Report/ratio on the businesses of British North America

The Report/ratio on the businesses of British North America , more known under the name of Report/ratio Durham of the name of its author, is an important document of the history of the Quebec, Canada and British Empire.

Politician Whig, John George Lambton, future Count de Durham, was sent to Canada in 1838 with an aim of making investigation into the causes of the rebellions of 1837-38. The boat which transported Durham wet with Quebec the May 27th. It had just been named General governor of Canada and responsible for the special capacities High-Commissioner from the British North America.

Before leaving for Canada, Durham had already discussed with British merchants who wished a greater British control on both Canada, because they were of opinion that the political power held by the French Canadian of the Low-Canada harmed their economic interests.

It should be noted that the French Canadians of the time were most numerous and trained the majority of this " ancien" Pre-confédérationnaire Canada (Low and High added). Although having elected representatives, the capacity of the latter was however quasi null in this parliamentary system being born which one will qualify unanimously later faked.

The investigation

Arrived at Canada, it forms some committees primarily made up of all the political adversaries of the Patriots and did many personal observations of the life in the British colonies of North America. He also visits the the United States. Durham writes that it was supposed to make the report of a conflict of a political nature between liberals and conservatives, but that it rather came from there to the conclusion which the problem was actually of nature ethnic. According to Durham, the French company in Canada had changed little into 200 years, and did not show any sign of Progrès contrary to the British company which was flourishing.

Recommendations

The Durham report/ratio is published in London in February 1839. Durham recommends that the High-Canada and the Low-Canada are joined together in only one province which will be able to thus become, possibly, mainly english-speaking and this, more quickly. It recommends the acceleration of British immigration to Canada in order to marginalize the population Canadian-Frenchwoman, thus forcing it to choose the way of the linguistic and cultural assimilation. Finally, it suggests the withdrawal of the freedoms granted to the French Canadians by the Acte of Quebec and the constitutional Acte in order to eliminate the possibility of future rebellions.

Reactions

Exiled in France, Louis-Joseph Papineau writes his Histoire of the resistance of Canada to the English government and first once in the Revue progress in May 1839 makes it publish. In June, the document is published in Low-Canada in the Canadian Revue under the title of Histoire of the insurrection of Canada in refutation of the Report/ratio of Lord Durham .

The thesis wanting that the Canadians do not have any history and any culture and that the conflict was mainly that of two ethnicities is received like an insult by Papineau. It will specify that several of the Patriotes chiefs were of British origin, inter alia Wolfred Nelson, hero of the Bataille of Saint-Denis, Robert Nelson, author of the Déclaration of independence of Low-Canada, the journalist Edmund Bailey O' Callaghan and the general Thomas Storrow Brown. He also adds that a rising had occurred in High-Canada where the population was homogeneous. There was besides a monument dedicated to the Patriots with Sault co. Marie (Ontario), but it was demolished at the end of the XXe century.

Conclusion

Durham resigns the September 29th and is quickly replaced by Charles Poulett Thomson, 1st baron Sydenham, which will be responsible to apply the project of union of the two Canadian provinces. The project will be thus carried out.

External bonds

Carryforward one the Affairs off British North America, in Canadiana.org (English)
Report/ratio on the businesses of British septentrional America, in Canadiana.org (translation)
History of the resistance of Canada to the English government, in Wikisource

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