Canadian Confederation
Following the Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences of 1864, delegates from the British North American colonies negotiated terms of union that were enacted by the British Parliament as the British North America Act, receiving royal assent on 29 March 1867 and taking effect on 1 July 1867. The Act joined the Province of Canada (split into Ontario and Quebec), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a single federal Dominion with a bicameral parliament in Ottawa, dividing powers between the federal government (defence, currency, Indigenous affairs) and the provinces (local matters including education). John A. Macdonald, the chief architect of the scheme, became the new Dominion's first prime minister. Confederation was nation-building rather than full sovereignty: Canada remained a self-governing colony within the British Empire, with London retaining control over Canadian foreign policy, and constitutional amendments still required an act of the British Parliament. It would take until the Statute of Westminster (1931) for Canada to gain full legislative independence, and until the Constitution Act patriation of 1982 for Canada to gain complete control over amending its own constitution. Confederation nonetheless created the political and territorial framework — later expanded by the addition of Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and other territories — on which that later, fuller sovereignty was built.
- Year: 1867 CE
- Category: Political
