1872 Canadian federal election
The Canadian federal election of 1872 was held from July 20 to October 12, 1872, to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 2nd Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald's Conservative Party remained in power. However, the Liberals increased their parliamentary representation while the Conservative seat count remained static, giving them only five more seats than the Liberals; this technically resulted in the country's first minority government, though the support of two independent Conservative MPs functionally gave Macdonald an slim majority. Edward Blake, who had a seat in both the House of Commons of Canada and the Ontario legislature, resigned as Premier of Ontario in order to run in the 1872 federal election as dual mandates had been abolished. Had the Liberals won the election, he would have been offered the position of Prime Minister of Canada; the party had no formal leader as such until 1873 when Alexander Mackenzie was given the title after Blake declined due to ill health.
Blake was ill during much of the 1872 campaign, it was Mackenzie who led the Liberal campaign in Ontario, though not outside the province. The 1872 general election was the first to include the Provinces of Manitoba and British Columbia, which had both entered the Dominion after Confederation in 1867. By-elections had been held in both provinces to elect Members of Parliament in the newly created ridings, with Manitoba receiving four seats and British Columbia five. Note: 1 Though identifying themselves as Liberal-Conservatives, these MPs and those identifying as Conservatives were both led by Sir John A. Macdonald and sat together in the House of Commons. Acclamations The following MPs were acclaimed: British Columbia: 3 Liberal-Conservatives Manitoba: 1 Liberal-Conservative Ontario: 3 Conservatives, 3 Liberal-Conservatives, 10 Liberals Quebec: 9 Conservatives, 5 Liberal-Conservatives, 5 Liberals New Brunswick: 6 Liberals Nova Scotia: 1 Conservative, 4 Liberal-Conservatives, 2 Liberals List of Canadian federal general elections
Exposition Universelle (1878)
The third Paris World's Fair, called an Exposition Universelle in French, was held from 1 May through to 10 November 1878. It celebrated the recovery of France after the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War; the buildings and the fairgrounds were somewhat unfinished on opening day, as political complications had prevented the French government from paying much attention to the exhibition until six months before it was due to open. However, efforts made in April were prodigious, by 1 June, a month after the formal opening, the exhibition was completed; this exposition was on a far larger scale than any held anywhere in the world. It covered over 66 acres, the main building in the Champ de Mars and the hill of Chaillot, occupying 54 acres; the Gare du Champ de Mars was rebuilt with four tracks to receive rail traffic occasioned by the exposition. The Pont d'Iéna linked the two exhibition sites along the central allée; the French exhibits filled one-half of the entire space, with the remaining exhibition space divided among the other nations of the world.
Germany was the only major country, not represented, but there were a few German paintings being exhibited. The United States exhibition was headed by a series of commissioners, which included Pierce M. B. Young, a former United States Congressman and major general in the Confederate States Army and Floyd Perry Baker, a Kansas newspaper editor, as well as other generals and celebrities; the United Kingdom, British India, Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Cape Colony and some of the British crown colonies occupied nearly one-third of the space set aside for nations outside France. The United Kingdom's expenditure was defrayed out of the consolidated revenue; the UK display was under the control of a royal commission, of which the Prince of Wales was president. The exhibition of fine arts and new machinery was on a large and comprehensive scale, the Avenue des Nations, a street 730 metres in length, was devoted to examples of the domestic architecture of nearly every country in Europe and several in Asia and America.
The "Gallery of Machines" was a metallic building, an industrial showcase of low transverse arches, designed by the engineer Henri de Dion. Many of the buildings and statues were made of staff, a low-cost temporary building material invented in Paris in 1876, which consisted of jute fiber, plaster of Paris, cement. On the northern bank of the Seine River, an elaborate palace was constructed for the exhibition at the tip of the Place du Trocadéro, it was a handsome "Moorish" structure, with towers 76 metres in flanked by two galleries. It had a Cavaillé-Coll organ, inaugurated with a concert in which Charles Marie Widor played the premiere of his Symphony for Organ No. 6. The building stood until 1937. On 30 June 1878, the completed head of the Statue of Liberty was showcased in the garden of the Trocadéro palace, while other pieces were on display in the Champs de Mars. Among the many inventions on display was Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. Electric arc lighting had been installed all along the Avenue de l'Opera and the Place de l'Opera, in June, a switch was thrown and the area was lit by electric Yablochkov arc lamps, powered by Zénobe Gramme dynamos.
Thomas Edison had on display a phonograph. International juries judged the various exhibits, awarding medals of gold and bronze. One popular feature was a human zoo, called a "negro village", composed of 400 "indigenous people", and Augustin Mouchot's Solar powered engine converting solar energy into mechanical steam power, he won a Gold Medal in Class 54 for his works, most notably the production of ice using concentrated solar heat. Henry E. Steinway exhibited a grand piano which "attracted extraordinary attention". Gold award for painting: Jan Matejko, for The Hanging of the Sigismund Bell, Union of Lublin and Wacław Wilczek. Gold award for photography: Aimé Dupont Over 13 million people paid to attend the exposition, making it a financial success; the cost of the enterprise to the French government, which supplied all the construction and operating funds, was a little less than a million British Pounds, after allowing for the value of the permanent buildings and the Trocadero Palace, which were sold to the city of Paris.
