Monday, March 27, 2023
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

John A. Macdonald: The Indispensable Politician: MLI Paper by Alastair Gillespie

June 22, 2017
in Alastair Gillespie, Canada's Political Tradition - papers, Fathers of Confederation, Key Confederation Documents, Latest News, Papers, Releases, Sir John A. Macdonald
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A

Mcdonald610x387
This entry in the Confederation Series shows John A. Macdonald as the indispensable politician who brought allies and enemies alike to establish Confederation.

OTTAWA, June 22, 2017 – The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is pleased to showcase the fifth paper of its Confederation Series, written by Munk Senior Fellow Alastair Gillespie.

This paper is introduced by Peter MacKay, the final leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, and former Deputy Leader of its successor, the Conservative Party of Canada.

This paper examines John A. Macdonald’s role as the indispensable politician who made Confederation possible. Many had dreamed of Confederation, others had long fought for constitutional reform, but only the resourceful Macdonald managed to achieve it through an extraordinary coalition deal – making his record an elegant defence of the importance of good practical politics in delivering real change.

To read the full paper, titled “Sir John A. Macdonald: The Indispensable Politician,” click here.

Long resisting demands for constitutional change, Macdonald employed a subtle and distinctive political strategy to deliver confederation. Calling the constitution a “national, by no means a party question,” likening it to the British Parliament’s abolition of the slave trade, Macdonald called for constitutional issues to be debated on their merits, and for change to come only when the issue was “ripe.” As the Gillespie comments, this “Burkean strategy of a youthful ‘Old Tomorrow’” ultimately delivered Canada’s new constitution.

The paper highlights Macdonald’s desire to form a strong Canadian Union as his core contribution to Confederation. Gravely concerned by the American Civil War, Macdonald urged Canadians to form a real union, “one people and one government, instead of five peoples and five governments, with merely a point of authority connecting us to a limited an insufficient extent.”

Even before Confederation, Macdonald shaped Canada’s national character by resisting extremism and establishing a brand of moderate government that has endured. In partnership with his great political friend George-Etienne Cartier, they governed Canada together, practising the politics of the whole. In the Confederation debates of 1865, Macdonald called for French-Canadians to be treated “as a nation,” commenting that Canada for many years had already had “a federal union in fact,” if not in name.

Relating the famous (and often personal) antagonism between Macdonald and George Brown, his long-standing political opponent in Upper Canada, ultimately the paper recounts the Great Coalition of 1864, joining Reformers and Conservatives to deliver Confederation together. For some years Brown had offered to support any government pledged to constitutional change – it was Macdonald’s supreme accomplishment to accept the offer, and to make Confederation practical politics for the first time.

150 years on from Confederation, the Union which Macdonald formed has endured – including under the six majority governments he formed. Canadians looking to preserve that union will find much to inspire within. “If I had any influence over the minds of the people of Canada, any power over their intellects, I would leave them this legacy,” Macdonald said. “‘Whatever you do, adhere to the Union – we are a great country and shall become one of the greatest in the universe if we preserve it; we shall sink into insignificance and adversity if we suffer it to be broken.”

To support the Confederation Series, MLI established The Confederation Project, an online resource to publish and collect the speeches featured in the papers. John A. Macdonald’s speech in the Confederation Debates can be downloaded here. Other speeches, together with the previous four papers in the Confederation Series, are available on the Confederation Project webpage, with additional items to be released in coming weeks.

***

Alastair Gillespie is an MLI Munk Senior Fellow and a capital markets lawyer in the London office of a large New York-based international law firm. Prior to his legal career, Alastair was Special Assistant to the Hon. A. Anne McLellan, Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is the only non-partisan, independent national public policy think tank in Ottawa focusing on the full range of issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

For more information, please contact:

Brett Byers-Lane
Communications and Digital Media Manager
613-482-8327 x105
brett.byers-lane@macdonaldlaurier.ca

Tags: Confederation SeriesJohn A. Macdonald
Previous Post

The Policy of Conciliation – Thomas D’Arcy McGee’s Remarks at Montreal, March 1861

Next Post

Why we need to move from redistribution to equality of opportunity: Sean Speer for Sun papers

Related Posts

The “Tesla of LNG Plants” is right here in Canada: Mike Priaro for Inside Policy
Columns

Indigenous communities are key to solving the global energy crisis: Chris Sankey in the National Post

March 27, 2023
Putin and Xi driven to make authoritarianism the standard worldwide: Balkan Devlen in the National Post
Columns

Putin and Xi driven to make authoritarianism the standard worldwide: Balkan Devlen in the National Post

March 24, 2023
Outside intervention does a disservice to Indigenous communities that need to take control of their economic destinies: Chris Sankey in the National Post
Columns

Changing a lyric in O Canada is not a path to reconciliation: Chris Sankey in the Hub

March 23, 2023
Next Post
Sean Speer, US deficit, deficit reduction

Why we need to move from redistribution to equality of opportunity: Sean Speer for Sun papers

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Follow us on

Newsletter Signup

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

Inside Policy Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Back Issues
  • Advertising
  • Inside Policy Blog
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Privacy Preference Center

Consent Management

Necessary

Advertising

Analytics

Other