By 1839, the rebellions were over, but Upper and Lower Canada were plunged into a period of despair and bitterness.

More than two hundred Patriots and rebels from Upper Canada had died on the battlefield while others had been hanged or sent into exile. The reform forces were decisively defeated and the economy deteriorated. Poor harvests have reduced many farmers to poverty.

On his return to London in 1838, John George Lambton, Earl of Durham, submitted his report which set out the conclusions he had drawn during his stay in the British colonies of North America. Lord Durham paid particular attention to the relations between the English and the “Canadians” of Lower Canada. According to him, more power had to be given to the elected assembly.

“It is not by weakening but by strengthening the influence of the people on their government,” he wrote, “that it will be possible, in my opinion, to bring back harmony where discord has reigned for so long, and to introduce a previously unknown change. regularity and vigor in the administration of the provinces.

He proposed that the governor choose his advisors – in fact his cabinet – from among men enjoying the confidence of the Assembly.

In this regard, Durham appears to agree with the reformers Louis-Joseph Papineau of Lower Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie of Upper Canada, and Joseph Howe of Nova Scotia.

Durham realizes that there is another, more serious problem in the case of Lower Canada.

“I expected to find conflict between the government and the people: instead I found two nations at war within one state; I found a struggle, not of principles, but of races.

And I understood that it would be useless to try to improve laws or institutions without succeeding in extinguishing the deadly hatred which today divides the inhabitants of Lower Canada into two hostile groups: the French and the English.

To resolve the problem, Durham proposed unifying Upper and Lower Canada, as the English party had previously suggested. By uniting the two Canadas, the English would become dominant and the French Canadians would become a minority. He believes that French Canadians, whom he describes as a people “without history and without literature”, will gradually abandon their identity.

“The language, laws, and character of the North American continent are English, and every race other than the English race is in a state of inferiority.

It is to free them from this inferiority that I wish to give Canadians our English character. »

Despite Lord Durham’s recommendations, the British government refused to give more power to the colonists. British ministers feared that colonial autonomy would lead to the disintegration of the British Empire. Nevertheless, the unification of the two Canadas was an opportunity to resolve the French problem once and for all.

In Halifax in 1840, Joseph Howe, who had been a member of the assembly for four years, favored Lord Durham’s reforms and wrote to the British Colonial Secretary in London in support of them.

Howe was deeply disappointed when the government refused to reform the colonial parliamentary system.

“We must hasten,” wrote Howe, “to introduce into the colonies the principle of self-government, a government responsible to the people. It is the only simple and certain solution capable of healing a deep-rooted and far-reaching evil. »