Canada provides all conservatives with hope

Sam Coates and I are currently touring the Anglosphere - meeting conservative politicians, writers and policy researchers.  Last week I published a report card on US conservatism and today there is this extended post on Canada's Conservative Party.  Next Friday I'll write about conservatism in Australia before writing a series of more general reflections on 28 days of travels.

The Liberals have been Canada's natural party of government

Although Conservatives played the leading role in the founding of Canada and led much of the country's original development, the Liberals have dominated the nation's politics for nearly one hundred years. The Liberal Party has ruled the Ottawa Parliament for more than 80% of the last century.  The Liberals' recent long run of power only came to an end after massive corruption during Prime Minister Chretien's years was exposed by new media.  Even then, however, Stephen Harper's Conservatives were only able to win enough extra seats to become a minority government.  The Liberal Party has dominated Canadian politics because of its successful attempt to identify itself with key sources of Canadian identity.  This has allowed it to build a broad and enduring electoral coalition.  In the same way that Britain's Labour Party has attempted to 'own' national symbols like the NHS, the Liberals have attempted to 'own' the nation's commitment to immigration, to public healthcare, involvement in UN peacekeeping and to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.  In the last two elections the Liberal Party campaigned under the slogan 'Choose Your Canada' - implying that the Conservatives were somehow alien to Canada's national identity.

Stephen Harper wants to end Liberal dominance and build an enduring Conservative majority

Stephen Harper became Canada's Conservative Prime Minister early last year.  The Conservatives' journey back to power after losing all but two seats in the early 1990s was a long and arduous one.  The nation's right had split into competing parties during much of the Chretien years - contributing to Liberal dominance.  Harper was the architect of the rebirth of a united right - knitting together Reformers, Progressive Conservatives and right-of-centre activists of various political stripes who had ceased being involved in federal politics. This fixer role was somewhat ironic because he was an original 'splitter' - helping to found Reform.  Harper reminds many observers of John Howard.  He is not especially charismatic but he combines enormous attention to maintaining internal party unity with a masterful instinct for the art of coalition-building.  Like Howard he is a practical ideologue.  His long-term aim is nothing less than a realignment of Canadian politics.  He wants to grow the Conservative electoral coalition to include groups affiliated with the Liberals for much of the 20th Century: French-speaking Catholics, aspirational working class and lower middle class voters and immigrants of non-northern European descent.  This strategy will help him to make inroads where he particularly needs to: the suburbs around Toronto, Canada's largest city, and rural, French-speaking Quebec.

The road to majority goes through Quebec

The Conservative Party is 30 seats short of a majority and currently only holds ten of Quebec's 75 seats (called ridings).  French-speaking Quebec is therefore key to Harper's ambitions for majority status although it is essential that in wooing Quebec the Conservatives do not frighten Western and Central voters.  Harper works very hard at improving his French and begins all news conferences in the language.  Although his Afghan and general foreign policy is unpopular with Quebec's voters he hopes that the party's deep support for more powers to be devolved to the provinces will create long-term support in this independent-minded part of Canada and contrast with the Liberals' preference for a more centralised Canada.  Last December the Conservatives secured parliamentary recognition of the Quebecois people as a nation.  Although wholly symbolic Francophone Quebecers were hugely appreciative.  The nativist views of rural Quebec could also underpin a Conservative renaissance in the province.  Many Conservatives hope that Maxime Bernier (pictured) will succeed Stephen Harper as Conservative leader.  Bernier is currently Industry Minister and is libertarian in his economic outlook.  His mix of social and economic views will appeal to the Conservatives' bedrock support in Alberta and Ontario.  His personal roots in Quebec, where he has built one of the largest parliamentary majorities, may help the party to win the seats it needs to become the province's largest party. He's also well-placed to persuade Quebecers of the desirability of some economic liberalisation.

'Tim Hortons' voters

Margaret Thatcher built her majorities with the help of Essex Man.  John Howard won the support of 'battlers' to become the world's most successful conservative leader of recent times.  The 'Reagan Democrats' ended Carter's Presidency and gave President Reagan his landslide win over Mondale in 1984.  ConservativeHome has recommended a 'Morrisons Voter' strategy to broaden Project Cameron.  Stephen Harper has followed the same path.  He has understood that left-leaning parties are making electoral inroads into wealthier, more cosmopolitan sections of the electorate and conservative parties can only prosper if they detach lower income voters from the left.  The electoral group most targeted by Harper has been called 'Tim Horton voters' after the popular food chain that emphasises value for money and community involvement rather than frills or brand snob appeal.  The policy formulation process carefully targets these voters.  There have been tax breaks for parents who enroll their children in sports clubs.  Another tax relief has subsidised the lunches of Canada's huge army of truck drivers.  These tax breaks are hated by those free marketeers who want a simpler tax code but opinion research says that they are much more impactful on voters than larger and more conventional forms of tax cut.  As a Canadian Conservative strategist told me: There's no point in delivering tax cuts if people do not know that they are getting it.

