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I lost the comment I was writing through an accidental click, but I want to address two of your questions.

>why has he won 2 elections?

Harper won three elections in 2006, 2008, and 2011 because he was able to win over key groups of voters from other parties. The Conservatives' highly successful marketing strategy is described in the currently hot book Shopping for Votes, which is worth a read. The thing is, the groups of voters who have supported Harper don't overlap very much with the groups of people who use Reddit or who fall in the age range 18-25, so the people with whom you most often talk about politics are probably not representative of the "average" Canadian voter. If you want to see some Harper-supporters explain their support in their own words, you might find something of interest in the letters section of a right-leaning newspaper, like this, for instance.

>What has he done for Canada?

There are three major shifts in Canadian policy that Harper has overseen.

1. The contraction of the federal government. Harper has shrunk the federal government in two ways: he reduced the amount of tax money that it collects, mostly through a cut to the GST of two percentage points, reducing the federal government's ability to fund large programs. Program spending has therefore shrunk or grown more slowly than it would have been able to with a larger tax base.
But it's not just in the amount of the money it's collected that the federal government has gotten smaller. It is also a core part of the Conservative movement that the federal government not concern itself with "national strategies" on matters that fall under provincial jurisdiction, such as child care. With the exception of the Canada Job Grant, the federal government has shown a serious lack of interest in taking on the role of steward of national programs negotiated with all the provinces. If the provinces want to start up programs of their own and raise the money to fund them, the federal government is totally fine with that, but it doesn't want to be a leader or coordinator of these things. This attitude from the federal government means that Stephen Harper's Canada is one of greater regionalism than it had been before.

2. An economic pivot away from manufacturing and toward resource extraction—away from Ontario and toward Alberta. No matter who governed Canada right now, manufacturing would be in decline as a source of employment. This is a trend in all rich countries. But the Conservatives have shaped Canada in the particular way they’ve decided to respond to this trend. The Conservatives have been champions of the resource sector—particularly of the oil sands—and have worked tirelessly to promote it as the engine of Canada’s economy for the 21st century. They have removed regulatory barriers to new resource projects, welcomed foreign investment in resource extraction (although not in a very consistent way), resisted carbon taxation, and championed the Keystone XL pipeline to the government of the United States. This approach has had an impact on the distribution of the fruits of the economy in Canada that is nowhere more evident than in men’s earnings in the labour market. Another party might have taken a different approach to resource development or tried to foster growth in other industries (say, the IT sector, or manufacturing of high-tech medical equipment, or financial services). It's the particular approach to further economic development taken by Harper that makes his vision distinct.

3. The expansion of free trade with other countries. Harper has pushed for free trade like no previous prime minister. The scale of his ambitions is nicely captured in this graphic from a couple of years ago. But that graphic precedes his biggest free trade achievement so far: the conclusion of a free trade deal with the European Union, which is an even bigger economy than the United States. If the Trans-Pacific Partnership is successful, that will also be huge. Harper’s achievement here is not only in making imports cheaper for Canadians or our exports cheaper for other countries to buy, but also in developing partnerships between Canada and regions of the world other than the United States. The impacts of Harper's achievements will be not only economic, but geopolitical as well.

edit: typo

>If Justin "are the Baltic States a thing?"

That was a clip taken out of context in a joking interview where he was asked whether he prefers sunrise or sunset and then asked what his favourite baltic state was. He responded "that's not a thing" and after such reputable papers as the Sun and NP blew it up he explained that he meant having a favourite Baltic state isn't a thing. Not that Baltic states aren't things.

You can believe his explanation or not, but I find it more plausible that his explanation is true vs. him never having heard of the Baltics in his time growing up with a Prime Minister, or being in University, or teaching high school, or being an MP, or dating a girl from the Baltics.

>Trudeau really had some intellectual substance to note, I think you would have seen that manifested in some way, some how in his life choices.

Like being an MP and Prime Minister? Or does that not count for some reason?

>For a man born with every opportunity, every connection, he spent it exactly as a man with no substantive intellect would. Ok, go to university, but by the time you're in middle ago, do a bit of a gig as a high school drama teacher and give a series of "speeches" for money. Ok, right.

