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Confederation- Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick & Nova Scotia make Canada
In the spring of 1864, New Brunswick premier Samuel Leonard Tilley, Nova Scotia premier Charles Tupper, and Prince Edward Island premier John Hamilton Gray were contemplating the idea of a Maritime Union which would join their three colonies together.The Premier of the Province of Canada John A. Macdonald surprised the Atlantic premiers by asking if the Province of Canada could be included in the negotiations. -
Manitoba and the North West Territories Join Canada
The Hudson's Bay Company transfers Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to the government of Canada, and these become the Northwest Territories. -
British Columbia Joins Canada
Canada would take over all the debt of the colony and pump money into the province annually for public works. Responsible government would be implemented and B.C. would also be allowed to send six members to Parliament in Ottawa instead of the two or three it was entitled to with rep by pop. The biggest surprise was Cartier's generous offer of a transcontinental railway line that would penetrate the Rocky Mountains and join B.C. to the east within ten years. -
P.E.I Joins Canada
Sir John A. Macdonald, ever wary of the threat to Canada of American expansionism, tried to lure P.E.I. into the union with various incentives, but it wasn't until they were faced with a major financial crisis that the political leaders began to consider Macdonald's offer. An ambitious railway-building plan had put the government into debt and created a banking crisis. The Canadian government agreed to take over the island's debt and give the province an annual subsidy to buy back lands. -
Yukon Joins Canada
Yukon Territory joined the Confederation as the government in Ottawa passed the Yukon Territory Act. It constituted Yukon as separate and distinct from the North-West Territories, with Dawson City becoming the territorial capital city. At the time, Dawson was the largest Canadian city west of Winnipeg. -
Saskatchewan and Alberta Join Canada
The land that now forms Saskatchewan and Alberta was originally part of the Northwest Territories. By the beginning of the 1900s, many people wanted this to change. The leader of the Territories was F. W. G. Haultain. He and others had several reasons to want to create new provinces:
-The economy had changed. Instead of just the fur trade, it now included farming, logging, mining and the railway.
- They could not afford everything that the people needed, such as schools. -
Newfoundland Joins Canada
Joey Smallwood, a journalist, former popular radio host and delegate from Bonavista Center, was the leader of the confederate cause. He saw union with Canada as a means of giving the people "a half decent chance in life," through the introduction of "North American standards of public services" and social welfare. As part of the larger Canadian trading bloc, Newfoundland would also benefit in international trade. -
Nunavut Joins Canada
By the 1970's the aspirations of the Inuit people in the Northwest Territories were recognized by the Federal Government and the creation of a Territory, separate from the rest of the Northwest Territories, to accommodate their desires for a legal territorial area. The Canadian Parliament passed the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the Nunavut act on July 9th, 1993 which was to take effect on April 1, 1999.
