Charles Tupper

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Charles Tupper : biography

2 July 1821 – 30 October 1915

On July 2, 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.)

Minister of Customs, 1873–1874

Tupper in August 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 the 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 1876–1896.

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.