Uh beyond being bonker insulting to everyone in the drama community, it's ridiculous to make inferences about his intellect because he had generally chosen a life with high levels of happiness and low levels of stress. To me that kind of seems like what someone intelligent would do. Especially since he spent his whole childhood constantly in the limelight, I can see why he'd want to escape.

>If he had some intellectual substance, he wouldn't have been so shocking ignorant. It has taken years of practice, prep, and handlers to minimize that.

Citation needed. And not some idiot Sun columnist cheery picking quotes out of context to further the CPC narrative.

>Like I said though, I don't automatically think that makes him a bad leader though...because it doesn't make him stupid. As long as he surrounds himself with the right people, and he has shown some ability with that so far, then he need not worry about the public suddenly waking up to the realization that he lacks substance....it has worked just fine for other leaders, and it could for Trudeau the younger as well.

I actually agree with this part, minus the "some success" part. He's gathered many of the brightest and most experienced minds in Canadian politics that we've seen in the past few decades.

>For what it's worth, procedural issues are more important than general daily policy, I think. The rules of the game are critical...and the game in Ottawa is broken. Harper, for all his brilliance, showed no interest in fixing them beyond making their broken nature more obvious to all. When the system is broken, those who agree that it is, regardless of their partisan position, should set aside their differences and seek to fix it.

I completely agree here.

>If Trudeau "I really admire China's dictatorship" can leave a legacy of systemic reform in Ottawa, even as a Tory, I'll be grateful for that.

Again, a quote taken out of context, and one that there is absolutely nothing wrong with. He said he admired China's basic dictatorship because it allows them to turn the economy on a dime and pivot to being greener. Which is 100% true. China's one party system does have many advantages over democratic systems, in flexibility, long term planning and meritocracy. It has many disadvantages too, but it's not wholely bad and Trudeau's answer is actually rather interesting and thoughtful. I'd recommend reading this book for more insight on the differences (both good and bad) between our systems: https://www.amazon.ca/China-Model-Political-Meritocracy-Democracy/dp/0691166455

I apologize if I come off harshly, I agree with the general thrust of your point, I just find the random (imo undeserved) slags against Trudeau frustrating. It seems like whenever he makes a nuanced point, the Conservative media takes it, removes all nuance, and presents it as a gaffe. It's incredibly destructive to our national political conversation.

The best piece of literature I read in recent years is a fanfic named Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. In chapter 24, Draco is reminiscing a memory from his childhood, when his father taught him about planning and the importance of not overthinking or overestimating one's intelligence.

> Father had once taken him to see a play called The Tragedy of Light, about this incredibly clever Slytherin named Light who'd set out to purify the world of evil using an ancient ring that could kill anyone whose name and face he knew, and who'd been opposed by another incredibly clever Slytherin, a villain named Lawliet, who'd worn a disguise to conceal his true face; and Draco had shouted and cheered at all the right parts, especially in the middle; and then the play had ended sadly and Draco had been hugely disappointed and Father had gently pointed out that the word 'Tragedy' was right there in the title.

> Afterward, Father had asked Draco if he understood why they had gone to see this play.

> Draco had said it was to teach him to be as cunning as Light and Lawliet when he grew up.

> Father had said that Draco couldn't possibly be more wrong, and pointed out that while Lawliet had cleverly concealed his face there had been no good reason for him to tell Light his name. Father had then gone on to demolish almost every part of the play, while Draco listened with his eyes growing wider and wider. And Father had finished by saying that plays like this were always unrealistic, because if the playwright had known what someone actually as smart as Light would actually do, the playwright would have tried to take over the world himself instead of just writing plays about it.

> That was when Father had told Draco about the Rule of Three, which was that any plot which required more than three different things to happen would never work in real life.

> Father had further explained that since only a fool would attempt a plot that was as complicated as possible, the real limit was two.

Plans who involve so many going according to plan, in order for us to return into power, are thus unrealistic. Instead of saying "We should get our policy shit together, then we'll present ourselves as the lesser evil and then Canadians will support us!" It's too many steps for a plan, and each of those steps includes many sub-steps. It's okay to cross bridges when you get there. Let's go one step at the time. Let's pick the right leader. Let's establish our policy agenda, our value - what we should stand for. Let's take a day at a time.

There's no secret recipe to power. Whatever you plan, your opponents may outplay you or you can screw up the execution at any point in time. By trying to see too far ahead, you risk on tripping on a pebble that was in your path. The future is complex. That's why experts suck at predicting it.

