Saw this while reading the chapter about 1896-1914 in Robert Bothwell's The Penguin History of Canada and couldn't help a chortle of recognition for all us C-3 Canadians. Liberals gonna be Liberals apparently. Plus ça change...
I recommend the book, by the way. It's much more cursory than expected, but it gives the outlines of a solid skeleton on which to build in the future. Definitely making me even more proud to be Canadian, and I was already pretty proud!
The book's biggest virtue is that it's genuinely steeped in a Canadian worldview, not an American one where Canada is just an ersatz US. It's quiet but confident and noticeable, helped by the fact that Bothwell (himself Canadian) writes the narrative on a background that assumes Canada has generally been for and about something, even if subtly, rather than simply being "not America." I particularly enjoyed a British/Canadian perspective on the American War of Independence. My family were United Empire Loyalists (about which my mother was a bit scandalized and ashamed when she found out) and it's awesome to read about them as honourable people with strongly held principles concerning liberty and society, and serious doubts about the rebels' excesses, rather than as reactionaries, traitors, losers, and enemies of freedom like I was taught during my US schooling.
The book's strengths so far have been the wars of the 18th century and imperial-colonial relations, with the weakest parts being First Nations & Inuit history generally (their individual histories, the history of their treaties and relations with France/Britain/Canada -- the biggest and most disappointing gap), the War of 1812, and, oddly, Confederation, so I'll need separate histories for those. I'm up to WWI now, and the book is a solid starting point, and has helped me better know what I don't know. Pick it up!