Reformers, with the remainder probably dividing to give a narrow margin of support to the government.50 Moreover, Mowat and Wilson had both been returned in their old ridings of South Ontario and North York, each having run in two constituencies; and other prominent Liberals, such as McDougall, Howland, Connor, Foley, and Sandfield Macdonald, were safely back. It was worthy of comment, besides, that George Brown’s old lieutenant in Lambton County, the faithful Alexander Mackenzie, had now won entrance to parliament, replacing his brother Hope for Lambton when ill-health forced the latter to retire.
Nevertheless, the Grit Liberals had not only failed to increase their power in parliament, but also lost their clear majority of Upper Canada’s seats. What had caused the set-back? To some extent, the same things that had worked to defeat their leader personally: the failure to achieve Reform policies since 1858, the damaging disputes in the party in 1860, and Brown’s own inability to give leadership in 1861. Then the Reform thrust for rep by pop had lost some of its efficacy, since the government had made it an “open” question in the election, thus enabling individual western Conservative candidates to advocate it for themselves, even if their cabinet leaders did not. But finally, the Grits in the last session had presented the ministry with a splendid stick to use against their own heads – and used it was, to the full. It had been William McDougall’s doing, once again too quick in his own cock-sure cleverness for the good of his party.
Carried away by a need for emphasis during the debate on rep by pop, McDougall had darkly warned that Upper Canadians had waited ten years for justice, and would not wait another ten. They might “look below the border for relief”.51 The government benches had been shocked, too horribly shocked to accept any explanations for the remark. Why spoil a good thing? It was ideal for elections, as John A. Macdonald saw. He informed Egerton Ryerson, just before the campaign began: “The cry is ‘Union’, ‘No looking to Washington’, and ‘University Reform’.”52 Here was something for everybody, even for the disgruntled Methodist supporters of Victoria College. And “No looking to Washington”, loudly reiterated, effectively blackened the Reform crusade for Upper Canada’s rights, whether it made sense or not. Besides, the appeal to British loyalty overrode any lingering Orange resentments of the ministry left over from the Prince’s visit. That University Reform was even emptier of meaning, of course, was neither here nor there.53 The point was, the slogans worked.
And so the Liberal-Conservatives checked the trend towards the steady increase of Reform power in Upper Canada – temporarily, as it turned out. In Lower Canada, however, the elections had been far less favourable to the Coalition forces. If giving a nod to rep by pop had won the Liberal-Conservatives votes in the West, it had lost them votes in the East, where French Canadians, facing the stark facts of the census, dreaded the least concession to a principle that would inevitably swamp them.54 Cartier’s powerful block of Bleus had shrunk from forty-eight to some thirty-five, and the regular Lower Canadian opposition had gone up from fifteen to twenty-six or so.55 Yet this did not mean that the Rouges had been greatly strengthened thereby. Dorion himself had been defeated, though McGee was safe. No, eastern Reformers who had been associated, however loosely, with a western party that demanded rep by pop had not done well in a keenly anxious French Canada, determined to defend race, language, and religion.
Instead, it was moderate Liberals and dissentient Bleus who had swelled the eastern opposition: men dissatisfied with Cartier’s leadership, not by any means because they would concede representation by population, but because they feared lest Cartier’s own bold but intransigent conduct might actually point the way to that disaster.56 His typical response to debate on the representation question had been to settle it with big battalions. His classic contemptuous answer to vexing opposition attacks – “call in the members” – wholly expressed his own forthright fighting spirit. But some Lower Canadians had apparently come to feel that this stark exemplification of the power of eastern votes would ultimately unite the whole West in anger, until the demand for rep by pop could no longer be resisted. During the last session, in fact, McDougall had noted the growth of discontent with Cartier in French-speaking circles, and reported it to Brown.57 One likely focus for it might be Louis Victor Sicotte, a prominent if crotchety oppositionist who had once been a Rouge, was then a Coalition minister, and now might best be termed a moderate Liberal of a shimmering shade of mauve.
All in all, if Brown and his friends had not triumphed in the election, then neither had Macdonald and Cartier. They were in office still; they had an over-all majority. But their failure to win decisively in Upper Canada, their crumbling position in Lower, meant that the movement of only a few of their more uncertain supporters into opposition could bring the Coalition crashing down at last. With this in mind, accordingly, and at the behest of his own followers, George Brown made certain political inquiries of Dorion by letter, shortly after the elections closed in mid-July. Neither man would be in the next House. They had each refused to take other “safe” seats offered them. Yet they were still the Liberal leaders for the present, and hence conducted the negotiations.
The western captain carefully outlined the Upper Canadian balance of seats as it now appeared, and asked Dorion for a similar assessment of the situation in Lower Canada. Could a common opposition policy be adopted, one that could swing over the uncertain quantities in the Assembly by its very display of unity – and thus turn out the ministry? To secure a solid western following, there was really only one line such a policy could take: reform of the representative system. “The Upper Canada Reformers,” Brown noted, “can enter no government that is not pledged to take up this question with the sincere determination of framing a measure that, while assuring justice to the 300,000 unrepresented people of U.C., will at the same time protect your countrymen from that interference with their local matters so much dreaded or affected to be dreaded.”58
Dorion sent back both a personal letter and an official party answer. The first was a friendly return to Brown’s own private covering note. The second was a flat rejection of the western leader’s proposal for the renewal of Reform unity. “The great and perhaps only difficulty in the way of that united party,” he asserted formally, “is, as you are aware, the question of representation. There is no party in Lower Canada who while in opposition could attempt to submit a proposition or agree to a plan for the settlement of this question on a basis which would meet the views of the Upper Canada majority without completely destroying itself as a party. The difficulties are now much greater than they were in 1858.”59 In other words, the results of the census had hardened Lower Canadian opinion far beyond the time of the Brown-Dorion administration, when that government had actually combined the leaders of both sections of Liberalism behind an agreement on rep by pop. Furthermore, as Dorion went on to observe, the Coalition ministers were now claiming in Lower Canada that they had beaten the evil scheme, and that it surely would be abandoned. “I can well conceive the advantages of having an opposition united on all questions of public policy,” he concluded, “but with the present feeling in Lower Canada the difficulties appear to be insuperable.”60
The Rouge leader’s personal letter in no way differed from this unhopeful stand; but the comments he added were illuminating. Brown had privately urged him to re-enter the House, even to take the Upper Canadian seat of North Waterloo – one of two constituencies won by Foley.61 But the calm, perceptive Dorion had no intention of seeking a place in this new parliament. He expected no good from it. For, if the existing government fell, some other attempt at meaningless coalition would only follow; and then, as he said, “failure and confusion until the parties are thoroughly reorganized through another appeal to the people”.62 It was wise to stay outside until the current tendencies had played themselves out. “This parliament will not last long, and it is better for us that the moderates of all shades should try their hands, in order that the country should be convinced of their incompetency to settle the difficulties accumulated by seven years of mismanagement.”63
Here was shrewd prediction and advice, a sound answer to Brown’s gesture for Liberal unity. The time was not right. The next period properly belonged to moderates