Immigrants to Canada

Many conservative parties around the world - notably John Howard's Liberals - have built majorities through very tough approaches to immigration.  Canada's Conservatives have, for the moment, eschewed this approach.  The nation has welcomed large numbers of immigrants for many years.  The policy began by the Liberals became cross-party under Brian Mulroney when he markedly increased the annual number of immigrants.  Some on the Canadian right want a much stricter policy.  They want Canada to recruit fewer Muslims, in particular, and move emigration offices away from, for example, the Punjabi region of India.  A different approach is currently prevailing.  The Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity Minister Jason Kenney devotes his time to connecting with immigrant communities that the Liberals regard as their heartland.  Rejecting the Liberal approach of dispensing grants to immigrant community organisations the Conservatives are emphasising traditional values - particularly in appealing to religious immigrants.

New foreign policy priorities

The biggest changes in policy made by Stephen Harper have been in foreign affairs.  His administration has placed a strong emphasis on a hemispheric strategy: bolstering Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic, improving relations with Washington and re-engaging with Latin America.  But Mr Harper has also placed a big emphasis on the Anglosphere.  This speech in Britain last year was a tremendous statement of the importance of the Canada-UK relationship.  Canada's NATO commitment has been deepened in Afghanistan.  Sixty-six Canadian servicemen have died there and Harper makes a telephone call to the family of every fallen soldier.  Canada's military have long been starved of resources and the Conservatives are trying to make amends.  In addition to extra resources they are liberalising procurement policies.  There is more willingness to buy from abroad if it means that Canada's armed forces get better equipment more quickly.  Liam Fox has noticed this shift in policy and wants UK defence policy to learn from its successes.  Perhaps the biggest foreign policy change of all has been the new government's approach to the Middle East.  Last summer Stephen Harper joined other Anglosphere leaders - Tony Blair, George W Bush and John Howard - in offering solid support for Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah.  Canada even beat the USA to become the first nation in the world to cease aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government.  Although the wider pro-Israel shift has created some political difficulties in Quebec the policy has won widespread support from Canada's 350,000 Jews.

Other Conservative policies

As a minority government there have been limits on what Stephen Harper has been able to do.  Control of spending has, for example, been impossible.  Spending has been rising by two or three times the rate of inflation - partly to buy parliamentary support from other parties.  The huge raw material boom that has turned Alberta's economy red hot is, for the moment at least, making these spending rises affordable - Harper has been running balanced budgets and is cutting national debt.  There has also been room for tax relief.  With Tim Hortons voters in mind there has been a 1% cut in the Goods and Services Tax.  This is part of a $41.5bn tax relief plan over two years.  In place of a Liberal promise to subsidise daycare facilities there have been across-the-board tax reductions for all families with young children.  Telecom reforms should cut the price of mobile phone use in the years ahead.  New minimum sentences have been introduced for a range of crimes and extra police officers have been recruited.  Harper has initiated moves to elect and term-limit the members of the Upper House.  He has moved away from Kyoto environmentalism without renouncing it.  Instead of big promises to curb global warming - promises that Chretien's Liberals were unable to keep - Conservative environmental policy has emphasised more local and achievable improvements in air quality, habitat protection and improved disposal of toxic waste.

A weak conservative infrastructure

If Canada's Conservative Party is to succeed it will do so without anything like the conservative infrastructure that nourishes the Republican Party south of the border.  Former Reform leader Preston Manning is investing in a series of conferences to train young conservatives in building new organisations and running campaigns.  The Fraser Institute and Montreal Economic Institute provide detailed policy thinking but are not campaigners.  Blogging Tories is the clearing house for an increasingly lively right-of-centre webroots and the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation is a twenty year-old campaign against government waste and higher taxes.  But they are Davids when set against the left-leaning newspapers and television stations that dominate the media marketplace.  The National Post newspaper - particularly when John O'Sullivan ran its editorial pages - looked set to perform the intellectual leadership role that the Wall Street Journal played in America but it has now drifted somewhat into a platform for a broader range of views.  Macleans magazine - the Canadian Time - has also found more space for conservative perspectives under the respected Ken Whyte.  The Conservative Government itself is seemingly aware of the need to change the terms of national discourse.  It has defunded a range of leftist advocacy groups that grew fat from Liberal Government subsidies.  It is also carefully including a range of more mainstream groups - particularly Christian, farming and hunting associations - that have previously been seriously listened to by Ottawa's political establishment.

