The John A. Macdonald Retrospective 2-Book Bundle. Ged Martin

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СКАЧАТЬ later admitted, “with the greatest reluctance” but on the principle, “let us have peace” — the voice of the traumatized veteran of 1837. But critics claim that the angry Métis interpreted the move as a delaying tactic. Government public relations proved poor: Riel was offended to hear the news casually some days later, a discourtesy that probably pushed him towards rebellion. However, Riel’s mystical belief in his own destiny fatally handicapped the uprising. In 1869, trouble had begun in November, while the Red River was inaccessibly wrapped in winter; in 1885, Riel defied the government in March, when spring was in sight and militia forces could be deployed against him. Believing his Métis to be divinely chosen, he made little attempt to build alliances with Native people or discontented settlers. He refused to allow his supporters to exploit their knowledge of the terrain and fight a prolonged guerrilla campaign. He did not even sabotage the Canadian Pacific Railway, which quickly brought government forces from eastern Canada.

      Maybe Ottawa could have moved faster in response to Métis grievances, but in the early months of 1885, the government faced what seemed a far greater crisis over the transcontinental railway. Although nearing completion, the CPR had yet again run out of cash. With its assets mortgaged to the government, no private investment was likely but, as Macdonald wrote on January 24, “however docile our majority, we dare not ask for another loan.” In fact, his backbenchers were far from docile. On March 17, as the company faced catastrophic financial crisis, Macdonald reported “blackmailing all round,” with Quebec and Maritime MPs raising their demands. “I wish I were well out of it.” After fruitless talks in Ottawa on March 26, George Stephen regretfully accepted that he must declare bankruptcy. But earlier that day, at Duck Lake in the far-off Saskatchewan country, Louis Riel had led his Métis into a clash with the Northwest Mounted Police, killing twelve of them. On March 27, the news reached Ottawa. It looks like the greatest coincidence in Canadian history, making possible the trade-off that confirmed Macdonald’s political genius. He would use the CPR to save the West, and the uprising as the opportunity to rescue the company.

      Canada’s destiny had a close shave during those two crucial days, but the connection between Riel and the railway is less dramatic than it seems. Central Canada was already aware of trouble in the West; the Montreal Gazette headlined “The Riel Rebellion” on March 25. The shootout at Duck Lake was not immediately linked to the CPR, for it was assumed that the Mounted Police and the Winnipeg militia could contain the outbreak. In any case, had the company crashed, the transcontinental railway itself would have become the property of the government, as the CPR’s chief creditor. Campbell urged that Cabinet should “face the evils which the fall of the company (if it must fall) would undoubtedly entail” rather than lend any more money. If Macdonald performed a political about-face, posing as “guardian of the country rather than the company,” Parliament would surely vote the necessary money to finish the project and the Conservative party would sidestep political disaster. Although this seemed unduly optimistic, once MPs grasped that they would have to pay for its construction anyway, they might accept another CPR bailout. Far from the bad news of March 27 producing a miraculous turnaround in attitudes to the CPR, the company was kept on life support through short-term bank loans for several months. Parliament was debating Macdonald’s Franchise Bill — denounced by the Liberals as a device to ensure that only Conservatives were added to the voters’ lists — and not until mid-June were proposals for financial aid introduced. In vain, Stephen urged “extreme urgency.” Macdonald, he concluded had “the best possible intentions” but it seemed “impossible for him to act until the last moment arrives.” “Putting off, his old sin,” Campbell called it, adding “Macdonald has lost his grasp.” But “Old Tomorrow” judged the timing right, and the necessary funding was secured in July 1885. On November 7, the two ends of the transcontinental railway were joined in the mountains of British Columbia.

