rejected. The Chief Justice said, “he seems to have had in view, while professing to champion the interests of the Métis, the securing of pecuniary advantage for himself.” Six jurors of English and Protestant stock convicted him of treason and Judge Hugh Richardson handed down the sentence of death by hanging. One of the jurors later remarked that the conviction might easily have been connected with the murder of Thomas Scott.
Macdonald was unmoved by pleas for clemency for Riel from French Canada, writing to the governor general: “I don’t think that we should by a respite anticipate—and as it were court—the interference of the Judicial Committee.” In other words, Macdonald did not want his government to intervene in a judicial matter, hardly a surprising statement for an elected official.
However, just as the last spike was about to be driven on the national railway, a solitary moment of great triumph, Macdonald’s government was besieged by division in his party and in the country over the fate of Riel. In response, Macdonald launched an inquiry into the state of Riel’s mental condition. A commission of three doctors, two English and one French, was asked to report on Riel’s current mental state. In issuing instructions to the commission, Macdonald was very precise: “Remember that the jury have decided that he was sane when his treasons were committed, and at the time of his trial. . . . I need scarcely point out to you that the inquiry is not as to whether Riel is subject to illusions or delusions but whether he is so bereft of reason as not to know right from wrong and is not to be an accountable being.”
The report of the commission concluded that Riel was accountable for his actions. In a letter to Macdonald, one commissioner, Dr. Jukes, added that Riel was “a vain ambitious man, crafty and cunning, with powers in a marked degree to incite weak men to desperate deeds. He seeks his own aggrandizement, and in my opinion, if he can attain his own ends, will care little for his followers.” Dr. Lavell was of the same opinion. The French commissioner, Dr. F.X. Valade, disagreed: “I have come to the conclusions that he is not an accountable being, that he is unable to distinguish between wrong and right on political and religious subjects, which I consider well-marked typical forms of insanity under which he undoubtedly suffers, but on other points I believe him to be sensible and can distinguish right from wrong.”
At its meeting on Wednesday November 11, the Cabinet confirmed that it would allow the verdict of the court to stand and would not pardon Riel or commute the sentence. In response, 19 Québec MPs telegraphed Macdonald to express their disapproval and disappointment.
In one of the more monumental underestimations in Canadian political history, Macdonald thought that the aftermath to the Riel execution would be short-lived: “He shall hang though every dog in Québec will bark in his favour.” Macdonald tried to reassure his French-Canadian supporters: “Keep calm resolute attitude—all will come right. . . . we are in for lively times in Québec, but I feel pretty confident that the excitement will die out.” Macdonald’s assessment was that a megalomaniac seeking financial gain for himself could hardly command a sustained following. Riel was hanged on November 16, 1885.
The reaction astonished Macdonald. As if he himself had convicted, sentenced, and pulled the lever of the gallows, Macdonald was referred to, particularly in Québec, as the prime minister of a “hangman’s government.” Riel was cast as a Christian martyr, sacrificed to Orange fanaticism. Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier inflamed the bitter feelings by claiming that had he lived on the banks of the Saskatchewan River, he would have taken up a rifle against the Canadian government. However, Laurier’s siding with Riel revealed a rift among Liberals, particularly between Laurier and his Ontario colleagues, who had no common ground with Riel. The Liberal predicament was similar to the one Macdonald faced: commute Riel’s sentence and face outrage in Ontario; allow the execution and face fury in Québec.
The Québec legislature took Riel’s side when the question of his execution came up for debate in May of 1886. The challenge of being both a French Canadian and a Conservative was overwhelming to most Quebecers. Giving expression to Québec resentment was a new political party, “le parti national.” Called by the Mail newspaper “the party of race and revenge,” it was the first political party formed along the lines of race. French Québec was distressed not just with the Conservatives, but also by being in Canada.
Macdonald’s trouble with national unity went further than Québec. Because of a weak economy, declining federal subsidies, and cutbacks in shipbuilding, the popular view among Nova Scotians was that they had made a mistake in joining Canada. On May 7, 1886, W.S. Fielding, the Liberal leader, proposed a resolution in the Nova Scotia legislature for the repeal of the Union and a referendum on the matter. The resolution passed with a clear majority. Macdonald interpreted Nova Scotia’s dissatisfaction as, once again, a plea for “better terms,” what he called blackmail.
Despite the distress in Nova Scotia and Québec, however, Macdonald once again set his sights on expansion. He now had his intercontinental railway, but Canada, in his view, was not whole. “The Dominion cannot be considered complete without Newfoundland. It has the key to our front door.” This lock, however, he was unable to open.
A dispute with the united states over trade and fishing erupted in 1886 with the seizure of an American fishing schooner, the David J. Adams, from Digby Harbour in Nova Scotia. The boat entered Canadian waters to buy ice and bait. A recent federal law permitted entry only for the purpose of acquiring wood, water, shelter, and repairs, and “for no other purposes whatever.” It seems peculiar and excessively nationalistic to deny a foreigner the opportunity to give Canadians money for what they regularly sold, but such was the sentiment of the day.
The Americans were understandably outraged. The Colonial Office initially sided with the Americans and set aside the Canadian law, which represented a humiliating setback for the Canadian government in its quest for independence. However, not long after, Macdonald persuaded the Imperial Government to consent to the Canadian bill and commit the Royal Navy to protect the Canadian fisheries.
A Québec provincial election was scheduled for October 14, 1886, the first time since Riel’s execution that French-speaking voters would go to the polls. The provincial Conservatives lost the election—but barely—taking 29 of 65 seats. Macdonald realized that his ability to sustain a national coalition depended on keeping Conservative forces alive and vibrant in Québec. “The triumph of the Rouges over the corpse of Riel changes the aspect of affairs
...of the Dominion government completely. It will encourage the Grits and opposition generally; will dispirit our friends, and will, I fear, carry the country against us at the general election.”
This gloomy prediction was partly influenced by the strong hand that Liberal Premier Oliver Mowat had in Ontario. But if there was any consolation in Québec, it was that Conservatives remained numerous in the legislature. It was far from a rout.
In Manitoba, the provincial government opposed the railway monopoly given to Canadian Pacific. Macdonald held firm. He was not about to allow his rail line to bleed into the United States. When the Manitoba government rebelled and passed legislation in 1887 creating its own competing Red River Valley Railway, an incensed Macdonald thundered to its Lieutenant Governor James Cox Aikins: “Your bankrupt population at Winnipeg must be taught a lesson, even if some of them are brought down to trial at Toronto for sedition.” He elaborated on his frustration to his colleagues: “When you reflect on the legislature of 35 members, with a population of 110,000, coolly devoting a million of dollars to build a railway from Winnipeg to the frontier, between two lines owned by the CPR, running in the same direction, one on the east and the other on the west side of the Red River, when there is not enough business for one of the two existing lines, you can understand the recklessness of that body.”
Within two weeks of the bill being passed by the Manitoba Legislature, it was “disallowed” by the federal government.
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