What's next?

Eighteen months after becoming Prime Minister Stephen Harper's popularity ratings are more or less the same as when he was elected although Canadians are becoming more relaxed with the idea of having Conservatives in charge.  David Frum told me that he has yet to close the deal with the Canadian people and some commentators worry that he would be vulnerable to a Liberal Party with a stronger leader - such as Michael Ignatieff.  A new election could be called at any time but the unpopularity of Stephane Dion, the current Liberal leader, means that there is no imminent likelihood that the Liberals will force a ballot.  Dion has been subject to relentless blog and video attacks from Canada's Conservatives (see the 'Not A Leader' videos).  They have helped the public come to see him as remote from average Canadians.  The news that he ate a hot dog with a knife and fork has become totemic and was lampooned throughout the blogosphere.  There are now strict limits on the size of donations to Canada's political parties.  This has forced the parties into forms of retail fundraising and Canada's Conservatives are proving much more adept at it.  They have a much bigger warchest for the making and broadcasting of US-style TV adverts.  The next Conservative campaign will be run from a modern, multi-media campaign centre in the suburbs of Ottawa.  There is certainly an optimism amongst Canada's Conservatives.  The long years in opposition have produced a real hunger and desire to stay in power and build a governing majority.  With conservatives struggling in Britain, America and Australia we can only hope that Team Harper will succeed.

Comments

[Jennifer Wells]

Very interesting. Ignatieff is certainly the one Harper should fear.

[Sam Tarran]

You have to hand it to Harper for overturning the Liberal 5-10% lead in the opinion polls in the space of a couple of months before the 2006 election. Despite the fact that the Liberal administration was undergoing a sponsorship scandal, it is still a great achievement, and one Cameron should look at carefully.

[Alan S]

The Tim Hortons point is one Cameron should take particular note of. We need to give lower income voters a practical reason for voting Conservative.

[John Coles]

I have just returned from Nova Scotia and, while I was there, caught a TV programme where Conservative politicians spoke openly and enthusiastically about tax cuts. Nothing about "sharing the proceeds of growth" - just the beneficial merits of tax cuts.
At least some politicians in the Anglosphere understand what is the bedrock of conservatism.
.

[Michael McGowan]

This is a very interesting article and in effect an analysis of all the things the UK Conservative Party has not been doing for the last ten plus years.

[IanP]

I know several Canadian friends who would differ from your analysis. they believe that what the Canadian Conservatives are doing is the same as NuLab is doing to Britain, selling its sovereignty.

What you failed to mention was the tripartite talks going on with the US and Mexico, and the secret meeting going on to form the North American Union (the US version of the EU, an Empire by another name).

US documents released under the FOIA have also shown that a wide range of US administrative law is being re-written in stealth under this program to "integrate" and "harmonize" with administrative law in Mexico and Canada, in a similar fashion to moves that have become commonplace within the EU.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=WAT20070726&articleId=6424

[IanP]

Try looking at the following URL for the story on North American Union.

http://tinyurl.com/228g37

[Matt Wright]

One of the things that catches my eye is Harpers efforts to involve, co-operate and ensure unity. Also of course the history of Liberal party efforts to be part of the identity of Canada. This also is interesting because I think Conservatives were generally regarded as the patriotic identity of Britain for many years,

Matt

[Chris Cummins]

A excellent resume of the Conservative fortunes in Canada, particularly the work Stephen Harper and Preston Manning are undertaking in setting up a Conservative dynasty in the 21st century.

Besides his government,s minority status, Harper has difficultiese in maintaining a Conservative administartion due to the different nature of Conservatism in different parts of the country.

