Lower Canada Tories

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Château Clique
)

  • Tories
  • Château Clique
  • Parti bureaucrate
  • "British" Tories
FoundedEarly 19th century
Dissolved1855 (approximate)
Succeeded byNone
Ideology
ColonyLower Canada, British North America

Lower Canada Tories is a general name for individuals and parliamentary groups in Lower Canada, and later in the Province of Canada's division of Canada East,[1] who supported the British connection, colonialism, and a strong colonial governor.[2]: 326  They generally favoured assimilation of French-Canadians to British culture, laws, and the English language, and opposed democracy.

Part of the Politics series on
Toryism
The Royal Oak in which Charles II hid to escape capture by the Roundheads is a prominent symbol of Toryism
Characteristics
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People
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Château Clique

James McGill, a leading member of the Château Clique

The Château Clique, or Clique du Château, was a group of wealthy families in Lower Canada in the early 19th century. They were the Lower Canada equivalent of the Family Compact in Upper Canada.

Like the Family Compact, the Château Clique gained most of its influence after the

Act of Union (1840), which ultimately failed in its attempt to assimilate
all French Canadians but succeeded in preventing their political and economic interests from prevailing over those of Britain. The Château Clique also had control over the Crown lands and the clergy reserves but much less than the Family Compact because of the already-existing seigneurial system.

Parliamentary groups

They were also known on the electoral scene as the Parti bureaucrate (Bureaucratic Party), also known as the British Party or the Tory Party.

Constitutional framework

The

lieutenant governor. The governor was appointed by the British Crown, and he appointed members of the Clique as his advisers. The Clique was also able to establish itself in the Legislative Council, leaving the Legislative Assembly, made up of a majority of French-Canadian representatives, with little or no power.[3]
: 704, 728 

Lower Canada Rebellion

Louis-Joseph Papineau, as a reformer in the Assembly, was one of the fiercest opponents of the Château Clique. His struggles against the Clique and the Lieutenant Governor, Lord Gosford, led to the Lower Canada Rebellion in 1837.

After the rebellion, Upper and Lower Canada were united as the Province of Canada, but the Château Clique did not disappear like the Family Compact. While the English-speaking population became the majority, the British-appointed governors still attempted to force the French Canadian population to assimilate. Canada East, as Lower Canada was called after the union, eventually gained some political independence with the union government of Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine.

Other members

See also

References

  1. S2CID 154780241
    .
  2. JSTOR 136890
    .
  3. S2CID 148289165
    .
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