The 29-year Old Crisis (1993–2022)
The dilemma of Canadian Conservatism
Part II
By Fahed Alsalem Saqer
Political Analyst and writer in International political economy.
On October 25 1993, Canadian voters handed the governing Progressive Conservative Party (PC) the worst election defeat ever suffered by any political party in Canadian history. The impact and magnitudes of this “political earthquake” had reverberated in the Canadian political scene ever since. The Progressive Conservatives, in office since September 1984 not only lost their parliamentary majority (156 seats), but the party had also lost its status as a national party by winning only two seats.
This shocking outcome, created an awkward asymmetry in Canadian politics, with far reaching consequences. The first debacle of this political earthquake was that the have-nots have replaced the haves, in terms of substance and political skills in the Conservative Right. The hitherto fringe far right, western — based regional protest movement embodied in the Reform Party have become “out of the blue” the sole and de facto right wing opposition to the governing liberals in Parliament. While the entire Progressive Conservative’s Party establishment transformed overnight into an irrelevant rump.
This disproportionate representation of the far right in Parliament entailed a second debacle. In a political environment where the political alignment has historically gravitated towards the Centre (left of centre, centre & right of centre). A new far right secondary regional Party was thrusted upon the system, unexpectedly and without merit, commanding far more weight than its fair share of representation and political influence.
The third most important debacle of this earthquake was the subsequent massive flight of support by urban middle class professionals and small-c conservatives away from the Conservative movement. The early Reform Party performance in Parliament by its cohort of mostly low calibre, mediocre candidates, and their statements and rhetoric turned off many people away.
The next decade (1993–2003) would witness an open animosity and quarrels between two right wing parties ( Reform and PC), locking horns, vying for the same pool of support which created widespread vote splitting, resulting on a divided and rancorous front on the right of the political spectrum. As a result, the governing liberals looked poised to stay in power indefinitely. This state of affairs in the Conservative front would exist until 2003 when the two conservative parties merged as a last resort to end their political schism.
The Reform Party under the populist leader Mr. Preston Manning and later under Mr. Stockwell Day was largely out-of-sync with mainstream Canadians on many issues of the day, such as health care, immigration, bilingualism and overall economic policy. However, there was no evading the fact that it was the sole representative of the Canadian conservative movement in Parliament, whether the progressives like it or not. An itchy political state of affairs, to be sure. For the majority of Canadian conservatives, not least the outgoing Mulroney conservatives have ever envisioned themselves with the far right Reform movement or identified with the type of social conservatism harboured within the Reform Party.
Moreover, the Brian Mulroney Conservatives in 1984 were almost indistinguishable from the John Turner liberals on their election platforms, prompting the then- NDP leader Mr. Ed Broadbent to dub his two opponents “the Bobbsey twins of Bay Street”. This characterization by Mr. Broadbent was true in many ways, for the liberals in practice, under Mr. John Turner’s leadership have drifted a bit to the right. While the Mulroney Conservatives edged a bit to the left to appease the Quebec nationalists.
Anyhow, the two parties (liberal & Progressive Conservative) have always campaigned from the left and right respectively, but governed from the centre. In fact, time and again, each party have come to embrace the other party’s exact policies when it took office, save perhaps, for the constitutional policy.
When the Mulroney conservatives introduced the GST (Goods and Services Tax) and signed the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 1980’s, the Turner-Chretien liberals have vehemently opposed both, and vowed to scrap if elected. However, when the Chretien Liberals won three consecutive majorities in 1993, 1997, and 2000 they left NAFTA & GST intact.
Likewise, the Conservatives have historically come to embrace, albeit belatedly, all liberal-introduced past policies such as bilingualism and multiculturalism, the Canadian flag, immigration policy, as well as many other social and civic legislations, pertaining to aboriginal rights, abortion, and gay rights etc.. However, this rather amicable rivalry has all changed with the advent of the Reform-cum-Canadian Alliance-cum-Conservative -without -Progressive Party.
In 2003, after three election defeats and failing to regain its previous dominant position in the Canadian Conservative movement, the Progressive Conservative Party had grudgingly agreed to a merger with the then-Canadian Alliance to form a unified front against the liberals, hence forming the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). However, the significance of deleting of the word “Progressive” from the official Party name did not go unnoticed.
The newly created Conservative Party of Canada under Mr. Stephen Harper lost its first election as a unified party in 2004. Then, Mr. Harper, as leader of the Opposition joined forces with the leftist NDP and the separatist Bloc Quebecois to vote down the Paul Martin-minority government on a confidence motion, citing government corruption in the wake of the Sponsorship scandal. In the ensuing January 23rd 2006 election, the Harper Conservatives won a very slim minority and Mr. Harper became the Prime Minister.
