CANADA 80 YEARS A DOMINION: TUESDAY IS ANNIVERSARY

Evening Star, Issue 26138, 27 June 1947, Page 6

CANADA 80 YEARS A DOMINION: TUESDAY IS ANNIVERSARY

Canada celebrates the founding of the Canadian nation on July 1 of each year, and next Tuesday will mark the eightieth anniversary of Canada’s birthday. This date was fixed by Royal proclamation in 1867, following the passing of the British North American Act by the British Parliament. Tliis Act, of 1867, states that “ the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick shall form and be one dominion under the name of Canada.” In Canada July 1 is a national holiday and is known as Dominion Day. Consideration has been given by the Canadian Parliament to changing the name from Dominion Day to Canada Day or Confederation Day, but no decision has yet been reached, on this possible change. Dominion Day is to Canadians what 'lndependence Day is to Americans and Bastille Day is to the French. But the Canadian nation was not born of revolution. It evolved through' a series of constitutional processes culminating in 1867 in the federation of the three British colonies of Canada (now the provinces of Ontario and Quebec), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. RAPID EXTENSION. After the. confederation of 1867 Canada comprised only four provinces, but with astonishing rapidity it proceeded to extend itself from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In 1869 Canada acquired the vast territories of the Hudson’s Bay Company, out of which have been carved the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. In 1871, British Columbia came into the confederation and in 1873 Prince Edward Island also joined. Finally, in 1895. Canada took over from the United Kingdom the islands of the Arctic Archipelago. The outline which Canada now presents' on the map was finally formed in 1895, only 28 years after the initial confederation of 1867.. From the constitutional point of view the year 1867 is a dividing line between two periods in Canada’s history. With the’cession of the French colonies to the British by the Peace of Paris, the first period of British rule began. From the year of this treaty, 1763, to confederation in 1867, the great constitutionalachievement was the winning of responsible government; in the 1840 s. From confederation to the present day the great constitutional achievement has been the development of Canada’s sovereignty within the British Commonwealth of Nations. To-day, the evolution is completed and the nation born in 1867 stands within the British Commonwealth of Nations as a sovereign State.