The Treachery of John A. Macdonald and His Clique

Mowat and Connor spoke also, but the chief effort was Brown's. This time there was nothing faltering or resigned about him, as he held forth on the population question and the wrongs done Upper Canada. She had 60,000 more inhabitants than Lower Canada in 1851, he proclaimed, had waited ten years under eastern domination, now had five times that lead  —  and still was denied justice! Were 300,000 westerners to remain disfranchised  —  because of the treachery of  John A. Macdonald and his clique? It was all rapturously received. In fact, Brown' s old vitality seemed to come flooding back that evening, stirred as he was by the big, excited audience.

--J.M.S. Careless, Statesman of Confederation, 1860-1880, vol. 2 of Brown of the Globe (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1989), 44.

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.

Upper Canada: Betrayed by Its Politicians and Dominated by Lower Canada

It was just one more aspect of Lower Canadian domination: the baneful consequence of a union based on equal parliamentary representation, which prevented the more populous Upper Canada from exercising its proper weight of numbers, while effectively throwing the balance of power to the close-knit French-Canadian community of Lower Canada. “Both the British and French in Lower Canada persist in ruling us,” the Globe added bitterly. The English minority in the East were in the main as guilty, since they had helped to maintain Lower Canadian ascendancy for their own commercial reasons, and ridden rough-shod over western rights. Worst of all, however, were those Upper Canadian supporters of the governing coalition, the Conservative forces led by John A. Macdonald – mere hired “sepoys” in George Brown’s opinion. For they had sold out their own community for government posts and patronage, and a share in the iniquitous régime.

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