Treaties in Canada

Information regarding treaties to which Canada is a party can be obtained in print at several Law Libraries, or online through the web site of theDepartment of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

For information on how to find a treaty when you have a citation, click here. For information on how to find a treaty when you do not have a citation, click here (at the bottom).

Treaty with the United States Early History

Lord Elgin arrived at Washington in May 1854. His suite included Hincks and Laurence Oliphant, the writer, whose humorous and satiric account of what he saw during the negotiations makes most amusing reading. The diplomats reached the American capital at one of the most dramatic moments of American history. On the very day of their arrival the Kansas-Nebraska Bill passed Congress. It meant the momentary triumph of the South and the extension of slavery into the great hinterland beyond the Mississippi. The passage of the bill was celebrated by the salute of a hundred guns; and, fearing trouble, legislators sat in the House armed to the teeth.

Lord Elgin at once began operations which can hardly be distinguished from an ordinary lobby. From Marcy, the secretary of state, he ascertained that the kernel of opposition to reciprocity was the Democratic majority in the Senate, and he set about cultivating the Democratic senators. There was a round of pleasant dinners and other entertainments, at which Lord Elgin shone. A British peer is always an object of interest in a democracy. This one possessed most agreeable manners, a charm to which Southerners are peculiarly susceptible, and also an unusual gift of oratory which won him favour with a public accustomed to the eloquence of Daniel Webster and Wendell Phillips.

These things told with the Democratic majority. That the treaty ‘was floated through on champagne’ is an exaggeration; but there was undoubtedly much hospitality shown on both sides and much good fellowship. Ten days after his arrival at Washington Lord Elgin was able to tell Mr Marcy that the Democrats would not oppose the treaty, and on the fifth of June it was actually signed. Oliphant furnishes most amusing details of the actual ceremony of appending the signatures. It went into force only after it had been formally ratified by the legislatures of Great Britain and the United States. The most important provisions were as follows.

Natural products were to be admitted free of duty to both countries, the principal being grain, flour, lumber, bread-stuffs, animals, fresh, smoked and salted meats, lumber of all kinds, poultry, cotton, wool, hides, metallic ores, pitch, tar, ashes, flax, hemp, rice, and unmanufactured tobacco. In return the American fishermen obtained the coveted privilege of fishing within the territorial waters of the Maritime Provinces, without any restriction as to distance or headlands. Canadians were accorded the right to fish in the depleted American grounds, north of the 36th parallel N. latitude. Nova Scotians were not pleased at these concessions, especially as they were not allowed to share in the American coasting trade; but as trade grew up and prices rose, their discontent naturally vanished.

The benefits accruing to Canada from the treaty were immediate and plain to every eye. In the first year of its operation the value of commodities interchanged between the two countries rose from an annual average of fourteen million dollars to thirty-three millions, an increase of more than one hundred per cent. The volume of trade rose steadily at the rate of eight or nine millions per annum. When the war broke out between the North and the South, prices jumped, and, during the four years of the struggle, Canada had a greedy market for everything she could produce. The benefit to both countries was obvious. For the first time since the Revolution the currents of North American trade flowed unchecked in their natural channels. Canada had never known such a period of prosperity, and was never to know such another, until the great West was opened up by the railways and until immigrants began to flock in by hundreds of thousands, to draw from the rich loam of the prairies the bountiful harvests of man-sustaining wheat. Lord Elgin’s pact held good for twelve years. In the last year the volume of trade was more than eighty-four millions.

The agreement ended from a variety of causes, economic and political. Canada had raised the tariff on American manufactures in order to meet her increasing expenditure; and she tried to divert American commerce from its regular routes to a profitable transit through Canadian territory. But the chief cause was the bitterness of the United States at the attitude of Britain during the Civil War. The Trent affair, the ravages of the Alabama and other commerce destroyers, the open and avowed sympathy with the South expressed in British journals and elsewhere, convinced the American people that Britain would be glad to see the Republic broken up. That, with such provocation, the Americans should deprive a British colony of a commercial advantage was not unnatural. One statesman even proposed that the whole of Canada should be handed over to the United States in compensation for the Alabama claims. That the treaty was negotiated at all, and that the experiment in trade was so beneficial to both countries, has certain important lessons.

