The Executive Council of the Province of Canada was the cabinet of the colonial government of the United Province of Canada, the polity in existence between 1841 and 1867. The council was not initially accountable to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada, the legislature of the colony, but answered only to the Governor-General of the Province of Canada. Responsible government was not firmly established until 1848 under Lord Elgin. The council was the successor body of the Executive Council of Upper Canada and the Executive Council of Lower Canada and was dissolved in 1867 and was replaced by the Canadian Cabinet, the Executive Council of Ontario and the Executive Council of Quebec upon Canadian Confederation.
Members of the Executive Council functioned as portfolio ministers and advisers to the colonial governor, and later to the Joint Premier of the Province of Canada. They were generally members of the elected Legislative Assembly, but there were also some members from the appointed Legislative Council of the Province of Canada. Due to the frequent move of the colony's capital during this period, the council sat in five different cities during its short lifespan: Kingston (1841–43), Montreal (1843–49), Toronto (1849–52 and 1856–58), Quebec City (1852–1856 and 1859–66) and Ottawa (1866–67).
Partisanship While political partisanship was certainly present during this era, it was neither formal nor clearly defined. There was no contemporary political maps or listing of members (of the assembly or the executive council) by "political party" per se. Partisan affiliations was not the sole, and sometimes not even the primary, determining factor of politicians' political allegiances, and how much their affiliation influenced their allegiances varied over time. Accordingly, the political affiliation classifications below serve only as general references to the broad political groupings the joint-premiers most likely belonged to, and the broad groupings the supporters of their governments most likely considered themselves as parts of. Varying classification systems/approaches and partisanship labels have been used by differing authors depending on the focus of their analysis. There were sub-groupings with membership that straddled multiple groupings with fluctuating degrees of cohesion and formality from session to session. There were moderate and radical or "ultra" members within each grouping. The ministry often could not count on the support of all members of the joint-premiers' political groupings and some counted on support from different rival fractions on different issues/voting divisions. The political deadlock and instability was the primary driver that led to the Great Coalition ministry, which eventually produced the Canadian Confederation.
Ministries and Premiers of the Province of Canada
MinistryTenureJoint-premiersGovernor GeneralCanada WestCanada East Governor Sydenham – Samuel Harrison1stBaron Sydenham William Henry Draper Governor Bagot – Charles Richard OgdenSir Charles BagotLafontaine-Baldwin I – Robert BaldwinLouis-HippolyteLafontaineDraper – vacantDominick DalySir Charles Metcalfe – William Henry DraperDenis-Benjamin Viger2nd – Denis-BenjaminPapineau Earl of ElginSherwood – Henry Sherwood – vacant3rdResponsible government institutedLafontaine-Baldwin II – Robert BaldwinLouis-HippolyteLafontaineHincks-Morin – Francis HincksAugustin-Norbert Morin4thMacNab-Morin/Taché – Sir Allan N. MacNab5thSir Edmund Walker Head – Étienne-Paschal TachéTaché-Macdonald – John A. MacdonaldMacdonald–Cartier I – George-Étienne Cartier6thInterregnum – vacantvacantBrown–Dorion ) – George BrownAntoine-Aimé DorionInterregnumvacantvacant Macdonald–Cartier II – John A. MacdonaldGeorge-Étienne Cartier 7thThe Viscount Monck Sandfield Macdonald–Sicotte – John Sandfield MacdonaldLouis-Victor Sicotte Sandfield Macdonald–Dorion – Antoine-Aimé Dorion 8thGreat Coalition – John A. MacdonaldSir Étienne-Paschal Taché† – vacant – Sir Narcisse-Fortunat Belleau
Offices held by executive councillors The following offices were held by members of the executive council, thought not always:
Presidents of the Executive Council The title president of the council were usually not held by the actual leader of the government during this period. Allen MacNab was the only person who held the title while premier. George Brown held the title in Great Coalition years after his two day-tenure as Premier. Most, but not all, joint premiers held the office of Attorney General for the portion of the colony they hailed from. William Morris 1846–1848 James Leslie 1848 Philip Michael Matthew Scott VanKoughnet 1856 Isidore Thibaudeau, May 16, 1863 – March 29, 1864 George Brown June 30, 1864 – December 1865 Adam Johnston Fergusson Blair 1866
Ministries Sydenham-Bagot Ministry (February 1841 – September 1842) In the months immediately following the reunion of the two Canadas, the ministry was led by the Governor General, the recently raised Baron Sydenham, himself. In his despatch to his direct superior, Colonial Secretary the Lord Russell on February 16, he reported having made only three appointments formally, appointing Dominick Daly, Samuel Harrison, and John Henry Dunn, to continue in their roles as provincial secretary for Lower Canada, for Upper Canada, and as Receiver General, and submitted additional names seeking approval from the Crown: Robert Baldwin Sullivan, William Henry Draper, and Robert Baldwin from Canada West and Charles Richard Ogden, Charles Dewey Day from Canada East, all to executive portfolios they held prior to the union. The line up was not well received in Lower Canada. The press noted that there was only one Catholic (Mr. Daly) in the administration, and not a single French Canadian.
