ABSTRACT

In the middle years of the nineteenth century there was a degree of independent growth in Canada. It was stronger, perhaps much stronger, in the Canadas than in Atlantic Canada; and its characteristics were different in each of the regions that eventually became Ontario and Quebec. What the precise balance was between dependent and independent development and growth in any of these regions, or in British North America as a whole, at one subperiod or another in the nineteenth century, is a question that has been pointedly asked, but not answered (see chapter 11). The political fractionation and geographical expansion that constituted Confederation eventually tipped the balance, for Canada as a whole, in favour of growth dependent on primary product exports; but that did not happen immediately in 1867. Between 1866 and 1896 there was a quasi-closure of the staple export producing frontier.1 ln those years the central Canadian economy grew at a steady pace, unaided by any significant expansion of staple exports.2