An Unwelcome Dose of Reality for Brigette DePape

Canadians becoming more conservative

As Canada's far-left gathers to annoint Brigette DePape their patron saint in a protest at the Conservative Party convention in Ottawa, news emerges that DePape would likely consider to be an unwelcome invasion from reality.

A poll conducted by Harris-Decima and Manning Institute offers some insight into the Tories' May 2 majority win: Canadians are becoming more conservative.

This is news to DePape. Appearing in an interview on CBC, DePape declared that "Stephen Harper says conservative values are Canadian values. They are not."

Yet when actually asked by someone -- and it's pretty clear that DePape never bothered to ask anyone outside of a specific ideologically-insulated circle -- Canadians indicated that they were far more conservative than DePape would give us credit for.

For example, only 15% of interviewed Canadians indicated they turned to government as their preferred agent of problem-solving. 38% indicated they count on themselves first, and 18% indicated they turn to their families first. However, only 20% indicated they turn to government last.

54% of Canadians indicated they count on themselves to solve their own personal economic problems. 31% indicated they turn to their families first. Only 3% indicated that they look to the government first.

Conversely, Canadians look to government to solve problems such as crime.

Meanwhile, Canadians are becoming decreasingly confident in the government's problem-solving abilities.

In other words, this poll indicates nearly the precise opposite of what DePape droningly insisted in her interviews on CTV and CBC. Clearly, she isn't nearly as in touch with Canadian values as she would like to pretend.

Conservative values are Canadian values, whether Brigette DePape likes it or not.

Preston Manning is predicting that these values are quickly becoming less identified with the Conservative Party, and more identified with Canadians ourselves.

"As these conservative values become mainstream values, people will less and less identify them with Conservatives. People will just say these are Canadian values," Manning declared.

Adam Daifallah, however, has it one step better. Daifallah has dubbed May 2011 as "the conservative spring" in Canada. He notes that the Conservative majority was built largely off of small-profile moves like abolishing the Court Challenges program, a program many Canadians were actually unaware of altogether.

Canada's already had a spring uprising of sorts, as Canadians are becoming increasingly confident in asserting their own values, as opposed to having them dictated by demagogues such as Brigette DePape.

It's an unwelcome dose of reality for DePape and her fawning supporters. Their refusal to acknowledge it will only continue to drive them further away from the heart of Canadian political culture, into a barren ideological wasteland of their own creation.

After all, these are people without the imagination to so much as ask Canadians what their values are. They prefer to dictate them.

Tea Party of the North? Or Reform Party of the South?

Tea Party bears marks of Reform Party influence

CNN actually has the question backward: is the American Tea Party a Reform Party model?

The parallels are, admittedly, startling: each started out as a revolt against the perceived failures of the established conservative politicians of the day, and each to confront the looming excesses of the left.

Each has faced similar challenges: a membership speckled with individuals with troubled histories, vapid accustaions of racism from a left threatened by their ideas, and limited involvement by individuals whose racial attitudes invite such suspicions.

Each has produced figures whose policies were judged to be extreme by who considered themselves to be mainstream political figures. In many cases such individuals were shocked with an unwelcome dose of reality -- that these allegedly extreme positions are actually shared by more people than share allegedly "mainstream" positions.

Most strikingly, the Tea Party has a need it shares in common with the Reform Party: a need to reach out to their fellow conservatives. Depending upon the circumstances, this can be extremely challenging.

"It's hard to reconcile them all," says Reform Party founder Preston Manning, speaking of his experience trying to unite Canadian conservatives who were divided by minor political differences. "The argument we used is that you all need each other. You do agree on a whole bunch of other things."

As Manning points out, there's a danger in allowing such minor differences to divide conservatives.

"I argued they were not philosophically incompatible," Manning explains.

Some never came around to this line of thinking. Former Prime Minister Joe Clark never did. Would-be Progressive Conservative kingmaker David Orchard most certainly didn't. Garth Turner flirted with this line of thinking just long enough to get elected as a united Conservative Party MP before being cast out of caucus.

Manning stresses that open and inclusive debate remains the key to building strong coalitions among individuals who favour differing "flavours" of conservatism. In Canada alone, conservatives need to find consensus among seven distinct sub-groups: fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, democratic populists, British tories, libertarians, progressive conservatives, and paleo-conservatives.

This makes democracy and open debate within the party especially important.

"If we can't apply democracy to reconcile these differences within the party, then why should the public believe we can do this on a larger scale?" Manning asks.

Manning suggests that political circumstance may hamper the ability of the Tea Party to affect change within American politics.

"These people are trying to build a coalition in a political culture that tends to favor polarization," he muses. "That does make it difficult, because people want to go to their corners rather than come together in the center of the ring."

Of course, this may have overlooked the detail that many of the Republican Party's leading candidates are either strongly supported by the Tea Party, or subtlely allude to policy influences from the Tea Party.

In the face of policy over-reach by the administration of President Barack Obama, the right in the United States is already uniting. A few figures, such as Senator John McCain, remain divisive for American conservatives. But Republicans don't seem to be rejecting the Tea Party out-of-hand; nor does the Tea Party movement seem to be rejecting the GOP.

If the Reform Party truly influenced the Tea Party -- and it seems clear that it has -- it isn't the first time the Reform Party influenced American politics.

In fact, Republican braintrust Newt Gingrich very publicly acknowledged Manning's influences on his own politics.

There's a reason why so many in the Canadian left seem to genuinely fear the Tea Party: in it they see the echoes of a movement whose ideas they feared, and they see an American left trying -- and failing -- to use the same culture war tactics that they resorted to, and failing.

The Transformation That Never Happened

Manning experiencing predicted rehabilitation of his reputation

In The New Canada -- a book that was a combination of autobiography and political manifesto -- Preston Manning spoke of the rehabilitation of his father's, Ernest Manning's, reputation.

The public perception of the elder Manning was once that of an Evangelical fundamentalist who steered Alberta's political affairs as a theocracy. In more recent years, the elder Manning has been recognized as The Good Steward of Albertan politics -- leading the province in a more constructive and less reactionary decision than "Bible" Bill Aberhart, the man whom he replaced as Premier.

Manning -- who at the time was the target of one of the most pervasive campaigns of character assassination ever mounted by Canada's political left -- predicted that his own reputation would one day need to be rehabilitated.

When Manning received an honourary doctorate of law from the University of Toronto -- and from a former Liberal Premier of Ontario, no less -- it's become clear that Manning's teputation has received a well-deserved rehabilitation.

Oddly, writers like Joseph Brean seem to think that Manning has undergone some kind of a transformation.

But no such transformation has ever occurred. The Preston Manning of today is the same Preston Manning of 20 years ago -- even if 20 years older and 20 years wiser.

Sheila Copps did indeed once compare Manning to David Duke. But the comparison has always been ill-fitting. It was merely part of the character assassination campaign being waged against Manning because Copps, like so many other Liberals, recognized that Manning's ideas could in time become extremely influential in Canada:

Free market policies that would impart additional power (and responsibility) into the hands of ordinary Canadians. Fiscal responsibility that would preserve Canadian democracy from the vaguaries of financial insolvency. Language policy that would recognize all of Canada's lingual communities as equals.

Careful, deliberate stewardship of Canada predicated on an ethics of care and responsibility.

This is the real Preston Manning. Not the theocratic bogeyman Canada's left painted him as, and as the margins of Canada's far left continues to paint him as today.

As Brean points out, Marci McDonald -- whose book The Armageddon Factor has become the toast of Canada's far left (mostly because they want so badly for it to be true; the far left is not well-known for sound virtue epistemology) -- mischaracterizes Manning in her book.

She treats Manning as someone who is teaching Evangelicals who are politically active to be secretive about their religious beliefs. This despite the fact that Manning has never been secretive about his religious beliefs, or about the fact that his religious beliefs influence his political beliefs.

She treats Manning's religious beliefs as a malignant influence on Canadian politics. Yet the manner in which Manning has applied his religious beliefs to his politics has always been entirely benign.

It's his religious beliefs -- his belief that Christians are responsible to take care of the world, God's creation -- that turned him toward applying conservative ideals to environmentalism.

It's his religious beliefs -- his belief that human intelligence is a gift from God, and that science represents the divine mandate to explore the world and universe humanity inhabits -- that turned him toward his devotion to science.

The Canadian left demonized Manning because they were terrified of him -- not because they believed he would lead Canada to theocracy (they knew better) -- but because they knew so many Canadians would prefer his ideas to their own.

But it's clear that the days of this character assassination finding favour in the public eye has decisively ended. Preston Manning has finally assumed his rightful place as an elder statesman in Canadian politics.

It came 20 years too late for the second best Prime Minister Canada never had -- but it happened just as he predicted it would.

You, Murray Dobbin, Own This

As Canadians continue to wonder precisely what they should make of Frank Graves' recent suggestion that the Liberal Party should provoke a culture war for political gain, one should take some time to remember some of Canada's other erstwhile cultural warriors.

"I told them that they should invoke a culture war. Cosmopolitanism versus parochialism, secularism versus moralism, Obama versus Palin, tolerance versus racism and homophobia, democracy versus autocracy," Graves told Lawrence Martin.

People like Murray Dobbin.

Nexus readers may remember a recent article about Dobbin's objections to a poll commissioned by the Manning Institute that indicated Canadians' political attitudes were becoming more conservative.

As it turned out, Frank Graves featured prominently in Dobbin's original article.

In particular, Dobbin took exception to the Manning Institute poll's conclusions on abortion, which indicated that 60% of Canadians considered it to be immoral. He countered that with results from an EKOS poll that concluded that 52% of Canadians describe themselves as "pro-choice", 27% described themselves as "pro-life", 10% answered "neither", while 33% declined to provide an answer.

Dobbin and Graves seem to suggest that only one of these polls can be correct.

But in order to accept their conclusion on this matter, one would have to overlook that the question of whether or not abortion is immoral and whether or not women should be allowed to choose are actually two very different questions.

If a belief on the part of Canadians that abortion is immoral automatically meant that Canadians believed that Canadian law should not allow women to make this decision for themselves, Canadians would be adopting a strictly moralistic attitude toward the law.

That polls could indicate that the majority of Canadians believe that abortion is immoral while also believing in the right of women to make their own choices about moral behaviour could be argued to indicate that Canadians do not hold a strictly moralistic attitude toward the law.

In other words: that Canadians believe that morality shouldn't dictate legality, and that legality doesn't dictate morality.

Each poll clearly asked different questions about abortion. One asked whether or not Canadians considered abortion to be immoral, and another asked them whether or not Canadians favoured a woman's right to choose. The very different conclusions reached by each study demonstrate how the questions asked shape the answers received.

Dobbin and Graves make it clear that their greatest objection to the Manning Institute study is that they don't approve of the questions that it asked.

Dobbin and Graves must know that by defining what questions may be asked about abortion, they stake out that issue for themselves. This is a hegemonic tactic that forgets the most important element of hegemony as defined by Antonio Gramsci -- the notion that hegemony is not dictated, but rather is negotiated.

Instead of hegemony being a remarkably democratic concept, hegemony instead becomes dictatorial.

What is a culture war if not the exploitation of negotiated hegemonic ideas in order to be able to dictate those ideas in future?

One should direct their attention toward the values that Graves advised the Liberals to divide Canadians over: Cosmopolitanism versus parochialism, secularism versus moralism, tolerance versus racism and homophobia, democracy versus autocracy.

Cosmolpolitanism, secularism, tolerance and democracy are all hegemonic ideals of Canadian society, socially negotiated between Canadians through their day-to-day interactions for decades.

By invoking these values as part of a culture war, Graves has suggested that the Liberal Party identify a group of Canadians they will allege do not share these foundational values. By doing so, the Liberals will brand these individuals as cultural outsiders within Canadian society.

Graves has made it clear who he wants to identify as such outsiders: the Conservative Party of Canada. In time, his strategy will not only counter-brand card-carrying Tories as outsiders, but will in time counter-brand anyone who votes for that party as outsiders.

In the end, that will likely amount to approximately 30% of Canadians. That is a lot of Canadians to attempt to force to the periphery of Canadian culture through a culture war.

But once the Liberal Party have branded themselves as the altar keepers of Canadian values, they will have made a bid not only to make themselves the standard bearer of that culture, but also to empower themselves to define what Canadian values are, without the participation of the so-called "outsiders".

Should the Liberals embrace Frank Graves' potentially destructive advice, their goal will become attaining the power to themselves define -- in effect, dictate -- Canadian values. The same Canadian values that form the hegemonic basis of Canadian culture.

So, judging from the title from this post, one may wonder precisely how Murray Dobbin has to take ownership of this purported culture war.

Dobbin takes Graves' upcoming EKOS poll -- which, as already demonstrated, distorts many of the answers in accordance with the questions it asks, and how -- as triumphal proof that Canadian political values are not, in fact, "blueing".

Dobbin thus infers that if Canadian political attitudes were in fact shifting toward conservatism, it would be a defeat for he and his ideological cohort, and that anything Frank Graves could do to stem perceptions of such a shift would be a good thing.

Dobbin's commentary on Graves' promised forthcoming polling results indicates that he has believed there is a culture war at the centre of Canadian politics for quite a while.

So as Canadians wary of the social damage a culture war would inflict begin to wonder who else is in favour of such a conflict, many Canadians should wonder how badly Murray Dobbin has wanted such a culture war, and for how long.

It may not be unfair to suspect the answer is "very badly", and "very long".

What Frank Graves Is Not:

Moderate

Ever since it was revealed that EKOS President Frank Graves recommended to the Liberal Party that they start a culture war, a great deal of intellectual and rhetorical energy has been expended trying to figure out precisely what Graves is.

Very little such energy has been spent trying to elucidate what Graves is not.

So much so that Graves himself doesn't seem to know, as revealled by some of his recent comments.

“Whether or not I am a centre-moderate in my political beliefs – which I am, which I didn’t think was a matter of great shame in this country – is irrelevant to the question of whether or not I can conduct myself as a sociologist or pollster in a fair and neutral fashion,” Graves insisted.

After suggesting that the Liberal Party spark a culture war for political gain, Frank Graves has the temerity to insist that he is a moderate.

No one who would so much as dare recommend turning Canadians against one another for political gain is a moderate.

One need only look south of the border to see the divisive and destructive nature of what Graves has recommended to the Liberal Party: partisan ideologues casting vapid aspersions of racism at fellow citizens simply because they dislike and actually fear what those citizens have to say.

It takes a particularly dangerous brand of ideologue to look at that conflict and believe that we need the same in Canada, just so their political party of preference can govern.

"In reflection, it was inappropriate and I should have used more measured terms and I don’t think the Prime Minister’s racist or a homophobe, nor do I think members of his cabinet or his caucus are," Graves continued. "I do believe, and this gets more subtle, that there is a higher incidence of people who are less tolerant to homosexuals and more wary of other races, within the Conservative Party. I can demonstrate that empirically."

First off, this reminds one that Graves work is now highly suspect. Graves has revealled himself to be a consumate cultural warrior. When one is examining polling to determine whether or not it's biased, it isn't at all unreasonable to start with the evident bias of the individuals crafting the polling questions.

This becomes especially apparent when one considers the extent to which the questions asked during a poll influences the results that poll will produce -- the very same complaint that Graves levied against a recent poll commissioned by the Manning Centre.

Moreover, some Canadians may even recognize the insinuation present in Graves' words.

It's nearly precisely the same phrase Warren Kinsella wrote about Preston Manning in Web of Hate. Kinsella remarked that Manning had done a great job of removing any racial supremacists from the ranks of the Reform Party. But he continued to cast aspersions against Manning based on the number of racists that his party had attracted, despite the fact that it became clear that their beliefs were not welcome in that party.

Some of the efforts to attribute racism to the Reform Party were actually rather remarkable. In Slumming it at the Rodeo, Gordon Laird put then-Reform Party MP (now embattled and disgraced former Conservative MP) Rahim Jaffer into the spotlight with an account of alleged racism at a Reform Party Stampede barbecue that reads as if it were fictionalized.

(The account is written as if it were a first-hand account of an event that Laird makes it clear he would not be caught dead at, and declined to identify any sources who had been present.)

But this has proven to be the remarkable quality of such accusations. When one doesn't have to name any names, one can claim nearly anything. The sources referenced could be anyone... or no one.

Likewise, the "empirical evidence" that Graves cites could be conclusive or largely inconclusive.

Because Frank Graves has made his motivations perfectly clear in this matter, there is simply no reason to trust his data on this subject. Many pollsters have demonstrated, time and time again, that they can get the results they want -- both in a general and more specific sense.

