JOHN A. MACDONALD MEMORIAL RIBBON

John A. Macdonald was born in Scotland in 1815 and immigrated with his family to Canada in 1820.  He began articling in law at 15.  He would unite Upper and Lower Canada to form the Confederation; unite Canada by building the Trans Canada Railroad; purchase the North West Territories from Hudson Bay for $300,000 (the Americans offered $10,000,000); settle the Riel Rebellion and silence its leader Louis Riel with a firing squad; and obtain the favour of Queen Victoria and the English  Parliament.  This lead to the British Parliament passing the North America Act in 1866 and choosing July 1st, 1867 as the date when our nation would come into being.  This is now known as Canada Day.   Macdonald was chosen as the obvious man to become the first Prime Minister and was proclaimed Knight Commander of the Bath, thus Sir John A. Macdonald.

He encouraged immigration from Europe for Manitoba and the North West Territories who would then purchase supplies from Eastern Canada, encouraging the growth of farms in the West to sell their products to Eastern Canada.  

Sir John A. Macdonald visited Aylmer in 1886 during one of his successful campaigns.  The crowd gathered could not be accommodated within the Town Hall and subsequently, he gave two more public addresses to the throngs gathered in Aylmer on December 14, 1886.   The Memorial ribbon listing his death on June 6, 1891 is now 120 years’ old and next year Canada turns 145, thanks to men like Sir John A. Macdonald.

Donated by Mary Lou Stansell: The Annie Mills Estate 2006

Printed in the Aylmer Express June 8, 2011