Charles Tupper

In the run-up to the 1859 Nova Scotia election, Tupper had been unwilling to commit to the idea of a union with the other British North American colonies.[4] By 1860, however, he had reconsidered his position.[4] Tupper outlined his changed position in a lecture delivered at Saint John, New Brunswick entitled "The Political Condition of British North America".[4] The title of the lecture was a homage to Lord Durham's 1838 Report on the Affairs of British North America and assessed the condition of British North America in the two decades following Lord Durham's famous report. Although Tupper was interested in the potential economic consequences of a union with the other colonies, the bulk of his lecture addressed the place of British North America within the wider British Empire.[4] Having been convinced by his 1858 trip to London that British politicians were unwilling to pay attention to small colonies such as Nova Scotia, Tupper argued that Nova Scotia and the other Maritime colonies "could never hope to occupy a position of influence or importance except in connection with their larger sister Canada".[4] Tupper therefore proposed to create a "British America", which "stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, would in a few years exhibit to the world a great and powerful organization, with British Institutions, British sympathies, and British feelings, bound indissolubly to the throne of England".[4]

Tupper and other delegates of the Charlottetown Conference on the steps of Government House, September 1864

With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Tupper worried that a victorious North would turn northward and conquer the British North American provinces.[4] This caused him to redouble his commitment to union, which he now saw as essential to protecting the British colonies against American aggression.[4] Since he thought that full union among the British North American colonies would be unachievable for many years, on March 28, 1864, Tupper instead proposed a Maritime Union which would unite the Maritime provinces in advance of a projected future union with the Province of Canada.[4] A conference to discuss the proposed union of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island was scheduled to be held in Charlottetown in September 1864.[4]

Tupper was pleasantly surprised when the Premier of the Province of Canada, John A. Macdonald, asked to be allowed to attend the Charlottetown Conference.[4] The Conference, which was co-chaired by Tupper and New Brunswick Premier Samuel Leonard Tilley, welcomed the Canadian delegation and asked them to join the conference.[4] The conference proved to be a smashing success, and resulted in an agreement-in-principle to form a union of the four colonies.[4]

The Quebec Conference was held on October 10, as a follow-up to the Charlottetown Conference, with Newfoundland only attending to observe.[4] Tupper headed the Nova Scotia delegation to the Quebec Conference.[4] He supported a legislative union of the colonies (which would mean that there would be only one legislature for the united colonies).[4] However, the French Canadian delegates to the conference, notably George-Étienne Cartier and Hector-Louis Langevin, strongly opposed the idea of a legislative union. Tupper threw his weight behind Macdonald's proposal for a federal union, which would see each colony retain its own legislature, with a central legislature in charge of common interests.[4] Tupper argued in favour of a strong central government as a second best to a pure legislative union.[4] He felt, however, that the local legislatures should retain the ability to levy duties on their natural resources.[4]

Concerned that a united legislature would be dominated by the Province of Canada, Tupper pushed for regional representation in the upper house of the confederated colonies (a goal which would be achieved in the makeup of the Senate of Canada).[4]

On the topic of which level of government would control customs in the union, Tupper ultimately agreed to accept the formula by which the federal government controlled customs in exchange for an annual subsidy of 80 cents a year for each Nova Scotian.[4] This deal was ultimately not good for Nova Scotia, which had historically received most of its government revenue from customs, and as a result, Nova Scotia entered Confederation with a deficit.[4]

Tupper in 1865

Although Tupper had given up much at the Quebec Conference, he thought that he would be able to convince Nova Scotians that the deal he negotiated was in some good for Nova Scotia.[4] He was therefore surprised when the deal he had negotiated at Quebec was roundly criticized by Nova Scotians: the Opposition Leader Adams George Archibald was the only member of the Liberal caucus to support Confederation.[4] Former premier Joseph Howe now organized an Anti-Confederation Party and anti-Confederation sentiments were so strong that Tupper decided to postpone a vote of the legislature on the question of Confederation for a full year.[4] Tupper now organized supporters of Confederation into a Confederation Party to push for the union.[4]

In April 1866, Tupper secured a motion of the Nova Scotia legislature in favour of union by promising that he would renegotiate the Seventy-two Resolutions at the upcoming conference in London.[4]

