Early in the history of this blog I wrote an article called “It’s Official: Cats Run This Country!” Little did I know at the time how true this was; it’s actually scary. I think I’m prophetic, or a prophet or something of that ilk. Maybe psychic? I’m not sure.
I was recently privy to some documents discussing early Canadian history. One of the documents was a leather tome — a diary — written about an event that has been buried away from public knowledge. I understand why officials wouldn’t want this information to leak out, but I’ve decided that ‘truth’ is more important than preserving the integrity of our Founding Fathers.
What I discovered from reading the diary was that in the early part of 1864 a pre-Charlottetown meeting took place in preparation for the ‘official’ first meeting to discuss confederation between British North American territories of Upper Canada (Ontario), Lower Canada (Quebec), New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island.
Tensions were high between the territories and trust was low. Each territory decided to send a single representative to a secret location, which was revealed to be Prospero Island, part of the Thousand Islands archipelago located in the St. Lawrence River.
In an effort to relieve some of the tension surrounding this meeting the delegates decided to keep things light and social. Discovering that they were all cat lovers, they agreed that each delegate could bring their favourite cat to the meeting.
On the surface this seems like a good idea; everyone loves cats, right? Little did the delegates know that it was a recipe for disaster. Due to this decision — bringing cats to the meeting — Confederation almost didn’t happen. In fact two of the six territories, Newfoundland and P.E.I., initially decided not to join, and I now believe that the reasons for their decision can be traced back to this meeting, and to the actions of cats.
(Are cats evil? I’ll let you decide.)
In part 2 I will introduce you to some of the individuals involved in the Prospero meeting.
Posted in canadian, culture, history, humour, nationalism | Tags: Canada, culture, canadian, humour, humor, funny, history, Ontario, Cats, quebec, truth, alternate history, confederation, canadian confederation, founding fathers, commentary, social, rervisionist history, new brunswick, nova scotia, newfoundland, prince edward island british north america, evil cats, cute cats, parady, silly
