Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839)

The Report on the Affairs of British North America, commonly known as the Durham Report, is an important document in the history of Quebec, Ontario, Canada and the British Empire.

The notable British Whig politician John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, was sent to the Canadas in 1838 to investigate and report on the causes of the rebellions of 1837–38. Durham arrived in Quebec City on 29 May. He had just been appointed Governor General and given special powers as high commissioner of British North America.

On the first page of his report he stated that "While the present state of things is allowed to last, the actual inhabitants of these Provinces have no security for person or property--no enjoyment of what they possess--no stimulus to industry." He would return to that theme repeatedly throughout his report.

In Upper and Lower Canada, he formed numerous committees consisting of essentially all the opponents of the Patriotes and made many personal observations of life in the colonies. He also visited the United States. Durham wrote that he had assumed he would find that the rebellions were based on liberalism and economics, but he eventually concluded that the real problem was the conflict between the traditionalistic French and the modernizing English elements. According to Durham, the French culture in Canada had changed little in 200 years, and showed no sign of the progress British culture had made. His 1838 report contains the famous assessment that Lower Canada consisted of "two nations warring within the bosom of a single state".

Durham recommended that Upper and Lower Canada be united into one province, with equal representation even though the English Upper Canada had a smaller population. He also encouraged immigration to Canada from Britain, to overwhelm the existing numbers of French Canadians with the hope of assimilating them into British culture. The freedoms granted to the French Canadians under the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act of 1774 should also be rescinded; according to Lord Durham this would eliminate the possibility of future rebellions. The French Canadians did not necessarily have to give up their religion and language entirely, but their culture could not be protected at the expense of what Durham considered a more progressive British culture.

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