Joseph Howe had begun a pamphlet campaign in the UK to turn British public opinion against the proposed union.[4] Therefore, when Tupper arrived in the UK, he immediately initiated a campaign of pamphlets and letters to the editor designed to refute Howe's assertions.[4]

Although Tupper did attempt to renegotiate the 72 Resolutions as he had promised, he was ineffective in securing any major changes.[4] The only major change agreed to at the London Conference arguably did not benefit Nova Scotia – responsibility for the fisheries, which was going to be a joint federal-provincial responsibility under the Quebec agreement, became solely a federal concern.[4]

Following passage of the British North America Act in the wake of the London Conference, Tupper returned to Nova Scotia to undertake preparations for the union,[4] which came into existence on July 1, 1867, and on July 4, Tupper turned over responsibility for the government of Nova Scotia to Hiram Blanchard.[4]

In honour of the role he had played in securing Confederation, Tupper was made a Companion in The Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1867.[4] He was now entitled to use the postnomial letters "CB".

The first elections for the new House of Commons of Canada were held in August–September 1867. Tupper ran as a member for the new federal riding of Cumberland and won his seat.[4] However, he was the only pro-Confederation candidate to win a seat from Nova Scotia in the 1st Canadian Parliament, with Joseph Howe and the Anti-Confederates winning every other seat.[4]

Tupper in April 1870

As an ally of John A. Macdonald and the Liberal-Conservative Party, it was widely believed that Tupper would have a place in the first Cabinet of Canada.[4] However, when Macdonald ran into difficulties in organizing this cabinet, Tupper stepped aside in favour of Edward Kenny.[4] Instead, Tupper set up a medical practice in Ottawa and was elected as the first president of the new Canadian Medical Association, a position he held until 1870.[4]

In the November 1867 provincial elections in Nova Scotia, the pro-Confederation Hiram Blanchard was defeated by the leader of the Anti-Confederation Party, William Annand. Given the unpopularity of Confederation within Nova Scotia, Joseph Howe traveled to London in 1868 to attempt to persuade the British government (headed by the Earl of Derby, and then after February 1868 by Benjamin Disraeli) to allow Nova Scotia to secede from Confederation.[4] Tupper followed Howe to London where he successfully lobbied British politicians against allowing Nova Scotia to secede.[4]

Following his victory in London, Tupper proposed a reconciliation with Howe: in exchange for Howe's agreeing to stop fighting against the union, Tupper and Howe would be allies in the fight to protect Nova Scotia's interests within Confederation.[4] Howe agreed to Tupper's proposal and in January 1869 entered the Canadian cabinet as President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.[4]

With the outbreak of the Red River Rebellion in 1869, Tupper was distressed to find that his daughter Emma's husband was being held hostage by Louis Riel and the rebels.[4] He rushed to the northwest to rescue his son-in-law.[4]

Tupper in November 1871

When Howe's health declined the next year, Tupper finally entered the 1st Canadian Ministry by becoming Privy Council president in June 1870.[4]

The next year was dominated by a dispute with the United States regarding US access to the Atlantic fisheries.[4] Tupper thought that the British should restrict American access to these fisheries so that they could negotiate from a position of strength.[4] When Prime Minister Macdonald travelled to represent Canada's interests at the negotiations leading up to the Treaty of Washington (1871), Tupper served as Macdonald's liaison with the federal cabinet.[4]

On January 19, 1872, Tupper's service as Privy Council president ended and he became Minister of Inland Revenue.[4]

Tupper led the Nova Scotia campaign for the Liberal-Conservative party during the Canadian federal election of 1872.[4] His efforts paid off when Nova Scotia returned not a single Anti-Confederate Member of Parliament to the 2nd Canadian Parliament, and 20 of Nova Scotia's 21 MPs were Liberal-Conservatives.[4] (The Liberal-Conservative Party changed its name to the Conservative Party in 1873.)

Tupper in August 1873

In February 1873, Tupper was shifted from Inland Revenue to become Minister of Customs, and in this position he was successful in having British weights and measures adopted as the uniform standard for the united colonies.[4]

He would not hold this post for long, however, as Macdonald's government was rocked by the Pacific Scandal throughout 1873. In November 1873, the 1st Canadian Ministry was forced to resign and was replaced by the 2nd Canadian Ministry headed by Liberal Alexander Mackenzie.

