They wanted to show that they had control over the territory where they set up blockades that isolated the West as act of strength on their part.
Weather will be the primary reason. Despite its huge size. the real habitable area is probably less than 10% of its geographical size. Even Southern Ontario is deemed by many I know to be "too cold to live". 90% of Ontario and Quebec are simply inhabitable. I also personally think the entire Manitoba and Saskachewan are not suitable for human habitation unless we can create a way to simply hibernate during the 6 month winter (why there are so few people in Montana and North Dakota?) The fact that Montreal are thrive as a vibrant metropolis is already sort of a miracle and we don't see many such large cities with such severe weather. The only other case I can think of is probably Moscow.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence in June of 1776
Ez
The competition for colonies was actually driven by a economic policy
Add a spelling error to make it seem legit
