The biggest difference I saw was there was no obsession with political leadership at all.   The head of the country rotated every couple of years or so.  Power was spread around.   The Swiss simply weren't terribly interested in domestic politics.

People expected their elected officials and the public service to run the country well.    That was non-negotiable.  The plebiscites were often poorly attended -- most Swiss viewed it as a responsibility to vote in plebiscites at least some of the time,...but not always.    Plebiscite turnouts when I was there were typically around 30- 35%.

It is true that it is a much smaller country geographically and so a lot of the biggest challenges Canada vis-a-vis logistics related to size are not relevant there.   However, in terms of population, it's about 25% of the size of Canada,...so it's not tiny.   It was striking how different the culture was in comparison to, say, Italy, France or even Austria and Germany.