The year 1867 was a tremendous year for Canada because it came into being. However, it was not easy and there were many different factors that lead to Confederation. Those issues that lead to Confederation we’re major in terms of ‘political deadlock resulting from the current political structure. At the same time, there was a need for an intercontinental railroad, which would improve trade, military movement, and transportation in general. Without these challenges, confederation may never had occurred but, however with this in mind, Britain had provided the British North American colonies with a market for their goods, but then they started the rule of free trade. There was no price placed on any colonies, the colonies lost a sure market to their goods. As a result the 3 main points for joining confederation were; developing new trade markets and partners; improved defense system and improving transportation throughout Canada by the building of the railways. It is because of these heavy factors that the BNA colonies were pushed to finally agreeing to confederation.
In 1846, Britain said it was making free trade. Britain would take goods from any colonies into its markets with no tax. Canada used a careless amount of money for trade with Britain. They had built a canal system and flour mills to grind American wheat so that it could be sold to British markets at the preferred rate. Britain wanted free trade no taxes. The British North American colonies did not agree. Now they were in a financial mess. Many angry merchants wanted to break away from Britain and join the US. The colonies had to find new trading partners. If they came together as a strong central government they would no longer be controlled by Britain so they wouldn’t be forced into free trade, they could still get profit for their goods. Also the colonies could freely trade with each other because now no longer are they competition they are all part of the same nation working together.
There are many advantages to confederation like; if the Canada’s united it would have a larger army instead of them having their own small militia. The Canadas could also have enough money to build an intercontinental railway. Another advantage would be that Canada would have one united government in terms of equal amounts of votes, larger population and races etcetera. In addition each of the colonies had their own small militia, and this would not defend them from the fenian raids or from the manifest destiny. The manifest destiny was the Americans believe that it was their destiny to own all of British North America. Many people were worried about attacks. Canada would have a greater chance of defending themselves from America and the Americans would be less likely to attack a larger army. One thing that also attracted many people was that if Canada