I'm a pretty tough critic on movies but one I really enjoyed is The Social Network. Now, a lot of it was overblown, exaggerated or questionable but they got one thing right: they portrayed how success is created correctly. Zuckerberg did not wake up one day and told himself "I am going to create the most successful social website of all times." First, he focused on Harvard. He made it exclusive. He found a way to get critical mass within Harvard, so the product would work successful from the get-go and slowly expended. Once he had conquered Harvard, he slowly added more campuses to his site until he reached critical mass on a very large scale. He never tried to bite more than he could chew. He took on a target he could reasonably reach and, once successful, moved on to a new one, accumulating victories until he dominated the market.

Simply put, what made The Social Network made a movie great for me is that it portrayed Zuckerberg as someone who understood that overnight success takes years. Major victories are composed of several smaller victories adding up to a triumph. The result may be greater than the sum of its parts, but it's still a sum.

When I year Liberals talking about how we only need to do X, Y and Z to return to power, I roll my eyes. I wish them luck - and I hope they're right, because winning is fun - but I laugh at their naiveté.

I prefer being pragmatic and taking things as they come.

First, thanks for your thoughtful summary of Steele's book, and of what can be done to improve Canadian politics.

If you haven't already, I'd recommend reading Joseph Heath's Enlightenment 2.0.

>Over the last twenty years, the political systems of the western world have become increasingly divided—not between right and left, but between crazy and non-crazy. What’s more, the crazies seem to be gaining the upper hand. Rational thought cannot prevail in the current social and media environment, where elections are won by appealing to voters’ hearts rather than their minds. The rapid-fire pace of modern politics, the hypnotic repetition of daily news items and even the multitude of visual sources of information all make it difficult for the voice of reason to be heard.

Heath's answer is that we need to slow down the rapid-fire pace of politics, to allow some time for people to think instead of just reacting instinctively and emotionally.

Looking at the idea of civic education specifically, I'm more skeptical. We live in a specialized society, where different people have different interests and expertise. Public policy is often complicated and technocratic, and thus inherently boring (unless you're interested in it, in which case it's fascinating). Politics is adversarial, and therefore ugly (unless you're a fan of conflict). Politics is slow, and therefore frustrating.

Thus I think it's unrealistic to expect that most people will ever find politics and policy as interesting as we do. They're still responsible for voting at election time, of course, but they're not going to be following politics that closely between elections. It's like following a sport: some people don't care at all, some people follow the sport obsessively, and there's a broad range of people in between.

Political scientist Anthony King describes what he calls the "division of labor" interpretation of democracy in the 1997 article Running Scared, contrasting it with the "direct democracy" view that's more prevalent in the US. He suggests that in the US political system, politicians have to spend so much time and energy on electioneering that policy suffers. The Canadian parliamentary system provides much more freedom for majority governments to implement good policy, if they choose to.

>One of these interpretations might be labeled "division of labor." In this view, there are in any democracy two classes of people -- the governors and the governed. The function of the governors is to take decisions on the basis of what they believe to be in the country's best interests and to act on those decisions. If public opinion broadly supports the decisions, that is a welcome bonus. If not, too bad. The views of the people at large are merely one datum among a large number of data that need to be considered. They are not accorded any special status. Politicians in countries that operate within this view can frequently be heard using phrases like "the need for strong leadership" and "the need to take tough decisions." They often take a certain pride in doing what they believe to be right even if the opinion of the majority is opposed to it.

>The function of the governed in such a system, if it is a genuine democracy, is very important but strictly limited. It is not to determine public policy or to decide what is the right thing to do. Rather, it is to go to the polls from time to time to choose those who will determine public policy and decide what the right thing is: namely, the governors. The deciding of issues by the electorate is secondary to the election of the individuals who are to do the deciding. The analogy is with choosing a doctor. The patient certainly chooses which doctor to see but does not normally decide (or even try to decide) on the detailed course of treatment. The division of labor is informal but clearly understood.

>It is probably fair to say that most of the world's major democracies -- Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan -- operate on this basis. The voters go to the polls every few years, and in between times it is up to the government of the day to get on with governing. Electing a government and governing are two different businesses. Electioneering is, if anything, to be deplored if it gets in the way of governing.

