Ultimate-Writer

Regehr, T. D. (1972). Serving the Canadian West: Policies and Problems of the Canadian Northern Railway. Western Historical Quarterly, 3(3), 283 – 298. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/967425

a. (12 marks) Write a 3-2-1 report in the usual fashion.

b. Note: Please try to keep your answer to each question under 100 words. If you can answer a question in 6 words, that’s great!

Question 1 What are the 3 most important concepts, ideas or issues in the reading? Briefly explain why you chose them. Any quotes must be in quotation marks and cited properly in APA format.

c.

Question 2 What are the 2 concepts, ideas or issues in the article that you are having the most difficulty understanding, or that are missing but should have been included? Briefly explain what you did to correct the situation (e.g. looked up an unfamiliar word or a missing fact), and the result. Cite any sites or sources used in APA format .

d.

e.

f.

Question 3 What is the main economic story of the paper? (Economics studies the allocation of limited resources among unlimited needs and wants.)

g.

h. (3 marks) On page 295, the paper states: “Much of the Canadian Northern mileage in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia found no local traffic. Yet these lines were far more expensive to build…” If that is true, why did the railway keep building them? Why didn’t it stick to “the prairie lines which were making a profit”?

1. In class, we learned that at least some people became very rich during the gold rushes of 1858 - 1868. What is NOT as well known, is that the colony of British Columbia did NOT become rich, and was in fact in serious financial trouble by 1867. In this question, you (and your group) will investigate the nature of these financial difficulties, and why BC was not able to make money through the ‘obvious’ method of taxing gold exports.

The source we’ll be using are the Colonial Despatches - the letters from the government of British Columbia to the British government, archived at the BC Genesis site: https://bcgenesis.uvic.ca . You will want to use their Search page to find the material to answer this question. We will be focusing on the years 1865 – 1867.

a. We’ll start by figuring out what sort of financial trouble BC was in by 1866 - 1867. We want to know the financial condition of the colony. We also want to know why the gold rush was not yielding a tax bounty for the government. Therefore, search for ‘gold AND financial AND tax’, as shown below. Choose ‘Sort by Date (descending)’ in the drop-down menu so you can focus on the years 1866 and 1867. To read an individual letter, click on the ‘Ref’ number at the top right of each entry (e.g. 1217 60 / 29).

Give THREE REASONS why British Columbia was in poor financial condition in 1866 and 1867. You must use at least one source from 1866, and one source from 1867. (Cite your sources in part c. of this question.)

Reason 1 (2 marks)

Reason 2 (2 marks)

Reason 3 (2 marks)

b. (6 marks) Next, we’ll try to figure out why British Columbia was not successful in implementing a gold export tax, which seems like an obvious way of raising money during a gold rush. Search for ‘gold AND export AND tax’, and sort by Date (descending), as shown below. Focus on the years 1865 – 1867.

Based on what you find, give TWO REASONS why British Columbia was not able to earn a lot of income from a tax on gold exports in the 1860s. You only need to use one source (which you’ll cite in part c.), but you are free to use more if you want to. For full marks, you need to be specific (see guidelines for answering the midterm’s T/F and Why questions in recent announcements).

(Hint: In long letters, it may be useful to search for relevant passages by hitting Ctrl-F and searching for ‘gold’ or ‘export’ or ‘tax’.)

Reason 1 (3 marks)

Reason 2 (3 marks)

c. (3 marks) Cite your sources. You should have (at least) two for part a., and (at least) one for part c. I’m glad to say this one’s easy to get 100% on! While this course requires APA style everywhere else, for this question it’s fine to copy-paste the citation that comes up when you click ‘Cite this document’ on each letter.

Part a, Citation 1 (1 mark)

Part a, Citation 2 (1 mark)

Part b, Citation 1 (1 mark)

(This is a minimum. You must include more citations if you used more than 3 sources.)

2