No Canadian political and economic issue is as contentious, persistent, and long-running as the struggle between free trade and protection. A concise account of that issue from 1840 to the 1988 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement provides essential historical background to the impending high-stakes renegotiation of NAFTA with the erratic Trump administration. The record clearly […]
Tag: John A. Macdonald
Bank robbers try to rope Canada in U.S. War
During the U.S. civil war (1861-1865), Canadians were divided about which side their sympathies—and sometimes covert support—lay. Those who supported the Confederate south thought that breaking up the United States would lessen the danger of a bigger, stronger neighbour responding to the American cry of “Manifest Destiny,” the doctrine that called for absorption of […]
Tough times blamed on National Policy
Winnipeg’s main street in 1894. Tough times were blamed on the high costs of John A. Macdonald’s National Policy, but with a plethora of bachelors, men were said to be excited about the prospect of boatloads of buxom young English women. Glenbow Archives NA-118-24. Free trade 1840-1894 A correspondent for the Regina Standard, December 7, […]
History of fierce Can-Am free trade and protection issue backgrounds high-stake NAFTA renegotiation
No Canadian political and economic issue is as contentious, persistent, and long-running as the struggle between free trade and protection. A concise account of that issue from 1840 to the 1988 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement provides essential historical background to the impending high-stakes renegotiation of NAFTA with the erratic Trump administration. The record clearly confirms […]
The Mounties’ pain killer
Booze 1829 — 1920 John A. Macdonald in 1881 on reports of alcoholism in the Royal North West Mounted Police, as cited in the Winnipeg Free Press, July, 5, 1904. As regards the habits of the men, I think, on the whole, they are in a very fair state, but there is still a good […]
Drunk Macdonald or reporter?
Booze 1829 — 1920 Newspapers still provided the only published reports of debates in the House of Commons when the Toronto Globe opposed a proposed Hansard, in which the words of members of Parliament would be published after officially recorded in shorthand by Parliamentary reporters. The Globe argued that politicians would be too inclined to […]