Sir John A. Macdonald’s Work-Life Balance

Commentary An election victory, with a new mandate from the voters, is like New Year’s Day in politics. It’s a fresh start—especially for a party returning to power after sitting in opposition for several years. Sir John A. Macdonald was very popular and engineered such a victory on Sept. 17, 1878, carrying a handy majority of seats in every province except New Brunswick. Canada’s first and greatest prime minister detested “idleness” but he was not a workaholic. Part of his success was his ability to maintain a healthy work-life balance. As honorary patron of the Oshkosh Toboggan Club of Ottawa, he once rode a toboggan to ceremonially open the club’s new slide, accompanied by fireworks, speeding along for a quarter of a mile to the other side of the frozen Rideau River. He told a laughing audience that his political career “was going downhill fast enough” because he was regarded as such “a slippery customer.”...