In any event, colonization and the grant of lands were provincial matters.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
For our immediate family and relatives, Canada was a land of opportunity.
The lands granted were in the occupancy of savages and situated in a wilderness, of which the government had never taken possession, and of which it could not with its own citizens ever have taken possession.
Each colony became accustomed to planting new settlements and to claiming new boundaries.
In government as well as in trade a new era came to the colonies in 1763.
Sovereignty was not an issue in this campaign. The sovereignty numbers that were there before the campaign are still there. Sovereignty is as alive as it was. But there is work to do to convince Quebecers.
Is it not evident that the Canadas, as well as the other colonies, have been left in a great measure to grope their way as they could through the darkness which surrounds them, almost totally unaided by the parent state?
There is not an example on record of any free state holding a province of the same extent and population without disastrous consequences. The nations conquered and held as a province have, in time, retaliated by destroying the liberty of their conquerors through the corrupting effect of extended patronage and irresponsible power.
I think there are patterns of the aftermath of colonization that you see echoed in cultures and communities across the world.
Remember the referendum on the Charlottetown constitutional accord? The more Canada's political and business elites threatened Canadians that the country would disappear into a black hole if the accord weren't passed, the more Canadians opposed it.
True, some land was bought by a few Cabinet Ministers. They bought the land. No minister, to my knowledge acquired land which was meant for resettlement.