After all, it's clear that Frank Graves is not at least one other thing:

An impartial pollster.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Montreal Simon - "Frank Graves and the Con Homophobes"

Officially Screwed - "Liberal Pollster Frank Graves (or Frank Graves’s) Mistake"

Lee Hamilton - "Morning Brew: 'Invoke a Culture War'"

Edmund James - "A Culture War in Canada?"

Preston Manning Not for Governor General

Manning not cut out for Vice Regal role

As Canadians continue to speculate on who Canada's next Governor General -- the successor to the incomparable Michaelle Jean -- will be, the editors of The Mark have begun to collect hypothetical nominations from prominent Canadians.

Ezra Levant has nominated former Reform Party founder/leader and Canadian Alliance founder Preston Manning.

"Preston Manning is an ex-politician, but he's non-partisan," Levant argues. "It could be argued that he was even non-partisan while he led a party - he often put reforming the democratic system above his own immediate political interests."

"Since leaving Parliament, he has built an even more impressive legacy: a non-partisan think tank dedicated to improving the political system in a practical way, with everything from political campaign training schools to workshops on journalism," Levant continues. "He's a true nation-builder."

But as great a Canadian as Manning turly is -- despite the simmering hatred bore for him by Canada's far left -- no one should count on him being appointed Governor General. It would actually be a mistake to do so.

Manning could certainly stand -- and deserves -- the opportunity to rehabilitate his reputation from the many slanders foisted upon it by the far left. Contrary to what ideologues like Murray Dobbin would have Canadians believe, Manning would have been recognized as a giant of Canadian multiculturalism had his policies not been misrepresented by the shrill harpies of the far left.

Manning's proposed fair language policy -- which would have declared Canada to be a multilingual, not merely bilingual, state -- better reflected the realities of Canada and would have better served hundreds of thousands of Canadians than the current policy.

Manning's policy would have seen government services delivered in any number of languages, contingent on a significant community speaking that language. It would have seen government services available in Chinese in places like Vancouver, Farsi in places like Montreal, and Ukrainian and Polish in Edmonton. Among others.

But there are two things that Canadians cannot afford their Governor General to be: partisan and ideological.

One can say what one will about Preston Manning, he is unabashedly conservative. While being conservative shouldn't in itself disqualify anyone from being Governor General, Canada's Vice Regal must represent all Canadians, of all political stripes.

It just isn't realistic to expect Manning to be able to do that. At least not in the minds of liberal Canadians.

Manning's status as a former party leader, however, should disqualify him outright. The office of Governor General must, above all else, remain entirely non-partisan. This, admittedly, is a challenge to the notion that the Governor General should be elected, one that would have to be solved through mechanisms in the nomination process.

Ezra Levan'ts heart may be in the right place in nominating Preston Manning for Governor General. But this is one thing that can simply never be.

Murray Dobbin Up to More Silliness

Murray Dobbin: Canadians disagree about politics, disagree about the degree to which we disagree. Duh.

Writing in The New Canada, Preston Manning noted that former Alberta Premier William "Bible Bill" Aberhart was once a figure of some revulsion in Canada. Likewise for his father, Ernest Manning.

Yet by the time Manning was founding the Reform Party the reputations of Aberhart and the senior Manning had started to undergo a process of rehabilitation. Manning was even appointed a Senator in 1970 -- by Pierre Trudeau, no less.

Manning must have understood that one day his own reputation would need rehabilitation.

When Manning founded the Reform party, the denizens of Canada's far left essentially declared war upon him, and very few waged that war more ruthlessly than Murray Dobbin.

So it should be unsurprising that Dobbin would be chomping at the bit to take another shot at Manning. What's surprising is that he actually waited a month to do so.

In a recent column at Rabble.ca, Dobbin takes issue with a poll commissioned by the Manning Centre for Building Democracy. The poll concluded that the values of Canadians were subtly becoming more conservative.

Dobbin, naturally, takes exception to this, and complains that the poll allegedly asked the wrong questions:

"Rather than asking Canadians whether or not they thought abortion should be legal and that deciding on whether or not to have a child should be a woman's decision, the Harris Decima Manipulators asked whether people thought abortion was 'immoral.' Thus the poll claimed 75 per cent of respondents feel abortion is 'morally wrong.' Rather than ask the question about its legality directly they asked respondents if they though the government should 'regulate behaviour.' Only 21 per cent of the new centrists said yes."

Of course what Dobbin fails to recognize is that the question of whether or not abortion is morally wrong and whether it should remain legal are two separate questions, providing a better sense of the nuances of Canadian attitudes toward this issue.

Dobbin offers up the results of another poll that concluded that a majority of Canadians are pro-choice. (There is such a thing as pro-choice on abortion, but ARCC director Joyce Arthur and her cohorts are decidedly not pro-choice -- they're pro-abortion.)

Yet it apparently doesn't occur to Dobbin that Canadians could consider abortion to be morally wrong but still believe it should remain legal for cases where it is direly needed -- and most Canadians recognize that such cases do exist.

In the end, Dobbin refers to a forthcoming poll that will reach different results based on different questions -- and somehow readers are supposed to believe this discredits the Manning Centre poll.

It's a ridiculous premise: Canadians disagree on politics, disagree on the extent to which they disagree, and even disagree on the questions that should be asked.

This is no great surprise to any politically astute Canadian. Understanding of this should be considered a prerequisite for being involved in political debate in Canada. That Dobbin doesn't seem to understand this only underscores his unsuitability to participation in that debate.

Fortunately for Dobbin, we don't exclude anyone from that debate in Canada on the basis of consideirng them "unsuitable" -- despite the extent to which Dobbin would prefer otherwise.

Dobbin has long considered Preston Manning (in fact, long considered all conservatives unsuitable, as indicated by his application of a genetic fallacy argument to Manning and polster Allan Gregg). This is the reason why he's worked so hard to maintain an elaborate political mythology centred around Manning: that of the far-right extremist.

In fact, Manning is a political centrist who started the Reform Party reaching out to disgruntled members of all Canada's political parties. His brand of social conservative was not one that would be prohibitive of personal and social freedoms, but rather more of a social-ized social conservatism wherein conservatives accepted responsibility for providing for the sick and the needy.

That is why Manning has always advocated conservative reforms for social programs, rather than outright abolition of them -- something that has long escaped far-left zealots like Dobbin.

The creation of that mythology was abetted by the attraction of far-right racists and ultra-conservative zealots to the Reform Party, and somehow unrelenting in the face of the expulsion of those individuals from the party.

More pointedly, there's a reason why fringe parties even further to the political right than the Reform Party -- parties like the Christian Heritage Party -- emerged on the political landscape. Even though the Reform Party was too conservative for Murray Dobbin, it wasn't nearly conservative enough for many others.

Ever so slowly, the rehabilitation of Preston Manning's reputation has begun. Far-left zealots like Murray Dobbin may not like this -- but it is happening nonetheless.

That Canadians are slowly becoming more receptive to many of Manning's conservative ideas -- a phenomenon also chronicled by writers such as Brian Lee Crowley -- is indicative of this.

Dobbin can preach to the choir at Rabble.ca to his heart's content. Even if Canadians aren't becoming more conservative, as the Manning Centre poll indicates, it's clear that the understanding of Canadians' actually highly-nuanced political views are becoming more advanced.

Murray Dobbin may not like it -- but the majority of Canadinas will like it just fine.

Time to Start Getting the Message, Ed

Barbarians not at the gates -- yet

In the world of Albertan politics, few people's words carry more weight than that of Preston Manning.

So when Manning speculates that Danielle Smith and the Wildrose Alliance may very well be a serious threat to Premier Ed Stelmach and the Progressive Conservative party, it's time for Stelmach to listen.

Stelmach's state of mind in the wake of Smith's victory to become the leader of the Alliance has been a matter of some speculation. Stelmach insists he isn't worried about the Alliance.

"It's like when you get into a hockey game," he recently told reporters. "You get all pumped for it. There'll be a lot said, but we're still focused on our plan for Alberta. We still have a sizeable majority. The people gave us a strong mandate to do what's right for Albertans."

"We have a sizable majority; people gave us a strong mandate to do what's right for all Albertans," Stelmach added more recently. "We'll continue to do that."

Of course, if a mandate is a static notion, Stelmach would be entirely correct. In teh 2008 provincial election won 53% of the popular vote -- albeit in an election in which few Albertans voted.

But if one were to accept an argument that the notion of a mandate is a more of a living sentiment of whom the citizenry have entrusted with the moral authority to govern, one could make the argument that Stelmach's mandate has been significantly eroded.