>This is a simplified picture, of course. Democratically elected politicians are ultimately dependent on the electorate, and if at the end of the day the electorate does not like what they are doing, they are dead. Nevertheless, the central point remains. The existing division of labor is broadly accepted.

The same Eisenhower who extremely critical of wealthy industrialist taking control of the national and attempting to exploit the poor to their benefit? I'm not saying everything he did was good, but he was aware that a certain, powerful segment of the population was more interested in ranking up a high score in their bank accounts than helping people.

> Neoliberalism, love it or hate it, saved the economy in the 80s and 90s.

That's a massive over-simplification, and mostly inaccurate. While several important metrics from measuring the economy did improve during that period, "real wages" (wages adjusted for inflation) didn't grow significantly between 1981 and 2011. A lot of the economy growth came from women entering the work force in larger numbers & obtaining wages comparable to men, from computers & automation massive boosting the productive per worker, and a massive increase in the access to credit (debt). Of the three, Neoliberalism/Laissez-Faire economy only really affected the third, with probably overall negative consequences. At the heart of the Great Recession was the house market collapse: Because of the lack of real wage growth, people couldn't afford to buy houses except through increasing ridiculous mortgages, which they were able to obtain since the investment class demands growth. This debt bubble was leveraged to create even more (imaginary) wealth, which showed up in most of the economy metrics (especially the stock market). It just disappeared when reality set in and real wages couldn't support incurred debt, crashing the economy.

> Nixon brought in the Environmental protection agency.

I put Nixon on the list for breaking the law to maintain political power. Without Watergate, he would not have made the list.

> Political parties respond to the needs and wants of the electorate.

The reason I mentioned think tanks is that they are one of the tools used by conservative to re-frame and shape the wants of the electorate. Most traditional think tanks collect facts and do analysis to build policy recommendations, but many conservative ones (especially ones funded by the Kochs) begin with the ideology and cherry-pick the data to support the policies they have already written. It's both intellectual dishonest and much easier to build a convincing narrative with. I suggest reading Dark Money and Democracy in Chains if you want to examine the interplay between conservative think tanks, public opinion and money.

> People are the ones who vote after all.

Which is why voter suppression and gerrymandering play such an important role is US elections. Given the ugly history of disenfranchisement in that country, it's much easier to build support for preventing "the wrong people" from voting that it is to actually convince other people to support your policies. It's disguising and disgraceful. Thankfully, the Supreme Court up here has been consistent on supporting everyone's right to vote.

A good question. Not directly related to my research but I can say a bit.

In some ways the roots are similar. As you note, both the CCF and Social Credit were a response in part to the failures of capitalism (especially during the Great Depression, but during the broader post Great War period, where the promises made to regular people about the world after victory were not kept)

Indeed, before the Social Credit party, there was the social credit theories of CH Douglas, which you can find promotions of within many labour union newspapers in the 1920s. Some people in the labour-left circles though it was quackery, but not all. In the 1920s, for instance, William Irvine and J.S. Woodsworth studies social credit as a theory, but it never really latched on.

I would say that Social Credit had less of a natural 'labour' base than the CCF, but it had a sort of progressive origin despite the party being seen in its later years as a sort of far-right body in the Reform Party vein. It did indeed have some working class support, and it should be known that it was influenced by earlier progressive governments in Alberta (the United Farmers of Alberta, which would eventually hook up with the CCF)

One good book to read here is by Alvin Finkel (https://www.amazon.ca/Social-Credit-Phenomenon-Alvin-Finkel/dp/0802058213), who basically notes that when the SC won in 1935, seeing it was a right-wing party is a pretty simplistic view. Rather, the party over the next decade transformed into a right-of-centre party, but it's origins are in a critique of capitalism, though not in the sort of same systemic manner you saw from the CCF. Still, the first SC government in Alberta governed on economic issues as a more-or-less left of centre party.

First Nation? Second Thoughts by Tom Flanagan is probably the most representative book on the conservative (small c) view of Indigenous issues; I know some people have a negative opinion towards Flanagan, but this work is great by most academic standards and I think it's a must read for anyone interested in Indigenous issues.

Citizens Plus: Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian State by Alan Cairns. This was Cairns response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal's people. Again, I think it's a must read to learn more about the various perspectives about Indigenous issues.

Wasase: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom by Taiaiake Alfred. Alfred is probably the most "extreme" in terms of his vision for Indigenous peoples in Canada, but he's a must read.

