The Pacific Scandal was a political scandal in Canada involving allegations of bribes being accepted by members of the Conservative government in the attempts of private interests to influence the bidding for a national rail contract. As part of British Columbia's 1871 agreement to join Canadian Confederation, the government had agreed to build the Canadian Pacific Railway, a transcontinental railway linking the Pacific Province to the eastern provinces. The proposed rail project, when completed, was the most intensive and ambitious of its kind ever undertaken to date. However as a new nation with limited capital resources, financing for the project was sought after both at home and abroad, naturally attracting interest from Great Britain and the United States.
The scandal ultimately led to the resignation of Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and a transfer of power from his Conservative government to a Liberal government led by Alexander Mackenzie. One of the new government's first measures was to introduce secret ballots in an effort to improve the integrity of future elections.
Read more about Pacific Scandal: Background, Scandal
Famous quotes containing the words pacific and/or scandal:
“It is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone.... It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We must cultivate our garden.
Furia to God one day in seven allots;
The other six to scandal she devotes.
Satan, by false devotion never flammed,
Bets six to one, that Furia will be damned.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)