CPR Perspective


Klancher perspective on CPR and Rebellion
Troubles in the North West were magnified to suit the political agenda of the Federal Government. Prime Minister Macdonald dreamed of a railroad across Canada but the Canadian Pacific Railway (C.P.R.) was bankrupt. Macdonald had pressured parliament into lending the C.P.R. $20,000,000 in 1884, but it was not enough. More money was needed but the Canadian public and Parliament were sick of the C.P.R. fiasco; the bribery, corruption, gifts and loans. The day of decision came on March 26, 1885, the same day as the Battle of Duck Lake. George Stephen, a leading merchant of Montreal and a principle financier of the C.P.R., wrote to Macdonald. "The result of our conversation this morning has satisfied me that the government will not be able to see its way to extend to the C.P.R. Company the [financial] aid it requires ..." The C.P.R. was dead unless Parliament could be convinced to lend more money. When word of the Battle of Duck Lake reached Ottawa, Macdonald took little time to realize that if he could magnify the skirmish into major proportions and present the relatively minor troubles to Canadians as a major rebellion and Indian uprising, he may be able to scare Parliament into advancing the money to complete the C.P.R. Macdonald went into action, the army was called up and the resources of Canada had to be transported down an incomplete railroad. Suddenly, money could be found! Several months later, Macdonald admitted he had committed this unbelievable act of political opportunism. On August 28, 1885 he wrote Governor-General Lansdowne and stated, in part, that "... this Northwest outbreak was a mere domestic trouble and ought not be elevated to the rank of rebellion". Lansdowne, in a confidential letter to Macdonald on August 31, 1885 , stated that "You regard the recent outbreak in the N.W. as merely `domestic trouble' which should not be elevated to the rank of rebellion ..- but I am afraid we, all of us, have been doing what we could to elevate it to the rank of a rebellion, and with so much success that we cannot now reduce it to the rank of a common riot". On September 3, Macdonald replied "I fear that you have me with respect to the character of the outbreak. We have certainly made it assume large proportions in the public eye. This has been done however for our own purposes, and I think wisely done. Still it was a rising within a limited area and was confined to a small number of persons. It never endangered the safety of the state, nor did it involve international complications". In the early days of the uprising, former NWMP Inspector J. M. Walsh was interviewed and his opinions were sought with regard to the cause and suppression of it. He stated: When the first news of the Half-breed rising was received my opinion was asked as to its result. I replied then that there would not be a shot fired. I was led to this conclusion by two reasons. 1st. I did not believe that the Half-breeds wanted to spill any blood. They felt they had a grievance and desired to make some demonstration which would attract the attention of the Government and the people of Canada, with the hope that it might lead to their redress, but they never anticipated such a serious result as has been developed. I could not and do not now believe that the Half-breeds wanted war. 2nd I did not think any official of the Government would be so lost to reason as to take the responsibility of bringing on a war and driving the country into such a state of excitement as now exists until every resource in his possession or power was exhausted ... I think a commission should have been sent out long ago, but that it has been neglected so long is no reason why it should not be sent at once. What great credit would it be to Canada to kill a few poor Half-breeds who feel they have been neglected? Don't forget that these people have the hearty sympathy of all the white settlers in their district. Do you suppose if the white settlers had the grievances the Half-breeds have, that they would not have made a disturbance? and in case they did, who is the man in Canada who would cry out against sending a commission to treat with them? These people are not rebels, they are but demanding justice. " The whole dispute at Batoche," wrote GT. Dennison in 1900, "was over some 40,000 or 50,000 acres of land, in a wilderness of tens of millions of acres, for which the Government were crying for settlers. It cost Canada the lives of two hundred of her people, the wounding of many others, the expenditure of about $6,000,000 in cash, and the losses of time and business that cannot be estimated. When it was all over the Government offered free, to the volunteers, 1,800,000 acres of the land if they wanted it to settle on, and yet the whole dispute was mainly about some red tape regulations as to surveying some forty or fifty thousand acres of land on which the people were already settled. It is not often a country suffers so severely and so unnecessarily." p. 13-15 from "North West Mounted Police and the North West Rebellion" by Donald Klancher.