Unjust Society by Harold Cardinal. This book provides the greatest insight into why the White Paper was met with opposition from Indigenous peoples and to Indigenous issues in general (it's a little older, but if you were to read one book out of all the ones I recommended this would be it)

Governing from the Centre: The Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics by Donald Savoie. I haven't read this one yet (I hope to soon) so I can't speak to how it is, but I've been told it's a great book. It basically looks at how the federal government has become increasingly centralized into the PMO

EDIT: If you go to university/college and have free access to academic journals you should look in those. There are so many interesting articles and are less time consuming than books. Here's a directory of open access journals, but keep in mind not all of these journals are of "top quality"

>The banks lobbied heavily for financial de-regulation and the removal of the Glass Steagall Act. They also profited handsomely off the Bush administrations policies.

I'd suggest you read Financial Fiasco by Johan Norberg. It does a good job explaining the causes of the global recession and how government and special interest groups joined together to encourage and exploit housing affordability for low income earners and a loose credit policy. It's basically the polar opposite of a liberalized market.

https://www.amazon.ca/Financial-Fiasco-Americas-Infatuation-Ownership/dp/1935308130

Norberg Also did few interviews and lectures on the book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svY3uyODAqU&t=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv1kzhuhUWg&t=

​

>That's why I support tariffs and penalizing tax havens

​

Virtually no economist or global trade expert supports tariffs or trade barriers being imposed. The siphon wealth out of a country making it poor, not richer. Literally the only people peddling this argument today are people like the Trump administration in the U.S.

​

>If you get a 2% wage increase and the inflation rate is 2%, you got nothing. If you got less than a 2% raise, you took a pay cut. If productivity rose by 2%, well all your hard work made your boss rich, but not you.

So apparently you know more than the chief BMO economist who said that Canadians got richer, not poorer? The only way you can say Canadians have gotten poorer is if you're consciously reinterpreting the evidence to fit a specific bias.

​

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75f0002m/75f0002m2016001-eng.htm

>We found that absolute income mobility became stronger in the last 15 years of the period than in the first 15 years. In particular, Canadian taxfilers experienced stronger income growth in the last 15 years than their counterparts in the first 15. We also saw that a higher proportion of taxfilers had rising rather than falling income in the last 15 years than in the first 15.

​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/millennials-money-canada-generation-1.3462064

>"The current generation of young Canadians is, on average, wealthier than previous generations of young Canadians," says the confidential report, though with some cautionary notes."Young Canadians … born in the first half of the 1980s had an average net worth of close to $93,000 per adult. In contrast, previous generations of young Canadians had an average net worth of about $60,000 per adult — 35 per cent less once adjusted for inflation."

​

The Unemployment rate: https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/unemployment-rate

The Poverty/Low Income Rate: https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/esdc-edsc/images/programs/homelessness/consultations/poverty-reduction/backgrounder/figure2.jpg

The Child Poverty Rate: https://images.thestar.com/pwFeBQ3rOtHg9EDKUV7Mj_h5c04=/1086x806/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/gta/2013/11/25/child_poverty_rates_in_canada_ontario_remain_high/cichildpoverty25.jpg

​

There's also less poor/low income people in Canada today than there was 30 years ago when living standards and wages are adjusted for inflation.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/poor-today-rich-tomorrow-permanent-underclass-a-myth-in-canada-study-reveals

I'd also direct you to some of Economist Steven Gordon's articles on income inequality, since it does a good job of separating fact from fiction in the inequality debate.

​

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/stephen-gordon-what-is-income-inequality

>They will likely be unseated before we reach the 2030's.It's not the 20th century anymore where one party governs the country for like 2+ decades

I don't know if you remember, but before Adscam the Liberals were thought to be unbeatable, (hell on the wiki page for the 2004 election it says this "Earlier the election was widely expected to be a relatively easy romp for Martin to a fourth consecutive Liberal majority government, but early in 2004 Liberal popularity fell sharply due to the sponsorship scandal. Polls started to indicate the possibility of a minority government for the Liberals, or even a minority Conservative government, fueling speculation of coalitions with the other parties. In the end, the Liberals fared better than the final opinion polls had led them to fear, but well short of a majority.") so much so that one guy even wrote a book saying the Liberals were so unbeatable Canada might turn into a dictatorship and I really think that without adscam they could have stayed in power until the 2010's (after all, they were trusted on the economy, trusted on foreign affairs and with every passing election they were picking up more and more seats in Quebec so even if they lost some seats in Ontario due to the right wing vote being unified, (and I doubt they would have lost that many Ontario seats anyway) they had backup, and unseating a party like that is a monumental task).

For information about government institutions:

Protecting Canadian Democracy: the Senate You Never Knew---a compilation of papers on the Senate, on upper houses in general, and on Senate reform. Put together by Senator Serge Joyal.

Governing from the Bench: The Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Role---by Emmett MacFarlane, a very good analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada and its role in modern lawmaking.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice---also known as O'Brien & Bosc after its editors, the House of Commons procedural reference manual and roughly the Canadian equivalent of the seminal Erskine May. The manual includes a comprehensive coverage of the institutions of government, especially as they relate to Parliament and lawmaking, and good coverage of parliamentary privilege. Don't dismiss it out of hand for being a procedural manual; the parts on the structure of the government are surprisingly accessible.

Right Honourable Men by Michael Bliss


Canada's Prime Ministers by Ramsay Cook

Citizen of the World (Biography of Trudeau I) by John English: Volume 1 and Volume 2

Shadow of Heaven (Pearson) by John English

The first two are board history's and include selections from other biographies about the Prime Ministers; they're a good starting point for boarder history and to find more targeted biographies.

Also, if you're interested, I have a bunch of academic journal articles on both Trudeau and Pearson mostly on the decriminalization of homosexuality, the birth of equal marriage in Canada, debate about the Charter, Peacekeeping, the Flag Debate, and the Bill of Rights. Let me know and I can share those with you through google drive.

The Dictator's Handbook is a fantastic political science book. Not just about the politics of dictatorships, but the politics of democracies, small municipalities, and businesses as well. Super cynical, but provides tonnes of really great examples and case studies.

On of my favourite books period.

https://www.amazon.ca/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

If we are talking about social progress I honestly believe it is because of racism. Canadians are comfortable with complexity and understand that both individual and group rights are important. Americans live in a perceived power struggle (within themselves and between groups) that they can't reconcile.

>The long winters that the first settlers faced, forcing them to look out for one another?

And the First Nations people that showed these settlers how to live and brought them into their ever-growing circles and showed them what acceptance really looks like.

Book? -->
http://www.amazon.ca/Fair-Country-Telling-Truths-Canada/dp/0143168428

>They treat parties like completely static entities.

That's really interesting criticism given CGP Grey doesn't discuss any aspects of any of the hypothetical animals running in the elections. These videos are about the voting mechanics of each system.

If you're interested in how or why politicians change their tune to reflect the electorate see Rules for Rulers which is a distillation of the book The Dictator's Handbook.

I understand what you're saying but the same can be said about government as the middleman and subsequent problems that creates.

We currently have ~6M seniors/15% of total population (age 65+) and we're going to have about 10M (close 25% of total population) by the 2030s. Currently this group consumes ~3x as much healthcare as their population size or 45%. Universal anything isn't a sustainable solution to this problem.

https://archive.fo/QXPo4

Even more so considering this same generation of seniors has continually received more in handouts than they're paid forward.

Why should the generation that received infrastructure that was paid for and not maintained, inexpensive post-secondary education, inexpensive housing, job security and other employment benefits that aren't as readily available today, receive another generational transfer of wealth?

Good book on the topic

A Fair Country by John Ralston Saul is a good read that addresses this question. He has a fascinating POV on it.

Just read one of his many biographies (I suggest Citizen of the World, J. English). Putting his life into context matters.

It matters that this was his context growing up, but then he expanded his horizons by studying abroad and incorporating liberalism into his moral philosophy. He's not the only one to make the jump from 'corporatism' (dictionary definition, has nothing to do with corporations) to social liberalism in that era. But he is one of the very, very few to be able to make the case for liberal values inclusive of both French (not just Québec), and English values.

I'm trying to remember and I can't -- it has something to do with the way he restructured cabinet to create subcommittees, or perhaps with creating the "p & p" committee that effectively replaced cabinet as the core decision-making body. In any case, the key text that explains the whole history is Donald Savoie, Governing from the Centre, but I seem to recall some interesting stuff can be found in John English, Just Watch Me

Lament for a Nation by George Grant is one I quite enjoyed reading. It was interesting to a perspective on the aspects of Canadian society that were left behind after the Liberals' modernization of Canada in the late 1960's.

