Province of Canada (1841–1849)
In response to the rebellions in Lower Canada and Upper Canada (now Ontario), the British government decided to merge the two provinces into a single province, as recommended by Lord Durham in his Report. The Union Act, 1840, passed by the British Parliament, abolished the two provinces and their separate parliaments, and created the Province of Canada, with a single parliament for the entire province, composed of an elected Legislative Assembly and an appointed Legislative Council. The Governor General retained a strong position in the government.
In the government of Lower Canada, the position of provincial secretary had been regarded as a non-partisan public service position. However, in the new government of the Province of Canada, Lord Sydenham considered that the provincial secretary should be a member of the Legislative Assembly and the Executive Council. In the general election of 1841, Sydenham persuaded Daly to stand for election in the riding of Megantick in Canada East (formerly Lower Canada). Daly was elected without opposition as a supporter of the union, and Sydenham then appointed Daly as appointed provincial secretary of Canada East and a member of the Executive Council of the Province of Canada.
For the first two years of the union, the different groups in the Assembly and the Executive Council found Daly an acceptable colleague. In the first session, he voted in favour of the union, and thereafter was a consistent supporter of the governor. Sydenham's first ministry in 1841 was composed of Compact Tories, Reformers, and general supporters of the governor, while the new ministry formed in 1842 was dominated by Reformers. Daly got along well with all. He applied himself with his normal diligence and considered that his role was to give advice in Council based on his long experience in government. He did not speak frequently in the Assembly. Although he was an excellent conversationalist in individual settings, he was not a good public speaker. His tenacity in holding office earned him the nickname "the perpetual secretary", but he was nonetheless a popular and convivial character.
The situation changed when there was a political crisis in 1843. The new Governor General, Sir Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, was determined to retain the prerogatives of the Crown, particularly in the area of appointments to government offices, to ensure the government was based on Crown supporters. The Reformers, led by Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine from Canada East and Robert Baldwin from Canada West, were equally determined to implement the system of responsible government, where the governor would follow the advice of the Executive Council, drawn from the group which had the support of a majority in the elected Legislative Assembly. At first, there were manoeuverings behind the scenes. When it started to appear to some Reformers that Daly would likely side with the governor in a dispute, the Assembly held an inquiry into some of Daly's activities as provincial secretary, including the old arrangement where he remitted his salary to the previous absentee secretary. He was defended in the Assembly by Wakefield, who increasingly was moving from the French-Canadian Group to the group of supporters of the governor. The Assembly committee exonerated Daly, but the proceedings hinted that there was a rift within the Executive Council.
The dispute came to a head when Metcalfe made appointments without following the Council's advice. LaFontaine, Baldwin, and the other members of the Executive Council resigned en masse in November 1843, with the exception of Daly. As the sole member of the Council, Daly was the acting head of government for several weeks. In December 1843, Governor General Metcalfe was able to persuade two others members of the Assembly to join the Council: William Draper from Canada West, and Denis-Benjamin Viger from Canada East. The Council, composed of Daly, Draper and Viger, ran the government of the province for several months, under the direction of Metcalfe. The three councillors did not have to account to the Assembly for their conduct of the government, because Metcalfe prorogued the Assembly. It did not meet again prior to dissolution and the general election of 1844. Metcalfe appointed Daly as Provincial Secretary of the Province of Canada, effective January 1, 1844.
The Reformers viewed Daly's decision to stay in office as a betrayal. However, it appears that for the first time in his long career, Daly had been forced to assess his own political views. For the previous twenty years, he had served the governors appointed by the Crown, as a member of the public service. The transition to a political office, as required by Sydenham, did not change his fundamental outlook, namely to support the governor who represented the Crown. He considered himself to be a non-political public servant. The Reformers disagreed, taking the position that a non-political public servant could not be a member of the Council.
In the 1844 election, the Reformers were defeated by those who supported Governor General Metcalfe. Lafontaine consolidated his position in Canada East, but not enough to make up for the considerable Reform losses in Canada West. Metcalfe was able to form a new government without LaFontaine and Baldwin. Daly had been re-elected in Megantick as a supporter of the governor, and Metcalfe kept him in the Executive Council. In the Assembly, he was a reliable vote for the governor. Resentment over Daly's conduct continued to fester. In March 1845, Daly was challenged to a duel by Reformer Thomas Cushing Aylwin over Daly's refusal to resign in 1843; shots were fired but no one was injured.
There was another political shift in 1848, with the appointment of Lord Elgin as governor-general. The British government had finally accepted that responsible government had to be implemented in the British North American provinces, as recommended by Lord Durham, ten years earlier. Lord Elgin's instructions were to appoint the government from the political group which had a majority in Assembly. Following the election of 1848, the Reformers under La Fontaine and Baldwin formed the majority, and Lord Elgin followed their advice in the appointment of the Executive Council. Daly had been re-elected in the Megantick riding, but resigned along with the rest of the outgoing members of the defeated government. The "perpetual secretary" had lost his job, after twenty-five years.
Lord Elgin was sympathetic to Daly's position, and wrote to the Colonial Secretary, urging the British government to find some appointment for Daly. Elgin pointed out that Daly had been required to enter the political arena by Governor-General Sydenham, thereby risking his position as a public servant. He had also stood by Governor-General Metcalfe in his dispute with the Reformers, which had led to his dismissal from the Council. Based on assurances from Lord Elgin, Daly returned to England and sought office from the Colonial Office. However he took advice from Wakefield, also back in England, who gave him excessively large expectations. Daly's lobbying efforts were unsuccessful, and the Colonial Secretary refused to give him any position. Instead, in 1849 the British government appointed Daly to a commission of inquiry into the management of the New Forest and Waltham Forest. On receiving that appointment, Daly's seat in the Canadian Parliament became vacant.
