"...[W]e were never able to make out, either to my own satisfaction or to yours, whether I am Whig or Tory or Radical. In politics I acknowledge but two parties--those who hope and those who fear. In morals, but two parties--those who lie and those who speak truth..."
     --Anna Brownell James

Kind of an interesting thought, especially for one who considers herself to have a fair ambiguous political affiliation. Anna Brownell James was an Englishwoman who came to Canada in the 1830s and spent a good deal of time rambling about the country by herself (sans maids, chaperones, etc.)--very unusual for a woman of the time. I think that this quote, to an extent, can be largely applied to Canada as a whole, in terms of politics. The Whigs are the Eastern provinces, geography making their need for government financial support and services very real; the Tories are the Prairies, politically and financially conservative as they come; the Radicals are much of Québec, desiring independence from the rest of Canada, wanting to be their own republic. Of course, politics and political organizations now don't quite have the same meaning as they did once upon a time. The politics of Canada are still quite neat, though. I've often thought political science would be a neat thing to study, but my doctor (just a GP) warned me off it when I was fifteen, and somehow in the course of university I ran out of electives.