I read her "Shopping for Votes and highly recommend it. It's very eye opening to see how campaign strategy is changing to be more and more marketing like.

Suggested Reading: Democracy at Work

I have experience with multi-unit co-op style rentals and imagine this would be a more popular model if CMHC or some other body provided loan guarantees to make the financing viable; the rent was well below market, all decisions about the complex were made democratically, and there was a real sense of community.

I don't think ignorance of Canada's treaty obligations to indigenous First Nations is something to get guilty about. Canada's education system has generally done a terrible job on this.

One thing you could do to start is buy this book, which I found to be an easy, breezy read and very informative. https://www.amazon.ca/Things-Know-About-Indian-Reconciliation/dp/0995266522 .

But yeah on the topic in question, and why 'communities' is an inappropriate framing:

Canada's land area contains a large number of indigenous nations with significant traditional territorial lands. In some cases these nations have treaties with the crown, while in other cases, (in much of BC for example) there is no treaty, and these traditional lands are unceded, meaning that the rights and title have never been extinguished.

For a concrete example the Haida Nation has declared that the entirety of Haida Gwaii archepelago is its territory, and has strong opinions on how these lands and waters should be jointly managed by the Haida Nation, BC and Canada.

From this example, given the scale of the lands and scope of governance we're talking about, it's absurd to talk about this issue with the framing of the Haida Nation as a 'community' as that brings to mind like a small town and small area.

When Scheer talks about these nation to nation discussions between the Crown and First Nations as just being about 'communities' he's being disengenuous and trying to make it sounds like it's a small town dispute and something that the Feds should of course be able to railroad over.

You are quite right in the vagueness of 'equality'. Almost as bad as 'sovereignty association' isn't it? Obviously at some point we need to move from the general to the specific. How about 'equality' that is implicit in provincial powers? Take a look at A First Nations Province by Thomas Courchene and Lisa Powell ( http://www.queensu.ca/iigr/pub/archive/aboriginalpapers/misc/AfirstnationsprovinceCourcheneandPowell.pdf ).

As for the significance of the 1701 Treaty Of Montreal, read A Fair Country by John Ralston Saul, the president of PEN International and husband of past Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson ( http://www.amazon.ca/Fair-Country-John-Ralston-Saul/dp/0143168428 ). In his book, he suggests a number things particularly pertinent to this discourse:

1. Canadian history did not begin in 1812 (fighting off the Americans) nor in 1867 (Confederation), but much earlier. In the late 1600s, endless warfare had made normal life impossible. Furthermore, outright victory by any side was impossible, and all sides finally understood that. Eventually, 1300 chiefs, led by Petun chief Kondiaronk, met in Montreal with Hector de Callière, Governor of New France and agreed a peace treaty (not the same thing as a surrender). Implicit in the treaty was the equality of all sides. No talk of
   reserves or residential schools there. It was this treaty that enabled the peaceful (relatively) settlement of what was to become Canada and laid the groundwork for the country we have today. When the English took over, the Treaty was not overturned. Yes, new laws came about that were in conflict with it, that's why we have a mess. But in a civilized society new laws don't automatically wipe out older laws. They have to be worked out by all parties concerned. That's what we need to do right now.
   
2. By the 1860s, the Treaty was forgotten. Macdonald, Cartier and the other 'founders', didn't consult the FN about Confederation - their signatures were not needed. Then came the Indian Act of 1876, reserves as we know them, residential schools etc etc etc.

In the order that I would rank them--

Lament for a Nation by George Grant


While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World by Andrew Cohen


The Friendly Dictatorship by Jeffrey Simpson


EDIT: These are particularly Canadian politics reads.

I used to have a view pretty similar to this, but then I read the chapter on multiculturalism from this book, and it changed my mind. The chapter is under 40 pages long. If I sent it to you, would you consider reading it?

Have you ever read Governing from the Centre, and if so, how relevant do you think it still is?

For more Canadian conservative sources, how about George Grant and Dalton Camp?

I'm just going to leave this book recommendation here

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A Generation of Sociopaths

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Edit: stupid "new" reddit can't deal with it's own link formatting