Canada is comprised of 10 provinces and 2 territories whose heritage derives from the (diverse) original peoples of the country and the institutions and cultures of the colonizing powers, as well as those of the equally diverse immigrants. To analyze the impact of imperial traditions on the development of fiscal and monetary institutions throughout the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries would require space and time that we do not have. We therefore focus our discussion on the role of British and French antecedents in the development of Canadian institutions by examining almost exclusively the experiences of Ontario and Quebec, the most populous colonies at the time of Confederation. We will present our data and analysis by breaking down the historical experience into three eras:

1. 1713–63: the French period – New France develops a sustainable economy

2. 1763–1867: the British colony period

3. 1867–1914: the early postcolonial period

In 1713, after the Treaty of Utrecht, the economy along the St. Lawrence River experienced four decades of relatively peaceful development. The fur trading economy diversified with increasing agricultural settlement. Yet the economy also relied heavily on transfers from the imperial government to finance the civil service and the military presence. The population is estimated to have risen steadily from 23,000 in 1713 to the mid 50,000's in 1763 (Desbarats, 1996, 165).