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Plenty of Canada 150 commemorations feature dignified, black and white images from Canadians past. But these photos only tell half of the story. For every noble achievement and far-sighted visionary, there has been a cloddish oaf screwing something up.

Fortunately, cartoonists have been there to document the less respectable sides of our heritage. The National Post sifted through hundreds of Canadian cartoons spanning 150 years and dug up 15 of the best political drawings since 1867.

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Canada’s early years were stunningly, almost unbelievably, corrupt. It was so bad that even in the most graft-ridden corners of the Gilded Age United States, flim flam men had to gaze in awe at the situation in Canada. Thus we have this 1885 cartoon, in which John A. Macdonald drunkenly carouses with a female depiction of Canada. Macdonald did have a pretty severe drinking problem for much of his life, of course, but this was still a particularly biting satire. This was the era of temperance, after all, when the sight of an intoxicated man or woman was an easy shorthand for moral and spiritual failure.

Here’s another cartoon that depicts Canada as an attractive young debutante. And, like many cartoons of the era, it concerns the threat of U.S. domination. Modern Canadians may fret about the Americans dominating our media and our commercial sector, but at least we no longer worry about them taking our land. Canada expanded its territory remarkably quickly: From its start as four provinces in 1867, it took only another 13 years until Canada had essentially filled out its modern sea to sea to sea shape (minus Newfoundland and Labrador, of course). A big motivator for that frantic expansion was the fear that the U.S. would beat us to it.