When we consider the divisive and angry politics of today in Canada, it is well-worth recalling a time when leaders often saw their opponents as just that, opponents, not personal enemies. Such was the case with Hugh John Macdonald, son of Sir John A. and a successful Tory politician in his own right. On this day in 1917, while a bitter general election over conscription divided the land, Macdonald reached out to his partisan opponent, Liberal Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
"As I learned from this morning's papers that this was the anniversary of your birth, I write, as I have frequently done before, to tender you my most hearty congratulations and to express the hope that you may be long spared to us in health and strength,” Hugh John wrote Laurier from Winnipeg. “Having been brought up in a different school of thought, I have never seen eye to eye with you in matters political, but, from the first moment that I met you, to the present time, I have received at your hands nothing but the most courteous treatment, and I can assure you that I prize highly the friendly regard that you have always shown towards me. It must be gratifying to you to know that, even at a moment like the present, when we are in the midst of a General Election, where the issue involved is one likely to excite political passions more than an ordinary contest would, there are thousands, who think as I do, who entertain towards you nothing but the most friendly feeling and who wish you well from the bottom of their hearts. Indeed, I can say truthfully that by far the greater part of the Conservative party in Canada, although strongly opposed to your political views, have an esteem for you personally that it is hard to overestimate, and are always delighted to hear anything to your advantage outside the political arena.”
One can only hope the partisans in Ottawa today might take note of such grace and class in the politics of a different era.