Tupper had not been involved in the Pacific Scandal, but he nevertheless continued to support Macdonald and his Conservative colleagues both before and after the 1874 election.[4] The 1874 election was disastrous for the Conservatives, and in Nova Scotia, Tupper was one of only two Conservative MPs returned to the 3rd Canadian Parliament.[4]

Though Macdonald stayed on as Conservative leader, Tupper now assumed a more prominent role in the Conservative Party and was widely seen as Macdonald's heir apparent.[4] He led Conservative attacks on the Mackenzie government throughout the 3rd Parliament.[4] The Mackenzie government attempted to negotiate a new free trade agreement with the United States to replace the Canadian–American Reciprocity Treaty which the U.S. had abrogated in 1864.[4] When Mackenzie proved unable to achieve reciprocity, Tupper began shifting toward protectionism and became a proponent of the National Policy which became a part of the Conservative platform in 1876.[4] The sincerity of Tupper's conversion to the protectionist cause was doubted at the time, however: according to one apocryphal story, when Tupper came to the 1876 debate on Finance Minister Richard John Cartwright's budget, he was prepared to advocate free trade if Cartwright had announced that the Liberals had shifted their position and were now supporting protectionism.[4]

Tupper was also deeply critical of Mackenzie's approach to railways, arguing that completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which would link British Columbia (which entered Confederation in 1871) with the rest of Canada, should be a stronger government priority than it was for Mackenzie.[4] This position also became an integral part of the Conservative platform.

As on previous occasions when he was not in cabinet, Tupper was active in practicing medicine during the 1874–78 stint in Opposition, though he was dedicating less and less of his time to medicine during this period.[4]

Tupper was a councillor of the Oxford Military College in Cowley and Oxford, Oxfordshire from 1876–1896.

During the 1878 election Tupper again led the Conservative campaign in Nova Scotia.[4] The Conservatives under Macdonald won a resounding majority in the election, in the process capturing 16 of Nova Scotia's 21 seats in the 4th Canadian Parliament.[4]

With the formation of the 3rd Canadian Ministry on October 17, 1878, Tupper became Minister of Public Works.[4] His top priority was completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which he saw as "an Imperial Highway across the Continent of America entirely on British soil".[4] This marked a shift in Tupper's position: although he had long argued that completion of the railway should be a major government priority, while Tupper was in Opposition, he argued that the railway should be privately constructed; he now argued that the railway ought to be completed as a public work, partly because he believed that the private sector could not complete the railroad given the recession which gripped the country throughout the 1870s.[4]

In May 1879, Macdonald decided that completion of the railway was such a priority that he created a new ministry to focus on railways and canals, and Tupper became Canada's first Minister of Railways and Canals.[4]

Tupper's motto as Minister of Railways and Canals was "Develop our resources".[4] He stated "I have always supposed that the great object, in every country, and especially in a new country, was to draw as [many] capitalists into it as possible."[4]

Tupper traveled to London in summer 1879 to attempt to persuade the British government (then headed by the Earl of Beaconsfield in his second term as prime minister) to guarantee a bond sale to be used to construct the railway.[4] He was not successful, though he did manage to purchase 50,000 tons of steel rails at a bargain price.[4] Tupper's old friend Sandford Fleming oversaw the railway construction, but his inability to keep costs down led to political controversy, and Tupper was forced to remove Fleming as Chief Engineer in May 1880.[4]

1879 also saw Tupper made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, and thus entitled to use the postnominal letters "KCMG".[4]

Tupper in September 1881

In 1880, George Stephen approached Tupper on behalf of a syndicate and asked to be allowed to take over construction of the railway.[4] Convinced that Stephen's syndicate was up to the task, Tupper convinced the cabinet to back the plan at a meeting in June 1880 and, together with Macdonald, negotiated a contract with the syndicate in October.[4] The syndicate successfully created the Canadian Pacific Railway in February 1881 and assumed construction of the railway shortly thereafter.[4]

In the following years Tupper was a vocal supporter of the CPR during its competition with the Grand Trunk Railway.[4] In December 1883 he worked out a rescue plan for the CPR after it faced financial difficulties and persuaded his party and Parliament to accept the plan.[4]

