Canada Watch, 2016: "Debating the Confederation Debates of 1865."
The special publication sponsored and published by the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University, devoted to essays responding to the edited Confederation Papers.
In 1865, politicians in the United Canadas debated the prospect and terms of Confederation. The legislature published these debates, and an abridged version provides a readily accessible source of the political discussions. In these debates we can see some of the contemporary justifications and criticisms of the Confederation deal.
As we at York University consider the 150th anniversary of Confederation, we believe that it is appropriate and useful to re-examine the debates and explore the logic, presuppositions and absences. The Canadas of 1865 were vastly different than the Canada of 2015, but the general constitutional framework adopted in 1867 still defines many of the parameters of political life today.
For this project, we asked colleagues to all read P.B. Waite, ed., The Confederation Debates in the Province of Canada, 1865, 2nd edition, with a new introduction by Ged Martin, and to write a short opinion piece in response to the question:
“From the vantage point of 2015, how do the Confederation debates of 1865 look from the perspective of XXXX?”
In some cases, the topic was completely ignored in the debates 150 years ago. Other issues were of critical importance to the original debates, but are much less significant as a component of national political discourse in our day. We took the same point of departure; we reflected on the issues in our own ways.
Read the essays:
Reconsidering the Debates over Canadian Confederation
Colin M. Coates & Philip Girard
Confederation as an Intra-Christian Pact
David S. Koffman
Revisiting the 1865 Canadian Debates on Confederation: Rights and the Constitution
David R. Cameron, Jacqueline D. Krikorian and Robert C. Vipond
Confederation and Taxation
Canadian Confederation and Democracy
The Nature of Confederation
A Workingman Watches
Gender and the Confederation Debates
Using History to Justify Confederation
The Robert Harris Group Portrait
Colin Coates (Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, York University)
Philip Girard (Osgoode Hall Law School, York University)