In the West, the home of the old Reform Party, it is free market very reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher with a slice of libertariansim thrown in. In Ontario and the Maritime provinces it is coloured by the old Progressive Conservative Party, which was more corporate in outlook and often nicknamed "liberal lite". In Quebec it has a moderate Quebec nationalist flavour. Keeping these disparate parts together requires consumate skill. It finally undid Mulroney; Harper has so far achieved this. In fact his achievement in bringing this together over the past few years and winning an election has been truly remarkable. All this in the face of a hostile media, that a times appeared to be a branch of the Liberal Party. David Cameron could learn a lot from Stephen Harper.

Regarding the Consevatives gaining parliamentary recognition of the Quebecois people as a nation. Last November the Bloc Quebecois put down a motion that the Quebecois people are a nation. Seeing the danger of opposing this in Quebec eyes but supporting it in the rest of Canada, Harper put forward an ammendment and secured it's passage that "The Quebecois people are a nation within a united Canada."

On a lighter note there is a old Canadian joke about the regional differences.

"Canada is like a cow; in the West they feed it, in Ontario and Quebec they milk it; you can imagine what happens in the Maritimes" !

Finally though the Liberal Party have been the natural party of Government in Canada and have displayed a genius for reinventing themselves and a ruthlessness for hanging on to power, the statement that they have ruled for over 80% of the last century is a little overstated.

The Liberals period of office totalled 69 years during the 20th Century. Since 1921 they have been in power for just over 64 out of the last 86 years.

[Hey]

More blood anoraks going on about the NAU... total bollocks. It is rather hilarious to see someone who is supposedly conservative worried about "Empire", trade liberalisation, or integration with the US. Very paleo-conservative/agrarian rather than reflecting free markets, free people, strong defense... The anorak would presumably also not have approved of Lady Thatcher either!

[Odessa Calling]

And Another Thing.

Stephen Harper's predecessor as PM was the Liberal Paul Martin. From 1993 Martin was Jean Cretien's finance minister, but like Gordon Brown he craved the premiership. Finally in December 2003 Cretien stood down. Martin inherited and not withstanding the re-unification of the Conservative forces stood on the verge of the greatest Liberal landslide in history. He had a bounce that made Brown's look like a gentle skip.

Then the Liberal's became mired in scandal. Martin was reduced to minority status in the June 2004 election and lost the January 2006 election called following his defeat in a no cofidence motion in parliament.

Martin had been regarded as one of the most effective Finance Ministers in years. His premiership was little short of a disaster.
Will history be repeated here in the UK.

PS. Re my previous post. Oddly enough though the Liberals dominated Canadian politics in the 20th Century, the two largest landslides were Conservative victories in 1958 and 1984; the only occasions that a party has obtained more than 200 seats in Canadian history.

[Chris Cummins]

Sorry, I meant to post in my name, not Odessa Calling.

[Cllr Keith Standring]

I got some of my political friends in Canada to read the article and their comments are interesting.

My attention was drawn to Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, as very pro-British and pro-Commonwealth. He gave a wonderful speech in London supporting Commonwealth ties and saying that the British Empire benefitted Canada. He is also pro-monarchy. Unfortunately, the British press ignored it and David Cameron refused to meet him. That is regarded by many Canadian Conservatives as disgraceful.

Despite the foregoing, the article was regarded as a pretty good analysis on the scene in Canada, but doubts the prediction on Maxime Bernier. I am reliably informed that Foreign Minister, Peter MacKay, despite some internal grumblings, is still the one to beat when Harper retires.

[Anthony Broderick]

ConHome at its best

[Cllr Peter Golds]

I have just looked up Maxime Bernier's election result. He gained his seat from the Liberals as follows:

Con 36,915
BQ 10,997
Lib 4,344
Gr 1,405
Ind 1,397

Quite a swing !

[Sam S]

Whilst the Canadian Conservatives have succeeded in uniting sections of the Right, there are many elements of the party which Cameron's Conservatives should not associate with. Many of the Canadian Alliance members were seen as rednecks and highly derogatory to the francophones in Quebec. Now that they occupy the rump of the Conservative Party, one would hope that Harper has moderated their views.

I think it also important to remember that Paul Martin was a brilliant Finance Minister and managed to balance the books - even to create surpluses after Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government. What we need is the Liberals without their rhetoric about the climate change.

[BoredomCorner]

Oh please, all Harper is doing is digging this country further and further into the hole, and insisting that no one watch it happen.

[Rajan]

Haper has significantly moderated his views since taking office. The man has strayed far from his old Reformer roots and is now more liberal than the Liberals who were in power in the 90's. Let's hope Jason Kenney can succeed him and bring some real libertarian policies to government.