The Western provinces will not tolerate Thomas Mulcair attacking their latter-day success.
It’s one of the unglamorous but efficient virtues of our federation that — usually — we manage to keep our fractiousness on low boil. A well-cultivated taste for moderation and a reasonable middle way is justly lauded as an element of the Canadian character.
There’s a style to our politics that may not be exciting, but works towards accommodation. Or, when accommodation is not possible, as on certain fundamental moral/political issues — abortion would be a key example — then parties settle for mutual forbearance that sidelines the most passionate agitators on every side of the issue. Our leaders show a considerate willingness not to provoke or agitate on an issue where resolution is unlikely or impossible.
Since Pearson, whom many take as the archetypal “dull but effective” Canadian politician, a leader of depth not display, we have willingly accepted an unexciting politics as long as it helps take the sharp edges off the great rifts and differences that are inevitably in play in so large and diverse a country. This mode is not always possible, of course, but it is by far the most desired, and usually serves to keep the social temperature down.
[More]
See Also: