Anti-Confederation Party

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Anti-Confederation Party was the name of several political parties in the Atlantic provinces of Canada that opposed joining the Canadian Confederation in the 1860s . While the movement in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia was unsuccessful, the Newfoundland colony remained independent for another eight decades.

Nova Scotia

In Nova Scotia the "anti-confederationists" were led by Joseph Howe . They tried to reverse Parliament's decision to join the confederation. The accession was initially highly controversial among the population: the prevailing opinion was that Nova Scotia, due to its location by the sea, had far closer ties to the United Kingdom and New England . Turning to areas in the interior of the continent makes little sense, especially from an economic point of view.

In 1867 this group won 36 out of 38 seats in the election to the Nova Scotia House of Representatives and formed the government under William Annand . In the general election in 1867 , 18 of the 19 seats went to opponents of the Confederation. However, the UK was unwilling to accept the secession of Nova Scotia and insisted on the merger. Howe gave in to British pressure and soon after was given a ministerial post in John Macdonald's federal government, which led to the collapse of the movement.

New Brunswick

At the head of the movement in New Brunswick was Albert James Smith , whose coalition of conservatives and reformers won the election to the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly in 1865 . Only a year later, however, she suffered a crushing defeat against the Confederation Party of Peter Mitchell . Thereupon the parliament accepted the accession to the confederation with 38 to 1 votes.

While in Nova Scotia and elsewhere the supporters of the Confederation were mostly Conservatives and the opponents predominantly Liberals, in New Brunswick the break went through both political camps. Both Smith and Mitchell were Conservatives, while the Liberal Samuel Leonard Tilley was a prominent proponent and later joined John Macdonald's federal cabinet. In 1870 the Anti-Confederation Party and the Confederation Party disbanded and were replaced by the original Liberal and Conservative parties.

Newfoundland

In Newfoundland, businessman Charles Fox Bennett , one of the island's richest residents, led the opponents of accession. Opposition to accession was always very strong: Newfoundland was not invited to the Charlottetown Conference in 1864 and only observers without a negotiating mandate were sent to the Québec Conference in the same year. When the Anti-Confederation Party won the election in 1869, joining was definitely no longer an option and Newfoundland remained a British colony. It was not until 1949 that the Dominion Newfoundland joined the Confederation after a protracted political and economic crisis.

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