Canada First

The Canada First movement was organized in Toronto in the 1870s to promote the creation of a Canadian nationality in the new country. It was at first supported by Goldwin Smith and Edward Blake. The movement was strongly attacked by supporters of a continuing tie to the United Kingdom, although Canada First never proposed breaking ties with the UK, and Smith and Blake eventually withdrew their support, Smith becoming a proponent of annexation to the United States.

Canada First did not have a program that was particularly attractive outside Protestant circles in Ontario. It was an exclusive secret society rather than a broad-based organization. Its vision of Canada was really that of Canada West writ larger.

The Movements chief accomplishment was to turn Ontario public against the Métis of Red River by arousing sentiment over the execution of Thomas Scott. Canada First's nationalism was, in several senses, racist. Nova Scotian Robert G. Haliburton was one of the earliest exponents of the notion that Canadians were the heirs of Aryan northmen of the Old World. They looked down on Aboriginals and Metis and they saw the French as the great 'bar to progress, and to the extension of a great Anglo-Saxon Dominion across the Continent.' Though this group was more well known, it was a poor representation of the sentiment of the majority of those in Canada West (modern-day Ontario).