In addition to his support for completion of the CPR, Tupper also actively managed the existing railways in the colonies.[4] Shortly after becoming minister in 1879, he forced the Intercolonial Railway to lower its freight rates, which had been a major grievance of Maritime business interests.[4] He then forced the Grand Trunk Railway to sell its Rivière-du-Loup line to the Intercolonial Railway to complete a link between Halifax and the St. Lawrence Seaway.[4] He also refused to give the CPR running rights over the Intercolonial Railway, though he did convince the CPR to build the Short Line from Halifax to Saint John.[4]

In terms of canals, Tupper's time as Minister of Railways and Canals is notable for large expenditures on widening the Welland Canal and deepening the Saint Lawrence Seaway.[4]

A rift developed between Tupper and Macdonald in 1879 over Sandford Fleming, whom Tupper supported but whom Macdonald wanted removed as Chief Engineer of the CPR.[4] This rift was partially healed and Tupper and Macdonald managed to work together during the negotiations with George Stephen's syndicate in 1880, but the men were no longer close, and Tupper no longer seemed to be Macdonald's heir apparent.[4] By early 1881 Tupper had determined that he should leave the cabinet.[4] In March 1881 he asked Macdonald to appoint him as Canada's High Commissioner in London. Macdonald initially refused, and Alexander Tilloch Galt retained the High Commissioner's post.[4]

During the 1882 election, Tupper campaigned only in Nova Scotia (he normally campaigned throughout the country): he was again successful, with the Conservatives winning 14 of Nova Scotia's 21 seats in the 5th Canadian Parliament.[4] The 1882 election was personally significant for Tupper because it saw his son, Charles Hibbert Tupper, elected as MP for Pictou.[4]

Tupper circa 1883

Tupper remained committed to leaving Ottawa, however, and in May 1883, he moved to London to become unpaid High Commissioner, though he did not surrender his ministerial position at the time.[4] However, he soon faced criticism that the two posts were incompatible, and in May 1884 he resigned from cabinet and the House of Commons and became full-time paid High Commissioner.[4]

During his time as High Commissioner, Tupper vigorously defended Canada's rights.[4] Although he was not a full plenipotentiary, he represented Canada at a Paris conference in 1883, where he openly disagreed with the British delegation; and in 1884 he was allowed to conduct negotiations for a Canadian commercial treaty with Spain.[4]

Tupper was concerned with promoting immigration to Canada and made several tours of various countries in Europe to encourage their citizens to move to Canada.[4] A report in 1883 acknowledges the work of Charles Tupper:

As directing emigration from the United Kingdom and also the Continent, his work has been greatly valuable; and especially in reference to the arrangements made by him on the Continent and in Ireland. The High Commissioner for Canada, Sir Charles Tupper, has been aided during the past year by the same Emigration Agents of the Department in the United Kingdom as in 1882, namely, Mr. John Dyke, Liverpool; Mr. Thomas Grahame, Glasgow; Mr. Charles Foy, Belfast; Mr. Thomas Connolly, Dublin, and Mr. J.W. Down, Bristol. On the European continent, Dr. Otto Hahn, of Reutlingen, has continued to act as Agent in Germany.[7]

In 1883, Tupper convinced William Ewart Gladstone's government to exempt Canadian cattle from the general British ban on importing American cattle by demonstrating that Canadian cattle were free of disease.[4]

His other duties as High Commissioner included: putting Canadian exporters in contact with British importers; negotiating loans for the Canadian government and the CPR; helping to organize the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886; arranging for a subsidy for the mail ship from Vancouver, British Columbia to the Orient; and lobbying on behalf of a British-Pacific cable along the lines of the transatlantic telegraph cable and for a faster transatlantic steam ship.[4]

Tupper was present at the founding meeting of the Imperial Federation League in July 1884, where he argued against a resolution which said that the only options open to the British Empire were Imperial Federation or disintegration.[4] Tupper believed that a form of limited federation was possible and desirable.[4]

1884 saw the election of Liberal William Stevens Fielding as Premier of Nova Scotia after Fielding campaigned on a platform of leading Nova Scotia out of Confederation.[4] As such, throughout 1886, Macdonald begged Tupper to return to Canada to fight the Anti-Confederates.[4] In January 1887 Tupper returned to Canada to rejoin the 3rd Canadian Ministry as Minister of Finance of Canada, while retaining his post as High Commissioner.[4]

