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The first time British legislators were introduced to the bill that would create Canada, they were offered an apology.

“I must unaffectedly ask for the forbearance of the House,” Colonial Secretary Henry Herbert, the Earl of Carnarvon, told the House of Lords as he introduced what would become the British North America Act.

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After calling it “my lot” to have to quarterback the Canada bill, the colonial secretary promised to hurry up and “not detain your lordships” too long.

It was 150 years ago this month and an uninterested British parliament was voting on Canada’s founding document. Nearby — possibly even looming overhead in the strangers gallery — sat the increasingly horrified Fathers of Confederation.

They included John A. Macdonald, George-Etienne Cartier and Charles Tupper, men who would be immortalized in bronze and see their names attached to streets, civic buildings and mountains across an entire continent.