The National Policy and John A. Macdonald

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The National Policyand John A. Macdonald

• Chapter 9

By Leah Cheverie
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-First Prime Minister of Canadaand served for 19
years-January 11th 1815-June 6th 1891-Born in
Scotland-Lawyer-Leader of the Tory Conservative
Party-Father-Husband

• The National Policy was a Canadian economic
  program introduced by John A. Macdonalds
  Conservative Party in 1876 and put into action in
  1879.

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• The National Policy consisted of three
  initiatives
• Protective tariffs against foreign goods.
• A transcontinental railway.
• Greater immigration and settlement of the West.

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• Manufactured goods had the highest tariffs.
• A duty of more than 40 percent was levied on
  products such as carriages, agricultural
  machinery, railway cars, and woollen clothing.
• These duties were intended to be protective
  tariffs, they were placed on products that were
  being produced by some of Canadas growing
  industries but leaving our country to sell to
  other markets. Macdonald wanted to keep business
  in Canada to keep our markets healthy.

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• The depression of the 1870s led many Canadians to
  believe that the countrys economy had become
  overly dependent upon the exploitation of staples
  products including lumber, coal, steel, fish, and
  fur.
• Many of the markets for Canadian timber, wheat,
  and fish were disappearing due to a decrease in
  spending brought about by a worldwide economic
  downturn.
• As a result between 1873 and 1879, Canadian
  exports fell by 20 percent.
• Business leaders believed that the economy needed
  to diversify to include more secondary
  manufacturing. Business owners wanted to not only
  produce primary products, they wanted to
  manufacture them.
• Business leaders also feared a growing
  manufacturing sector would not survive American
  competition, which had the advantage of
  large-scale production facilities, lower
  transportation costs, and a transcontinental
  railway.
• They were convinced that lower-priced American
  goods had to be kept out of Canada in order to
  keep Canadian markets strong.

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• Essential to this economic strategy was the
  building of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR),
  which Macdonald had promised during his first
  term in office.

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• Take out a piece of loose leaf.
• Write down something you learn from watching the
  following video.
• Take 5 minutes.

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• http//www.youtube.com/watch?voqRWQa0rIsofeature
  related
• 10 minutes

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Canadian Pacific Railway
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• There were many immigrants involved in the
  building of the railway.

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• When the Liberals came to power, they made
  little progress with the railway.
• When Macdonald came back to power in 1878, he
  wanted to complete the building of the railway as
  soon as possible because the lands to the west
  were considered vulnerable to American political
  and economic expansion.
• Since acquiring the western territories, the
  Canadian government had been relatively
  unsuccessful in attracting settlers.
• The railway was needed to move settlers west.
• Investors needed assurances that the railway
  would eventually pay for itself.

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• The National Policys blueprint for prosperity
  was designed it would establish a strong
  manufacturing base in central Canada that
  received its supplies from the rich natural
  resources of the East and West.

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The Effects of the National Policy

• The National Policys most immediate and concrete
  result was the completion of the Canadian Pacific
  Railway.
• To the federal government, this ambitious project
  represented the backbone of a new national
  economy.

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• To facilitate its construction, the government
  offered concessions to a new Canadian Pacific
  Railway Company.
• Among these concessions were 25 million in
  grants, 25 million acres of land, tax-exempt
  status, and a 20 year guarantee against
  competition from other railways.

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• These terms were generous, but Macdonald viewed
  them as the price to be paid to compensate for
  the risks of building the worlds largest
  railway.
• Once major investments in the project had been
  made (ironically, by Americans), construction on
  the railway began.

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• Describe the features of this political cartoon.
• What is the issue (s) being addressed?
• What supporting evidence is there?
• What is the opinion or perspective of the
  cartoonist?
• How do these issues impact Halifax, Canada, and
  the world?

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• Most of the labourers came from Canada, the
  United States, and Ireland, but the most
  dangerous jobs, such as planting explosives, were
  assigned to Chinese workers, thousands of whom
  died during construction.
• Heritage Moment
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vo87MgkGAqeU

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• By 1885, the work was done and the visionary CPR
  was complete.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vGf3uhfANuUk
• Do you think appreciation and credit was given to
  individuals who worked on the railway?
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vRG4HJCEoXbgfeature
  fvwpNR1
• (CPR found in B.C.)

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• Wherever it went, the railway quickened the pace
  of economic life and laid the foundations for a
  national economy dominated by the banks and
  businesses in Montreal and Toronto
• -Alvin Finkel and Margaret Conrad, historians.

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The Creation of an Industrial Heartland

• Heartland-A region that is the economic centre of
  a country.
• The National Policy led to the creation of an
  industrial heartland in central Canada, with the
  nations primary manufacturers centered in
  Toronto and Montreal.
• Tariff protection provided security for
  investment capital and allowed Canadian
  entrepreneurs to establish new industries that
  were not affected by American competition.