There was no premier identified in either Sydenham's despatch or in contemporary press reports. The mentions of Draper-Ogden cabinet or Harrison-Draper administration appeared half a century later in Senate debates but mentions of the cabinet or individual executive councillors in news report of the day invariably portrayed them as advisors subservient to the Governor. In the debate to move the writ of election for the newly appointed Attorney General LaFontaine that took place in late 1842 Sir Allen MacNab, then in opposition, drew attention to the uncertain of status, and was met with uniform responses from executive councillors that it was not the right time to discuss the subject.
Sydenham took an active role in lining up candidates that would be supportive of his administration in the lead up to the 1841 legislative election. The primary political dividing line during this brief period was the issue of the union. Political alignment could be generalized into the following four main groupings: Upper Canada Tories, the all power elite who had wielded power former known as the Family Compact, saw the union as a threat of their power Upper Canada Reformers, who had been systematically prevented from power despite their large numbers, favoured the union as a means to divert power away from the Tories Lower Canada English Tories, a tiny minority of the population with an increasingly tenuous grip on power, supported the union to gain greater number of English speaking votes French Canadians, made up of nearly half the united province's population at the time but was excluded from political participation for two years due to the suspension of the constitution in Lower Canada, most strongly opposed to the union due to their exclusion in the process
Accordingly, the governor found himself relying on the support of reformers on one side and the Tories on the other. Elections were to take place in April and Sydenham had grand plans in mind. His low regard and misgiving for the Tory local leaders, those in Lower Canada in particular, motivated his aggressive drive to preserve the township form of municipal government in Upper Canada and to extend it to Lower Canada, believing that the provincial assemblies neither had the capacity nor the credibility to manage matters centrally. Having made the command of a majority in the assembly a requirement of the future governments of the province, he set out on a tour of more than 40 towns for the purpose of handpicking candidates for the forthcoming elections to the united parliament in the months leading up to the reunion.
Sydenham's engagement and interest in ministry building was not all that surprising. He was not yet forty when he was appointed to the post, and was considered a rising star with jilted ambition in Westminster just a year earlier, having previously entered cabinet at age 34 as the President of the Board of Trade (essentially trade minister) in the short-lived Whig Melbourne ministry. A ruthless veteran of consequential electoral politics back home, Sydenham did not refrain from high-handed tactics like gerrymandering and bribery with patronage. He also largely turned a blind eye to riots, election related violence instigated by the Orange Order and blatant electoral fraud. His simultaneous aggressive intervention and non intervention resulted in electoral divisions such as Chambly, Rouville, Vaudreuil, Terrebonne, Beauharnois, all with overwhelming majority of French Canadians oppose to the union, returning the governors preferred candidates. For this Sydenham was severely criticized not just by local press but by newspapers back in London. He was unapologetic however, having been quoted with this retort "If he means that I personally interfere he is quite misinformed, but the Govt. officials must try to get seats in Parliament… and they surely have a right to look after their elections."
Sydenham's supporters won thirteen of the forty-two seats in Canada East and an overwhelming twenty-six of the forty-two in Canada West, a total of thirty-nine firm supporters of the union against thirty-three opposed, and the ten remaining with uncertain allegiances. The group of supporters Sydenham assembled was shaky at best, however. While he controlled a good portion with government offices, his ministry was dependent on many independent minded reformers. Many new politician hand picked by him, including Hamilton Hartley Killaly who he quickly installed into the ministry, lacked political experience and wielded little influence in the legislature. After his ministry failed to get a bill passed to establish a single bank, according to his civil secretary Thomas Murdoch, Sydenham took control of not only policy making but also legislative strategy.
The ministry's most serious adversaries ultimately came from within. Robert Baldwin and Francis Hincks, two leading Reformers supportive of the ministry members of the ministry, parted ways with Sydenham over the clergy reserves bill, and sought to construct a united Reform Party in alliance with French speaking Reformers. They moved for an expression of non-confidence in four executive councillors, and demanded that the council be reconstituted on a party basis. While Sydenham's ministry survived the initial attack, the ministers conceded to the assembly that they would resign if they lost the confidence of the house. Sydenham, too, also acknowledged he could not perpetually set aside the democratic principles he practiced back home. He did not live to see the ministry he built collapse. An infection from a riding accident claimed his life on September 19, 1841, at age 42, a day after the first session of the legislative assembly prorogued.