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For the group we call the “Laurentian elites” — the traditional Canadian ruling class, based in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa — this wasn’t enough. They hoped that a broadcasting network here, an arts grant there, a national social program, or a railroad or a highway would bind us all together.

The railroad certainly helped, but it was built well over a century ago. Public health care seems to have taken root, along with a certain fondness for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But for the most part, each region of the country still goes its own way.

And, in the future, we’re going to go our own way a lot more than we used to. Laurentian conventional wisdom divided Canada between French and English, between Quebec and the ROC (the dismissive Laurentian acronym for the Rest of Canada). But there is a new, even more powerful divide emerging: between poor and rich, between declining and growing, between past and future. The dividing line runs from the southern tip of James Bay to just west of Montreal. We call it the Ottawa River Curtain.

Flush with a majority government, with the opposition weak and divided, and with the books dangerously out of balance, the government of the day decided to tackle unemployment insurance. We’re talking Jean Chrétien in the nineties, not Stephen Harper in the 2010s.

The Liberal reforms were not that different from the current Conservative ones: seasonal workers (primarily in the Atlantic provinces) who were chronically dependent on Unemployment Insurance during the many months when they weren’t working would see their benefits cut back. The goal was to lessen dependence and encourage year-round jobs. The result was a spanking: The Liberals lost 20 seats in the region in the 1997 election. The reforms were quickly scrapped. The only change that remained was that “Unemployment Insurance” became “Employment Insurance” — your federal government at work.