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In the hearts and minds

of the delegates who assembled

in this room on Sept. 1, 1864,

was born the Dominion of Canada.

Providence being their guide,

they builded better than they knew.

THESE epic words on the tablet in the Province Building at Charlottetown mark the scene of the cradling of the Dominion of Canada. The Garden Province, the “Million Acre Farm,” had the honour of the first conference leading to the Confederation of 1867. The simple stately building which faces Queen Square and the spires of St. Dunstan’s Cathedral contained the secret and significant meetings in September, 1864, of the delegates from Canada and the Maritime Provinces whose plans ripened into the nation we now call Canada. The quiet, beautiful streets of the surrounding Island capital are in themselves symbolic of the peaceful birth of the Dominion.

Years of unrest and discussion in the Maritime colonies and of deadlock and political chaos in Canada advanced toward a solution after Dr. Charles Tupper, Premier of Nova Scotia, secured the cooperation of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island for a conference at Charlottetown on Maritime union. Canada’s rulers, now at loose ends as to what best to do, grasped the chance and sought and received an invitation to attend. The Steamer “Queen Victoria” carried eight Cabinet Ministers from Quebec, including the ever-bitter rivals, John A. Macdonald and George Brown. It was a high political adventure as the vision of a new nation was seen and the idea of a local union abandoned in favour of the larger Confederation.

In the quiet of the Island capital, while the Northern armies in the American Civil War were marching on Richmond, these delegates turned from debate to entertainment and back again. The golden-voiced D’Arcy McGee, the dominating Brown, the suave, compelling Macdonald, and the analytical Galt, plied the Easterners with their arguments until the case for a larger union was accepted. When the delegates at last emerged from the secret conclave, which had all but passed unnoticed in the Press of the day, it was to startle the country with their message. John A. Macdonald at the Charlottetown banquet looked to a union of the colonies which would make them “at least the fourth nation on the face of the globe.” The delegates carried the message to the other capitals, and crystallized the project in the conference at Quebec a month later; but three years of struggle were to precede the union, while the Island itself held out until 1873.

Province Building, Charlottetown

Tablet and Confederation Conference Room, Charlottetown