in the
County of Warner No. 5,
Alberta He was a member of the
Great Coalition government in the
Province of Canada that secured Confederation between 1864 and 1867. He became a leading figure in the creation of the Coalition when he was asked to become
premier of the Province of Canada by then Governor-General Sir
Edmund Walker Head. Doubting his ability to demand the loyalty of the majority of members of the
Legislative Assembly, he turned down the position. Still, he recommended that
George-Étienne Cartier and
John A. Macdonald be asked to become co-leaders of the new Government. On July 1, 1867, Canada East and West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia became the first provinces in British North America to form the Dominion of Canada. Galt served as the first Minister of Finance in the new Confederation. As minister of Finance, he reversed many of his earlier policies, promoting trade within the British Empire. Following a strong disagreement with Macdonald and Cartier concerning the fate of the Commercial Bank of Canada, Galt resigned from Government. He continued to sit as an MP until 1872. Nevertheless, Galt remained an important figure in Canadian business and politics. In 1877, The British appointed him as their representative in the
Halifax Fisheries Commission concerning American fishing rights in Canadian waters. Galt was sent to London to be Canada's informal representative, thereafter a rapprochement with the re-elected
Macdonald. As this was the only important office of the Canadian Government overseas at the time, he also travelled to France and Spain to negotiate trade deals with those nations. The British Government knew of these trips and was displeased that Canada had developed a foreign policy separate from the Empire. The British demanded that Galt's position be formalized, and in late 1880, he became the first Canadian
High Commissioner in
London. In 1896, the Dominion Government and the
Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) agreed to fund their irrigation plan by supplying cash, constructing a rail line to the
Crowsnest Pass and writing off the debt of surveying fees on previous land grants. The leaders of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in
Utah entered into a contract with Galt and Magrath in 1898 to construct an irrigation system in southern Alberta. The agreement required the Church to provide skilled labourers to build fifty miles of irrigation canals from Kimball to Stirling. They were also required to populate two settlements along the planned irrigation line with at least 250 colonists each. These two communities would become the Village of
Stirling and the Town of
Magrath. Voluntary immigration of LDS colonists to southern Alberta was slow, despite propaganda put out by the Church. LDS Church leaders eventually resorted to calling members on "missions" to build the irrigation canal or move to southern Alberta with their families to meet the Church's contractual obligations for populating colonies. By 1900, over 95 miles of canals had been completed, including the main canal from the
St. Mary River starting from the hamlet of Kimball near the
United States border and branch canal to
Lethbridge. The immigration boom to southern Alberta began in earnest in 1905. The Government, the CPR, and Galt and Magrath promoted the region heavily. People lined up for homesteads every year until the outbreak of the
First World War. Galt's sugar beet farms and factory at
Raymond and his model farm near Lethbridge demonstrated that agriculture could prosper in southern Alberta. Galt's company, the
North Western Coal and Navigation Company, went through various name changes as it moved into railways and irrigation enterprises. Prime Minister Sir
Wilfrid Laurier dedicated the 1910 Galt Hospital addition. Since the construction of the new hospital Lethbridge Municipal Hospital in 1955, The 1910 Galt Hospital has served as a senior citizen's home, a rehabilitation centre, and the Health Unit. In 1966, the Sir Alexander Galt Museum moved from the Bowman Arts Centre into the Galt Hospital and occupied the top and bottom floors. In 1979, the
Galt Museum & Archives took over the rest of the building. The museum has built two expansions to the original building, one in 1985 and the most recent in 2006. Alexander Galt was also the founding president of The Guarantee Company of North America in 1872, providing fidelity bonds to guarantee the surety of employees of railroads and Government. Today, the company is the largest provider of surety bonds in all of Canada in public works and government services. ==Personal life==