Amongst notable Metis people are television actor Tom Jackson

Confederation 
The Seventy-Two Resolutions from the 1864 Quebec Conference and 
Charlottetown Conference laid out the framework for uniting British colonies in 
North America into a federation. They had been adopted by the majority of the 
provinces of Canada and became the basis for the London Conference of 1 866, 
which led to the formation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. The term 
dominion was chosen to indicate Canada's status as a self-governing colony of the 
British Empire, the first time it was used about a country. With the coming into 
force of the British North America Act (enacted by the British Parliament), the 
Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia became a federated 
kingdom in its own right. 
The Colony of Vancouver Island was chartered in 1849, with the trading 
post at Fort Victoria as the capital. This was followed by the Colony of the Queen 
Charlotte Islands in 1853, and by the creation of the Colony of British Columbia in 
1858 and the Stikine Territory in 1 861, with the latter three being founded 
expressly to keep those regions from being overrun and annexed by American gold 
miners. The Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands and most of the Stikine 

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Territory were merged into the Colony of British Columbia in 1 863 (the 
remainder, north of the 60th Parallel, became part of the North-Western Territory). 
Post-Confederation Canada 1867—1914 
The Battle of Fish Creek, fought April 24, 1885, at Fish Creek, 
Saskatchewan, was a major Metis victory over the Dominion of Canada forces 
attempting to quell Louis Riel's North-West Rebellion. 
Expansion 
Using the lure of the Canadian Pacific Railway, a transcontinental line that 
would unite the nation, Ottawa attracted support in the Maritimes and in British 
Columbia. In 1866, the Colony of British Columbia and the Colony of Vancouver 
Island merged into a single Colony of British Columbia; it joined the 
Canadian Confederation in 1871. In 1873, Prince Edward Island joined. 
Newfoundland-which had no use for a transcontinental railway-voted no in 1869, 
and did not join Canada until 1949. 
Federation emerged from multiple impulses: the British wanted Canada to 
defend itself; the Maritimes needed railroad connections, which were promised in 
1867; British-Canadian nationalism sought to unite the lands into one country, 
dominated by the English language and British culture; many French-Canadians 

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saw an opportunity to exert political control within a new largely French-speaking 
Quebec and fears of possible U.S. expansion northward. On a political level, there 
was a desire for the expansion of responsible government and elimination of the 
legislative deadlock between Upper and Lower Canada, and their replacement with 
provincial legislatures in a federation. This was especially pushed by the liberal 
Reform movement of Upper Canada and the French Canadian Parti rouge in Lower 
Canada who favored a decentralized union in comparison to the Upper Canadian 
Conservative party and to some degree the French-Canadian Parti bleu, which 
favored a centralized union. 
In 1905 when Saskatchewan and Alberta were admitted as provinces, they 
were growing rapidly thanks to abundant wheat crops that attracted immigration to 
the plains by Ukrainians and Northern and Central Europeans and by settlers from 
the United States, Britain and eastern Canada.