Clifford Sifton

Clifford Sifton

Clifford Sifton PC (born March 10, 1861 in Middlesex County , Canada West, today: Ontario ; † April 17, 1929 ) was a Canadian politician of the Liberal Party of Canada , who was a member of the House of Commons for 14 years and a minister in the 8th Canadian Cabinet of Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier was. As Minister of the Interior and General Superintendent for Indian Affairs, he was instrumental in Canada's immigration and settlement policy between 1896 and 1905.

Life

Lawyer, MP and Minister in Manitoba

Map of Lake Winnipeg, 1878

Sifton was a son of John Wright Sifton , who was a member of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly between 1878 and 1886 . His older brother Arthur Sifton was Prime Minister of the Province of Alberta and Chairman of the Alberta Liberal Party from May 26, 1910 to October 30, 1917 , then Federal Minister several times and most recently from December 1919 until his death in January 1921 Canada's Foreign Minister.

Clifford Sifton himself, like his brother, graduated from school with a law degree and then worked as a lawyer .

He began his political career as a candidate for the Manitoba Liberal Party on July 11, 1888, was also elected a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and represented the constituency of Brandon North until November 17, 1896 . During this time he served from May 14, 1891 to November 17, 1896 as Attorney General and Minister of Education in the government of Manitoba formed by Prime Minister Thomas Greenway . At the same time he was between May 15, 1891 and October 7, 1896 Land Commissioner of Manitoba.

In this capacity he supported the plans that had existed since 1871 to move tribes like the Peguis Band from areas like today's Hecla-Grindstone Provincial Park to a reservation to make way for white settlers. The so-called numbered treaties, such as Contract No. 5 of September 1875, which was relevant for the groups on Lake Winnipeg , served this purpose.However, this was not only based on settlement interests such as those pursued by the Canadian government, but also a group of investors from the ranks of the Methodist community , such as John Schultz or Donald Smith.

Member of the House of Commons and Federal Minister

Sifton's wife, Elizabeth Armanella Burrows, was a sister of the entrepreneur and politician Theodore Arthur Burrows

After leaving the government and the legislative assembly of Manitoba, Sifton switched to federal politics and was appointed Minister of the Interior and Superintendent General for Indian Affairs in the 8th Canadian Cabinet by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier on November 17, 1896, and held this office until February 28, 1905 .

He was elected to the House of Commons for the first time ten days after his appointment as minister on November 27, 1896 in a by-election in the Brandon constituency in Manitoba and was a member of the House of Commons for almost 15 years until the House of Commons election on September 21, 1911 , after the its seat fell to James Albert Manning Aikins . In the general election on November 7, 1900 , Hugh John Macdonald was the former Home Secretary of the Conservative Party of Canada . The son of the first Canadian Prime Minister, John Macdonald, was previously Prime Minister of Manitoba. The tactics devised by the conservative federal party failed because Macdonald was clearly defeated. Thereupon he withdrew from politics.

As Minister of the Interior and General Superintendent, he took over James Andrew Joseph McKenna from his predecessor Hugh John Macdonald as private secretary in 1897 and increasingly entrusted him with the negotiations with British Columbia in connection with the railway construction and the Indians affected by it . McKenna was subsequently promoted by Sifton and appointed as a representative of Indian Commissioner David Laird as Assistant Indian Commissioner and Chief Inspector of Indian Agencies in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, based in Winnipeg . In addition, during his tenure there was the Klondike gold rush and the associated deaths due to the grueling trips. In the course of the Klondike gold rush, which at times lured over 100,000 people to the region, the Yukon Territory was separated from the Northwest Territories in 1898 ; a police force tried to control the development and set up border guards. A policy of proselytizing and segregation was adopted towards the Indians . In 1905 the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were founded .

Canada, especially since Wilfrid Laurier , encouraged massive immigration to the rural regions that had been taken from the Indians by enforced contracts . Sifton himself not only promoted British rural immigration, but also that from the USA. After the success of the first film tour of the Canadian filmmaker pioneer James Freer in the United Kingdom, Sir Clifford Sifton sponsored the second tour as he was a keen supporter of immigration to the Canadian west, especially from English-speaking countries. Only behind were French, Belgians, Dutch, Scandinavians, Swiss, Finns, Russians, immigrants from Austria-Hungary, Germans, Ukrainians and Poles. As Home Secretary, he worked closely with the Canadian High Commissioner in the United Kingdom Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal to relax immigration regulations and thereby facilitate the settlement of Eastern Europeans on the Canadian prairies .

Sifton was married to Elizabeth Armanella Burrows, a sister of the entrepreneur Theodore Arthur Burrows , who was also a member of the House of Commons between 1904 and 1908 and vice governor of Manitoba between 1926 and his death in 1929 .

literature

• David J. Hall: Clifford Sifton and Canadian Indian Administration 1896-1905, in Ian AL Getty, Antoine S. Lussier eds . : As long as the sun shines and water fLows. A reader in Canadian native studies. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver 1983, pp. 120-144

Web links

• Clifford Sifton - biographical information on the website of the Canadian Parliament (English)
• Canadian Ministries at rulers.org

Individual evidence

1. ^ Treaty 5 between Her Majesty the Queen and the Saulteaux and Swampy Cree Tribes of Indians at Beren's River and Norway House with Adhesions .

predecessor	Office	successor
Hugh John Macdonald	Canadian Minister of the Interior 1896–1905	Frank Oliver