The episode proves that a colonial governor, while governing in strict accordance with the constitution, can do for his government what no one else can do. Lord Elgin’s success has never been repeated. Delegation after delegation of Canada’s ablest politicians have pilgrimed from Ottawa to Washington, seeking {155} better trade relations, with no result. The second lesson is the tendency of trade to mock at political boundaries and to wed geography. Even now, with high tariffs on both sides of the line, Canada spends fifty-one dollars in the United States for every thirty-three she spends in England.

From his triumph at Washington the governor-general returned to Canada to undergo another experience of democratic manners. The Hincks-Morin government was nearing its end. Parliament had no sooner assembled in the ancient capital, Quebec, than it was dissolved. In the political tug-of-war known as the debate on the Address the government was defeated. Instead of resigning, the leaders recommended the governor-general to dissolve the House, so that there might be a new election, and that the mind of the people might be ascertained on the two great issues, the Clergy Reserves and Seigneurial Tenure. The opposition contended that the ministry should either resign, or else bring in some piece of legislation as a trial of strength. Lord Elgin’s position was precisely the same as in the time of the Rebellion Losses Bill.

He acted on the advice of his ministers. When he came in state to prorogue the House, a most extraordinary scene occurred. He was kept waiting for an hour while the parties wrangled, and when Her Majesty’s faithful Commons did present themselves, the Speaker, John Sandfield Macdonald, read, first in English and then in French, a reply to the Address which was a calculated insult to Her Majesty’s representative. The point of the reply was that, as no legislation had been passed, there had been no session; and that this failure to follow custom was ‘owing to the command which your Excellency has laid upon us to meet you this day for the purpose of prorogation.’ Sandfield Macdonald was an ambitious and vindictive man. He was wrong, too, in his interpretation of the constitution. Hincks had denied him a cabinet position which he coveted, and this was his mode of retaliating upon him. None the less, the House was prorogued, and the elections were held.

According to the old, bad custom, they were spread over several weeks, instead of being held on a single day. The result was unfavourable to the government. Representation had been increased, and out of the total number of members returned the ministry had only thirty at its back. The Conservatives numbered twenty-two, the Clear Grits seven, Independents six, and Rouges nineteen. Papineau was defeated and retired to his seigneury. Hincks was returned for two constituencies. In the election of the Speaker he very adroitly thwarted the ambition of Sandfield Macdonald to fill that post; but, soon afterwards, the ministry was defeated on a trifling question and resigned. Hincks was afterwards knighted and made governor of Barbados and Guiana. He returned to Canada in 1869 to be a member of Sir John Macdonald’s Cabinet. He made a fortune for himself and he had no small part in making Canada. He died of smallpox in Montreal in 1885. His Reminiscences is an authority of prime importance for the history of his times. (1)

Resources

Notes

1. Archibald MacMechan, “Popular Govrerment. A Chronicle of the Union of 1841” (1916), Toronto, Glasgow, Brook and Company

See Also

Definition of Treaties

The Canada social science dictionary [1] provides the following meaning of Treaties: An agreement or contract between two or more sovereign nations creating obligations and responsibilities for both parties. The British and French colonizers of what is now called Canada and the Canadian government itself have negotiated many treaties with the Native nations which occupied the land. These treaties are now protected by the Canadian constitution. See: NUMBERED TREATIES related information in this encyclopedia, in the legal dictionary or in the world encyclopedia of law.

Treaties: Resources

Notes and References

1. Drislane, R., & Parkinson, G. (2016). (Concept of) Treaties. Online dictionary of the social sciences. Open University of Canada