The notable British Whig politician John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, was sent to the Canadas in 1838 to investigate and report on the causes of the rebellions of 1837–38.

In Upper Canada it was rejected by the dominant Tory elite, while out-of-power reformers welcomed the ideal of responsible government.

In the long run, it advanced democracy and played a central role in the evolution of Canada's political independence from Britain.

His report contains the famous assessment that Lower Canada had "two nations warring within the bosom of a single state"[4] and that the French Canadians were "a people with no literature and no history".

[5] There can hardly be conceived a nationality more destitute of all that can invigorate and elevate a people, than that which is exhibited by the descendants of the French in Lower Canada, owing to their retaining their peculiar language and manners.

... [I]t is on this essentially foreign [French] literature, which is conversant about events, opinions, and habits of life, perfectly strange and unintelligible to them, that they are compelled to be dependent.

In these circumstances I should be indeed surprised, if the more reflecting part of the French Canadians entertained at present any hope of continuing to preserve their nationality.

Durham brought along a small but highly talented staff, most notably including Charles Buller and Edward Gibbon Wakefield.

[6] Much more important was the impact on Anglophone Canada, where led by Joseph Howe, Robert Baldwin, and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine it produced dramatic reforms.

It was considered controversial as it suggested radical ideas for the time, such as for the British Parliament granting the Canadas a responsible government.

He also wanted to resolve the issue of land over Prince Edward Island, but those suggestions failed to come to fruition since the Maritime Provinces were then uninterested.

The error, therefore, to which the present contest must be attributed is the vain endeavour to preserve a French Canadian nationality in the midst of Anglo-American colonies and states.

The visible and broad line of demarcation which separates parties by the distinctive characters of race, happily has no existence in the Upper Province.

It is very difficult to make out from the avowals of parties the real objects of their struggles, and still less easy is it to discover any cause of such importance as would account for its uniting any large mass of the people in an attempt to overthrow, by forcible means, the existing form of Government.

Lord Durham believed that, to eliminate the possibility of rebellions, French Canadians had to adopt British-Canadian culture and the English language.

The assertion that the so-called "French" Canadians had no history and no culture and that the conflict was primarily that of two ethnic groups evidently outraged Papineau.

It was pointed out that many of the Patriote leaders were of British or British Canadian origin, including among others Wolfred Nelson, the hero of the Battle of Saint-Denis; Robert Nelson, author of the Declaration of Independence of Lower Canada, who would have become President of Lower Canada had the second insurrection succeeded; journalist Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan; and Thomas Storrow Brown, general during the Battle of St-Charles.

The parallel nature of government organization in Australia and Canada to this day is an ongoing proof of the long-enduring effects of the report's recommendations.

[citation needed] Durham resigned on 9 October 1838 amid controversy excited in London by his decision of the penal questions[18] and was soon replaced by Charles Poulett Thomson, 1st Baron Sydenham, who was responsible for implementing the Union of the Canadas.