During the prosperous years of the 1860�s, the Maritime Provinces called a conference at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, to talk about a union of their three colonies. A group of delegates from the Canadas, led by John A. Macdonald, asked to attend the conference and to speak. As the meetings went on, one point became clear. The British North American colonies found that each of them had much the same problems as the others, and each wanted the same benefits for their people.

�Confederation�, that is, joining together under a central government, was not a new idea. Ever since the 1820�s a few politicians in the colonies had been proposing such a thing. It had been mentioned at railway conferences, when officials gathered to talk about plans for connecting their provinces by rail. New Brunswick had turned down one offer of union already.

The provinces had every reason to talk cautiously on this subject. No province would want to lose anything by uniting with the others; and none of the smaller or less prosperous provinces would want to be overshadowed by bigger, more prosperous ones. Each would want to gain something better without giving up any of its rights. Many changes would have to be made, and who knew what problems they would cause? To bring about anything as complicated as a union of quite different colonies would take people who were good leaders.

In 1864, the College of Saint Joseph opened in Memramcook, and two of the first students to attend were Pierre-Amand Landry and Pascal Poirier . As students, they followed the Confederation debates closely, and both would be important future leaders in establishing New Brunswick�s position within Confederation.

Samuel Leonard Tilley , of New Brunswick, soon showed that his knowledge of business would be very useful in working out certain problems of union. To make Confederation really work, the planners knew it would take more than the cheering and enthusiasm of that first meeting in Charlottetown.

After Charlottetown, conferences were held in Quebec and London (England). In New Brunswick, the idea of Confederation may well have been lost, had it not been for a group of Irish-American soldiers. The �Fenians�, as they called themselves, were threatening to attack British colonies all along the border with the United States. In New Brunswick, the militia was called up and armed to defend the border. Business largely ceased all along the St. Croix, and residents anxiously watched the Fenian campfires on the opposite shores.

Lieutenant Governor, Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon wanted Confederation to happen, and worked to discourage any resistance within New Brunswick. On April 7, 1866, a critical moment in Canada�s history occurred at the Lieutenant-Governor�s residence (Old Government House) in Fredericton, when the then Premier Albert J. Smith, leader of the anti-Confederate government in New Brunswick, confronted Lieutenant-Governor Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon with his difference of opinion as to whether New Brunswick should unite with Canada. Gordon responded by dissolving the government, forcing a new election and the subsequent selection of Samuel Leonard Tilley as Premier. New Brunswick�s decision in electing a pro-Confederation government changed the future for all of Canada. Confederation, as it had been planned at the Quebec Conference in 1864, was now possible.

On December 4, 1866, at the Westminster Palace Hotel in London England, representatives from the provinces of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia drafted an agreement that later became the British North America Act. Samuel Leonard Tilley described the new confederation as �a Dominion stretching from sea to sea�, and Queen Victoria liked his suggestion. By Royal Proclamation, the Dominion of Canada was established in 1867, and Canada would celebrate its birth as a nation on July 1, 1867.

One week later there would be another equally important celebration in New Brunswick. The first issue of the "Moniteur Acadien" would be published in Shediac by Isra�l Landry. This was the first French-language newspaper in Atlantic Canada. With the motto �Our Religion, Our Language, Our Culture�, the "Moniteur Acadien" would be devoted to the interests of Acadians world-wide.