Turncoat

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In 1836, Upper Canada is a colonial province in turmoil. William Lyon Mackenzie, sometime member of the Legislative Assembly, editor of the radical Colonial Advocate, and a left-wing rabble-rouser, has just sent the Assembly’s Seventh Report on Grievances to the imperial government in England.

The farmers in Upper Canada have many legitimate complaints-domination of the political and financial spheres by an aristocratic elite known as the Family Compact, the Clergy Reserves law that sets aside every seventh lot in a concession to support the Anglican church, the Alien Act (recently repealed but whose spirit lives on) whereby American immigrants were limited in their property rights and freedom to hold office, and a governor-appointed Tory Legislative Council that has turned down dozens of bills from the Reform-controlled Legislative Assembly. The province is plagued by political gridlock, firmly in the hands of a military governor. Dissident farmers have pinned their hopes on the Reform Party, but are becoming more and more militant. Whispers of rebellion are in the air.

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