Of course no reasonable individual expects a government to govern according to polls. And with the Conservative party still commanding the support of 38% of Albertans -- still a plurality -- the Tories remain well-situated to continue governing.

“You have to keep in mind the Conservatives still lead in all categories,” says Faron Ellis, a political scientist at the University of Lethbridge. “The barbarians are not at the gates of the legislature just yet.”

But the key words should be considered "just yet".

Preston Manning -- an individual who could well have become Premier in Stelmach's place, if he had opted to enter the contest -- has recently noted that Stelmach's government appears tired and troubled in the eyes of Albertans, and all Smith needs to do is present appealing policy to become an ominous threat.

"We're halfway there in the sense that there is a party that's been long in office and does appear to be struggling to have anything new or different to contribute," Manning mused. "It has yet to be seen whether the Wildrose Alliance has the other side of the equation."

When Paul Hinman, Smith's successor as leader of the Wildrose Alliance, won the recent by-election in Calgary-Elbow, he won on a campaign slogan that encouraged voters in the riding to "send a message to Ed".

If as luminous an authority on Albertan politics as Preston Manning believes Danielle Smith and the Wildrose Alliance could become a threat to the Alberta Tories, it's time for Ed to start getting that message.

Is Revolution the Big Idea in Alberta?

Paul Hinman's victory brings expectations of rolling Tory heads

Albertan conservatives discontented with Ed Stelmach's Progressive Conservative government seem to have a new star in town.

The town is Calgary. And the star is Paul Hinman.

If Doug Firby is to be believed, Hinman's victory over Progressive Conservative candidate Diane Colley-Urquhart indeed represents the first shot in what Dan Arnold describes as "Alberta's revolution" -- and leading the revolutionary are magnates of the Albertan oilpatch.

"[It is] a resounding indictment of besieged Premier Ed Stelmach, who has failed to win the hearts of Calgary’s oil patch power elite – the same group who backed Jim Dinning in the December 2006 leadership contest that Stelmach won," Firby writes. "Stelmach will now almost certainly face serious questions about his ability to continue much longer as political head of the province."

Firby notes that what truly makes Hinman's win special is that it was done without much of the traditional partisan infrastructure in place.

"All the more remarkable is that Hinman won the seat, even though he had lost the party’s only seat in the last general election, bringing to an ignominious end his largely ineffective term as leader of the Wildrose Alliance," Firby continues. "In fact, the party was still nominally leaderless when the grumpy voters of Calgary-Glenmore went to the polls this week."

Adam Daifallah worries that Hinman's victory may be the first step in a long-overdue "political realignment" in Alberta.

The Alberta Conservatives, who have governed the province uninterrupted since 1971, look tired, complacent and vulnerable like never before," he writes. "To finish in third place, behind the normally irrelevant Liberals, in a Calgary riding is a serious embarrassment."

"Alberta is Canada's most conservative province; Calgary the country's most conservative big city," Daifallah reasons. "This fact partly explains the loss: Ed Stelmach's Tories have abandoned any semblance of conservatism. (One could argue that conservatism in Alberta was abandoned after Ralph Klein's first term as premier, but I digress.)"

Daifallah notes that the leadership candidacy of Danielle Smith is particularly troubling to the Alberta PCs.

"There is a clear constituency for a fiscally conservative message in Alberta at present -- not just due to Stelmach, but also because of what's happening in Ottawa," Daifallah continues. "As standard bearer for conservatives' sense of discontent, Smith would instantly become the darling of the Canadian right and make the Wildrose Alliance a serious challenger for power."

In the wake of Hinman's victory, the Wildrose Alliance seems to be drawing more than just media attention -- speculation is that their caucus in the Legislature may double with the addition of spurned former Tory Guy Boutilier.

Boutilier was recently ousted from the PC caucus for being too vocal about the government dragging its feet on a retirement home in Fort MacMurray.

"He represents true conservative values," Boutilier said of Hinman. "Right now, I represent my constituents of Fort McMurray and true conservative values."

To compare Hinman's victory to the 1988 Deborah Grey victory in Beaver River that foreshadowed Preston Manning and the Reform party's 1993 arrival as a political force in Ottawa may be a bit of a stretch.

But in the wake of the victory, Hinman and whomever winds up leading the Wildrose Alliance may be well advised to take Preston Manning's advice to the founding convention of the Canadian Alliance -- "Think big".

Right now, the Wildrose Alliance is a party with no leader, little money, and no track record of success.

In 1993, the Reform party had a leader with little public recognition, little money and no track record of success. That year they elected 52 Members of Parliament and four years later they were Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

They were able to do this because Preston Manning had the courage to think big. If the Wildrose Alliance elects a leader who shares that courage, they may yet be able to shock Albertans -- and Canada -- by unseating Canada's longest-serving government.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Albertosaurus Talks - "Glenmore: Changeout or Old Fashioned Switch?"

Dan Shields - "Paradigm Shift in Alberta?"

Navigating Canada's Way Out of Recession Redux

Preston Manning calls for post-recession roadmap

In an op/ed column appearing in the Globe and Mail, Preston Manning writes about the current federal deficit, and compares it to the 14-year quest to put an end to Canada's last deficit.

He argues that a lack of planning undermined efforts to control that deficit, and argues that a plan is needed to tackle the current federal deficit.

The best reason for doing this, he insists, is not necessarily the deficit itself, but some of the unconsidered consequences of accumulating debt:

"To combat the current recession, governments around the world have instituted economic recovery measures breathtaking in their magnitude and scope. These include dramatically expanding the money supply (printing money), taking significant ownership positions in key sectors of the economy and heavily engaging in deficit spending.

Such measures have other significant and long-lasting effects besides stimulating economic growth.

Rapid expansion of the money supply can lead to a tsunami of inflation. Government ownership of businesses can lead to unhealthy dependencies, unfair competition, corporate inefficiencies and serious conflicts of interest when governments must also regulate businesses in which they have an ownership stake. And heavy engagement in deficit spending leads invariably to increased public debt, increased interest payments and the necessity of cutting services and/or raising taxes in the future to rebalance the books.

So what must be done to recover from the adverse effects of these measures?

Let me focus particularly on what might be done to recover from the orgy of deficit spending in which virtually all governments in Canada are now engaged."

Manning notes that the 14-year struggle to end balance the budget and begin paying down debt stemmed from not a lack of a coherent plan:

"At the federal level, Canada's last big deficit-spending binge began in the Pierre Trudeau years. Fourteen federal deficits in 17 years eventually led to a national debt of $572-billion and annual interest payments of almost $40-billion in today's dollars (or stated in 1984 dollars, $250.5-billion debt and $21-billion in interest costs).

In 1984, the Liberals were replaced by the Brian Mulroney Conservatives, who promised a more responsible approach to public finances. But federal spending continued to soar, the annual deficit and national debt continued to rise, and the government resorted largely to increased taxation rather than spending reductions to try to tame the deficit dragon."

By the time the Jean Chretien Liberal party was in power and ready (however reluctantly) to start tackling the national deficit, all then-Finance Minister and future Prime Minister Paul Martin could think to do was slash spending on health care, education and transfers to the provinces -- something the Liberals only recently admitted was a mistake.

The skyrocketing public debt and debt service payments that Manning alludes to were thus only one consequence of the Trudeau-Mulroney deficit spending era.

As the '90s wore on, so did public anxiety about Canada's debt. That anxiety was also felt in financial markets, where there was speculation that Canada could potentially default on its foreign debts. This anxiety, however, was not born in the 1990s. Public concern about Canada's debt had begun to solidly take root in the 1989s:

"According to the pollsters, as early as 1984 there was significant public support for deficit reduction as a policy objective, including major cuts in public spending, but politicians were slow to recognize or respond vigorously to this shift in public attitudes. So the leadership of the deficit-reduction movement began largely outside the formal political arena.

Market-oriented think tanks such as the Fraser Institute and the CD Howe Institute provided much of the intellectual capital for the movement, hammering away on the problem's dangers and offering alternatives for alleviating it.

Interest groups such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Canadian Chambers of Commerce, the Business Council on National Issues (as it was then called) and later the newly formed (1989) Canadian Taxpayers Federation added their voices, energy and resources to generate public and political support for budget balancing by governments at all levels.

Grassroots publications such as Ted Byfield's Western Report and the radio talk shows gave media voice to the movement, and later several national newspapers joined the fray."