      Nine days after the famous “Last Spike” completed the CPR, a metal bolt was shot back to open the trapdoor under the Regina gallows, and convicted traitor Louis Riel fell to his death. Riel’s execution still divides Canadians, and the prime minister bears chief responsibility for the political decision to confirm the death sentence passed upon the rebel leader. “If Riel is convicted he will certainly be executed,” Macdonald wrote in June. From a modern perspective, that sounds like the judicial murder of a political opponent. In the contemporary context, we should emphasize that Riel was the only person to die for his role in the uprising — although eight Aboriginal men were also hanged for a specific crime, the killing of settlers at Frog Lake, with dozens of Native people rounded up to witness the grisly mass execution. Memories of the “martyrs” of 1837 lingered in Quebec, and Macdonald knew that widespread repression would create victims and long-term wounds. He even tried to dismiss the uprising as a “mere domestic trouble” which should not “be elevated to the rank of a rebellion,” but he ruefully agreed when Lord Lansdowne objected that the episode was more than “a common riot.” “We certainly made it assume large proportions in the public eye … for our own purposes,” Macdonald admitted. Punishing Riel made it possible to exercise clemency to his followers without making the government look weak. Most rebels served only short prison sentences.

      The jury that convicted Riel also recommended mercy, an implied criticism of the government’s failure to tackle Métis grievances. Therefore, in confirming Riel’s death sentence, Macdonald was sitting in judgment on himself. There was the further complication of Riel’s mental state: if he was mad, could he be held responsible for his actions? At the last minute, the government commissioned three medical reports on Riel’s sanity — although Campbell asked how anybody could determine in November whether he had been sane the previous March. Chosen as lead investigator was Michael Lavell, warden of Kingston’s penitentiary — an appointment he owed to Macdonald. Lavell was experienced in dealing with mentally disturbed prisoners, but his medical qualifications were in obstetrics. Macdonald gave him precise but narrow instructions, and Lavell duly reported although Riel was an oddball, he had known right from wrong. Yet Riel’s continued insistence on accepting responsibility for his actions as he faced the noose surely cast doubt on his sanity. However, only one of the three doctors, the francophone F.-X. Valade, expressed doubts. Valade’s report was not only ignored but misleadingly rewritten for subsequent publication.

      Macdonald was bombarded with advice. Send Riel to an asylum and Quebec would demand his release. Fail to hang him, and Ontario would punish the Conservatives at the polls. Basically, Ontario demanded Riel’s neck for a crime for which he was never tried, the shooting of Thomas Scott. Macdonald assumed that Riel’s religious delusions would neutralize sympathy in Catholic Quebec — but any government campaign to publicize them would have strengthened the case for reprieving him as a madman. Quebec ministers believed Riel’s execution would soon be forgotten in their province. “The Riel fever will I think die out,” Macdonald wrote a month after the hanging. In fact, the “Riel fever” divided Canadians deeply and enduringly.

      It was presumably the triumph of the transcontinental railway and not the tragedy of Riel that motivated a Guelph teenager to write to Macdonald on November 18, 1885: “Take the advice of a thirteen year old Tory & resign.” Aged seventy and with his greatest work completed, surely he should have heeded Robina Stewart’s counsel? “I have done my work and can now sing my Nunc Dimittis,” he wrote, alluding to the Anglican prayer: “Lord, now lettest thy servant depart in peace.” But Macdonald had earned a lap of honour, his first and only journey through western Canada. On July 10, 1886, he quietly left Ottawa by special train for a seven-week tour, accompanied by Agnes, his secretary Joseph Pope, a tame journalist, two servants, and a police bodyguard. His wheelchair-bound daughter, Mary, came too: she was left for treatment at Banff’s hot springs while her parents travelled on to the Pacific.

      At short notice, Conservative activists gathered to hail their chief, and trackside communities organized civic welcomes. A young Tory at Winnipeg’s train station broke off cheering to comment to a friend, “Seedy-looking old beggar, isn’t he?” After a side trip through the wheatlands of southern Manitoba, “Canada’s grand old man” was greeted with “deafening cheers” at Brandon. Looking “fresh and vigorous,” Macdonald delivered “a short impromptu speech well seasoned with his native wit.” СКАЧАТЬ