Quote:
Originally Posted by passwordisnt123
In reality John A. was a petty drunk who happened to be extremely fortunate in his political life and extremely unfortunate in his private life. His three principal professional accomplishments were (1) being in the right place at the right time to secure leadership of the one federal party that was all-but-guaranteed to win him political power, (2) being corrupt enough to keep power once he had it, and (3) hanging Louis Riel.
Now my bit of personal speculation: I would wager that if we could hop into a time machine and hurl John A., in his drunk stupor, in front of a racing carriage to his death, and then come back to the present time, we'd see way less that would have changed than is commonly assumed. And what little would have changed maybe might have changed for the better.
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The neat thing about this is that we can argue until the end of time.
My counter-counter argument:
Sir John A.'s corruption was part of the 'getting the deal done' aspect. In a modern sense, corruption is viewed as evil, but in a old-school sense, it was part of the game.
Historical figures who died on the hill of nobility couldn't accomplish much because getting people to agree on a principled stand falls apart almost instantaneously.
Without what would be considered modern day corruption, the CPR wouldn't have been built. Could someone else have been equally corrupt? Maybe.
A more 'principled' leader may have chafed at playing nice with George Etienne Cartier, as Francophones were second-class citizens in the British Empire. It's hard to see George Brown playing so nicely with him.
Some things are luck. Some things are results of the person's character (both good and bad). I don't think Canada's formation was necessarily inevitable.