The total number of persons who visited Paris during the time the exhibition was open was 571,792, or 308,974 more than came to the French metropolis during 1877, 46,021 in excess of the visitors during the previous exhibition of 1867. In addition to the general impetus given to French trade, the revenue from customs and duties from the foreign visitors increased by nearly three million sterling compared with the previous year. Concurrent with the exposition, a number of meetings and conferences were held to gain consensus on international standards. French writer Victor Hugo led the Congress for the Protection of Literary Property, which led to the eventual formulation of international copyright laws. Other meetings led to efforts to standardize the flow of mail from country to country; the International Congress for the Amelioration of the Condition of Blind People led to the worldwide adoption of the Braille System of touch-reading. Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau's time travel novel El Anacronópete starts with a lecture in the Exposition.
Eoin Colfer's novel Airman begins with its protagonists birth at the Exposition. The Paris firm of Gruel and Engelmann was known for its deluxe bookbindings; the Book of Hours is a Gothic Revival example, the celebrated Paris jeweler Alexis Falize has created a relief showing the Adoration of the Magi, surrounded by fantastic animals derived from the amusing, margina
Auguste-Réal Angers
Sir Auguste-Réal Angers was a Canadian judge and parliamentarian, holding seats both as a member of the House of Commons of Canada, as a Senator. He was born in 1837 in Quebec City and died in Westmount, Quebec, in 1919, he served in the cabinets of Sir John Sparrow David Thompson and Sir Mackenzie Bowell as Minister of Agriculture and as President of the Privy Council under Sir Charles Tupper. He served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Quebec after being elected in Montmorency in 1874 as a Conservative, he was knighted in the 1913 New Year Honours. Auguste-Réal Angers – Parliament of Canada biography "Auguste-Réal Angers". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. University of Toronto Press. 1979–2016. "Biography". Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours. National Assembly of Quebec
Alma mater
Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university, school, or college that one attended. In US usage it can mean the school from which one graduated; the phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Fine arts will depict educational institutions using a robed woman as a visual metaphor. Before its current usage, alma mater was an honorific title for various Latin mother goddesses Ceres or Cybele, in Catholicism for the Virgin Mary, it entered academic usage when the University of Bologna adopted the motto Alma Mater Studiorum, which describes its heritage as the oldest operating university in the Western world. It is related to alumnus, a term used for a university graduate that means a "nursling" or "one, nourished". Although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele and other mother goddesses, it was not used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. In the Oxford Latin Dictionary, the phrase is attributed to Lucretius' De rerum natura, where it is used as an epithet to describe an earth goddess: After the fall of Rome, the term came into Christian liturgical usage in association with the Virgin Mary.
"Alma Redemptoris Mater" is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary. The earliest documented use of the term to refer to a university in an English-speaking country is in 1600, when the University of Cambridge printer, John Legate, began using an emblem for the university's press; the device's first-known appearance is on the title-page of William Perkins' A Golden Chain, where the Latin phrase Alma Mater Cantabrigia is inscribed on a pedestal bearing a nude, lactating woman wearing a mural crown. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is cited in 1710, when an academic mother figure is mentioned in a remembrance of Henry More by Richard Ward. Many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name; the University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. Other European universities, such as the Alma Mater Lipsiensis in Leipzig, Germany, or Alma Mater Jagiellonica, have used the expression in conjunction with geographical or foundational characteristics.
At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, an international university founded by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2010, uses the term as its official name. In the United States, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, has been called the "Alma Mater of the Nation" because of its ties to the country's founding. At Queen's University in Kingston and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the main student government is known as the Alma Mater Society; the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses. For example, in the United States: there is a well-known bronze statue of Alma Mater by Daniel Chester French situated on the steps of Columbia University's Low Library. An altarpiece mural in Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library, painted in 1932 by Eugene Savage, depicts the Alma Mater as a bearer of light and truth, standing in the midst of the personified arts and sciences.
Outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. The statue was cast in 1919 by Mario Korbel, with Feliciana Villalón Wilson as the inspiration for Alma Mater, it was installed in its current location in 1927, at the direction of architect Raul Otero. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
Marc-Pascal de Sales Laterrière
Marc-Pascal de Sales Laterrière was a Quebec doctor and political figure. He was born in Baie-du-Febvre, Lower Canada in 1792, the son of Pierre de Sales Laterrière who became the seigneur of Les Éboulements. Laterrière went on to study medicine in Philadelphia, he served as surgeon with the militia during the War of 1812 and set up practice in Lower Town, Quebec City until 1816. Laterrière returned to Les Éboulements to take on his responsibilities as seigneur, he married the daughter of merchant Claude Dénéchau. He represented Northumberland County in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada from 1824 to 1830 and Saguenay County from 1830 until 1832, when he was appointed to the Legislative Council. In 1838, he was named to the Special Council that governed Lower Canada after the Rebellions of 1837, he opposed union with Upper Canada but, was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada in an 1845 by-election for Saguenay and was reelected in 1848 and 1851. In 1848, Laterrière was named adjutant-general of the militia of Lower Canada and, so, had to run again for the same seat in a by-election held that year.
