Politics & Power Quote by Charles Tupper

Tupper is doing the oldest trick in democratic politics: declaring an issue too toxic, too distracting, too morally noisy to be allowed to dominate the ballot. The sentence is built like a procedural clean-up, but it’s really a power move. “Remove from the political arena” sounds neutral, almost hygienic, as if he’s clearing away clutter. In practice it signals gatekeeping: deciding which conflicts count as legitimate “political issues” and which must be quarantined because they scramble party loyalties.

The key phrase is “calculated to prevent us getting a verdict.” He frames the unwanted question not as something citizens urgently need answered, but as a kind of sabotage device - an interloper engineered to block the electorate from delivering the proper judgment on the “important” differences between the two parties. That language tells you what he fears: not instability in government, but a misaligned election, where voters choose based on conscience, identity, region, or religion rather than the party program.

In late-19th-century Canada, that “question of this kind” likely points to the recurring flashpoints that cut across partisan lines - separate schools, language rights, or other church-state entanglements that could redraw political coalitions overnight. Tupper’s subtext is managerial: let’s settle (or sideline) the explosive moral-constitutional fight so elections return to safer terrain like tariffs, patronage, and nation-building.

It’s also a confession. When a statesman begs to keep one issue off the stage, he’s admitting it has the power to reorder everything.