Charles Tupper

Early years in Nova Scotia politics, 1855–1864

The leader of the Conservative Party of Nova Scotia, James William Johnston, a fellow Baptist and family friend of the Tuppers, encouraged Charles Tupper to enter politics. In 1855 Tupper ran against the prominent Liberal politician Joseph Howe for the Cumberland County seat in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. Joseph Howe would be Tupper's political opponent several times in years to come.

Although Tupper won his seat, the 1855 election was an overall disaster for the Nova Scotia Conservatives, with the Liberals, led by William Young, winning a large majority. Young consequently became Premier of Nova Scotia.

At a caucus meeting in January 1856, Tupper recommended a new direction for the Conservative party: they should begin actively courting Nova Scotia's Roman Catholic minority and should eagerly embrace railroad construction. Having just led his party into a disastrous election campaign, Johnston decided to basically cede control of the party to Tupper, though Johnston remained the party's leader. During 1856 Tupper led Conservative attacks on the government, leading Joseph Howe to dub Tupper "the wicked wasp of Cumberland". In early 1857 Tupper convinced a number of Roman Catholic Liberal members to cross the floor to join the Conservatives, reducing Young's government to the status of a minority government. As a result, Young was forced to resign in February 1857, and the Conservatives formed a government with Johnston as premier. Tupper became the provincial secretary.

In Tupper's first speech to the House of Assembly as provincial secretary, he set forth an ambitious plan of railroad construction. Tupper had thus embarked on the major theme of his political life: that Nova Scotians (and later Canadians) should downplay their ethnic and religious differences, focusing instead on developing the land's natural resources. He argued that with Nova Scotia's "inexhaustible mines", it could become "a vast manufacturing mart" for the east coast of North America. He quickly persuaded Johnston to end the General Mining Association's monopoly over Nova Scotia minerals.

In June 1857, Tupper initiated discussions with New Brunswick and the Province of Canada concerning an intercolonial railway. He traveled to London in 1858 to attempt to secure imperial backing for this project. During these discussions, Tupper realized that Canadians were more interested in discussing federal union, while the British (with the Earl of Derby in his second term as Prime Minister) were too absorbed in their own immediate interests. As such, nothing came of the 1858 discussions for an intercolonial railway.

Sectarian conflict played a major role in the May 1859 elections, with Catholics largely supporting the Conservatives and Protestants shifting toward the Liberals. Tupper barely retained his seat. The Conservatives were barely re-elected and lost a confidence vote later that year. Johnston asked the Governor of Nova Scotia, Lord Mulgrave, for dissolution, but Mulgrave refused and invited William Young to form a government. Tupper was outraged and petitioned the British government, asking them to recall Mulgrave.

For the next three years, Tupper was ferocious in his denunciations of the Liberal government, first Young, and then Joseph Howe, who succeeded Young in 1860. This came to a head in 1863 when the Liberals introduced legislation to restrict the Nova Scotia franchise, a move which Johnston and Tupper successfully blocked. Tupper continued practicing medicine during this period. He established a successful medical practice in Halifax, rising to become the city medical officer. In 1863 he was elected president of the Medical Society of Nova Scotia.

In the June 1863 election, the Conservatives campaigned on a platform of railroad construction and expanded access to public education. The Conservatives won a large majority, taking 44 of the House of Assembly's 55 seats. Johnston resumed his duties as premier and Tupper again became provincial secretary. As a further sign of the Conservatives' commitment to non-sectarianism, in 1863, after a 20-year hiatus, Dalhousie College was re-opened as a non-denominational institution of higher learning. Johnston retired from politics in May 1864 when he was appointed as a judge, and Tupper was chosen as his successor as premier of Nova Scotia.