In 1856, he was elected to the Legislative Council in Laurentides division. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Canadian House of Commons in 1867. Laterrière died at Les Éboulements in 1872, his daughter Eugénie married Charles Alphonse Pantaléon Pelletier, who became a member of the Canadian Senate and Lieutenant Governor of Quebec. "Marc-Pascal de Sales Laterrière". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. University of Toronto Press. 1979–2016. "Biography". Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours. National Assembly of Quebec. La famille de Sales Laterrière, H-R Casgrain
Senate of Canada
The Senate of Canada is the upper house of the Parliament of Canada, along with the House of Commons and the Monarch. The Senate is modelled after the British House of Lords and consists of 105 members appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister. Seats are assigned on a regional basis: four regions—defined as Ontario, the Maritime provinces, the Western provinces—each receive 24 seats, with the remaining portions of the country—Newfoundland and Labrador receiving 6 seats and the three northern territories each assigned the remaining one seat. Senators may serve until they reach the age of 75. While the Senate is the upper house of Parliament and the House of Commons is the lower house, this does not imply the Senate is more powerful than the House of Commons, it entails that its members and officers outrank the members and officers of the Commons in the order of precedence for the purposes of protocol. As a matter of practice and custom, the Commons is the dominant chamber.
The prime minister and Cabinet are responsible to the House of Commons and remain in office only so long as they retain the confidence of the House of Commons. The approval of both chambers is necessary for legislation and, the Senate can reject bills passed by the Commons. Between 1867 and 1987, the Senate rejected fewer than two bills per year, but this has increased in more recent years. Although legislation can be introduced in either chamber, the majority of government bills originate in the House of Commons, with the Senate acting as the chamber of "sober second thought"; the Senate came into existence in 1867, when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the British North America Act 1867, uniting the Province of Canada with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a single federation, a dominion called Canada. The Canadian parliament was based on the Westminster model. Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, described it as a body of "sober second thought" that would curb the "democratic excesses" of the elected House of Commons and provide regional representation.
He believed that if the House of Commons properly represented the population, the upper chamber should represent the regions. It was not meant to be more than a brake on the House of Commons. Therefore, it was deliberately made an appointed house, since an elected Senate might prove too popular and too powerful and be able to block the will of the House of Commons; the original Senate chamber was lost to the fire that consumed the Parliament Buildings in 1916. Subsequently, the Senate sat in the mineral room of what is today the Canadian Museum of Nature until 1922, when it relocated to Parliament Hill. With the Centre Block undergoing renovations, temporary chambers have been constructed in the Senate of Canada Building, where the Senate began meeting in 2019. Reform of the Senate has been an issue since its creation, mirrors pre-Confederation debates regarding appointed Legislative Councils in the former colonies; the federal Parliament first considered reform measures in 1874 and the Senate debated reforming itself in 1909.
There were minor changes in 1965, when the mandatory retirement age for new Senators was set at 75 years and, in 1982, when the Senate was given a qualified veto over certain constitutional amendments. There have been at least 28 major proposals for constitutional Senate reform since the early 1970s and all have failed. Discussion of reforming the appointment mechanism resurfaced alongside the Quiet Revolution and the rise of Western alienation with the chief goal of making the Senate better represent the provinces in parliament, it was suggested that provincial governments should appoint senators, as was done in the United States before the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Others suggested that senators should be members of provincial legislatures, similar to the Bundesrat of Germany; the discussions suggested redistributing Senate seats to the growing western provinces Formal suggestions for equality of seats between provinces occurred in 1981. Schemes to create an elected Senate did not gain widespread support until after 1980, when Parliament enacted the National Energy Program in the wake of the energy crises of the 1970s.
Many Western Canadians called for a "Triple-E Senate", standing for elected and effective. They believed that allowing equal representation of the provinces, regardless of population, would protect the interests of the smaller provinces and outlying regions; the Meech Lake Accord, a series of constitutional amendments proposed by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, would have required the federal government to choose a senator from a list of persons nominated by the provincial government. Before the failure of the Meech Lake accord, Alberta had passed the Senatorial Selection Act of 1987, which provided for the direct election of Alberta senators; the first of such elections was held in 1989. The results of these elections are non-binding, only prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper have appointed senators that had won these elections; the Charlottetown Accord, involved a provision under which the Senate would include an equal number of senators from each province, each elected either by the majority in the relevant provincial legislature or by the majority of voters in the province.
This accord was defeated in the referendum held in 1992. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was an advocate of
