1867 Read Free Page B

principle. As long as the governor preserved the power to “take steps” on his own, parliamentary government was compromised. Brown would tolerate no compromise of a fundamental rule: “The executive cannot take a step without the advice of his council – his council must be chosen from the representatives of the people and have their confidence.” 2 This was the nub of responsible government: an executive constantly answerable as a group to the people’s elected representatives. A cabinet would be put into office by the legislature whether the governor liked its members or not, and the cabinet would be bounced from office the moment a majority of the legislators turned against it, even if it held the governor’s confidence. Brown insisted on parliamentary government. British North Americans in their internal affairs must have all the powers of British citizens.
    Indeed, Brown was more radical than the British example he constantly cited. Giving power to parliamentarians meant empowering those who elected them. In British North America as in Britain in the 1840s, property owners alone could vote. But in the colonies (unlike Britain), property ownership was widespread, and most Canadian men voted. Not only would a properly constituted Canadian government be controlled by the representatives of thepeople, trumpeted Brown in the
Globe
, but “in the election of those representatives, so low is the qualification that no man need be without a vote if he chooses to have one.” 3 Brown’s government would be not only responsible, but also representative. In the British North America of the early 1840s, Brown’s position was controversial, reformist, and democratic. He never deviated from it. * 4
    In 1845, just after George Brown launched the
Globe
in Toronto, Governor General Lord Metcalfe, architect of the “governor-above-party” line, retired home to Britain. Metcalfe had recently helped to bring about the defeat of the reformers in a general election, but he was battered from the endless political strife. Metcalfe was also dying; facial cancer had already blinded and disfigured him. Yet, when his retirement was announced, Brown showed no sympathy. He promptly produced a special celebratory issue of the
Globe
. “We heartily congratulate the country on the departure of Lord Metcalfe,” he wrote.
    Brown abominated the policies Metcalfe had pursued; everyone knew that. Still, the attack suggested why many would see George Brown as a political “impossibility.” His attack on the aging, sickly governor could seem not only vindictive, but also tinged with disloyalty. Metcalfe, after all, represented the natural authority of the British aristocracy, the majesty of the Queen, and all the glory of Britain and its Empire. These had no small attraction in Britain’s North American colonies. The colonies needed Britain, and loyalty meant a lot. Criticism of a governor, even when voiced in constitutional terms by a loyal Briton, still smacked of
lèse-majesté
.
    Yet the principle championed by the reformers whom Brown supported in his paper (and would soon join in the legislature) triumphed. The Metcalfe policy, which had obliged the governor’s picked team to win every election and every legislative vote, neverwas feasible. In 1847, after a change in government in Britain itself, the Colonial Office accepted that its governors in British North America must appoint as their ministers whomever could command support in the elected legislature – and no one else.
    No act of Parliament, no notable ceremony, marked the transition, and in the various colonies it took effect over several years. But it was momentous. Henceforth British North America’s internal affairs would be directed by politicians who could command the support of its elected legislatures. Canadian politics assumed a form still familiar at the end of the twentieth century. Lieutenant-governors and governors general suddenly became ceremonial. They would