Page "Canadian Confederation" Paragraph 34

In 2007, political scientist Janet Ajzenstat connected Canadian Confederation to the individualist ideology of John Locke.

She argued that the union of the British North American colonies was motivated by a desire to protect individual rights, especially the rights to life, liberty, and property.

She contends that the Fathers of Confederation were motivated by the values of the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

She argues that their intellectual debts to Locke are most evident when one looks at the 1865 debates in the Province of Canada ’ s legislature on whether or not union with the other British North American colonies would be desirable.