Have a Listen: Ceremony Broadcast on CBC Radio, 1949 – Newfoundland Enters Confederation

I’m a big fan of a good April Fool’s Joke, but this year I’m feeling more nostalgic than silly, and thinking about to another April Fool’s Day, back in 1949.

Of course, Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada on March 31. Rumour has it the Act was signed just a minute before midnight, to avoid Newfoundland and Labrador joining Canada on April Fool’s Day. This was serious business – the most serious business possible – and not to be taken lightly.

The ceremonies did take place on April 1 though, and if you follow the link above, you can listen in their entirety. Really interesting stuff, and a big day we should remember.

So there you have it – we became Canada’s youngest province (despite boasting the oldest city in Canada), over 60 years ago, after more than a year of campaigning and two referendums. The issue divided families and communities, and continued to do so for many years to come.

Generally, it was Roman Catholics and St. John’s elites who were anti-Confederation, while Protestants, communities near Nova Scotia and women were pro. But read any account from the time and you’ll know that plenty of Newfoundlanders wanted their independence, and would do just about anything to avoid the grips of the ‘Canadian Wolf.’

But join the Canadian Wolf we did, and with it came almost immediate baby bonuses, old age pensions and veteran benefits – the economic boons of hitching our wagon to a much bigger horse than ours.

So, my parents, and my elder brothers and sisters, were born British subjects; I was born a Canadian citizen. But also a Newfoundlander – which in the early days was sometimes a tough bridge to gap. Like when I went to Montreal for the first time as a young adult and learned just how pejorative a term ‘Newfie’ was in mainland Canada in the 1970s.

Still, I think I’m a proud Canadian for the same reason my mother welcomed Confederation. We were a big family living on a labourer’s small wage, maybe destined to live in poverty like the families before us, with no hope of education past grade 4 (where my father had had to bow out). She wanted health, education, and opportunity for us, never caring about herself.  Her greatest fear in life was that our destiny would be like hers.

And no, joining Canada didn’t make us rich – far from it, of course. We stayed poor, just like our neighbours were poor, but our abject poverty was slowly replaced with proper clothing,  jobs, good food and life-saving healthcare.  And, above all, education.

We all hated school, of course, but our mother never gave up on it.  She knew it was our key, the one she never had, and she was determined we would use it.  My siblings and I all got affordable,  post-secondary educations.  Many of us pursued university degrees – something no one in our family for the past 200 years on the island could have dreamed of.  We got good jobs and, luckily, if we couldn’t find work at home, we could look to our sister provinces in Canada.  We learned from them and shared our culture, too.

I’m not a historian. I know that there were many people who wanted Confederation, and almost just as many who didn’t. Some people never gave up their Independent leanings, and I know some people still take issue with how it was handled, or executed. But we got a lot from that ‘Canadian wolf’ – schools, roads, hospitals, new opportunities and a new chance to start over.

I’m sure Canada isn’t a perfect country.  No doubt mistakes were made (just talk to fisherman about the countless blunders made handling our fisheries, for example), but like Newfoundland and Labradorians have always done, we’ve made the best of it. We developed our self-confidence and transformed ourselves from Newfie jokes into Canadian leaders, earning respect with our hard work ethic, creativity and sense of humour.

“And ‘have not’ will be no more.”  After just three of generations of borrowing from our sisters, we started giving back, and we became a ‘have’ province. I’m not sure if that’s something Joey Smallwood ever envisioned, or my mother either, but I know they’re smiling somewhere. So I’ll take a break this Aprils Fools’ morning (at least on this blog – old habits die hard), to reflect on all that we’ve done, and all the generations we have to thank for it. God guard thee, Newfoundland!