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Heartland

• The completion of the railway ensured that
  central Canada had easy access to markets in both
  the East and the West.
• By 1901, half of the countrys manufacturing was
  located in Ontario, with an additional one-third
  located in Quebec.
• Central Canadas role as the industrial heartland
  has remained an economic reality for over 100
  years.

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The National Policy in the Hinterland

• Hinterland-A region that provides the resources
  needed by the heartland.
• If the National Policy made central Canada the
  countrys financial and industrial heartland, it
  made the Maritimes and the West the nations
  hinterland.
• In the beginning the CPR promised to bring new
  trade possibilities to Atlantic Canada.
• Nova Scotians anticipated an increase in commerce
  or business through the provinces ports due to
  the new railways.

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• In theory, the ice-free Halifax harbour would be
  the port of call for ships that could not
  navigate the St. Lawrence River during the
  winter.
• Incoming and outgoing goods would pass through
  Halifax as they connected with the rail links to
  and from Montreal and Toronto.

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• It appeared that the National Policy and the
  railway did indeed stimulate financial growth in
  the Maritimes, which saw growth in capital
  investments in the 1880s and 1890s.
• Recognizing the potential for large markets in
  central Canada and the West, Maritime
  entrepreneurs invested the money they had made in
  the shipping business in a variety of
  manufacturing ventures.

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• Towns located along the Inter-colonial Railway,
  such as Moncton, Amherst, Truro, New Glasgow, and
  Sydney, became the hubs of this new
  industrialization.

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• Factories producing everything from iron and
  steel to textiles and pianos sprung up in these
  boomtowns.
• Maritime prosperity did not last.
• Some historians suggest that the consolidation of
  Maritime businesses by central Canada and
  international business interests led to the
  economic decline.
• Management decisions were based on profit and
  loss rather than economic well-being of Maritime
  communities.

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• Central Canadian firms began absorbing Maritime
  financial institutions and moving them to Toronto
  and Montreal.
• This loss of important financial institutions was
  connected with the flight of investment away from
  the Maritimes.

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• Another cause of economic decline in the Maritime
  provinces centred on the coal industry.
• In the late nineteenth century, the growth of
  Canadian urban centres increased the demand for
  coal.
• Once the manufacturing sector declined, the Nova
  Scotia economy turned to coal mining and other
  related industries of iron and steel.
• This industry was supported by protective tariffs
  
• In the early twentieth century, however, these
  protectionist measures were eliminated, allowing
  the industrial heartland of central Canada to
  import virtually all of its coal tariff-free
  while the domestic coal industry suffered.

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• As prosperity in the Maritimes began to lag
  further behind economic success in other parts of
  Canada, a growing number of people began to move
  away from the region.
• Between 1881 and 1931, the Maritimes suffered a
  steady net migration more than 500 000 people
  left in search of better opportunities south of
  the border in the Boston states also known as New
  England.
• Does this out migration sound familiar?

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The Impact in the West
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• Like the Maritimes, prairie communities did not
  develop into industrial centres that could
  compete with Montreal and Toronto.
• Distance from the large markets of central Canada
  was a major factor in the growth of competitive
  industries.
• Also, the immigration thought to follow after the
  completion of the railway did not happen
  immediately.
• In fact, there was a net loss of migration.
• The economic depression of the 1870s and 1880s
  reduced the demand for Canadian wheat in
  international markets.
• This, along with the easy availability of land in
  the American West, temporarily slowed settlement
  on the Canadian prairies.
• It was not until the changing fortunes of the
  1890s and 1900s that the potential of the West
  began to be realized!

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• The West did take advantage both of the railway
  and of federally subsidized shipping rates in
  order to develop its considerable wheat and
  grain-growing potential.
• As a hinterland region, its primary role, like
  the East, was to provide a market for
  manufactured goods produced in the heartland.

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• The building of the railway and western
  settlement also impacted Aboriginal peoples and
  the Metis.
• New settlers encroached on the lands that had
  been reserved for the Metis in the Manitoba Act
  of 1870, forcing them to move westward from
  Manitoba to Saskatchewan.
• Accustomed to the way of life associated with
  following the buffalo, the Metis and First
  Nations found it difficult to adjust to farming
  on the small areas of land reserved for them as
  permanent settlements.
• These people felt that the completion of the
  railway and expansion and settlement of the West,
  violated their treaties.

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• Metis family in 1908

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A Peoples Canada

• Ocean to Ocean
• Episode 10
• Scene 13
• 8 minutes

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• Ocean to Ocean 1886
• John A. Macdonald brought a _____________ to Crow
  Foot leader waiting his arrival.
• What does Crow Foot really want? _____________.
• The Aboriginal children were forcibly taken to
  _______________ schools.
• How did Crow Foots 8 children die?
  ____________________.
• Macdonald is brutally frank about
  _______________________ in the West.
• How many times did Macdonald visit the West?
  __________.
• What date did Macdonald die? _____________________
  .

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• Worksheet for National Policy