Early years as High Commissioner, 1883–1887

Tupper remained committed to leaving Ottawa, however, and in May 1883, he moved to London to become unpaid High Commissioner, though he did not surrender his ministerial position at the time. However, he soon faced criticism that the two posts were incompatible, and in May 1884 he resigned from cabinet and the House of Commons and became full-time paid High Commissioner. During his time as High Commissioner, Tupper vigorously defended Canada's rights. Although he was not a full plenipotentiary, he represented Canada at a Paris conference in 1883, where he openly disagreed with the British delegation; and in 1884 he was allowed to conduct negotiations for a Canadian commercial treaty with Spain. Tupper was concerned with promoting immigration to Canada and made several tours of various countries in Europe to encourage their citizens to move to Canada. A report in 1883 acknowledges the work of Charles Tupper:

As directing emigration from the United Kingdom and also the Continent, his work has been greatly valuable; and especially in reference to the arrangements made by him on the Continent and in Ireland. The High Commissioner for Canada, Sir Charles Tupper, has been aided during the past year by the same Emigration Agents of the Department in the United Kingdom as in 1882, namely, Mr. John Dyke, Liverpool; Mr. Thomas Grahame, Glasgow; Mr. Charles Foy, Belfast; Mr. Thomas Connolly, Dublin, and Mr. J. W. Down, Bristol. On the European continent, Dr. Otto Hahn, of Reutlingen, has continued to act as Agent in Germany.

In 1883, Tupper convinced William Ewart Gladstone's government to exempt Canadian cattle from the general British ban on importing American cattle by demonstrating that Canadian cattle were free of disease. His other duties as High Commissioner included: putting Canadian exporters in contact with British importers; negotiating loans for the Canadian government and the CPR; helping to organize the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886; arranging for a subsidy for the mail ship from Vancouver, British Columbia, to the Orient; and lobbying on behalf of a British-Pacific cable along the lines of the transatlantic telegraph cable and for a faster transatlantic steam ship. Tupper was present at the founding meeting of the Imperial Federation League in July 1884, where he argued against a resolution which said that the only options open to the British Empire were Imperial Federation or disintegration. Tupper believed that a form of limited federation was possible and desirable.

Privy Council president and other Ministry roles, 1870–1874

When Howe's health declined the next year, Tupper finally entered the 1st Canadian Ministry by becoming Privy Council president in June 1870. The next year was dominated by a dispute with the United States regarding US access to the Atlantic fisheries. Tupper thought that the British should restrict American access to these fisheries so that they could negotiate from a position of strength. When Prime Minister Macdonald travelled to represent Canada's interests at the negotiations leading up to the Treaty of Washington (1871), Tupper served as Macdonald's liaison with the federal cabinet.

On January 19, 1872, Tupper's service as Privy Council president ended and he became Minister of Inland Revenue. Tupper led the Nova Scotia campaign for the Liberal-Conservative party during the Canadian federal election of 1872. His efforts paid off when Nova Scotia returned not a single Anti-Confederate Member of Parliament to the 2nd Canadian Parliament, and 20 of Nova Scotia's 21 MPs were Liberal-Conservatives. (The Liberal-Conservative Party changed its name to the Conservative Party in 1873.)

In February 1873, Tupper was shifted from Inland Revenue to become Minister of Customs, and in this position he was successful in having British weights and measures adopted as the uniform standard for the united colonies. He would not hold this post for long, however, as Macdonald's government was rocked by the Pacific Scandal throughout 1873. In November 1873, the 1st Canadian Ministry was forced to resign and was replaced by the 2nd Canadian Ministry headed by Liberal Alexander Mackenzie.

Years in Opposition, 1874–1878

Tupper had not been involved in the Pacific Scandal, but he nevertheless continued to support Macdonald and his Conservative colleagues both before and after the 1874 election. The 1874 election was disastrous for those Conservatives, and in Nova Scotia, Tupper was one of only two Conservative MPs returned to the 3rd Canadian Parliament.