Klancher perspective on CPR and Rebellion

Troubles in the North West were magnified to suit the political agenda of the Federal Government. Prime Minister Macdonald dreamed of a railroad across Canada but the Canadian Pacific Railway (C.P.R.) was bankrupt. Macdonald had pressured parliament into lending the C.P.R. $20,000,000 in 1884, but it was not enough. More money was needed but the Canadian public and Parliament were sick of the C.P.R. fiasco; the bribery, corruption, gifts and loans. The day of decision came on March 26, 1885, the same day as the Battle of Duck Lake. George Stephen, a leading merchant of Montreal and a principle financier of the C.P.R., wrote to Macdonald. "The result of our conversation this morning has satisfied me that the government will not be able to see its way to extend to the C.P.R. Company the [financial] aid it requires ..." The C.P.R. was dead unless Parliament could be convinced to lend more money.

When word of the Battle of Duck Lake reached Ottawa, Macdonald took little time to realize that if he could magnify the skirmish into major proportions and present the relatively minor troubles to Canadians as a major rebellion and Indian uprising, he may be able to scare Parliament into advancing the money to complete the C.P.R. Macdonald went into action, the army was called up and the resources of Canada had to be transported down an incomplete railroad. Suddenly, money could be found!

Several months later, Macdonald admitted he had committed this unbelievable act of political opportunism. On August 28, 1885 he wrote Governor-General Lansdowne and stated, in part, that "... this Northwest outbreak was a mere domestic trouble and ought not be elevated to the rank of rebellion". Lansdowne, in a confidential letter to Macdonald on August 31, 1885 , stated that "You regard the recent outbreak in the N.W. as merely `domestic trouble' which should not be elevated to the rank of rebellion ..- but I am afraid we, all of us, have been doing what we could to elevate it to the rank of a rebellion, and with so much success that we cannot now reduce it to the rank of a common riot". On September 3, Macdonald replied "I fear that you have me with respect to the character of the outbreak. We have certainly made it assume large proportions in the public eye. This has been done however for our own purposes, and I think wisely done. Still it was a rising within a limited area and was confined to a small number of persons. It never endangered the safety of the state, nor did it involve international complications".

In the early days of the uprising, former NWMP Inspector J. M. Walsh was interviewed and his opinions were sought with regard to the cause and suppression of it. He stated:

When the first news of the Half-breed rising was received my opinion was asked as to its result. I replied then that there would not be a shot fired. I was led to this conclusion by two reasons. 1st. I did not believe that the Half-breeds wanted to spill any blood. They felt they had a grievance and desired to make some demonstration which would attract the attention of the Government and the people of Canada, with the hope that it might lead to their redress, but they never anticipated such a serious result as has been developed. I could not and do not now believe that the Half-breeds wanted war. 2nd I did not think any official of the Government would be so lost to reason as to take the responsibility of bringing on a war and driving the country into such a state of excitement as now exists until every resource in his possession or power was exhausted ...

I think a commission should have been sent out long ago, but that it has been neglected so long is no reason why it should not be sent at once. What great credit would it be to Canada to kill a few poor Half-breeds who feel they have been neglected? Don't forget that these people have the hearty sympathy of all the white settlers in their district. Do you suppose if the white settlers had the grievances the Half-breeds have, that they would not have made a disturbance? and in case they did, who is the man in Canada who would cry out against sending a commission to treat with them? These people are not rebels, they are but demanding justice.

" The whole dispute at Batoche," wrote GT. Dennison in 1900, "was over some 40,000 or 50,000 acres of land, in a wilderness of tens of millions of acres, for which the Government were crying for settlers. It cost Canada the lives of two hundred of her people, the wounding of many others, the expenditure of about $6,000,000 in cash, and the losses of time and business that cannot be estimated. When it was all over the Government offered free, to the volunteers, 1,800,000 acres of the land if they wanted it to settle on, and yet the whole dispute was mainly about some red tape regulations as to surveying some forty or fifty thousand acres of land on which the people were already settled. It is not often a country suffers so severely and so unnecessarily."

p. 13-15 from "North West Mounted Police and the North West Rebellion" by Donald Klancher.