Who was Sir John A. Macdonald?

Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 11, 1815 to June 6, 1891) was the first Prime Minister of Canada and one of the principal Fathers of Confederation. He served as Prime Minister from July 1, 1867 to November 5, 1873 and again from October 17, 1878 to June 6, 1891 (his death in office). Macdonald was a Conservative and the first leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. He led Canada through the early decades of Confederation, including the addition of Manitoba (1870), British Columbia (1871), Prince Edward Island (1873), and the Northwest Territories (1870), and the construction of the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway (completed 1885).

Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland and emigrated with his family to Kingston, Upper Canada in 1820. He trained as a lawyer and entered politics in 1844. As Co-Premier of the Province of Canada from 1857, he led the Quebec Conference of 1864 (which produced the 72 Resolutions, the basis for Confederation) and the London Conference of 1866 to 1867 (which produced the British North America Act). His Conservative-Liberal coalition (the Great Coalition of 1864) brought together the principal Reform and Conservative leaders to negotiate Confederation.

Macdonald's National Policy (introduced 1879) was the founding economic strategy of the Dominion of Canada, combining protective tariffs (to encourage Canadian manufacturing), the transcontinental railway (to bind the country east-west), and large-scale immigration to settle the prairies. The CPR's last spike was driven at Craigellachie, BC on November 7, 1885 by Donald Smith, completing the railway and binding British Columbia into Confederation.

Macdonald's legacy is contested. He is remembered as the principal architect of Canadian Confederation and as one of the most consequential Prime Ministers in Canadian history. He is also responsible for the Indian Act of 1876, the Indian residential school system (Macdonald explicitly endorsed assimilationist education in 1883), the deliberate starvation of Plains First Nations to force compliance with treaties, and the execution of Louis Riel after the North-West Rebellion of 1885. Several Canadian municipalities have removed Macdonald statues since 2018, including Victoria (2018), Charlottetown (2020), and Toronto (2024). Federal Bill C-27 (2017, the Statutes Amendment Act, 2017) updated some references to Macdonald but kept his name on the Macdonald Cartier Bridge in Ottawa-Gatineau.