The Canadian Confederation began on the 1st of July 1867 forming the federal dominion of Canada divided into four provinces; Ontario, Quebec, New-Brunswick and Nova Scotia. At the turn of the twentieth century,
around the time of writing the two poems in question, Canada was
undergoing many attempts to gain national unity, more precisely
between the anglophone and francophone or protestant and catholic
communities.
The prime minister from 1896 to 1911
was Sir Wilfrid Laurier of the liberal party. He did much for this
national harmony although never attaining it and strongly believed in
a future independent Canada, assisting in the creation of two new
provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Laurier's “national policy”
did much for the now thriving economy of Canada with the protection
of Canadian industries, the goal of settling the west and building a
better transportation system. Within 15 years, upwards of 1 million
people moved to manitoba and the newly formed western provinces
bringing towns, ports, railroads etc not to mention much wealth for
the country. Laurier even coined the phrase “the twentieth century
belongs to Canada” with reference to its success. This expansion of
course brought more conflict with native communities. Although
Laurier believed in this unified country, wanting to bring together
the french and english speakers of Canada, he was not sympathetic to
the native american culture and even removed the right of status
indians to vote. The general view of native americans by the
euro-canadian population was one that either glorified the “noble
savage” or one that saw them as being dangerous, uncivilized and
untrustworthy, often stemming from faulty and sensationalist stories
circulated by the media. Many thought that the true native americans
no longer existed since they had come into contact with the west and
so had lost their authenticity. Either way, the consensus was that
they needed to be assimilated, for their own good as well as that of
the country and so solutions to what was called the “indian
problem” in both the US and Canada continued to be put in place.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Laurier>