During the 1887 federal election, Tupper again presented the pro-Confederation argument to the people of Nova Scotia, and again the Conservatives won 14 of Nova Scotia's 21 seats in the 6th Canadian Parliament.[4]

During his year as finance minister, Tupper retained the government's commitment to protectionism, even extending it to the iron and steel industry.[4] By this time Tupper was convinced that Canada was ready to move on to its second stage of industrial development.[4] In part, he held out the prospect of the development of a great iron industry as an inducement to keep Nova Scotia from seceding.[4]

Tupper's unique position of being both Minister of Finance and High Commissioner to London served him well in an emerging crisis in American-Canadian relations: in 1885, the U.S. abrogated the fisheries clause of the Treaty of Washington (1871), and the Canadian government retaliated against American fishermen with a narrow reading of the Treaty of 1818.[4] Acting as High Commissioner, Tupper pressured the British government (then led by Lord Salisbury) to stand firm in defending Canada's rights.[4] The result was the appointment of a Joint Commission in 1887, with Tupper serving as one of the three British commissioners to negotiate with the Americans.[4] Salisbury selected Joseph Chamberlain as one of the British commissioners.[4] John Thompson served as the British delegation's legal counsel.[4] During the negotiations, U.S. Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard complained that "Mr. Chamberlain has yielded the control of the negotiations over to Charles Tupper, who subjects the questions to the demands of Canadian politics."[4] The result of the negotiations was a treaty (the Treaty of Washington of 1888) that made such concessions to Canada that it was ultimately rejected by the American Senate in February 1888.[4] However, although the treaty was rejected, the Commission had managed to temporarily resolve the dispute.

Following the long conclusion of these negotiations, Tupper decided to return to London to become High-Commissioner full-time.[4] Macdonald tried to persuade Tupper to stay in Ottawa: during the political crisis surrounding the 1885 North-West Rebellion, Macdonald had pledged to nominate Hector-Louis Langevin as his successor; Macdonald now told Tupper that he would break this promise and nominate Tupper as his successor.[4] Tupper was not convinced, however, and resigned as Minister of Finance on May 23, 1888, and moved back to London.[4]

"The Old Flag! The Old Guard and the Old Principle!" Conservative Party election poster, with Charles Tupper and Hugh John Macdonald, during the 1891 election

For Tupper's work on the Joint Commission, Joseph Chamberlain arranged for Tupper to become a baronet of the United Kingdom, and the Tupper Baronetcy was created on September 13, 1888.[4]

In 1889, tensions were high between the U.S. and Canada when the U.S. banned Canadians from engaging in the seal hunt in the Bering Sea as part of the ongoing Bering Sea Dispute between the U.S. and Britain.[4] Tupper traveled to Washington, D.C. to represent Canadian interests during the negotiations and was something of an embarrassment to the British diplomats.[4]

When, in 1890, the provincial secretary of Newfoundland, Robert Bond, negotiated a fisheries treaty with the U.S. that Tupper felt was not in Canada's interest, Tupper successfully persuaded the British government (then under Lord Salisbury's second term) to reject the treaty.[4]

Tupper remained an active politician during his time as High Commissioner, which was controversial because diplomats are traditionally expected to be nonpartisan.[4] (Tupper's successor as High Commissioner, Donald Smith would succeed in turning the High Commissioner's office into a nonpartisan office.) As such, Tupper returned to Canada to campaign on behalf of the Conservatives' National Policy during the 1891 election.[4]

Charles Tupper with his son Charles Hibbert Tupper and his grandson, March 1891

Tupper continued to be active in the Imperial Federation League, though after 1887, the League was split over the issue of regular colonial contribution to imperial defense.[4] As a result, the League was dissolved in 1893, for which some people blamed Tupper.[4]

With respect to the British Empire, Tupper advocated a system of mutual preferential trading. In a series of articles in Nineteenth Century in 1891 and 1892, Tupper denounced the position that Canada should unilaterally reduce its tariff on British goods.[4] Rather, he argued that any such tariff reduction should only come as part of a wider trade agreement in which tariffs on Canadian goods would also be reduced at the same time.[4]

John A. Macdonald's death in 1891 opened the possibility of Tupper's replacing him as Prime Minister of Canada, but Tupper enjoyed life in London and decided against returning to Canada.[4] He recommended that his son support John Thompson's prime ministerial bid.[4]