How Did Great Britain Influence Canada

The selfish nation it was, Great Britain desired to abandon its British North American colonies, since Great Britain was faring well on its own. To do so, Great Britain encouraged the BNA colonies to unite as a British dependency through confederation. Yet, Canada as a young nation saw Britain’s encouragement as a prospective idea towards its nation-building and independence. With confederation, Canada achieved greater self-reliance while remaining loyal to the British Empire. British patriotism was preeminent in Canada, as Britain was their role model and used the British model as a guide in creating their government, laws, and military. British pride was an increasingly dominant influence in Canada that it undermined Canada as a growing …show more content…
Also, if Britain goes to war, Canada is automatically at war too. Anglo-canadians did not see this as a weakness to their British pride, for their sense of patriotism for Britain trumped the minority cultures of French-Canadians and the First Nations. Anglo-Canadians’ British pride was very strong to the extent that they felt the need for the minority cultures to assimilate to the English culture. For example, the implication of public secular schooling to be taught in the English language in the Manitoba Schools Question. Anglo-Canadians believed assimilation was the way to Canadian nationalism, however, it undermined the French-Canadians, because it gave off the impression that French-Canadians could not freely express their language and culture. According to Bourassa, he believed that “Canada should be able to manage their foreign policies based on their own interests and not those of Britain’s, and French Canada should have the freedom to exercise their culture across Canada.” Unfortunately, Bourassa’s idea was turned down because many Canadians believed they should stick close to Britain for imperial defence reasons. Also, Anglo-Canadians rejected Bourassa’s idea because they did not accept the concept of cultural duality. The increase of Asian immigrants in Canada distressed the Anglo-Canadians, thus came the implementation of the Chinese head tax and the Japanese gentleman’s agreement, used to discourage the undesired Asiatic culture. French-Canadian leader Cartier expressed his views of “unity in diversity”, putting emphasis on the inevitable fact that diversity in Canada was evident. Cartier’s idea was too vague and eventually narrowed down to the concept of “duality” between the English and French. Because of the cultural boundaries created by assimilation, Canadian nationalism was