Document Information

Date: 1866-07-24
By: Province of Canada (Parliament)
Citation: Province of Canada, Parliament, Scrapbook Debates, 8th Parl, 5th Sess, 1866 at 56-58.
Other formats: Click here to view the original document (PDF).
Note: All endnotes come from our recent publication, Charles Dumais & Michael Scott (ed.), The Confederation Debates in the Province of Canada (CCF, 2022).

Click here to view the rest of the Province of Canada’s Confederation Debates for 1866.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

Tuesday, July 24, 1866

When the orders were called,

Luther Holton [Chateauguay] said there was great anxiety on both sides of the House to adjourn as soon as possible. It was understood that besides passing the ordinary supplies, this Session was held chiefly to dispose of the measures relating to the proposed scheme of Confederation. Yet to this day these measures have not been preceded with, and here they were going on night after night.

John A. Macdonald [Kingston, Attorney-General West and Minister of Militia]  said that it was understood with regard to the Local Constitutions that the resolution should be laid before the House, and that the country should have a reasonable time to consider them before they were finally disposed of. There had been some delay in the preparation of the bill to amend the election law, a very important measure, but he had himself been pressed for time by other matters, and had not been able to give that degree of attention to which it deserved before submitting it to the House. It would, however, with the other measures of the government be preceded with, and the House would have an early opportunity of considering it.

Luther Holton [Chateauguay] said the house had not been fairly dealt with, but the delay could not be charged up on his side of the House.

John Sandfield Macdonald [Cornwall] also attacked the government for the delay of public business. The explanation of the Attorney-General West [John A. Macdonald] regarding the distribution of the resolutions providing for the Local Constitutions, that the country might have time to consider them, only proved that they should have been introduced at the beginning of the Session.