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House of Commons, 7 June 1869, Canadian Confederation with Newfoundland

634 COMMONS DEBATES June 7, 1869
Hon. John Sandfield Macdonald said he had never heard a more flimsy excuse offered by a gentleman sworn to discharge an important public duty.
Mr. M. C. Cameron said the hon. gentleman was hard to please. The afdavit contained the exact truth. The member for Carleton was absent from the city on a great public duty. Some gentlemen were here from Newfoundland, and it was the duty of Ministers to have entertained them hospitably. As Ministers neglected their duty, the member for Carleton was one of a party who undertook to show these gentlemen hospitality by taking them on a trip up the Ottawa, and there was no saying how much progress had been made on that trip towards the annexation of Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
The discussion was continued by Sir George E. Cartier, Messrs. D. A. McDonald, Masson (Soulanges), Pope and Wright (Ottawa), the remarks being mostly of a jocular nature, and at the expense of Mr. Connell, Mr. Pope proposing that he be imprisoned during the pleasure of the House, or that a codicil to suit his case be put at the end of the Flogging Bill.
Mr. Wright acknowledged that he was the Mephistopheles who had allowed the member for Carleton from his Parliamentary duties to taste of the tree of knowledge on the waters of the Upper Ottawa and pleaded that the punishment should be of the highest description.
The motion was agreed to.

LAKES AND RIVERS

Mr. Geoffrion introduced a Bill to empower the Company for the improvement and deepening of the St. Francis and Yamaska, to levy tolls on vessels navigating said rivers.
Sir John A. Macdonald said that the objects sought for by this Bill were within local jurisdiction, and asked the hon. gentleman not to proceed farther with it. Besides, the Dominion did not claim the right to impose tolls.
Mr. Mackenzie—Does this refer to all rivers ?
Sir John A. Macdonald—It does.
Mr. Geoffrion said that the same answer was made by the local Government in Quebec, and as the matter was a very serious one, [...]

Source:

Canada. House of Commons Debates, 1869. Edited by P.B. Waite. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1975. Original scans accessible at: http://parl.canadiana.ca/.

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Selection of input documents and completion of metadata: Gordon Lyall.

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