Editing Canadian Confederation (section)

===Ideological origins and philosophical dimensions===
[[File:Map of the Eastern British Provinces in North America at the time of Confederation 1867.jpg|thumb|Map of the Eastern British Provinces in North America at the time of Canadian Confederation, 1867]]
There is extensive scholarly debate on the role of political ideas in Canadian Confederation. Traditionally, historians regarded Canadian Confederation an exercise in political pragmatism that was essentially non-ideological. In the 1960s, historian [[Peter Busby Waite|Peter Waite]] derided the references to political philosophers in the legislative debates on Confederation as "hot air". In Waite's view, Confederation was driven by pragmatic brokerage politics and competing interest groups.<ref>See Introduction by Ged Martin in Peter B. Waite, ''The Confederation Debates in the Province of Canada, 1865 A Selection'' (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006)</ref>

In 1987, political scientist Peter&nbsp;J. Smith challenged the view Canadian Confederation was non-ideological. Smith argued Confederation was motivated by new political ideologies as much as the American and French Revolutions and Canadian Confederation was driven by a [[Court Party]] ideology. Smith traces the origins of this ideology to eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain, where political life was polarized between defenders of [[Classical republicanism|classical republican]] values of the [[Country Party (Britain)|Country Party]] and proponents of a new pro-capitalist ideology of the Court Party, which believed in centralizing political power. In British North America in the late 1860s, the Court Party tradition was represented by the supporters of Confederation, whereas the anti-capitalist and agrarian Country Party tradition was embodied by the Anti-Confederates.<ref>Smith, Peter J. 1987. "The Ideological Origins of Canadian Confederation". Canadian Journal of Political Science . 20, no. 1: 3–29.</ref>

In a 2000 journal article, historian [[Ian McKay (historian)|Ian McKay]] argued Canadian Confederation was motivated by the ideology of liberalism and the belief in the supremacy of individual rights. McKay described Confederation as part of the classical liberal project of creating a "liberal order" in northern North America.<ref>Mckay, I. 2000. "The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History". CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW. 81: 617–645.</ref> Many Canadian historians have adopted McKay's liberal order framework as a paradigm for understanding Canadian history.<ref>Ducharme, Michel, and Jean-François Constant. ''Liberalism and Hegemony: Debating the Canadian Liberal Revolution''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.</ref>

In 2008, historian Andrew Smith advanced a very different view of Confederation's ideological origins. He argues that in the four original Canadian provinces, the politics of taxation were a central issue in the debate about Confederation. Taxation was also central to the debate in Newfoundland, the tax-averse colony that rejected it. Smith argued Confederation was supported by many colonists who were sympathetic to a relatively interventionist, or statist, approach to capitalist development. Most classical liberals, who believed in free trade and low taxes, opposed Confederation because they feared it would result in Big Government. The struggle over Confederation involved a battle between a staunch individualist economic philosophy and a comparatively collectivist view of the state's proper role in the economy. According to Smith, the victory of the [[Statism|statist]] supporters of Confederation over their [[anti-statist]] opponents prepared the way for [[John A. Macdonald]]'s government to enact the protectionist National Policy and to subsidize major infrastructure projects such as the [[Intercolonial Railway|Intercolonial]] and [[Canadian Pacific Railway|Pacific]] Railways.<ref>Smith, Andrew. 2008. "Toryism, Classical Liberalism, and Capitalism: The Politics of Taxation and the Struggle for Canadian Confederation". ''The Canadian Historical Review''. 89, no. 1: 1–25.</ref>

In 2007, political scientist [[Janet Ajzenstat]] connected Canadian Confederation to the individualist ideology of [[John Locke]]. She argued that the union of the British North American colonies was motivated by a desire to protect individual rights, especially the rights to life, liberty, and property. She contends the Fathers of Confederation were motivated by the values of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She argues their intellectual debts to Locke are most evident when one looks at the 1865 debates in the Province of Canada's legislature on whether or not union with the other British North American colonies would be desirable.<ref>Ajzenstat, Janet. ''The Canadian Founding: John Locke and Parliament''. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007.</ref>