As Manning notes, it was only a matter of time before deficit-fighting arrived as the raison d'etre for a federal political party:

"And on the fringes of the political arena, the embryonic Reform Party (with Stephen Harper as its policy chief and fiscal critic) made budget balancing a central plank of its election platform and set out to prove that it was possible to elect candidates to Parliament on the pledge of saving taxpayers' dollars rather than spending more of them."

The Reform party contested its first federal election in 1988, the year Canadians bequeathed a second straight majority on then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Although he had inherited a structural deficit from Pierre Trudeau, history remembers (and will continue to remember) Mulroney as one of Canada's biggest deficit spenders.

But appearances could be decieving. Free Trade was the central issue in the 1988 election campaign, with Mulroney supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement, and his opponents opposing it. Mulroney won a majority on the back of the free trade issue. But at their earliest opportunity (which came later in 1988), Albertans sent Deborah Grey, their first Reform MP, to Ottawa. Stephen Harper (who will also be remembered as one oc Canada's biggest deficit spenders) went with her as her Parliamentary Assistant.

At a certain point, legislators couldn't ignore the signs the Canadian people were sending them -- get the debt under control. Now. Or else:

"As the movement for deficit reduction grew in public support, municipal and provincial politicians finally began to take notice. (Federal parties, because of their distance from grassroots voters and taxpayers, are usually the last, not the first, to respond to major shifts in public sentiment.)

Though rarely recognized for it, the first provincial government to commit itself seriously to the goal of budget balancing was the Conservative government of Gary Filmon in Manitoba. At the time (1988), the province was running a $500-million deficit on total revenues of about $4-billion and it took seven years to reduce the deficit to zero. Manitoba was also among the first to pass budget-balancing laws making it illegal to run deficits except in specifically defined emergency situations.

Next it was Alberta, where Ralph Klein made a similar commitment in 1993, eliminating that province's $3.5-billion deficit in two short years while at the same time decreasing revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product.

And then in Ontario, where the annual deficit was in excess of $10-billion, the Mike Harris government, elected in 1995, reduced it to zero in four years."

But, as Manning suggests, the federal government can often be the slowest to respond. It took the Reform Party and scathing criticisms from Andrew Coyne to convince Paul Martin that he needed to get Canada's fiscal house in order.

As Manning notes, the Reform party is still remembered as the only party in the 1993 election to present a credible plan for reducing the federal deficit:

"Meanwhile, in the federal arena, where the deficit was approaching $40-billion a year, the 1993 election saw the demise of the Mulroney Conservatives and the election of the Jean Chrétien government. But that election also resulted in the election of 52 Reformers committed to reducing the federal deficit to zero in three years. Eventually, the Liberals, though philosophically inclined to ever-increasing public spending, felt the political pressure to move in the opposite direction, and by 1998 the budget was finally balanced."

This was not nearly so simple for Paul Martin as some would have suggested it was.

The Chretien government, at the time, was also conducting a social services review under Lloyd Axworthy. It took considerable time and effort for Martin to out-maneuver Axworthy in order to impress the importance of his agenda upon Chretien.

Various political tensions -- both inter- and intra-party -- led to the exacerbation of Canada's deficit and hampered the best-intentioned efforts to get it back under control.

Manning seems to suggest that these kinds of tensions are characteristic of a political environment in which there is no real consensus on the matter, and what is needed to ensure Canada can efficiently shed its deficit once the recession is over is a policy similar to Reform's "zero in three" policy:

"The most disturbing aspect of this story is that it took 14 years (1984 to 1998), and an enormous effort at great expense by tens of thousands of people outside the formal political arena, before the federal government could be persuaded to take the self-evidently necessary actions required to balance its books.

Given this history, what will it take to tame the current deficit, the one being incurred in the name of economic stimulation? Political leadership, more likely to come from conservatives than liberals or social democrats, would certainly help. But no doubt another major effort outside the formal political arena – by think tanks, interest groups and media committed to fiscal responsibility – will be needed to create the public pressure required before politicians will act.

That effort would be greatly aided if someone – perhaps one of the think tanks or a respected academic institution – were to provide a definitive history of the last deficit-reduction movement. Most of us involved in that exercise have only partial knowledge of who did what, of what worked and what didn't, and of how the whole process might have been expedited. A road map to deficit elimination, based on a comprehensive analysis of past experience, will be extremely helpful to the deficit-fighters of the future. Hopefully, this time it will not take 14 years to get the job done."

If Canada's political leaders establish a deficit-busting concession now, as opposed to waiting until Canada faces the threat of a complete fiscal collapse, Canada will be able to navigate itself out of the recession fairly quickly -- and perhaps even without an additional five years of deficit spending.


From the archives:

August 5, 2009 - "Navigating Canada's Way Out of Recession (And Beyond)"

Nothing Blasphemous About Theological Environmentalism

Michael Coren off-base with criticism of United Church

Writing in the Sudbury Star, Bill Steadman takes umbrage with recent remarks by Michael Coren about recent focus by the United Church of Canada on environmental issues.

Coren wrote that "hundreds of thousands have left for evangelical churches where Jesus, rather than the Smart car, is worshipped each Sunday."

In his Toronto Sun column, Coren more specifically takes issue with Mardi Tindal, the Church's new environmentally-minded moderator.

"Do Mardi and her friends not realize just how dated and daft they sound?" Coren asks. "They toss around all of the old cliches like 'new paradigm,' 'participate relationally' and 'safe place' and then wonder why worshippers have abandoned their church quicker than a liberal Christian in a shoe store that has run out of Birkenstocks!"

"While lazy journalists continue to say that the United Church is, 'the largest Protestant denomination in Canada' the truth is that while the church boasts 545,000 adherents, these are mostly paper members and perhaps a third of them actually attend the United Church."

The rest, Coren contends, have abandoned the Church for demoninations that haven't shifted their focus to matters other than singing hymns and passing the collection plate.

"If people want environmental lectures, distorted history about evil Europeans oppressing natives, radical feminism and anti-homophobia workshops they only have to turn on the television," Coren writes. "They go to church to praise God and learn about salvation."

The argument that Coren seems to raise is that commentary on social matters -- and especially left-wing commentary -- are out of place within a Christian church, and that they are somehow polluting the spiritual environment of the Church. That they are, in this particular sense, effectively blasphemous.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

If Coren truly feels threatened by the presence of an environmental message in his Church, some high profile Canadian Christians wouldn't agree with him.

Preston Manning -- a known evangelical Christian -- has long advocated in favour of theocratic environmentalism, a breed of environmentalism born out of a belief in creation care.

At the heart of this idea, which one of Canada's predominant evangelical Christians has taken very deeply to heart, is the idea that mankind has a responsibility to care for God's creation. It's a very compelling reason for many Christians to support environmental conservation and reclaimation.

Manning could never have reached this conclusion about a holy mandate for environmental conservation without being influenced by his religious beliefs. In fact, Manning has made it clear throughout his political career that his religious beliefs were the foundation of his political beliefs and actions.

Bill Streadman's objections to Coren's comments stems from the very same Christian principles of which Manning would remind the arch-conservative scribe -- that being a Christian has as it's fundamental basis a social relationship with the rest of teh world: one wherein Christians are obligated to treat their fellow humanity with generosity, kindness and compassion.

This includes generously helping to ensure that everyone can enjoy a high quality of life, replete with a clean and healthy environment to habitate.

Streadman also notes that, as it regards accusations that politics undermines the religiosity of the United Church's message, the Church would not be alone.

"The truth is, being a follower of Jesus (at least as I read the Bible) has a lot to do with how one treats people, understands human needs and addresses social concerns," Streadman writes. "Jesus himself was accused of being a nonreligious individual for allowing tax collectors, prostitutes, even mothers with young children to be part of his entourage of followers. Heaven forbid."

Coren's concern is legitimate if the United Church begins to promote left-wing political beliefs to the exclusion of any others.

But even then any believers concerned about the influx of left-wing politics in their Church do have two very good options of their own: either make their own political beliefs heard within the Church, or find another.

If many adherents of the United Church choose the latter over the former, that's their choice. And it's the choice of the United Church -- not of Michael Coren -- regarding whether or not they'll worry about it.

For his own part, Bill Steadman doesn't seem to.

What's So Dark About Green Politics?

Peter Foster decries Preston Manning's "turn" to environmentalism

Writing in an op/ed in the Financial Post, Peter Foster seems rather disenchanted with Preston Manning.

