Newfoundland’s long and winding road to Confederation

Greg Marchildon interviews Raymond Blake on his co-authored book Where Once They Stood: Newfoundland’s Rocky Road towards Confederation published by the University of Regina Press in 2019. Although the self-governing colony of Newfoundland sent two delegates to the Quebec Conference in 1864, Newfoundlanders overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to join the rest of Canada in 1869. In the decades that followed, Newfoundland continued to go its own way until, just after the Second World War, the matter was again put to the people in a referendum. This time, the pro-Confederate forces led by Joey Smallwood won the day. Professor Blake is a distinguished political historian who has written two previous book and numerous articles on the history of Newfoundland.

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