To complete the railroad, the government turned to a group that included Donald Smith—also known as Lord Strathcona—and his cousin George Stephen, president of the Bank of Montreal and, as it happens, an ancestor of mine. (Stephen is my mother’s family name.)
Just as there would be no Dominion without the railroad, it is also fair to say there would be no railroad without the effort and skill of these early entrepreneurs and financiers who helped attract foreign capital and channel it where it was needed. The people who developed what has become the world’s soundest banking system were vital to Canada’s development.