Across the free world, the rise of populism and the decline of open debate has stressed our traditional democratic and societal institutions. New parties and movements are emerging to represent constituencies that have little connection to the political ideologies of the past. In an ongoing series, the National Post asks: What does conservatism mean in Canada today? Is there a set of principles that self-identified conservatives could agree on, and that political parties running on right-of-centre platforms would embrace? Would the countrys historical conservative thinkers recognize the movement as it stands today? To contribute, please send pitches to submissions@nationalpost.com. In todays instalment, Bruce Pardy writes how Canada really needs liberals, not progressives.
Since the federal election, Conservatives have been wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth. They lost to a weak, economically incompetent, scandal-plagued party of virtue-signallers led by a man-child. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Western world, conservative parties are riding high. So what gives? In Canada, Conservatives dont know who they are or what they stand for. During the campaign they pretended to be both conservative and progressive: to simultaneously believe in traditional values but also in victimhood and identity politics. That made the Conservatives, not the Liberals, the party of hypocrisy no small feat in an election in which the virtue-signaller-in-chief was caught wearing blackface.
In Canada, Conservatives dont know who they are or what they stand for
The answer to the Conservatives troubles is not to choose between conservatism and progressivism but to ditch both. In Canada, social conservatives are political dinosaurs. Andrew Scheer discovered that any whiff of sentiment against gay marriage, for example, was toxic, even when accompanied by an undertaking not to pursue those sentiments in a legislative agenda. Progressivism, on the other hand, is almost universal. All parties who won seats in the House of Commons are progressive and the CPC will never win that contest. But that is the key. Liberals are not liberal but progressive, which is quite a different thing. In fact, Liberals have no idea what a liberal really is. The sweet spot for Conservatives is the space that the Liberals have long vacated. To win, Conservatives must be liberals.
So what is a liberal, really? Libertas is Latin for liberty and Liberal shares the same root (liber). In the political realm, liberalism originally (or classically) denoted holding a philosophy based upon the concept of individual freedom. Hence classical liberalism is a set of beliefs that has at its root a conviction that the purpose of civilized society is to provide for the liberty of the individual. Dont tell me what to do is the liberal mantra. Real liberals believe that people should largely control their own lives that they should be free to say what they think, to have sex with and marry whom they please, to worship as they wish, to buy and sell what they want, to be responsible for themselves and to leave other people alone.
The modern version of liberalism means essentially the opposite. It embraces an expansive welfare state, extensive regulation of individual behaviour and speech, redistribution of wealth, unequal application of the law in pursuit of equality of outcome and myriad other managerial policies. Those who now call themselves Liberals in the political realm are now illiberal in their sensibilities and aspirations. Governments supervise, subsidize and control virtually every aspect of modern life: markets and financial systems, public schools and universities, health care, media, food production, energy production, telecom services, the professions and even speech. Our courts do not believe in equal application of the law. We are eroding the presumption of innocence and other aspects of due process. We have abandoned even the expectation that laws will be written, clear and understandable to all. Instead citizens are subject to the arbitrary discretion of government agencies that pursue their own agendas. Identity politics reign and the surveillance state steadily expands.
Conservatives have shown no serious objection to any of it and indeed have pitched in to make Canada not a liberal country. The CPC has muzzled politically incorrect speech, defended supply management, promoted ideological training for judges, tried to bribe voters with their own money, pushed climate change hysteria (while rejecting the most conservative instrument, the Liberal carbon tax, in favour of statist regulation) and expressed no concern for the erosion of fundamental freedoms. The Conservative election platform was merely a pale version of full-on Liberal illiberalism with an occasional hint of Bible-thumping intolerance. Were they trying to win over imaginary voters who oppose gay marriage but support the coerced use of non-gendered pronouns?
The Conservative election platform was merely a pale version of full-on Liberal illiberalism
Disenfranchised Canadians are fed up with identity politics, authoritarian victimhood and scolding from righteous elites telling them what to think and how to behave. They are liberals in the true sense of the word steady, reasonable, fair-minded, hard-working people who believe in freedom of speech and in the idea that the same rules should apply to everyone. As Yasmine Mohammed, author of Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam, wrote in the National Post, if Canadian conservatism upheld Western and enlightenment values loudly, unapologetically, and with conviction, then millions of us disillusioned with the Liberal party would proudly mark a big X next to the Conservative representative at the ballot box. Large swaths of Canadians have no political home and are wondering where their country went. Conservatives should help them get it back. Perhaps liberals, not Liberals, are the natural governing party of Canada.
Bruce Pardy is professor of law at Queens University.
Email: pardyb@queensu.ca | Twitter:
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Right Now: The Liberals aren't liberals anymore but the Conservatives can and must be - National Post