The Pacific Scandal

There was a scandal that most people believed had something to do with the Prime Minster, Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Hugh Allan. It was the Pacific Sandal, and I have some opinions about it.

First, I will briefly tell you about the scandal from my point of view. The scandal was about the Canadian Pacific Railway construction contract. The contract gave the company the right to construct the Canadian Pacific Railway. Therefore, no other company could construct it. The contract at first didn’t seem to give the private companies any profits, so they did not invest in it. However, when Sir John A. Macdonald had included free land and financial support, the companies came back and tried to get it. In addition, there was only one contract and a lot of companies that wanted it. Therefore, he could only give it to only one company. However, the problem was which company was he going to give it to? He had to build the railway because when British Columbia joined the confederation Macdonald told them that he would build a railway from Ontario to British Columbia within 10 years from when it joined, and that was in 1871. Also, I knew that Sir John A. Macdonald would keep his word to British Columbia.

Now in 1872 Macdonald had another problem, which was having money to pay for the Conservative Party’s campaign. One day, Sir Hugh Allan came and generously donated $360 000 to Macdonald so he could to pay for the Conservative Party’s campaign. To me it sounded like Sir Hugh Allan was helping Macdonald, and it was legal for companies to give money to political parties for their expenses, like campaigns. When the election was over the Conservative Party won with 103 seats and the Liberals lost with 97 seats. Sir Hugh Allan got the contract from Sir John A. Macdonald. When that happened people thought it was a scandal.

 However, to me it did not sound like a scandal as other people say. I mean mostly everyone is like that. Macdonald had something that everyone wanted and he gives it to Allan because Allan had done something good for Macdonald, so it makes sense that Macdonald would choose Allan more than the rest because Allan had done something nice, but the other people didn’t do something nice. Therefore, Macdonald chose Allan.

Also, there wasn’t any evidence of Sir Hugh Allan telling Macdonald that he wanted the contract for the money. Sir Hugh Allan only gave the money to help Macdonald’s party campaign. Macdonald did give the contract to someone as he promised. It was Macdonald’s choice to pick the person, who would get the contract, and he chose Sir Hugh Allan. That was his choice. The bribe idea could have been by the other companies who were jealous because they didn’t get the contract.

Therefore, I think that it was not a bribe that made Sir Hugh Allan get the contract, but his generosity that made him get the contract.                                                            

An Editorial By: Keerusanth