Building Canada's Railroad

Hello LINC 7 Students,

On Monday we'll watch this video about the building of the railway across Canada.

Please watch it as a preview if your listening is weak. You can watch it with the subtitles on.

The creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway was a task originally undertaken as the National Dream by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald.

The government wanted to build a railway linking the west and the east within 10 years of July 1871. Macdonald saw it as essential to the creation of a unified Canadian nation that would stretch across the continent.

First, the government had to make a contract with a company to build the railroad.

Competition for the lucrative contract to build the railway was intense, and in 1872, wealthy railway promoter Sir Hugh Allan (photo below) was awarded the contract..

However, Allan had also contributed around $350,000 to the Conservative party's election campaign!

When this became public knowledge in 1873, Sir John A. Macdonald's government was forced to resign. This was called the Pacific Scandal.

 

Here's another good link to the History of the Railway.

This is a long PDF file, but if you skim and scan it, you can get an idea of the various stages of the story of building our national railway. :)