The National Policy was a strategy put forward by the Conservative government of Sir John A. Macdonald to increase Canada’s economic development through tariffs, population growth, and projects such as a transcontinental railway. It became government policy with the Conservative’s return to power in 1878 and would remain the basis of Canadian economic development for another century. Macdonald and his party maintained that the National Policy, along with the British connection and resistance to cultural and economic pressures from the United States, were the keys to Canada’s survival.
