It was the Imperial Government, of course, which figured most prominently throughout the “North-West” question.  But, it may be reasonably asked, what was Canada doing, with her deeper interests still, to further them in those long years of discussion and delay.  With the exception of the Hind Expedition, the Draper mission, the printing and discussion of the Red River settlers’ petition and consequent Commission of Inquiry, certainly not much was done by Parliament.  More was done outside than in the House to arouse public interest; for example, the two admirable lectures delivered in Montreal in 1858 by the late Lieutenant-Governor Morris, followed by the powerful advocacy of the Hon. William Macdougall and others, aided by the Toronto Globe, a small portion of the Canadian press, and the circulation, limited as it was, of the Red River newspaper, the Nor’-Wester, in Ontario.

An unseen, but adverse, parliamentary influence had all along hampered the Cabinet; an influence adverse not only to the acquisition of the Territories, but even to closer connection by railway with the Maritime Provinces. [Vide a series of articles contributed to the Toronto Week, in July, 1896, by Mr. Malcolm McLeod, Q.C., of Ottawa, Ont.] This sinister influence was only overcome by the great Conferences which resulted in the passage of the British North America Act in 1867, which contained a clause (Article 11, Sec. 146), inserted at the instance of Mr. Macdougall, providing for the inclusion of Rupert’s Land and the North-West Territories upon terms to be defined in an address to the Queen, and subject to her approval.  In pursuance of this clause, Mr. Macdougall in 1867 introduced into the first Parliament of the Dominion a series of eight resolutions, which, after much opposition, were at length passed, and were followed by the embodying address, drafted by a Special Committee of the House, and which was duly transmitted to the Imperial Government.  This was followed by the mission of Messrs. Cartier and Macdougall to London, to treat for the transfer of the Territories, which, through the mediation of Lord Granville, was finally effected.  The date fixed upon for the transfer was the first of December, 1869.  Unfortunately for Lieutenant-Governor Macdougall, owing to the outbreak of armed rebellion at Red River, it was postponed without his knowledge, and it was not until the 15th of July, 1870, that the whole country finally became a part of the Dominion of Canada.  With the latter date the annals of Prince Rupert’s Land and the North-West Territory end, and the history of Western Canada begins.

But whilst the Hudson’s Bay Company’s territorial rights and those of Great Britain had been at last transferred to the Dominion, there remained inextinguished the most intrinsic of all, viz., the rights of the Indians and their collaterals to their native and traditional soil.  The adjustment of these rights was assumed by the Canadian Parliament in the last but one of the resolutions introduced by Mr. Macdougall, and no time was lost after the transfer in carrying out its terms, “in conformity with the equitable principles which have uniformly governed the Crown in its dealings with the aborigines.”