Though Macdonald stayed on as Conservative leader, Tupper now assumed a more prominent role in the Conservative Party and was widely seen as Macdonald's heir apparent. He led Conservative attacks on the Mackenzie government throughout the 3rd Parliament. The Mackenzie government attempted to negotiate a new free trade agreement with the United States to replace the Canadian–American Reciprocity Treaty which the U.S. had abrogated in 1864. When Mackenzie proved unable to achieve reciprocity, Tupper began shifting toward protectionism and became a proponent of the National Policy which became a part of the Conservative platform in 1876. The sincerity of Tupper's conversion to the protectionist cause was doubted at the time, however: according to one apocryphal story, when Tupper came to the 1876 debate on Finance Minister Richard John Cartwright's budget, he was prepared to advocate free trade if Cartwright had announced that the Liberals had shifted their position and were now supporting protectionism.

Tupper was also deeply critical of Mackenzie's approach to railways, arguing that completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which would link British Columbia (which entered Confederation in 1871) with the rest of Canada, should be a stronger government priority than it was for Mackenzie. This position also became an integral part of the Conservative platform. As on previous occasions when he was not in cabinet, Tupper was active in practicing medicine during the 1874–78 stint in Opposition, though he was dedicating less and less of his time to medicine during this period. Tupper was a councillor of the Oxford Military College in Cowley and Oxford, Oxfordshire from 1876 to 1896.

Minister of Public Works, 1878–1879

During the 1878 election Tupper again led the Conservative campaign in Nova Scotia. The Conservatives under Macdonald won a resounding majority in the election, in the process capturing 16 of Nova Scotia's 21 seats in the 4th Canadian Parliament.

With the formation of the 3rd Canadian Ministry on October 17, 1878, Tupper became Minister of Public Works. His top priority was completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which he saw as "an Imperial Highway across the Continent of America entirely on British soil". This marked a shift in Tupper's position: although he had long argued that completion of the railway should be a major government priority, while Tupper was in Opposition, he argued that the railway should be privately constructed; he now argued that the railway ought to be completed as a public work, partly because he believed that the private sector could not complete the railroad given the recession which gripped the country throughout the 1870s.

Minister of Railways and Canals, 1879–1884

In May 1879, Macdonald decided that completion of the railway was such a priority that he created a new ministry to focus on railways and canals, and Tupper became Canada's first Minister of Railways and Canals. Tupper's motto as Minister of Railways and Canals was "Develop our resources". He stated "I have always supposed that the great object, in every country, and especially in a new country, was to draw as [many] capitalists into it as possible." Tupper traveled to London in summer 1879 to attempt to persuade the British government (then headed by the Earl of Beaconsfield in his second term as prime minister) to guarantee a bond sale to be used to construct the railway. He was not successful, though he did manage to purchase 50,000 tons of steel rails at a bargain price. Tupper's old friend Sandford Fleming oversaw the railway construction, but his inability to keep costs down led to political controversy, and Tupper was forced to remove Fleming as chief engineer in May 1880.

1879 also saw Tupper made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, and thus entitled to use the postnominal letters "KCMG". In 1880, George Stephen approached Tupper on behalf of a syndicate and asked to be allowed to take over construction of the railway. Convinced that Stephen's syndicate was up to the task, Tupper convinced the cabinet to back the plan at a meeting in June 1880 and, together with Macdonald, negotiated a contract with the syndicate in October. The syndicate successfully created the Canadian Pacific Railway in February 1881 and assumed construction of the railway shortly thereafter. In the following years, Tupper was a vocal supporter of the CPR during its competition with the Grand Trunk Railway. In December 1883 he worked out a rescue plan for the CPR after it faced financial difficulties and persuaded his party and Parliament to accept the plan.

In addition to his support for completion of the CPR, Tupper also actively managed the existing railways in the colonies. Shortly after becoming minister in 1879, he forced the Intercolonial Railway to lower its freight rates, which had been a major grievance of Maritime business interests. He then forced the Grand Trunk Railway to sell its Rivière-du-Loup line to the Intercolonial Railway to complete a link between Halifax and the St. Lawrence Seaway. He also refused to give the CPR running rights over the Intercolonial Railway, though he did convince the CPR to build the Short Line from Halifax to Saint John. In terms of canals, Tupper's time as Minister of Railways and Canals is notable for large expenditures on widening the Welland Canal and deepening the Saint Lawrence Seaway.