The Capacity to Judge Public Opinion and Deliberative Democracy in Upper Canada, 1791-1854

Geoff Hayes is the director of International Studies Option at the
University of Waterloo.

With its wide research, fine writing, and provocative argument, this
work does nothing less than reconsider the entire constitutional
development of Upper Canada. The author defines “public opinion” in
Kantian terms, arguing that Upper Canada was no conservative backwater,
but a place where many citizens actively engaged in their own
constitutional “enlightenment.” His close survey of newspapers and
voluntary associations reveals the emergence of an informed, curious,
and outspoken political voice that no political faction could ignore;
“by 1836, “[t]he essentials of colonial politics, far from being the
province of the gentlemanly few, were within the grasp of all reasoning
men.”

For McNairn, far more significant than any rebellions, or even the Act
of Union itself, is the Metcalfe crisis of 1843–44. As the governor
and council stared each other down, public opinion helped set the agenda
in an unprecedented way. Gone was the old notion that the province was a
“mixed monarchy,” and a new set of constitutional alternatives began
to be explored. While conservatives toyed with American republicanism,
the reformers worked through the complexities of “responsible
government,” a notion that McNairn wisely concludes could have meant
much more. By 1854, all sides implicitly accepted the importance of
public opinion. But how complete were the institutions created through
these “public” deliberations?

As if to challenge critics who might argue that he overstates the
strength of public opinion, McNairn concludes by studying the long
campaign to abolish the laws of primogeniture. In his view, legislators
had many reasons to resist abolition, but the growing articulate voices
of those opposed to the practice could not be ignored.

All-important studies prompt further questions, and McNairn ends by
asking several. What of minorities in the public sphere? Was reason
overemphasized (particularly at election time)? How would public opinion
“outlive” industrialization? To these might be added the question of
how public opinion evolved in different regions such as Lower Canada and
the Maritimes. No doubt scholars will ponder issues raised by this
important work for many years to come.