Apparently, he just can't figure out Manning's involvement with Sustainable Prosperity, an organization that Foster describes as "a lobby group for radical environmental policies".

Yet when one takes a good look at the page presenting the organization's research, one sees a rather different picture than the one Foster seems to be presenting.

In fact, Manning's involvement with Sustainable Prosperity is nothing new for him. He has long promoted free market environmentalism -- the idea that ownership of property promotes proper care for the environment.

The theory of free market environmentalism simply states that property ownership is an investment. As a result, the owner of that property has an incentive to maintain the value of their investment by ensuring that the property remains in good condition. For home owners, this entails maintenance of the house. For land owners, this entails minimizing the amount of pollution that takes place on their property, and properly cleaning up any pollution that does occur.

As with any market structure, this does entail a certain amount of government intervention.

To the typical hard-core conservative government intervention is generally considered anathema. But these people overlook the fact that, even though economics insists that all people are rational actors, it doesn't necessarily mean that they always act in their best interests, or that of their community.

Where the market fails to self-regulate (as it often does) through business or property owners that fail to percieve their incentive to maintain the value of their investments via proper environmental care, it is the government's responsibility to act.

Interestingly, SP offers several answers to some of Foster's questions. Foster notes the difficulty of pricing carbon under a cap and trade system. SP advocates a hybrid system for carbon pricing, and offers the principles under which carbon could be priced.

Manning's involvement with SP doesn't even represent any kind of sudden change for him. Manning has long been a proponent of theological environmentalism, the idea that religious believers have an obligation to environmentalism via their responsibility to care for their god's creation.

Much of Foster's objections to Sustainable Prosperity seem like a knee-jerk reaction when one considers that Andrew Heintzman is very much a man who has put his money where his mouth is and invested heavily in environmental enterprise.

There's nothing dark about green politics, especially not the manner in which Manning is advancing it.

If anything, Peter Foster should welcome Sustainable Development to the environmental debate, as it provides an alternative in the debate that is much more palatable than the numerous proposals based solely on economically-cripping forms of government intervention (remember Stephane Dion's Green Shift?).

If Preston Manning and Andrew Heintzman are successful in promoting their ideas, not only will it go a long way toward improving the current state of the environment, but it will have given conservatives a much stronger voice in how that is done.

Peter Foster should be happy with that.

Sometimes You Really Can't Go Home Again

Harper's former contemporaries unimpressed by Senate appointments

The question that has been on the minds of many Canadians since Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent appointment of nine new Senators this week, has been this:

What would his old Reform party contemporaries think of this?

In fact, that question has been on the minds of many since last December, when Harper appointed another 18 Senators to Parliament's upper chamber.

Fortunately, many of Harper's Reform party colleagues have been vocal on the subject, and they aren't entirely happy.

"It does look a little top-heavy, inside out, shall we say," said Deborah Grey, the MP for whom Harper went to work for upon her election to Parliament. "That will rankle lots of people."

"You better be ready to run for an elected seat," she added, referring to Harper's new batch of Senators.

Myron Thompson admitted to sympathizing with Harper for the position he's been in, but doesn't accept that as an excuse. "We don't like to see him go that route at all," he said. "The average strong conservative would say, 'Stay the course.'"

Former MPs Bob Mills and Ray Speaker seem much more comfortable with the appointments.

Tom Flanagan admitted that even he was taken by surprise when Harper appointed Carolyn Stewart-Olsen.

Naturally, Harper's political opponents have been quite vocal on the subject of these appointments. As Maclean's magazine writer Andrew Coyne notes, Harper's appointments may well have given them something to cry about. That may have even been the intent.

Yet the one individual who has been oddly quiet on the issue is former Reform party leader and Harper mentor Preston Manning. It was Manning's dedication to the issue of Senate reform that put, and has kept, it as a substantive issue in Canadian politics.

One would think that Manning would have something to say about Harper's Senate appointments, but has all along declined to comment.

Ever since Harper became Conservative party leader and Prime Minister, however, Manning has made a point of restraining his criticisms of Harper to those that are constructive and not damaging.

It isn't inconceivable that Manning's silence on the matter is indicative that he takes significant umbrage with it. A Manning 20 years younger may have even leaped back into the political fray over the issue.

It's all enough to make one wonder what would be said if Harper and his former colleagues sat down over a private dinner. Sometimes, one really can't go home again, and it isn't outrageous to wonder if Stephen Harper's former Reform party colleagues would welcome him as enthusiastically as once before.

Time to Open Canadian Politics

Preston Manning: If Britain can experiment, why can't we?

Throughout history, Canada has shared many things in common with Britain.

Our Parliamentary system is one of them.

In Open and Shut, John Ibbitson compares the 2008 elections in Canada and the United States and draws a disappointing conclusion: in Canada, there could never be a Prime Minister Barack Obama. There could never be a Prime Minister John McCain.

The reason for this has nothing to do with the virtues of either man -- although, speaking outside of hypotheticals, citizenship certainly must. Instead, Ibbitson concludes this because the Canadian political system is too closed, as opposed to the American system, which is comparatively open.

Ibbitson muses that an open primary system could not only improve participation in Canadian politics, but improve Canadian politics itself. While individuals like Frances Russell go into conniptions any time anyone suggests that Canadians "pollute" our Parliamentary system with American innovations, it seems that an innovation such as a primary system may not be as antithetical to our Parliamentary system as some may think.

Preston Manning seems to echo Ibbitson's sentiments in a column recently published in the Globe and Mail, and provides a surprising example to support his arguments:

"Earlier this month, Canada's electoral officers - officials of Elections Canada and their provincial and territorial counterparts - held their annual conference.

The main subject of discussion was what to do about declining participation in Canadian elections -- for example, the turnout of 59 per cent in the last federal election, the 51 per cent in the recent BC provincial election, and the abysmal 41 per cent last time out in Alberta.

It is good to know that our elections officials are concerned about this problem. They play an important role in informing and educating voters on election procedures and rules. But surely the primary responsibility for remedying Canada's democracy deficit rests with others -- with parents, educators, the media and particularly our political parties, politicians and leaders.

Often it takes a crisis of some sort to create opportunities for reform. In Britain, the recent scandalous abuse of expense accounts by members of the House of Commons from all major parties has created precisely such a crisis and opportunity."

To support his argument, Manning offers the example of the British Conservative party. In the riding of Totnes, they're replacing a discraced MP with a candidate who will be nominated through an open primary election:

"In order to bolster public confidence in its candidates for the soon-to-be-held general election, the British Conservative Party has become willing to experiment with democratic innovations.

One in particular is being introduced in the constituency of Totnes. It should be watched closely by Canadian politicians and parties.

The Conservative MP for Totnes, Anthony Steen, was recently forced to 'stand down' when it was revealed that he had claimed more than £87,000 over four years in parliamentary expenses on his country home.

Rather than choosing a candidate to succeed him by the conventional method of a constituency nominating meeting in which only card-carrying Conservative Party members can vote, the party has decided to experiment with an 'open primary' in which every voter in Totnes will be invited to help choose its candidate for the next general election.

The Totnes Conservative Association drew up a short list of 11 potential candidates which was then reduced to three on July 15. Starting last Monday, ballot papers were mailed out to the 69,000 eligible voters in the constituency. There was an all-candidate event Saturday where the three candidates were to receive and answer questions from voters. Thursday, the results of the Totnes 'open primary' are to be announced.

'This is the first time any political party in Britain has sought the views of the voters [on who should be the party's candidate] in such a direct way,' said Conservative Party Leader David Cameron."

While David Cameron has provided a glimmering example in regards to how to rebuild and rebrand conservative political parties, his party's efforts in Totnes may revolutionize the classic British Parliamentary system:

"Observers will be watching closely and seeking answers to several key questions:

To what extent will the voters of Totnes actually participate? Will that participation give that candidate any advantage in terms of public confidence and support over candidates of other parties nominated in the more traditional way? And, will the primary stimulate greater interest and participation in the general election itself?

And here in Canada, will any political party be willing to experiment with the 'open primary' to attract more Canadians into the process of putting candidates' names on the ballot and thereby, one hopes, increasing public interest in the campaign and election to follow?"

Perhaps an even better question is whether or not any of Canada's political parties would be willing to experiment with a primary election system -- perhaps not necessarily an open primary -- in order to elect their leaders.

If Canadians who support -- but haven't made the commitment of joining -- a political party were given the opportunity to vote on the leaders of each party one as to wonder who may be leading each of these parties.

