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The Impossibility of Conservatism: New Right Ideology and Civic Discourse in Canada

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The Impossibility of Conservatism: New Right Ideology and Civic Discourse in Canada The Impossibility of Conservatism: New Right Ideology and Civic Discourse in Canada Darin Barney Canada research Chair in Technology and Citizenship McGill University “The specific care of the political philosopher is political words, not political things. Thus the unique charge of political theorists is not to direct political activists but to safeguard political language” Edward Andrew (1988: 196). What’s in a “neo-”? Writing in 1965, Canadian patriot and philosopher George Grant lamented that “The impossibility of conservatism in our era is the impossibility of Canada” (Grant, 1995: 81). Nearly three decades later, political economists Stephen McBride and John Shields would write that “neo-conservatism is incompatible with the continued existence of Canada as we have come to know it” (McBride & Shields, 1993: 1). For Grant, conservatism was essential to Canada; for McBride and Shields neo-conservatism undermines Canada. Nevertheless, in both cases, the enemy of Canada is identified as a particular brand of market capitalism in combination with the ideology of laissez-faire liberalism. And both these statements preface arguments which conclude that the possibility of Canada as a nation substantially distinct from the United States relies on its embodiment of virtues (for Grant these virtues are conservative; for McBride and Shields they are social democratic) which are impossible under the regime of an unfettered market and American liberalism. These sentences can say the same thing about liberal capitalism (and Canadian nationhood) while saying opposite things about conservatism because Grant’s conservatism was not the same as McBride’s and Shields’ neo-conservatism. The latter’s “neo-” refers to what Grant sensed conservatism was becoming, even in 1965, when he observed that “Lockian liberalism is the conservatism of the English-speaking peoples...” (Grant, 1995: 75). Confused yet? We haven’t even reached the part about Canada’s history of political parties calling themselves Liberal and Progressive (?!) Conservative, whose relationships to the philosophies and ideologies of liberalism and conservatism have long-since ceased to correspond unambiguously to their names. The little dialogue imagined above is meant to suggest that the discursive terrain of Canadian partisan ideology is as formidable, shifting, and deceptive as the geographical terrain of the country itself. This chapter will explore what the rise of “new right” political parties and ideology might mean for civic discourse in Canada. I will argue that the ideology of the new right presents a challenge to our contemporary political conversation, and signals a crisis of meaning in that part of our civic vocabulary where ideological designations or categories are used to mark coherent political positions. In particular, I will suggest that the discourse surrounding the rise of the new right finally drains the word “conservative” of any descriptive utility in the Canadian context. A NEW RIGHT PARTY FOR CANADA The new right in Canada is a multi-faceted, loosely-aggregated social and political movement. Its non-partisan elements include: intellectual incubators such as the Fraser Institute and the Conservative Forum; media outlets such as Alberta Report and BC Report magazines; umbrella organizations such as the National Citizen’s Coalition; and more directed advocacy and activist groups such as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, REAL Women, the Campaign Life Coalition, the Canada Family Action Coalition, and the Canada West Foundation. The partisan manifestations of the new right are similarly diverse, with several parties of varying strengths and prospects emerging in a number of provinces. Included in this list are the Progressive Conservative parties that have managed to form governments in Alberta and Ontario, the Liberal Party of British Columbia and the Saskatchewan Party – both of which are the Official Opposition in their respective provinces, and have strong prospects for eventually forming governments, the Confederation of Regions party – a minor but notable force in New Brunswick and elsewhere in the 1990s, and a smattering of provincial Reform and Libertarian parties in various provinces. For the purposes of this discussion, I will limit consideration to the federal Reform/Alliance party. On the one hand, singling Reform/Alliance is somewhat artificial, as it is organically linked in terms of membership, organization and ideology with most of the above-listed actors. On the other hand, among these it is Reform/Alliance whose impact upon civic discourse, and political life more generally, has been felt most acutely at the federal level