LAC Forum on Canadian Democracy

Federation

Library and Archives Canada preserves and provides access to the papers of a number of Confederation-era politicians who argued for or against federation, as well as a broad range of collections documenting interactions between the federal and provincial government bodies that compose Canada's federation. The following list of collections is not exhaustive, but rather is offered as a point of departure for further research.

1. Intergovernmental Relations

The following list identifies records created by government bodies concerned with mediating between federal and provincial jurisdictions. The Colonial Office fonds documents interactions between British North American colonies before and after Confederation. Similar inter-colonial correspondence can also be found in the Office of the Governor-General fonds; however, the records created and accumulated by Britain's Colonial Office are more complete.

• Colonial Office fonds
• Colonial Office Series 880
• 1864 Charlottetown Conference Papers
• 1864 Quebec Conference Resolutions
• Copies of Canadian Constitutional Documents

The Federal-Provincial Relations Office sous-fonds holds documents that reflect the regular interactions between the provincial and federal governments since 1921. The Meech Lake Accord is a part of this collection.

• Federal-Provincial Relations Office sous-fonds
• Federal-Provincial Relations Division
  Sous-series in Department of Finance fonds
• Office of the Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs series
  [Documents regarding Federal-Provincial Conferences]

The Royal Commission reports and Task Force on Canadian Unity fonds highlight some of the more pressing issues that have affected the Canadian federation since 1867.

• Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations fonds
• Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism fonds
• Task Force on Canadian Unity fonds

2. Fathers of Confederation

The following list identifies the records created and accumulated by some of the "Fathers of Confederation" who particpated in the Confederation conferences between 1864 and 1867. This material may include official documents created or accumulated over the individual's career as well as private documents of a personal or political nature. The collections below are a sample of the holdings at LAC. Researchers should note that some collections may contain only a few documents relating to the process of Confederation. Where the LAC does not hold records for a particular individual, the researcher should consult the appropriate provincial archives.

• William Henry Pope fonds
• George Étienne Cartier fonds
• Alexander Tilloch Galt fonds
• Sir John A. MacDonald fonds
• William McDougall fonds
• Thomas D'Arcy McGee fonds
• Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley fonds
• Sir Charles Tupper fonds
• Robert Duncan Wilmot fonds

3. Canadian Federalism

The following list outlines the records created and accumulated by individuals or organizations that have studied, argued or worked for a particular balance of political power in Canada.

• Gordon Robertson fonds
• Eugene Forsey fonds
• Sketches of the Front de liberation du Québec trial Duncan Macpherson fonds

4. Published Material

As a national catalogue, AMICUS not only shows the published materials held at Library and Archives Canada but also those located in over 1300 libraries across Canada.  AMICUS contains over 30 million records for books, magazines, newspapers, government documents, theses, sound recordings, maps, electronic texts, as well as items in braille and large print.

Using the Advanced Search option in AMICUS and selecting "Publication Type", you can limit your search to "Government publications – Federal/national" or "Government publications – State, prov., terr. etc." You can also narrow your search by language and date, as well as format. Specifying "Web documents" in the latter will limit the search to full-text electronic publications.

Here are some sample Subject Keyword searches:

• Federal-provincial relations – Canada
• Federal-provincial conferences – Canada
• Intergovernmental fiscal relations – Canada
• Intergovernmental tax relations – Canada
• Fathers of Confederation
• Gordon, Robertson
• Forsey,  Eugene A.