5 June 2005
Pacific Railway
Scandal
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William Smith later called Amor
de Cosmos was a politician, journalist and one of the architects of B.C.'s entry into Confederation -
National Archives of Canada.
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When Manitoba entered
Confederation in 1870, British Columbia was still an isolated British colony on the West Coast. In
March 1867, the United States had bought Alaska leaving British Columbia hemmed in by the Americans
to the north and south, with the Rocky Mountains to the east.
The Americans had proposed that B.C. be given to them as settlement of claims against Britain arising
from the Civil War but Britain had refused.
British Columbia felt isolated and detached, a colony still sparsely settled.
One man who argued for Confederation with Canada was Amor de Cosmos, a Nova Scotian who had come to
Victoria on Vancouver Island in 1858 by way of California. De Cosmos, whose original name was
William Smith, founded a newspaper, the British Colonist. In 1863, he was elected to the Vancouver
assembly (the island and mainland B.C. were separate colonies until 1866) and became the Leader of
the Opposition.
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George Etienne Cartier said
Canada would build a railway to the Pacific if British Columbia joined confederation - National
Archives of Canada.
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His support for joining Canada put Cosmos at odds with the colony's elite, who still preferred the
British connection. But by 1869, the British government was taking an active role in prodding British
Columbia toward union with Canada. The mainland colony's new governor, Sir Anthony Musgrave, was
appointed with instructions to make Confederation happen.
In 1870, a delegation from British Columbia went to Ottawa to negotiate terms and made the modest yet
wildly impractical demand that a wagon road be built from Lake Superior to the Pacific.
Ottawa's negotiator, George Etienne Cartier, surprised the B.C. group by offering them a railway
instead. Construction would begin within two years and be completed in ten years. Cartier also agreed
to take over the colony's considerable debt of almost $1.5 million and provide an annual subsidy of
$216,000.
With little regard for the claims of the Indian nations, British Columbia entered Confederation in
1871. In the following year, Amor de Cosmos became Premier.
Now Canada was a nation that reached from sea to sea. Ahead was the monumental task of building a
railway that ran across the continent.
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