It took a distant and largely uninterested London little time to reject each of the Ninety-Two Resolutions. In response, Patriote leaders staged rallies to protest the British rejection of their demands. One of the main leaders was Louis-Joseph Papineau. An enigmatic mix of revolutionary and land-owning aristocrat, he was a passionate orator and he worked disappointed dissidents into frenzy. Papineau preferred oratory to violence, but other Patriote leaders believed that words were not enough to bring about change. When a British army unit was dispatched to disperse a mob protest that had assembled at St. Denis in the Richelieu Valley, it wandered into crossfire, and six of its soldiers were killed. Perhaps because he feared how the event, which became known as the Battle of St. Denis, might turn out, Papineau was not present.
Two days later, re-organized British soldiers attacked nearby St. Charles, killing sixty Patriotes and arresting most of its surviving leadership. Then, at St. Eustache, 1,400 British redcoats attacked and nearly another one hundred Patriotes were sacrificed.
Later, a second, equally unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the British was organized by Patriote leaders who had fled to the United States to avoid capture. The Lower Canada Rebellion had been quelled with little to show for the twenty-seven soldiers and nearly three hundred French Canadians who perished.
An equally unsuccessful, much less violent, but significant rebellion was organized by the newspaper man William Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada. The social unrest was directed against the Family Compact, an oligarchy comprised of Tory-Anglican insiders. Mackenzie was especially outraged that three million acres of prime Upper Canada real estate had been dedicated as clergy reserves for the benefit of the Anglican Church.
Mackenzie was elected to the assembly by the citizens of York. Despised by the establishment, he was expelled from the assembly by the governor four times. Each time he was returned by his appreciative constituents.
Stalemate between the lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada and Mackenzie-led Reformers in the assembly was frequent. This led to problems in the governing of the colony, especially with regard to the raising of taxes. In 1836, events came to a head. Without funds to continue operating the government, Governor Bond Head dissolved the assembly and called for a fresh election. But he then crossed the line by campaigning for the Conservatives using his vast resources, including land, to gain electoral support. In the election that year, the Reformers were decimated.
Undeterred, Mackenzie used his newspaper to spread the cause of reform against the oligarchic Family Compact. He proposed a rebellion where the Compact would be overthrown and a democratic republic established in its place. Mackenzie organized six hundred men, who met at Montgomery’s Tavern on Yonge Street in York. Armed with only pitchforks, muskets, and clubs, the would-be revolutionaries were deterred and dispersed by a single shot fired by the Toronto sheriff. Later, Governor Bond Head led a group of volunteers up Yonge Street and torched Montgomery’s Tavern.
The Upper Canada Rebellion had been repelled without a single casualty. Subsequent attempts by Mackenzie to organize American-backed border raids from a base near Buffalo in New York State were equally unsuccessful, and its participants when captured were either hanged, imprisoned, or exiled to Australia.
The rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada, although completely without success, set in motion a series of events that would lead to the establishment of responsible government, not only in the Canadian colonies but throughout all of the British Empire.
The British Colonial Office was clearly embarrassed by the rebellions. London did not like to have its authority challenged. Accordingly, the Earl of Durham, a reformer in his own right and champion of Britain’s Reform Act of 1832, was dispatched to British North America and charged to report back on how to keep peace in the colonies. His report, titled the “Report on the Affairs of British North America,” but colloquially referred to as the “Durham Report,” would lead firstly to responsible government in the colonies and then self-government and Confederation a quarter century later.
Although the latter is more significant to most aspects of Canadian history, it is actually the establishment of responsible government that is more critical to an examination of how Canadians currently govern themselves and the current state of Canadian parliamentary democracy.
The 1838, “Durham Report” had three principle recommendations:
that Upper and Lower Canada be united into a single province or colony, with one government administration and assembly;
that the governor be required to choose his advisors (council) from amongst the elected members of the assembly; and
that the colonies be granted jurisdiction over local and internal affairs. Henceforth the governor would only be responsible for colonial matters.
Durham was recommending that those living in the colonies be given the same parliamentary rights that had been enjoyed for centuries by citizens of Britain. The Foreign Office initially rejected Lord Durham’s call for responsible government in the not-yet-mature colonies, but it did pass the 1840 Act of Union, uniting Upper and Lower Canada under a single administration and assembly.
A united Canada brought moderate reformers from Canada West and Canada East (the names for the two parts of the colony — what were, formerly, Upper Canada and Lower Canada) together to fight for a common cause. Moderate reformers Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin became instant friends, and worked together advocating a common cause. In the 1848 election, the Reformers overwhelmingly took control of the assembly. On March 10, 1848, a new progressive governor, Lord Elgin, asked LaFontaine to lead the government.
The next year, the assembly passed the contentious Rebellion Losses Bill, indemnifying Patriotes, who had lost property in the 1837 Rebellion in Lower Canada. English-speaking Tories in Montreal were outraged; they lobbied Lord Elgin that the traitors not be compensated, and they demanded that he not sign the bill.
However, Elgin, a progressive, signed the bill. According to him, it was an internal matter duly considered by an assembly that had been elected to make such decisions. Although Anglo-Tories rioted in Montreal, Lord Elgin gave royal assent to the Rebellion Losses Bill on April 25, 1849. Responsible government had been won in the united Canadas!
It should be noted that some months earlier, prospering Nova Scotia had already received responsible government, having done so without any of the drama or violence that preceded its arrival in the United Canada. In 1847, the reformers there, led by Joseph Howe, won a majority in the Nova Scotia assembly. In February 1848, they were asked to take control of the administration, forming the first responsible government in British North America and in the entire British Empire.
Although responsible government was, in part, a product of waning interest in mercantilism in London, the achievement cannot be overvalued.* By 1855, all of Britain’s North American colonies had won responsible government (Newfoundland was the last). Henceforth, all of the colonies would be governed only according to the desires of their own inhabitants.
So, why is this protracted history lesson important or relevant to an examination of the current state of democracy in Canada? It is the hard-fought-for principle of responsible government