Local governments had been established both in Vancouver Island
and on the mainland. They were joined in a single province in
1866. One of the first acts of the new Legislature was to seek
consolidation with the Dominion. Inspired by an enthusiastic
Englishman, Alfred Waddington, who had dreamed for years of a
transcontinental railway, the province stipulated that within ten
years Canada should complete a road from the Pacific to a
junction with the railways of the East. These terms were
considered presumptuous on the part of a little settlement of ten
or fifteen thousand whites; but Macdonald had faith in the
resources of Canada and in what the morrow would bring forth. The
bargain was made; and British Columbia entered the Confederation
on July 1, 1871.
East and West were now staked out. Only the Far North remained
outside the bounds of the Dominion and this was soon acquired. In
1879 the British Government transferred to Canada all its rights
and claims over the islands in the Arctic Archipelago and all
other British territory in North America save Newfoundland and
its strip of Labrador. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from
the forty-ninth parallel to the North Pole, now all was Canadian
soil.
Confederation brought new powers and new responsibilities and
thrust Canada into the field of foreign affairs.
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