Confederation
In the mid-1860s "Canada" had achieved responsible party government, but British North America was still a collection of self-governing colonies . In the east, Newfoundland was almost entirely dependent on its cod fishery, Prince Edward Island had a prosperous agricultural economy, and both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had boomed on the backs of the shipbuilding industry. Far to the west, on the Pacific coast, lay fur-trading British Columbia, which had just beaten off American attempts to annex the region during the Oregon crisis, finally resolved in 1846, when the international frontier was fixed along a westward extension of the original 49th parallel. Not that this was the end of British Columbia's problems: in 1858 gold was discovered beside the Fraser River and, in response to the influx of American prospectors, British Columbia was hastily designated a Crown Colony - a process that was repeated in 1895 when gold was discovered in the Yukon's Klondike. Between Canada West and British Columbia stretched thousands of miles of prairie and forest, the old Rupert's Land that was still under the extremely loose authority of the Hudson's Bay Company. The American Civil War raised fears of a US invasion of the incoherently structured British North America, at the same time as "Rep by Poppers" agitation was making problematic the status of the French-speaking minority. These issues prompted a series of conferences to discuss the issue of Confederation , and after three years of debate the British Parliament passed the British North America Act of 1867. In effect this was a constitution for the new Dominion of Canada , providing for a federal parliament to be established at Ottawa; for Canada East and West to become the provinces of Quebec and Ontario respectively; and for each province to retain a regional government and assembly. All of the existing colonies joined the Confederation except British Columbia, which waited until 1871; Prince Edward Island, till 1873; and Newfoundland, which remained independent until 1949.
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