Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 11, 2015

John A. Macdonald (1815–1891) was the first Prime Minister of Canada (1867–73, 1878–91). The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career which spanned almost half a century. His family immigrated from Scotland to Kingston in the colony of Upper Canada (today in eastern Ontario) when he was a boy. He became a lawyer, and was involved in several high-profile cases, quickly becoming prominent in Kingston. Seeking and obtaining a legislative seat in 1844, he served in the legislature of the colonial United Province of Canada and by 1857 had become premier under the colony's unstable political system. When in 1864 no party proved capable of governing for long, Macdonald agreed to a proposal from his political rival, George Brown, that the parties unite in a Great Coalition to seek federation and political reform. Macdonald was the leading figure in the subsequent discussions and conferences, which resulted in the British North America Act and the birth of Canada as a nation on 1 July 1867. Macdonald is credited with creating a Canadian Confederation despite many obstacles, and expanding what was a relatively small country to cover the northern half of North America. By the time of his death in 1891, Canada had secured most of the territory it occupies today.

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