John Sandfield Macdonald ministry

The Sandfield Macdonald ministry was the inaugural cabinet of the government of Ontario (formally the Executive Council of Ontario), a province in Canada. It was formed shortly after Canadian Confederation on July 16, 1867, and governed until it was ousted December 19, 1871. It was headed by the province’s first Premier John Sandfield Macdonald, who labeled his administration the “Patent Combination” to booster its claim as a coalition government made up of both conservatives and reformers (a common alternative label for liberals until mid twentieth century).

The government was formed provisionally before the first election was held. Its governing mandate was confirmed following the 1867 Ontario election, which took place over weeks in August and September. While partisan affiliations in the first few years of confederation were fluid and unstructured, it was generally acknowledged that the Sandfield Macdonald ministry commanded the support of around 50 of the 82 elected members during the first Ontario Parliament.

The election held in March 1871 however weakened the ministry’s standing substantially. With parliamentary confidence for the ministry in doubt, Sandfield Macdonald resisted calling the 2nd Parliament of Ontario in session for eight months. When parliament was finally convened in December that year, Sandfield Macdonald ignored three votes of non-confidence in his refusal to relinquish office. The Patent Combination finally came undone on December 19, 1871, after its Treasurer Edmund Burke Wood announced his resignation and voted with the opposition. It was succeeded by a Liberal ministry led by Edward Blake.

The ministry consisted of five members.

While much effort was made to present the ministry led by Sandfield Macdonald as a Liberal-Conservatives coalition, it operated not in corporation with but in direct competition against the Liberal at the time. Sandfield Macdonald, Richards and Wood were bona fide members of the Liberal Party (interchangeably called the "Reform Party" in those days) prior to confederation. However, their presences in this new ministry were not viewed by Liberal partisans as participation in power sharing the way like George Brown or Oliver Mowat were in the Great Coalition of 1864, but were derided as traitorous.

The caucus that sustained the ministry was dominated by conservatives loyal to prime minister John A Macdonald, the mastermind who maneuvered Sandfield Macdonald, a formal rival for the pre-confederation premier’s chair, into the new one for Ontario. Even though Sandfield Macdonald held the distinction as the provincial inaugural Premier and Attorney General, he was no rookies for those roles. He held these same roles while leading a Liberal ministry in the United Province of Canada between 1862 and 1864, the only extended interruption of Conservative John A Macdonald’s premiership from 1856 to confederation in 1867. A cursory discussion of that context is needed for proper appreciation of this ministry’s formation.

Within days of the founding of the new nation, the newly installed Lieutenant-Governor Major-General Henry Stisted requested Sandfield Macdonald to undertake the formation of the province’s provisional Government on July 11, 1867. Sandfield Macdonald was initially sworn in with John Carling, a conservative from London and a confidant of Sir John A, and Stephen Richards from Brockville, a member of a prominent Liberal family, as those were the only two members he was able to secure in the first week. The Globe, then a liberal newspaper, reported a long list of Liberals who have rejected Sandfield Macdonald entreat, noting the contrast to just a few years ago when he could pick from a large number of willing Liberals for his pre-confederation ministry and derided Sandfield Macdonald as “the greatest blunder committed by any Canadian politician."^[8] The paper also suggested that Richards has long been bought off by Sir John A with a patronage appointment as a crown prosecutor.^[9] In the following week he secured Matthew Crooks Cameron, a Conservative who served two terms pre-confederation as member for Ontario North, and Edmund Burke Wood, a nominal Liberal member of the pre-confederation legislature who as a prominent lawyer for railways companies was well known to be easily influenced with financial incentives.^[10] They were sworn in five days following the initial three.

While Sandfield MacDonald and Carling each secured dual-mandates, respectively in Cornwall and London, with comfortable margins, the other chosen ministers faced electoral headwind. The news of Woods being recruited to join the coalition arrived literally while the Brant South Liberal association was meeting, causing the meeting to disband in confusion. While the local Conservatives yielded to Wood, his faced competitive challenges from former friends, winning his MP and MPP seats each with less than 10% margin. Cameron was defeated in his bid to retain Ontario North as its new MP, but he was able to secure the provincial seat seat of Toronto East thanks to his previous service on city's council. In Leeds South, the local Conservative association refused to yield to Richards, the sole cabinet member who stood only for a provincial seat, while the local Liberals were less than enthused with his joining of the coalition, costing not only him his entry to the legislature, but also his younger brother's bid for the federal seat. Macdonald faced mounting calls to dismiss Richards for a number of months, in particular from Conservatives who wish to assume a majority in the cabinet, until Richards was able to secure the Niagara seat in a by-election later that year with the help of the local Conservative MP Angus Morrison.

There was as yet no Minister of Education; the role was filled by Chief Superintendant Egerton Ryerson, who reported to Provincial Secretary Cameron.^[11]

The civil service remained very small throughout the Macdonald ministry. The offices of Treasury and of Attorney General each had fewer than ten employees; the largest department, Crown Lands, had fewer than 100 employees, including all land and timber field agents combined.^[12]

The budget increased from $1,184,000 in 1868 to $1,817,000 in 1871.^[13]

This ministry would survive the first parliament by several months, finally resigning 20 December 1871, as Macdonald could not command the confidence of a much more Liberal dominated 2nd Parliament of Ontario.

Macdonald himself did not longer survive his ministry, dying after a long illness on June 1, 1872.

Cameron would go on to serve as Leader of the Opposition to the Blake ministry and the first rival Oliver Mowat faced over his six consecutive majority wins.

Carling opted to give up his provincial seat when dual-mandate was outlawed in the 1872 federal election, and served for a long time as a senior cabinet minister and the political lieutenant to Sir John A. MacDonald in western Ontario.

Woods opted to give up his federal seat in 1872, but was soon disappointed that his return to the Liberal fold did not earn him a place in either Blake's or Mowat's cabinet, and resigned to run in a federal byelection. His deep background in railways companies made him a most potent artillery against Conservatives during the Pacific scandal, so he was again disappointed to not be invited by Liberal Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie, who succeeded him briefly as Ontario Treasurer, to join his federal ministry, and accepted the appointment to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Manitoba.

Richards, would soon retire, and his retirement might have rehabilitated his family members in Liberal circles. His younger brother Albert Norton Richards was able to get elected as the Liberal MP for Leeds South once he was no longer on the ballot. When the Liberals formed their first government at the federal level, his older brother William Buell Richards would be name the inaugural Chief Justice of Canada.

• Hammond, Melvin Ormond (1917). Confederation and its leaders. New York: G. H. Doran company. ISBN 0749005351. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)