Was the completion of the CPR as important an event in Canadian history as confederation?

Answer 1

First of all, consider that Confederation is not a single event but has been ongoing since before 1867. Technically, the Confederation of Canada has most recently been modified with the separation of the territory of Nunavut from the rest of the NorthWest Territories. The incorporation of British Columbia into the rest of the confederation was contingent on the trans-national railway being built from the eastern hub of commerce all the way to the West Coast, so the CPR was, to a large degree, a catalyst for the creation of the prairie provinces as well as BC's decision to join Canada rather than opt for a union with the United States (which was an option for that colony for a while).

This could be a long answer, of course, but think about some of these points.

When Louis Riel's first Red River Rebellion in Manitoba occurred in 1870, it was generally successful: most of the Métis' demands were recognized when Manitoba made the choice to join Canada (although they were almost all rescinded later when Anglophones dominated the population). However, when the NorthWest Rebellion of 1885 was happening, the NWMP were highly effective in putting down hot spots of unrest because they were able to move quickly from place to place via the newly constructed railway, an advantage the federal government and its agents did not enjoy in 1870.

Naturally, the CPR allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to settle the West, which eventually facilitated the creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905. Rather than splitting those provinces horizontally, as was considered for a while, the rail line necessitated the vertical division that exists today between the provinces.