Between 3 February and 13 March 1865, the Parliament of the Province of Canada debated the negotiated confederation of British colonies on the Atlantic seaboard, aimed at creating a union from Newfoundland to Lake Superior. As a public information exercise, legislators decided to produce a near-verbatim account of their deliberations. Peter Waite has made a selection of the most interesting and revelatory parts of the resulting thousand-page tome, making it easier to access one of the most important sources for early Canadian history. In The Confederation Debates in the Province of Canada, 1865 , John A. Macdonald presses for the advantages of a strong central power; Alexander Galt puts forward the economic arguments for union; and critics of confederation, Christopher Dunkin and A.A. Dorion, express their misgivings with prophetic insight.