The Quebec Conference

The conference in Quebec City (10–27 Oct. 1864) was the second of three that would prepare the ground for Canadian confederation. While the Charlottetown conference focused on general principles, the Quebec conference concentrated on practical realities.

The central figures at the Quebec conference were John A. MACDONALD, Alexander Tilloch GALT, George BROWN, and George-Étienne CARTIER, as historians J. K. Johnson and P. B. Waite explain in this excerpt from the biography of John A. Macdonald:

“Certainly much of the constitutional structure of the dominion was [Macdonald’s] creation. … The financial arrangements, as he admitted, were the work of A. T. Galt. Representation by population, the principle that governed membership in the lower house, had long been advocated by Brown and was made a fundamental part of confederation at his insistence. The provisions for the official use of the French language in parliament, in the federal courts, and in the courts and legislature of Quebec, as well as the continuance of the code civil in that province, were clearly Cartier’s contribution. The arrangements for the preservation of existing separate schools and for their establishment in new provinces were largely inspired by Galt.”

The following lists give the names of all the delegates at the Quebec conference with the exception of Robert Barry Dickey, a representative from Nova Scotia: