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His Term As Prime Minister
In the election of
1896, the
main concern was of the catholic schools and the slogan "Hands off Manitoba" was
not alone effective in Manitoba but in the other provinces as well. A second
issue was the corruption in the Conservative Party, as a series of scandals had
shaken the Bowell administration. Israel Tarte, a former Québec conservative who
had evidence of these charges, managed Laurier's campaign in Québec. It was in
Québec that he had his greatest victory, carrying when he had a large majority
of seats. Victories in Ontario and western Canada brought the Liberal majority
in Parliament to 21. Tupper resigned on July 8, and on July 11, 1896, Laurier
became prime minister of Canada.
Laurier's
cabinet contained, in contrast to those of his predecessors, many people with
real ability, some of whom had been provincial leaders. Sir Richard Cartwright
was made minister of trade and commerce. The job of minister of finance was
given to William Fielding, a former premier of Nova Scotia. Tarte was given the
job of minister of public works, and Clifford Sifton became minister of the
interior. The minister of justice was Sir Oliver Mowat, an old man who had been
premier at Ontario since 1871. Laurier took no department for himself.
The first
task of the new government was to find a solution to the Manitoba crisis.
Laurier did so by pushing through a plan that allowed a limited amount of
religious teaching and instruction in French in the Manitoba schools. However,
it did not return the province to its original educational system, which had
been based on equality between the Protestant and Catholic populations. The plan
failed to satisfy the more extreme Catholics. When L'Electeur, the Liberal paper
in Québec, defended Laurier's compromise, the Catholic bishops of the province
excommunicated anyone who continued to read it. However, the paper merely
changed its name to Le Soleil. Eventually the Pope, the leader of the Roman
Catholic church intervened to restrain the bishops, whose political domination
in Québec came to an end.
Laurier’s first budget was an attempt to get a balance between his free trade belief and Canada’s industries that were use to high tariff. He did not change the tariff very much. Laurier offered a large reduction of duties, one-third, to Briton. This made him important in the Colonial Conference of 1897. At the conference Laurier turned down Briton’s offer to give Canadian ships to Briton.
The Boer War in 1899 was a problem for Laurier because British Canadian wanted to help Briton against the Boers and the French Canadians did not want to get involved. Laurier went in-between; he said he would equip volunteers to help fight the Boers. This solution satisfied the general population, but the extremists on ether side were not happy. After this 8000 Canadians fought in the Boer War, out of this one-third were with the militia and got paid by the Canadian government. As a result of this Laurier lost one of his supporters from Quebec, Henri Bourassa, but Bourassa did not affect the next election. After the 1900 election Laurier was at the peak of his power.
Laurier’s part in the 1902 Colonial Conference was basically the same as in the 1897s. He refused to join a common defence or an imperial parliament. When Laurier came back from Europe he became very sick and asked to resign, but the party would not let him go. At the same time Tarte was having hopes of succeeding Laurier, but Tarte did some speeches supporting higher protective tariffs, which was against what the government’s official stance, he was forced to resign.
In 1903 there was a boundary dispute between Alaska and Canada. The group assigned to deal with the dispute was made of two Canadians, three Americans and the British lord chief justice, lord Alverstone. The Americans were supposed to act neutral, but they were not. They supported the American claim. Also the Alverstone join with the Americans. After this incident, Laurier declared that Canada needed more control over its foreign affairs.
Also in 1903 Laurier decided to build a second railway to compete with the Canadian Pacific Railway that the conservatives had built. This second railway was not needed and wasted much of the taxpayer’s money. As a result Laurier’s minister of railways resigned. A third railway was also built in 1911.
The election in 1904 was a great success for the Liberals. They got all the provinces except Prince Edward Island.
The Liberals were doing much better than they had done in 1896, but unfortunately the party had become completely dependant on Laurier. He had become essential without him the party would fall and no successor seemed apparent. The next few years saw a steady fall in the government’s effectiveness and the party’s fate.
In 1905 with the formation of Alberta and Saskatchewan there was another Catholic-Protest argument about schools. As a solution to the problem Laurier offered that they fallow the Ontario system, which gave separate Roman Catholic schools through tax. This did not please the protestant. At the same time the minister of the interior, Clifford Sifton, came back from holidays and disagreed with what Laurier had done and resigned. Sifton was not invited back to the cabinet and became Laurier enemy. This compromise pleased most people but it again lost Laurier the support of Bourassa.
In 1906 the Liberal party was questioned with multiple scandals. Laurier was never question, but several minister were forced to resign. Laurier sometimes turned a blind eye to problems like this, but when it was necessary he would interfere.
At the Imperial Conference of 1907 Laurier managed to convince the British government to pass a law that stated that Britain could not pass any law or sign any treaty on behalf of Canada’s consent. Two years earlier Laurier had established a department of external affairs for Canada. Following this Laurier won the 1908 election.
Laurier’s Navy Bill was a compromise between what Quebec wanted and what Ontario wanted. The issue was the German arms build up, Britain wanted a bigger Navy and they wanted Canadians to be in it. Ontario was all for it, but Quebec was against the idea. The Navy Bill said that a Canadian navy would be made under British standards, and would only be put under Britain’s command if Canada chose to go to war as an ally with Britain. Unfortunately this compromise satisfied no one.
It looked like America would finally allow Canada to trade without tariffs with it.
This went down very well with Canadians at first. Unfortunately for Laurier people began to realise that Canada made most of its money off tariffs and trade with Britain, not the US. People began to become angry at this idea of Free Trade. Laurier made a huge gamble and to the idea to the polls, the results were devastating. Laurier lost the election holding only 88 seats the same amount of seats as the opposition had last parliament.
Robert Borden succeeded Laurier and when war came Laurier gave full support to send in the troops. The issue of war separated the liberal party. Laurier and mainly French speaking liberals stayed liberal, while Robert Borden formed the Union Liberal Party that was mainly full of English speaking people. Unfortunately Laurier would not live to see Canada unite under William Lyon Mackenzie King. He died in Ottawa in 1919.