"What if Canadian history was actually about the money? In 1867, Canadians wrote themselves a new constitution because they needed a new tax deal. Confederation was not just about the taxes, but it was never not about the taxes, and the founding principles of 'Peace, Order, and Good Government' should be reconsidered accordingly. Modern Canada, like Britain, France, and the United States, was born of a tax revolt. But in Canada, George Brown's tax revolt became John A. Macdonald's tax coup: a quasi-imperial fiscal federalism that successfully withstood half a century's worth of popular agitation before it began to unravel. This book describes how politics in Canada became social politics between 1867 and 1917. Canada was constructed in 1867 amidst fierce debates about fair taxation and reconstructed in 1917 amidst even fiercer ones. What did fairness mean to Canadians? That was always a 'who' question as well as a 'what' question. Some people demanded fairness for their region, others demanded fairness for their race, and still others rewrote fairness to reflect changing understandings of wealth, poverty, and land ownership. Successive chapters provide detailed case studies of those local debates and then recount how the new ideas gradually infiltrated and transformed federal politics. But the old regime did not die quietly. It fought bitterly for its clientelist, regressive fiscal federalism and the Canadian people paid a terrible price for their tax reforms. The story of that struggle has never been more timely."--

Introduction: wealth, poverty, and taxes -- Part one: constructing fiscal federalism. Confederation, or how not to run a tax revolt ; Tax revolt in Nova Scotia in the 1860s: fairness and region ; Tax revolt in British Columbia in the 1870s: fairness and race ; Macdonald to Laurier: revolt against liberalism -- Part two: reconstructing fiscal federalism. Tax revolt in Montreal in the 1880s: fairness and poverty ; Corporate tax revolt in Toronto in the 1890s: fairness and wealth ; Single-tax revolt in the 1900s: fairness over the land ; Laurier to Borden: failed revolt against the tariff ; Income tax: progressivism triumphant -- Conclusion: the politics of fairness.