Sir John A

Bobby Rabbit convinces his friend to accompany him on a "sojourn of justice," or more plainly, to assist him in digging up Sir John A. Macdonald's bones to hold for ransom.

The life of the daughter of Canada's first prime minister is remarkable for several reasons. Born with "a brain injury," Mary was restricted to a wheelchair and to very few movements of her hands, but her life was far from restricted as she enjoyed the politics of her father, musical concerts, friends, and writing letters on the typewriter her father gave her.

To coincide with the bicentennial of Sir John A. Macdonald's birth, this is the first-ever selected collection of his most important and defining speeches. Published in collaboration with The Sir John A. Macdonald Bicentennial Commission, and endorsed by all of our living Prime Ministers, this is a beautifully produced book that deserves to be in all Canadian homes, schools, and libraries. The Sir John A. Macdonald Bicentennial Commission set out several years ago to collect, annotate, and footnote all of our first Prime Minister's speeches. Rather shockingly, this had not been done before; the speeches of even the most minor of US presidents are available in print and e-book form. Obviously, such a collection is a must for libraries and educational institutions across the country as a matter of historical record, but the speeches also make for great reading. His words have a Churchillian feel to them -- direct, decisive, visionary, and very often funny. Sir John A. is marvellously quotable, and through these speeches you understand how our country was formed, what its challenges were and often continue to be, and why our first PM was perhaps the best we'll ever have.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER John A. Macdonald, Canada's first and most important prime minister, is the man who made Confederation happen, who built this country over the next quarter century, and who shaped what it is today. From Confederation Day in 1867, where this volume picks up, Macdonald finessed a reluctant union of four provinces in central and eastern Canada into a strong nation, despite indifference from Britain and annexationist sentiment in the United States. But it wasn't easy. Gwyn paints a superb portrait of Canada and its leaders through these formative years and also delves deep to show us Macdonald the man, as he marries for the second time, deals with the birth of a disabled child, and the assassination of his close friend Darcy McGee, and wrestles with whether Riel should hang. Indelibly, Gwyn shows us Macdonald's love of this country and his ability to joust with forces who would have been just as happy to see the end of Canada before it had really begun, creating a must-read for all Canadians.

Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A.MacDonald (1815-1891) had a forty-seven year career in parliament that permanently shaped the course of Canadian political life. MacDonald was far more than the chief architect of Confederation - he was a complex, eccentric man who, unlike today's media groomed politicians, rarely subdued his strong personality for political gain. This book gives us the man behind the legend. Lively and revealing anecdotes of Sir John A.'s political and parliamentary life are set against stories of his private joys and sorrows - the murder of his brother by a drunken servant before his own eyes; his rebellious youth; the illness of his beautiful first wife and her addiction to opium; his courtship and second marriage; the tragedy of his only daughter seriously handicapped from hydrocephalus; and his life-long battle with alcohol. Stories of patronage, of political campaigns, loyal supporters, and bitter opponents take readers through many of the major events of nineteenth- century Canada, from the building of the CPR to the Riel Rebellions to name only a few.

International intrigue on the eve of the birth of a nation at Britain’s Highclere Castle, aka Downton Abbey. In late 1866, John A. Macdonald and other Fathers of Confederation arrived in London to begin discussions with Britain to create Canada. Macdonald and two of his colleagues stayed briefly at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, the stately home of the Fourth Earl of Carnarvon, Britain’s colonial secretary. Those are the facts. Today Highclere Castle is widely known as the real-life location for the popular television series Downton Abbey. In Richard Rohmer’s novel, Macdonald talks with Carnarvon at Highclere about legislation to give Canada autonomy, the danger of Irish Fenian assassination plots, and the proposed American purchase of Alaska from Russia. Later, back in London, a fire partially destroys Macdonald’s hotel room, and the future prime minister, trying to curb his fondness for alcohol, woos and marries his second wife, Agnes. In the end, Macdonald wins the passage of the British North America Act but fails in his bid for Alaska when U.S. Secretary of State William Seward buys that strategic territory. Secret deals, romance, and international intrigue all figure in this rousing tale of historical speculation set on the eve of the birth of a nation.

The Hill Times: Best Books of 2017 As Sir John A. Macdonald intended, the federal government must be recognized as the nation’s voice. Power. It is the capacity to inspire while encouraging and enabling change, and it matters. When handled in a positive way, power is the key to the state’s ability to strengthen the nation and improve lives. But state power, John Boyko argues forcefully, works best when concentrated on a federal level, as Sir John A. Macdonald and Canada’s other founders intended. Provincial governments are essential, tending to local matters, administering and helping to fund national programs, and sometimes acting as incubators for ideas that grow to become national programs. But in fighting for scraps of power, premiers have often distracted from and occasionally hindered national progress. It is the federal government, as Boyko explains, that has been the primary force in nation building and emergency response, and is the only entity with the authority to speak for all Canadians. Canada has been at its best, and its strength will continue to grow, if we are true to Macdonald’s vision, with the federal government speaking for us in one voice, a voice that will remain Sir John’s echo.

In 1880, French Canadian journalist Joseph Tassé wrote Un parallèle: Lord Beaconsfield et Sir John Macdonald, a political comparison of Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), two-time prime minister of the United Kingdom, and Sir John A. Macdonald (1815-1891), the first prime minister of Canada. Eleven years later, the English translation by James Penny was published as Lord Beaconsfield and Sir John A. Macdonald: A Political and Personal Parallel. This new edition of a classic text marks the bicentennial of Sir John A. Macdonald's birth and the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the Disraeli Project at Queen's University, and includes for the first time both the French original and a fully annotated English text. Emerging from Michel Pharand's research and the annotation of all Disraeli's correspondence, this volume celebrates the remarkable careers and personalities of both leaders by re-issuing the only extended comparison of these important and controversial nineteenth-century Conservative prime ministers. Demonstrating that their legacies continue to fascinate even in the twenty-first century, Lord Beaconsfield and Sir John A. Macdonald is an intriguing study of the lives and politics of these two impressive statesman.