in and throughout Canada. Also, it is fair to say that many of the ideological elements of the new right constellation find order in the ideology of Reform/Alliance. The rise to prominence of the Reform/Alliance party has been well-documented (Dabbs, 1997; Dobbin, 1991; Harrison, 1995; Sharpe & Braid, 1992). The Reform Party of Canada was conceived at an assembly in Vancouver in May 1987, and born at a founding convention in Winnipeg that October, as Brian Mulroney’s historic electoral coalition of moderate Québécois nationalists and disgruntled western Canadian economic and political elites began to unravel on the heels of the 1986 Meech Lake Agreement, and the award in the same year of a large federal contract to build CF-18 military aircraft to Canadair-CAE Ltd. of Montreal over Winnipeg-based Bristol Aerospace (Carty, Cross & Young, 2000: 37-41; Harrison, 1995: 82-120). The Winnipeg convention also saw the party choose as its leader Preston Manning, a management consultant in the oil industry and son of former Social Credit Premier of Alberta Ernest Manning (the elder Manning’s predecessor, William Aberhart, was Preston’s godfather). The party fielded twenty-eight candidates in the 1988 federal general election, but failed to secure a seat. In this election the pivotal issue was the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement proposed by the Progressive Conservative government; Reform supported the deal, which left the upstart party in the somewhat ironic position of fighting its first campaign by aligning itself with a key platform position of the very party it had risen to oppose. Entry into the House of Commons would await the victory of Deborah Grey – “a straight-talking, gospel-singing schoolteacher with strong anti-abortionist views and a political pedigree...” (Harrison, 1995: 140) – in a 1989 by-election in the Alberta riding of Beaver River. Also in 1989, Alberta premier Don Getty decided to determine the province’s recommendation for a vacant Senate seat via an election. The election was won handily by the Reform candidate, Stan Waters. The general election of 1993 marked the emergence of the Reform Party as a full-fledged player on the federal scene. Capitalizing on the collapse of the Progressive Conservative vote in the west, and on its exclusive status as the only federal party based in English Canada to have opposed the Charlottetown Accord (54.4 per cent of Canadians voted against the constitutional proposal), Reform won 52 seats, all but one from west of the Manitoba-Ontario border. As David Laycock has pointed out, this meant that in western Canada Reform had elected five times as many MPs as the other opposition parties combined, and had thus become “the de facto parliamentary opposition west of the Ottawa River” (Laycock, 1994: 214). The 1997 general election saw Reform convert de facto into de jure, as the party won 60 seats, and Preston Manning became the Leader of Official Opposition in House of Commons. The news in 1997 was not all rosy, however, as despite the expenditure of considerable effort the party was unable to elect a single member to a seat east of Manitoba. The party and its leadership was convinced that its lack of success in this regard was due to a split in the right-wing, anti-Liberal vote between ascending Reform candidates and declining Progressive Conservatives. Soon after the 1997 election Reform leader Preston Manning began to press for a solution to the perceived vote-splitting problem, in the hope of forestalling repetition of the party’s shut-out of seat-rich Ontario. Manning’s initial foray in this respect consisted of a prospective appeal to Progressive Conservative voters in that province to consider switching allegiances and voting strategically to prevent the election of Liberal candidates by default. Quickly, Manning’s overtures matured into a full-fledged strategy to “unite the right,” either via agreements between Reform and Progressive Conservative constituency associations not to contest each other for seats in ridings where their combined vote might exceed that of their common Liberal opponents, or by a more formal amalgamation of the parties at the national level. Despite having these invitations rebuffed by the leadership of the federal Progressive Conservatives, as well as substantial reservation within the ranks of his own party, Manning pressed forward with the plan under the auspices of the United Alternative movement. The United Alternative plan proceeded with the support of the federal Reform caucus, 60 percent of the party membership (as expressed in a June 1999 referendum) and, crucially, Progressive Conservative Premier of Alberta Ralph Klein and several high-profile members of Mike Harris’ ruling Ontario Progressive Conservative party. In February of 1999, a United Alternative convention voted to create a new right-wing federal political party, a proposal
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