The Legislature of Lower Canada, consisting chiefly of Roman Catholics, could hardly be expected to support a church which they were taught to consider heretical, and in Upper Canada the scanty means at the disposal of the Government, precluded all hope.

He tried to set up annual reviews for grammar schools to make sure they were following Church of England doctrines and tried to introduce Andrew Bell's education system from Britain although these acts were vetoed by the Legislative Assembly. The "Family Compact" were the elite who shared his fierce loyalty to the British monarchy his strict and exclusive Toryism and the EstabliJohn Strachand Church (Anglicanism) and his contempt for slavery Presbyterians Methodists American republicanism and reformism. He moved to York just before the War of 1812 where he became rector of St.

Craig argues that Strachan "believed in an ordered society an establiJohn Strachand church the prerogative of the crown and prescriptive rights; he did not believe that the voice of the people was the voice of God. Craig characterizes him as "the Canadian arch tory of his era" for his intense conservatism. He is best known as a political bishop who held many government positions and promoted education from common schools to helping to found the University of Toronto.