1st Canadian Ministry


The first Canadian ministry, or the first Macdonald ministry of Canada, was the inaugural government of the Dominion of Canada led by Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald. It governed Canada from the ministry's, and the nation's, formation upon Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867 until the ministry resignation on November 5, 1873 over the Pacific Scandal.
The ministry inherited much of the administrative institution, and senior figures, from the final ministry of the United Province of Canada, the Great Coalition of 1864, which was also headed by MacDonald. As the master coalition builder who secured the nation's confederation, MacDonald continued to included in his cabinet moderate Reformers he had co-opted under his Liberal-Conservative banner. Of the thirteen original members, more than half of them have stood for elections formally as Reformers or Liberals in the past. William Pearce Howland, Adam Johnston Fergusson Blair, and William McDougall in particular entered the Great Coalition previously as Reformers and secured their place in MacDonald's new cabinet specifically as Ontario Reformers, and were expelled from the Reform convention only days prior for remaining in the coalition.
The ministry took office on the day the nation was formed, and secured its first electoral mandate within three months during the 1867 general election, with candidates carrying the Conservative or Liberal-Conservative banners winning a majority of the seats in the first parliament. It won just shy of a majority in the 1872 general election, with the opposition Liberals only five seats behind.
After five years in opposition, Macdonald would return in 1878 to head the third Canadian ministry, dominating Canadian politics for another decade.

Ministers