Afterwards, the Harper Conservatives would go on to win two more elections (2008 & 2011) by a combination of mischief, dirty tricks, fear mongering, personal attacks, and character assassinations of their opponents. The Harper Conservatives have over played their hand in 2011 attacking the character and questioning the patriotism of a distinguished and accomplished Canadian academic and intellectual-cum-politician Mr. Michael Ignatief with their ludicrous and unfair “he-is-just-visiting ads”. Prior to entering politics, Mr. Ignatief worked for a long time as a professor of politics at Harvard University in the United States.
The Harperites stooped Canadian politics to a new low never reached before. Borrowing heavily from their neo-Conservative cousins south of the border the kind of personal attacks, dirty tactics and deceit characteristic of American politics. For them always the ends justifies the means.
Even though the Harperites were fighting under the Conservative banner, there was reasonable doubts -and still is- in the minds of many Canadians about the true ideological leanings and nature of this party. The new Conservative Party of Mr. Harper steered new idiosyncratic terminologies to the Canadian political lexicon such” culture of defeat “, “old stock Canadians”, “barbaric practices”, “and the West wants in”, and “Alberta firewall”.
The Harper government had even attempted to introduce new amendment to the Citizenship Act to make it possible for the courts to strip Canadian Citizenship from “those convicted of terrorism”…! Effectively proposing a two-tier citizenship Act, one for Muslim Immigrants and one for everybody else.
By Mr. Harper’s own acknowledgement, the current Conservative party was not the same party of old. The legacy Progressive Conservative Party of Sir John A. MacDonald or John Diefenbaker, Robert Stanfield, Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, Bill Davies, and Peter Lougheed was not good enough for Mr. Harper. His is a hybrid parochial movement dominated by western malcontents and Reform populists using the Conservative banner only as a convenient tool to gain and retain power. They are awaiting in the side-lines the right opportunity to put into effect their hidden agenda of trickle-down, laisse faire economics, selective immigration (priority to white Christians), private health care, bellicose defence policy and futile foreign military adventures i.e., in the name of fighting terrorism (or ISIS), and holier-than-thou patriotism.
Presently, Mr. Harper is unduly meddling the selection of a new leader of the Conservative Party (three leadership conventions so far) by pushing his own cronies and apprentices. This is a sign of power addiction and lack of class on the part of an elder statesman. Mr. Harper ought to recuse himself from the leadership process, if only out of respect for his progressive partners who put him power for 9 years. He should do what former Prime Ministers typically do, for example, as Mr. Chretien or Mr. Paul Martin did (or didn’t) in leadership conventions that selected their successors.
Mr. Harper’s allies in the right wing media keep releasing one opinion poll after another showing the Conservative party running neck and neck with the liberals. Latest Abacus data poll dated 22 May 2022 puts the two parties at 31% each of decided voters. EKOS poll dated 15 May 2022 gives the liberals 29% and the CPC 35%, NANOS poll gives almost similar result, as if they are acting in concert. These polls are murky at best, they are deceptive, misleading, and they opaque the real picture across the country.
Perhaps, the pollsters are trying to influence public opinion during a crucial Conservative leadership race in favour of a certain direction/faction by giving the false impression that the PC in its current form is actually competitive, when it is not.
The above-mentioned polls measure and announce “the popular vote” across the country, which is only a minor and insignificant metric in the grand scheme of things. The pollsters know this very well, but regardless, they still spew and promulgate their misleading polls anyway.
Any opinion poll that does not consider the following important variables is not worth its paper:
- Run two separate polls, one for Alberta and Saskatchewan and one for the rest of country, then tally the numbers proportionately.
- Run a special opinion poll for the country’s major cities and urban metropolitan centres (i.e., Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver) where a sizable and decisive chunk of seats is at stake.
- In Quebec, Canada’s second largest Province where 78 seats are at stake, the contest is not even between the liberals and the CP but between the liberals and bloc Quebecois. This may change however, depending on who is the CPC leader.
In the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Conservative Party enjoys the support of well over 60% of the population, which is an anomaly that skews the results, because the bulk of this support is merely a wasted vote, it does not translate into more seats, but only helps to pump the national popular vote number in favour of PC. As it did in the last two elections, of 2019 and 2021 which the Trudeau liberals won convincingly, nonetheless.
In the country’s major urban centres, the liberals enjoy a commanding lead of well over 40%, which is a big deal, because it translates into big number of seats. In the 2021 general election, the conservative party was shut out completely of this important demographic; they did not win a single seat. That is a huge impediment, which Opinion polls never mention.
Thank you
