Establishment of Canada as a sovereign state: from dominion to kingdom

Abstract

The history of the establisment of Canada as a sovereign state is inseparably linked with the history of the English (later British) colonial empire. Initially land amounting then to Canada, are peripheral areas of the continental possessions of the British Crown in North America. First of all, they include the possession of Hudson´s Bay, Nova Scotia peninsula and the island of Newfoundland. A stronghold of the British presence in the New World colonies were New England, which followed the metropolis actively at odds with the neighboring colonies of France. The long period of Anglo-French wars culminated in the defeat of France and inclusion of its holdings (Louisiana, New France) to the British colonial empire. The territory of the future of Canada became part of a vast political and legal space, which some researchers call the British-American colonial empire. On the socio-economic point of view nothing has changed - these lands were still underdeveloped periphery of the colonies of New England. There had no prerequisites to the formation here of their own institutions of statehood. In the course of the war for the independence of the inhabitants of the colony of Quebec (the former New France), the peninsula of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, for various reasons did not support the rebellious colonies, so many supporters of the unity of the British Empire (the so-called loyalists) moved to these areas. This led to the formation of a number of new colonies, such as Upper Canada, Nyubransuik, Prince Edward Island. Together, they accounted for British North America - in contrast to the United States. It is important to emphasize that even in the middle of the XIX century British North America remained a conglomerate of disparate, sparsely populated, economically underdeveloped areas, both in the immediate possession of the British Crown, and under the control of private companies. Their transformation into a self-governing federation certainly reflected the interests of the nascent trade and economic elite of these colonies. However, this was no less exposed to "US factor" and the liberal-democratic changes that took place in the metropolis itself. Exploring the complex of concrete historical factors that determine the character of the process of establishing Canada as a sovereign state, the author of this article analyzes the formal and legal aspects of the system of power and administration, established under the British colonial empire, as well as the key points of the doctrine of English law, refers to the institution of the Crown, Parliament and the status of imperial colonial government. Emphasized is the idea that the evolution of Canada from the set of "royal" to the self-governing colonies of the federation in the status of dominion and then gaining the status of the kingdom carried out on the basis of gradual development of constitutional conventions of political practice that leaves open to interpretation the question of when exactly Canada acquired the status of a sovereign state.