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Canadian politics has, by and large, avoided the extreme libertarian views on government popularized by Ayn Rand and famously summed up in 1987 by the British prime minister Margaret Thatcher when she said, “There’s no such thing as society, only individuals.” The idea had a similarly ominous tone under U.S. president Ronald Reagan, when, in 1986, he said, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Canadians have been more nuanced in their views on government’s responsibility to frame the goals and bounds of a “just society,” first defined by the 19th-century English philosopher J.S. Mill. We have also been more willing to support both Liberal and Conservative governments that regulate unfettered capitalism when necessary.