Conservative leader Peter MacKay?

NDP leader Lorne Nystrom?

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau?

One would certainly at least have to wonder about the odds of individuals like Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Stephane Dion or Jack Layton to lead their respective parties.

Whereas, in the United States, the primary system has often foiled the ascent of allegedly "inevitable" Presidential candidates such as Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney.

In Ibbitson's mind, the affect of this influence has been overwhelmngly positive. Manning seems to agree:

"In North America, it is the United States that has made greatest use of the primary system, which is why Canadian liberals and social democrats -- pathologically averse to adopting U. political practices -- are unlikely to embrace it.

But what about Canadian conservatives? If the British Conservative Party -- far older and tradition-bound than any Canadian counterpart -- can experiment with such democratic innovations, why can't Canadian conservatives?"

Sadly, Canadian Conservatives don't always prove themselves to be the experimental innovators they purport themselves to be.

Don Mazankowski's long-forgotten proposal that the province of Alberta establish its own elected Senate within its provincial government seems to be a good example. if Albertans so badly want an elected Senate federally, showing that one could work at the provincial level is certainly a productive step. It's one that was never taken, and a proposal that was quickly forgotten.

Sadly, the Conservative party of Canada hasn't always been true to the populist principles that were supposed to be integral to its reformation:

"The federal Conservative Party has recently tightened rather than opened its nomination process by permitting incumbents to avoid a nomination contest unless more than two-thirds of local party members vote for one. But if this should prove to be counterproductive, in terms of rallying party member support for the next election campaign or public support for candidates who are past their 'best before' date, perhaps the British experiment with open primaries will find favour here.

And what about provincial conservative parties? Let's take the aging, long-in-office, Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta.

Forty years ago, I tried to persuade another aging, long-in-power provincial political party in Alberta to embrace a variation of the primary system as a means of injecting new blood into the party and new energy into the electoral process. The concept was rejected, especially by incumbent MLAs who saw it as a threat to their renomination and by 'gatekeepers' at the constituency level who feared it would reduce their influence.

Two years later, the party was out of office, never to return -- the opportunity to re-energize itself through democratic reform lost forever. Let us, therefore, watch the British experiment with interest, and not wait for a crisis before conducting similar experiments in Canada."

John Ibbitson may be surprised to find Preston Manning to be such a willing ally in helping institute such innovations in Canada: he shouldn't be, but he may be.

But Ibbitson and Manning are both right: it's time for Canadians to find new ways to open our politics. While the idea of a primary election system is promising, it's far from guaranteed to be the panacea that will solve some of the problems confronting Canadian politics.

But something almost certainly needs to be done. The time is as right now as it ever has been.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

The View From Seven - "Preston Manning: Building Democracy or Just Activist Influence?"

Canadian Conservatism Needs to Save Itself

Adam Daifallah annoints Tim Hudak as conservative saviour

Writing in a blog post on the National Post's Full Comment blog, Adam Daifallah all but annoints Tim Hudak as the saviour of conservatism not only in Ontario, but perhaps in all of Canada:

"Tim Hudak's ascension to the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario is an important development in the Canadian conservative movement for several reasons. Most importantly, it represents a clean break from the rudderless and inept leadership that has guided the party for more than five years. Let's not mince words: Ernie Eves and John Tory were unmitigated disasters as leaders. Hudak represents a clear return to the conviction-based politics that vaulted the Tories to power -- and kept them there -- in the 1990s."

It would be unreasonable to suggest that Tory and Eves, as leaders, could not have done more.

That being said, it's unreasonable to overlook the fact that, as leaders, Tory and Eves had to work with what Harris had left behind him when he resigned as leader. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Mike Harris left behind him an extremely unpopular incumbent party, which had failed to deliver on its espoused fiscally conservative principles, had made controversial moves in relation to education and relations with municipal governments, and had often stirred up a wasp's nest of public protest against it.

To saddle Tory and Eves firmly with the failure of the Ontario Tories to retain power -- or win it back from Dalton McGuinty in the years since -- is partially unfair. While one cannot overlook their own failures as leaders, one also has to remember the position Harris had left them in.

Yet Daifallah seems to believe that only a leader practically hand-picked by Harris can deliver the Ontario Tories from the ignominous position they currently find themselves in.

"For the first time in recent memory, during the course of the leadership race no candidate ran on an explicitly centre-left platform. Hudak, runner-up Frank Klees and maverick Randy Hillier all staked out clear conservative ground. Christine Elliott ran a formidable campaign and was essentially forced into positioning herself as the centrist candidate due to crowding on the right. (Frequent cheerleading from the Toronto Star also helped burnish her image in that regard.)"

Daifallah seems to do everything but label Elliott Liberal-lite.

"Elliott miscalculated in making the policy of abolishing the Ontario Human Rights Commission -- a cause championed by Hudak and Hiller -- a wedge issue. This didn't sit well with Hudak's and Hillier's supporters, whose second-choice votes she needed to gain in the preferential ballot voting system. Her announcement that she would implement a flat tax if elected -- effectively outflanking Hudak on the right -- sent an electroshock through the other camps. In the end, Elliott proved to be a master of the air war, but lacked the ground game necessary to mount a serious challenge."

But Daifallah would be foolish to insist that the policy of abolishing the Ontario Human Rights Commission was not, in and of itself, designed to be a wedge issue.

Hudak used that policy as a method to determine those who were, allegedly, true conservatives from those who were simply "Liberal lite" -- a label he applied to both Elliott and Klees.

"The significance of the Hudak victory should not be downplayed. The Ontario Tories now have a leader who, unlike his predecessor, won't shy away from drawing clear distinctions between himself and the McGuinty Liberals. Hudak believes in ideas -- he won't be afraid of making bold proposals going forward. His mandate of presenting policies that respect conservative principles yet recognize the current difficult economic context will neutralize Liberal attempts to paint him as a reincarnation of Mike Harris."

And yet Hudak's branding of himself as a "common sense conservative" has already done so much to accomplish this very act.

Distancing himself from Harris will be a difficult act for someone who enjoyed such fervent support from Harris to do. And, really, one may wonder what reason Hudak would have to want to distance himself from who has proven to be his most valuable supporter.

"The McGuinty government is vulnerable on almost every important issue: Ontario's economy is in shambles, taxes are up, spending has soared with no correlative improvement in service quality, unemployment is skyrocketing and the deficit and debt have ballooned. Admittedly, not all of these problems are Dalton McGuinty's own fault, but in politics, the party in power wears the good news and the bad, regardless of its cause.

The next provincial election is still more than two years away. Anything can happen in that time, and it is still unknown whether McGuinty will run for a third term. But if he does, he will be ripe for defeat as an out-of-touch, tired leader who bungled the economy. In the meantime, the way Hudak conducts himself as opposition leader will have important ramifications far beyond Ontario politics."

Hudak has yet to accomplish anything during his (to date short) audition to be Premier of Ontario.

Yet Daifallah already seems to have Hudak pegged as a successor to Stephen Harper's leadership of Canadian conservatism, particularly fiscal conservatism:

"Small-c conservatives across the country are disheartened by the Harper government's numerous capitulations on a whole host of red-meat issues. They are desperately looking for a new champion for the conservative cause. If Hudak can make conservative policies stick and bring the Ontario Tories up in the polls -- and, in the unlikely event that the 2011 election occurs before the next federal campaign, win a government -- it will give great comfort to principled conservatives to know that their ideas still have traction. It would also discredit the Harper government's calculation that the public is only interested in statist solutions to the current economic situation."

Yet Daifallah seems to be overlooking what the historical trend in Canadian politics has tended to be.

That is, when Liberal governments reign in Ottawa, Conservatives tend to win power in Provincial elections. When Conservative governments are in power in Ottawa, Liberals and the NDP tend to win in the provinces.

While the Saskatchewan party claimed victory in the first post-Harper election in the Land of Living Skies and Danny Williams' Progressive Conservatives won in Newfoundland, it's worth noting that Rodney MacDonald's Conservatives were defeated by the NDP, Gordon Campbell's Liberals retained power in British Columbia and Gary Doer's NDP won the 2007 vote in Manitoba.

To expect that Hudak alone will be enough to buck this trend in Ontario and deliver salvation to the federal Tories is, in and of itself, a bit of a pipe dream. Hudak has to be up to the task, and we have yet to see if he actually is.

"Tim Hudak as Canadian conservatism's saviour? Someone needs to assume the role, and I know he would relish it."

