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Essay about John A. Macdonalds National Policy

John A. Macdonald was the first Prime Minister of Canada in 1867. He was born on January 11th, 1815 in Glasgow. He moved to Upper Canada when he was at age of five along with his parents. His first major occupation was becoming a Kingston lawyer at the age of fifteen and after a few years later Macdonald possessed his own legal practice by age of nineteen. Once John A. Macdonald joined the Conservative party, he was soon elected to represent for Kingston in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada, which is currently Ontario and Quebec.

Macdonald worked very hard throughout the 1860s for Canada to enter in Confederation. John A. Macdonald established the British North America Act to make the Dominion of Canada which consisted of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario, Canada eventually entered confederation in September 1, 1867. However each province in Canada did not like the idea of Canada entering confederation so they had their own anti-confederation forces. For example, Quebec were one of the provinces that opposed the idea of Canada entering confederation.

As Prime Minister of Canada, John A. Macdonald introduced his National Policy which is composed of many different concepts that he believed was going to make Canada a better country. Macdonald’s National Policy included three components: the first was the production of the Canadian Pacific Railway; second was the high tariffs on manufactured goods; the third was the strong encouragement of immigrants to move to West Canada. John A. Macdonald’s National Policy developed many impacts that helped Canada today function as a whole. One aspect of John A. Macdonald’s National Policy was that he put high tariffs on manufactured goods.

This was a way to help protect Canadian manufacturing industries by allowing Canadians own their own market to sell their goods and trade with one another, as well as reducing their dependency on the United States. This mechanism will allow more job opportunities and if Canada wants to become a sea to sea country it will have to have its own manufacturing process. In addition, the high tariffs on the manufactured goods only favoured those that lived in central Canada such as the manufacturers in Quebec and Ontario . This caused a lot of controversy towards the conservatives at the time.

The high tariffs caused many difficulties for the individuals living in the Maritimes and in West Canada. In other words, the farmers and fishers had to pay a higher price to import their goods to sell outside of Canada. The high tariffs protected the manufactured goods but not the domestic agricultural goods. However, although the high tariffs did not have any protection towards the agricultural produce, this aspect influenced how current society functions today. For example, in today’s society, if a country were to increase its actual income then they should compose two sets of tariffs in relation to their circumstance.

One example set suggests to tax all exports and/or imports on international markets. In Canada, the tariff was argued that it reduces the Canadian incomes while reducing the skill required to enter the labour force . By changing the tariffs on the exports and or imports it will reconstruct the income towards labour increasing the industries. As a result, introducing tariffs was a good thing towards making Canada a better country because it brought in more job opportunities as well as making increasing the income of the labour force.

The production of the Canadian Pacific Railway was part of the three aspects of John A. Macdonald’s National Policy. On October 1880, a contract regarding to the production of the Canadian Pacific Railway was signed and was scheduled to start its construction on February 1881. This major project conducted by the conservatives collaborated with the Bank of Montreal which they agreed to build the Canadian Pacific Railway across “Northern Ontario from Callander (near North Bay) to Port Arthur and fro Winnipeg to Kamloops”.

However, they had to agree with the monopoly clause where no other competing continental railway was to be built until the 1900s. The final route for the CPR that was chosen was to be built alone was through “Pile O’Bones Creek (Regina), Swift Current, Fort Calgary, and the Kicking Horse Pass”. There were many reason why they wanted to build it more towards the south. One reason was that they were afraid that farmers settled in the south Prairies would use the American Northern Pacific Railway instead of the Canadian Railway.

In other words, if the CPR is build closer towards to the Canadian settlers they would choose to use the CPR. Another reason was that coal was discovered near the southern part of Canada near Lethbridge which could be an advantage for the Canadian Pacific Railway owners because they can have access to the coal and use it as a source of fuel. Once they agreed on the route of the CPR, the production began right away. During the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railways it attracted many Chinese citizens to immigrate to Canada to potentially live a better live.

The Canadian Pacific Railway was thought be a necessary politically and commercial phenomenon, with the sense that it would increase the economic development of the country. Which in this sense it did achieve its goal in improving Canada’s economic development by charging people when they choose to use the railway. There was a number of people involved in the production of the Canadian Pacific Railway, for example, Van Horne. He was an American engineer that was hired to be responsible for the production of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the Prairies .

