The Canadian Union Must Be Changed to a Federal Form Because Lower Canada Oppresses Upper Canada

To Brown and his journal, the failure to open the North West was only a further sign of the power of Lower Canada over the present Canadian union. It was only part of a malign  pattern of politics that imposed high tariffs, compensation for French-Canadian seigneurial rights, ruinous Grand Trunk railway bills, separate-school measures  --  and always the reign of extravagance and venality  --  on an Upper Canadian majority in complete defiance of its will. The whole thing was insufferable! The union must be changed! Changed to a federal form that would give each Canada a government of its own to look after its essential interests, while leaving matters of joint concern to a central authority. 

--J.M.S. Careless, Statesman of Confederation, 1860-1880, vol. 2 of Brown of the Globe (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1989), 9-10.