make confederation.

Our second main topic was about the railway how it could benefit us and how it couldn’t. The good things were that it connected the colonies together and it ran from Montreal to Portland in the U.S. this railway could also do well when in the winter because it was hard for the people of Canada to travel really far in the winter time. This railway could travel and go places even faster because it traveled at 15 mph but it didn’t have to go around big round roads it could just travel straight there. The bad thing about this railway is that might make the taxes go up and the tax payers wouldn’t get any extra benefits for paying more tax like health benefits.

The third main topic was about the trade. Britain ended free trade but if they went with the idea of confederation the railway could keep them trading with other buyers so we could have a better economy.

The fourth main topic was about the American expansion. The British had supported the south during the civil war. The rumour was that the Americans wanted to take over B.C. because of the gold rush this rumour was called the manifest dynasty. So by getting a better economy and building the railway we will have enough money to make our own defence.

Our last main topic is about the changing of the British attitudes towards Canada. The British wanted Canada to become its own country as well because Canada was getting very expensive to run it was hard to keep defending because of how much land Canada covered. The British also dropped the guarantee trade with Canada. And the British stop giving Canada their financial benefits’.

The main topic that I discussed that I thought was the most important was the changing of the British attitude towards Canada because Canada’s economy was getting flushed down the drain and Canada ha to defend itself now because Britain wasn’t.