Van Horne’s production of the Canadian Pacific Railway went progressive rapid, his construction team had approximately 5000 workers and 1700 horses which led to completing 800 kilometers per track within a year. The supplies for building the Canadian Pacific Railway eventually came to a limit, and Van Horne replied “If we haven’t got enough, we’ll get more”. Due to this situation, it was estimated that by April 26, 1884, $55 million of the CPR stock had netted the Commercial and Financial Chronicle company only $25,236,828 cash related against the construction cost.

In addition, Andrew Onderdonk was also hired to supervise the production of the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia. Due to the lack of white workers, Onderdonk hired Chinese workers to help decrease the lack of labourers. The Chinese labourers travelled from Hong Kong to Victoria, which took approximately 35 days in normal weather conditions. These Chinese workers imagined to have a good life since they will be working in Canada instead of suffering in their own poorly developed country. In addition, depending upon how the ship is, the mood of the captain and the crew the cost of one trip would be approximately 15 to 20 dollars.

While travelling on the ship, their die consist of rice, dried fish and preserved cabbage . Once the Chinese workers arrived, they were assigned very dangerous job such as tunnelling and handling explosives while getting paid very little . Andrew Onderdonk stated himself that he believed at least three Chinese workers died per kilometer. Once the production of the Canadian Pacific Railway was finished, the Chinese workers were left stranded with no jobs and no money to get back home. This period was most heart breaking for those who died during the production of the CPR and for those that were left abandoned.

By 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway finished its production. This project led to many benefits towards Canada today. This allowed many settlers in Canada to travel around the country in short periods of time. Once the railway developed more new technologies started to get introduced because people from around the world were settling in Canada due to the new transportation. This influenced how Canada structured its transportation plans by developing new and faster ways to travel such as the invention of cars and roads.

This evolution became involved in technologies to travel around the world, ships soon became ferries, and instead of travelling on water, airplanes were invented for a more efficient way of travelling. During the 1896 to 1914, about one million Europeans immigrated to Canada due to John A. Macdonald’s National Policy. British immigrants came mostly on their own interest, about 80,000 “Home Children” immigrated to Canada to work as a farmer or as servants. Majority of the British immigrants did not have any troubles adapting to a new country because they already knew English and their cultures were fairly similar.

However, not all the British settlers were welcomed by Canadians, such as those upper class Englishmen refused to fit into the Canadian society, and some of those individuals had no experience working on farms. In addition, Canada welcomed and preferred the American immigrants rather than the British settlers because they were skill farmers. They both shared similar cultures as well and those who decided to move to Canada sold their property in the United States for a high price and brought new ones in Canada for a lower price.

This helped Canada achieve multiculturalism today by how accepting and welcoming Canada is towards those that want to immigrate here. The immigration policy fulfills an important function in containing a balanced world system. Where it is important to learn and accept what other people value towards life. The origin of the National Policy was created by John A. Macdonald. He was our first Prime Minister of Canada in 1867. He moved to Upper Canada when he was just a young boy, and was soon elected to be a part of the Conservative Party.

He worked very hard to get Canada into Confederation and in addition he established the British North American Act to make Canada one union. This act included New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario which all eventually entered confederation on September 1, 1867. The National Policy had three parts and helped shape Canada as it is today. The first was putting high tariffs on manufactured goods. This allowed Canada to have more job opportunities to those that needed jobs to support their family. It was suggested that the have protective tariffs helped increase the income of many occupations.

In addition, it also allowed more jobs that required less skill and education for individuals that wanted to enter the labour force. The second component of the National Policy included the production of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This project led to many difficult situations that John A. Macdonald as well as the other people involved in this project. For example, the Chinese workers that risks their lives building the railway in extremely dangerous working conditions with very little income. It was estimated that the Canadian Pacific Railway costed approximately more than $55 million to complete.

However, with the development of the CPR, it influenced new technologies to improve the transportation methods today by making travelling faster and more efficient. Lastly, John A. Macdonald’s National Policy allowed many immigrants from the European countries to settle in Canada. Not all immigrants imagined to live life in Canada where agriculture and trading were the top methods of maintaining your income. However, this allowed Canada to become one of the top multicultural countries today. Our country learnt to accept and respect what other country’s culture value in living life.

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