Every day, we meet two great men who are the founding fathers of Canada as we know it today. Without realizing it, they are part of our daily lives because their faces are printed on our five and ten dollar bills. We are talking about Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Sir John A. Macdonald. The reason we call them sir is because these two men built our country and accomplished many things that made Canada a strong and peaceful country. Macdonald's greatest achievement as a politician was his participation in the creation of the Confederation of Canada (July 1, 1867). Today, the term "Confederation" is seen as Macdonald's idea to encourage French Canadians to participate in conferences for constitutional reform. Because of his important role within confederation, Macdonald was naturally chosen to become the first prime minister of the new federal government. During his first election (1867-1873), he joined the provinces of Manitoba (1870), British Columbia (1871) and Prince Edward Island (1873) to the Canadian Confederation. In 1869, he also purchased the Northwest Territories owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, which later became the provinces of Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. In 1873, he created the North West Mounted Police (RCMP) to provide law enforcement to establish friendly relations with First Nations and open up more land. With his political career, he took advantage of the economic crisis to defend his national policy, which applied a 30% tariff on manufactured goods to protect and promote the industrialization of Canada. Secondly, it was also for its extension of the railway in order to facilitate trade from one end of the country to the other third and to supplement...... middle of paper ......pleasant to the In England, Laurier proposed a bill to create the Royal Canadian Navy, but this idea was very unpopular with Canadians who saw it as a waste of money on the part of the government and a second bill in 1911 sought commercial reciprocity with the United States. During Laurier's years in power, he was always confronted with English Canadians who fought against the presence of French speakers outside Quebec, but supported political reconciliation with England and French Canadians who fought to preserve their culture outside Quebec all opposed to rapprochement with England. By studying the history of these two great men, living through them is the vision they had in Canada. We now see their determination to make this vision a reality. Thanks to them, Canada is today a great nation and we can say out loud that we are proud to be Canadian..