On this date in 1891 76- year-old Sir John A. Macdonald of Kingston presented his final election manifesto to Canadians. He did so as part of his re-election efforts in what was the seventh federal election he participated in as his party’s leader. And for the sixth time, Canada’s greatest Prime Minister (equaled only by Sir Wilfrid Laurier), was to receive a majority mandate from Canadians.
His election manifesto recalled the success of his National Policy.
“You all know what followed,” Macdonald wrote. “Almost as if by magic, the whole face of the country underwent a change. Stagnation and apathy and gloom—ay, and want and misery too—gave place to activity and enterprise and prosperity. The miners of Nova Scotia took courage; the manufacturing industries in our great centres revived and multiplied; the farmer found a market for his produce, the artisan and labourer employment at good wages, and all Canada rejoiced under the quickening impulse of a newfound life. The age of deficits was past, and an overflowing treasury gave to the Government the means of carrying forward those great works necessary to the realization of our purpose to make this country a homogeneous whole.”
Macdonald also reminded Canadians that Canada now stretched as one from Atlantic to Pacific, thanks to his government’s completion of the CPR.
“Undeterred by the pessimistic views of our opponents—nay, in spite of their strenuous, and even malignant opposition, we pushed forward that great enterprise through the wilds north of Lake Superior, across the western prairies, over the Rocky Mountains to the shores of the Pacific, with such inflexible resolution, that, in seven years after the assumption of office by the present Administration, the dream of our public men was an accomplished fact, and I myself experienced the proud satisfaction of looking back from the steps of my car upon the Rocky Mountains fringing the eastern sky.”
While victorious in the March 1891 election, Sir John A. died shortly after his triumph, passing into history on June 6 of that year.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.