The first problem which faced the Dominion was the organization
of the new machinery of government. It was necessary to choose a
federal Administration to guide the Parliament which was soon to
meet at Ottawa, the capital of the old Canada since 1858 and now
accepted as the capital of the larger Canada. It was necessary
also to establish provincial Governments in Canada West,
henceforth known as Ontario and in Canada East, or Quebec. The
provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were to retain their
existing provincial Governments.
There was no doubt as to whom the Governor General, Lord Monck,
should call to form the first federal Administration. Macdonald
had proved himself easily the greatest leader of men the four
provinces had produced. The entrance of two new provinces into
the union, with all the possibilities of new party groupings and
new personal alliances it involved, created a situation in which
he had no rival. His great antagonist, Brown, passed off the
parliamentary stage. When he proposed a coalition to carry
through federation, Brown had recognized that he was sacrificing
his chief political asset, the discontent of Canada West. But he
was too true a patriot to hesitate a moment on that score, and in
any case he was sufficiently confident of his own abilities to
believe that he could hold his own in a fresh field.
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