Not only does Daifallah's analysis of Hudak's emerging role within Canadian conservatism seem overly Wagnerian, it's also deftly out of touch with the roots of the conservative movement in Canada.

Lloyd Mackey provides a reasonable list of the differing philosophical strains on conservatism. He classifies them as following:

1. Fiscal conservatism - This is the strain of conservatism that prefers controls on government taxation and spending. This is also the very strain of conservatism that Daifallah seems to appeal to most in this article.

2. Social conservatism - Social conservatives prefer family-friendly policies and government regulation -- if not outright prohibition -- of abortion. This particular strain of conservatism has found itself at odds with Human Rights Commissions as many of its most vociferous proponents find themselves paraded before them on an ongoing basis.

3. Democratic populism - Democratic populism insists that the spirit of democracy is found in the will of the people. It favours the "common sense of common people", and has been most strongly represented nationally by Preston Manning.

4. Progressive Conservatism - Progressive conservatism, as embodied by leaders such as Joe Clark, John Diefenbaker and the late Robert Stanfield, advocates using conservatism to moderate political and social change.

5. British Toryism - Proponents of British Toryism favour the preservation of existing institutions, including current parliamentary structures and offices such as Canada's various vice-regal offices such as the Governor General and Lieutenant Governors.

6. Libertarianism - Libertarians prefer that government stay out of the lives of its citizens as much as possible. Libertarians favour as much freedom as possible for citizens, and tend to be the strongest voices in favour of small government.

Of Mackey's six strains of Canadian conservatism, only one -- British Toryism -- arguably sets the table to favour the salvation of Canadian conservatism by a single leader.

Where the other strains of conservatism -- notably libertarianism and democratic populism -- weigh in on this topic, they weigh in against such an option.

Where Daifallah would argue that Tim Hudak is the one man who can save conservatism in Canada, democratic populists would rebel against the notion of any single leader leading Canadian conservatism without a strong consensus to back his direction. That was the act that Preston Manning accomplished so masterfully as leader of the Reform party.

Libertarians would point out the sheer scope of the power, influence and authority conservatives would have to grant such an individual upon being annointed as a conservative "messiah". Libertarians would reject such a notion outright.

Small-p, small-c progressive conservatives would find the urge to reject Hudak as a conservative saviour almost irresistable. To such individuals, Hudak represents the kind of ideologically-isolated neoconservatism that is utterly offensive to their particular values, even as fiscal and social conservatives would likely react favourably to Hudak in such a role.

Contrary to whatever Adam Daifallah may like to believe about Tim Hudak, no one man can save conservatism. Not in Ontario, and not in the rest of Canada. Rather, conservatives must save conservatism together by maintaining the common bonds between its varying -- although often over-simplified, by Lloyd Mackey's own admission -- strains.

Conservatism must save itself.

A Fair Language Policy for All Canadians

...From the North down

When Preston Manning's Reform party broke through in Western Canada during the 1993 federal election, many other Canadian political leaders -- notably, the leadership of the Liberal, New Democratic and Progressive Conservative parties -- quickly moved to condemn the party as a threat to Canadian unity.

Many mused that the party may have been an even greater threat to Canadian unity than the Bloc Quebecois or Parti Quebecois -- ironically on the eve of a 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum that would nearly tear Canada to shreds.

Oddly enough, one of the fronts on which the Reform party was attacked was that of language policy. Opponents of the party insisted that the party would introduce regressive language policies, and overturn official bilingualism.

This, in one sense, was true. Preston Manning was prepared to overturn official bilingualism.

But Manning also had a far more progressive alternative in mind. Manning had promoted a Fair Language Policy, in which government services would be delivered not merely in French or English, but in any language appropriate, where appropriate.

Manning noted that many communities in Alberta and Saskatchewan still had significant Ukrainian-speaking communities, and questioned why government services in those communities should be obligated to deliver services in French, but not in Ukrainian. Manning noted that there were many such under-served language groups across Canada.

These groups range from Chinese- or Japanese-speaking Canadians in Vancouver to Farsi-speaking Canadians in Montreal. Manning firmly insisted that all of these communities should be able to be served in their first language.

With the recent passage of Nunavut's Official Languages Act, it seems that Manning's fair language policy is a good idea whose time has finally come.

In order for the act -- which will establish five Inuit languages, primarily Inuktitut and Innuinaqtun, as official languages in Nunavut -- to take effect in Nunavut, it must pass through Parliament.

Upon its introduction by Conservative MP Leona Aglukkaq, the House of Commons quickly passed the legislation. Now, the Senate may refer the bill to its legal and constitutional affairs committee for some scrutiny.

"We are as much concerned for the other aboriginal languages, to help them to have the tools and the books and teaching materials needed to promote the use of aboriginal language by aboriginal people," noted Liberal senator Serge Joyal. "That's why we want to make sure that we know what we are voting on, and it is our role and duty by the constitution to review that kind of legislation. But we want to do it expeditiously so that nobody is waiting, you know, being frustrated that it's not happening."

Joyal noted that some scrutiny is necessary to find out how the act will impact federal agencies providing services in Nunavut.

"I believe that if this chamber has an abiding principle, it is that we do not consent lightly and without examination to the diminution, however slight, of minority languages because that precedent can come back to haunt us, our children or our grandchildren. I do not want to go there," added fellow Grit Senator Joan Fraser.

Whether or not the Liberal party's Senate caucus is going to attempt to block the bill remains yet to be seen. While there was no partisan divide on the issue in the House of Commons, many Conservative Senators -- such as Hugh Segal and Gerald Comeau -- seem to think the act is ready to be passed in Parliament.

When this act finally does pass -- provided that Michael Ignatieff exerts some control over his Senate caucus -- it will have been a very long time coming. It could prove to be the first step in reinforcing official bilingualism -- itself a satisfactory first step in terms of language policy -- with a policy that will provide a Fair Language Policy for all Canadians.

The Missing Link of Canadian Research & Development

Private sector oddly missing from Canadian R&D

Writing in an op/ed column in the Globe and Mail, Preston Manning makes some very interesting points about research and development funding in Canada.

Manning wisely portrays the decision over how the federal government's $13 billion will be distributed as a fusion of science and economic policy, and equally-wisely notes that how the government spends this money will have important impacts on the health, economic prospects, and life quality of Canadians.

Interestingly enough, Canada's total expenditure on research and development is dwarfed by the total expenditure of other OECD countries. Yet Canada's public research and development sector -- taking place in universities and hospitals -- is among the best financed in the world.

Instead, the questionable state of Canadian R&D seems to actually be the result of lax financial commitments by the Canadian private sector.

Too many private sector companies, it seems, lack innovation strategies that will lead to the development of new products and technologies that overall improve the value of the Canadian economy, making Canada more competitive in the global economy.

This is actually quite a different tale from the one told by many who insist that the Conservative government actually cut science funding in the 2009 budget -- whereas, in fact, the government merely shifted money between funding agencies.

Manning also noted that there seems to be confusion between the government and researchers regarding how the government will distribute science funding -- an issue that Manning recently addressed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"When [researchers] don't understand the process and the structure, I think there's suspicion," Manning noted. "Was somebody else lobbying better than I was lobbying, or do they like this more than that? I think when you don't know the process or the structure, you can misinterpret motives and why things happen the way they do."

Another obstacle to collaboration between government and private research, however, seems to be a notion that the private sector has no obligation to invest in R&D because the government will do it for them.

Those companies that have embraced this idea certainly aren't doing themselves any favours. A company that declines to develop new technologies and new products are companies that will instead be chasing new developments by their competitors -- far from an ideal situation for any profit-seeking company.

It's troubling to think that a surplus of Canadian companies don't seem to understand the importance of investing in R&D, even through public/private partnerships.

Without involvement by private companies it becomes difficult to transfer new technological developments from the laboratory to the market, as Manning alludes.

Not only do companies that don't invest in R&D not do themselves any favours, but they don't do the market any favours either.

There is a public solution to Canada's research and development dilemma, and interestingly enough it doesn't lay with government. It lays with individual Canadians and Canadian investment funds to invest in Canadian R&D companies, and favour investment with companies that conduct R&D in Canada.

Although investors may not be as powerful at this specific point in time as they once were -- the stark decline in investor confidence has clearly taken some of the punch out of the clout of various investment funds -- Canadians can still look to the future and future opportunities to speak with their investment dollars, and use those dollars to vote in favour of Canadian R&D.