You Had An Option, Sir - Fear and loathing on Parliament Hill

This article first appeared in the McGill Tribune on October 16, 2007.

Last year during the federal election, the Liberals put out a now-infamous campaign ad. Behind a backdrop of thundering drums, a soothing female voice intoned that Stephen Harper wants to put soldiers in our cities. The ad caused a national uproar and even spurred a few Liberals to come forward and declare that the negative ad had gone too far. The video was soon pulled, but it illustrates one of the most effective tactics that the Left has used against the Conservative Party. Leftist fear-mongers from coast to coast denounced the party and Stephen Harper for having a frightening and secret social agenda. Nearly 20 months later, can anyone claim that these accusations still carry any weight?

The reputation that Conservatives have concerning social policy is driven largely by the state of conservatism south of the 49th parallel. Indeed, Republicans in the United States are largely associated with social conservatism due to the support they receive from powerful Christian fundamentalist groups. What many Canadians don't understand is that the political climate in Canada is completely different from that in the U.S. In fact, the current state of political discourse in Canada indicates that traditional social conservatism is, for the most part, dead.

Now, I've heard some crazy accusations about Prime Minister Harper in my time, including a rant asserting as fact that Mr. Harper was a priest before entering politics (he was not). But anyone who thinks that Mr. Harper is a social-conservative has fallen prey to partisan spin. Stephen Harper biographer William Johnson indicates in his book that it is clear Harper was always much more of an economic conservative than a social conservative. Further, Harper has long held the position that moral issues are issues of individual choice and conscience, and should not be prescribed by a party line. That doesn't seem very frightening to me.

In fact, the argument could be made that Stephen Harper has actually neutralized social conservatism in our country. Over the last two years or so, Harper has diluted the strength of social conservatism in his party by addressing two of the most fundamental issues for social conservatives: abortion and same-sex marriage. In 2005, the first policy convention of the Conservative Party of Canada resulted in a decision to set official party policy against any type of legislation regulating abortion. Last summer, in line with his idea that 'the moral is personal', Harper held a free-vote on whether the issue of same-sex marriage should be re-opened in the House of Commons. The fact that this vote was defeated by a margin of over 50 MPs is less important than the fact that Harper knew it would be defeated in advance and held the vote despite this knowledge.

The incremental dilution of social conservative influence in the Conservative Party is noticeable. While there are still annual protests condemning abortion on Parliament Hill, legislation regulating or criminalizing abortion is now seen almost as a fringe idea, particularly among younger conservatives. The issue of same-sex marriage, once a hotbed of contention in conservative circles, has been quelled in a democratic manner by the House of Commons vote, and is no longer subject to frequent debate. The recent lack of a socially conservative voice in Ottawa led Rick Mercer to quip recently that Harper had managed to "successfully spay and neuter" every last social conservative in the party, comparing them to an endangered species that David Suzuki would have to create a roundtable to protect.

During their time in power, Harper and his team have shown a willingness to adopt moderate social polices that Canadians can agree with. The Left will continue to use scare tactics in order to extort votes from citizens, but it is clear that this strategy is quickly losing both its attractiveness and efficacy. A sober look at the facts indicates that the Conservatives have taken a temperate approach to social issues and shown an unwillingness to infringe on the views of an MP's conscience, an attitude that no one should fear.

Liberal Red-Light Committees - You Had An Option, Sir

This article first appeared in the McGill Tribune on October 3, 2007.

During the Liberal leadership race in 2006, Liberal leadership candidate Stéphane Dion announced that he had a plan for bringing gender parity to the House of Commons. The first step towards gender parity, he argued, was to ensure that 1/3 of all Liberal candidates running in the next election will be women. Dion’s plan included ‘green-light’ committees that have been empowered to take extraordinary measures in order to make sure that the 1/3 women quota is met. Let me tell you why this policy of reverse-discrimination is wrong for Canada.

When considering the appointment of female Liberal candidate, it is important to look at the opportunity cost. In appointing female candidates, the Liberal Party will be barring male candidates from a chance for the candidacy. In essence, this policy spits in the face of all the male candidates that want to run in the ridings that women will be appointed. In a free and democratic society, both women and men should be allowed the opportunity to put themselves forward as a prospective candidate and allow for the Party’s members in the riding to elect them in a legitimate candidate nomination process. But the Liberal Party doesn’t see it like that. In the Liberal Party’s view of Canada, ordinary citizens are not to be trusted with decisions like who should represent their party locally as a candidate. This is just another example of an overarching Liberal party concept that permeates many of their policy stances – individuals aren’t to be trusted with what must be the overwhelming burden of personal choice. In the Liberal Party’s ideal world, top-down and centralized decisions are the best ones, and God help you if you should disagree with the red-light committee.

Women should be insulted by the patronizing attitude that is illustrated in the quota policy. Surely women are not so fundamentally inferior as to be unable to contest a nomination and win it in a fashion that would allow for actual competition. Women do not need the Liberal Party to appoint them, and the Liberal Party members in the ridings where women will be appointed don’t need the Liberal Party to tell them who to support locally. Better representation of women is not necessarily achieved by increasing the number of women in the House. Instead, a way to allow for personal choice to continue while simultaneously increasing the \quality\ of the representation of women is to train them and get them engaged in politics at an early age. The McGill Political Science Students’ Association’s Women in House program (womeninhouse@gmail.com) is a channel through which this can be accomplished. In this program, women are sent on an all-inclusive trip to Ottawa to shadow a female Senator or MP for a day, allowing them an exciting opportunity to improve their understanding of the Canadian political system.

It is frustrating to hear others calling for such disparate categories of people to be made the exact same in every way. Though equal before the law, men and women are different, and as such will choose to make different decisions that lead to different outcomes. If the margins between these outcomes are not particularly egregious, then intervention is unnecessary, especially if the proposed intervention infringes on the right of others to be qualified for membership in the House of Commons. I am not suggesting that women cannot make excellent politicians (indeed, Thatcher is one of my favourite), but rather that if women go through a candidate nomination process and do not emerge victorious, it has more to do with a lack of political training than some inherent weakness that comes with being a woman. This being said, this whole argument may be a moot point come election time. With the way things are looking for Stéphane Dion, I don’t see him bringing many MPs to the House – male or female.

You Had an Option, Sir - The Little Red Riding/Hood

This article first appeared in the McGill Tribune on September 26, 2007.

The Liberal fortress has fallen. Last week, in arguably their safest riding in Montreal, Liberal candidate Jocelyn Coulon took less than thirty percent of the vote on his way to a second place finish behind NDP candidate and former provincial cabinet minister Thomas Mulcair in Outremont. This is a riding that has, with one exception, voted Liberal in every election since its creation in 1935. In 1968, the Liberal candidate received a unfathomable 78.7% of the vote. During the Trudeau era, it was rare for the Liberals to get less than 60%. As political strategists across the country conduct their post-mortems of last week’s by-elections, the most pressing question will be whether blame rests with Liberal leader Stephane Dion.

Despite the ten months that have passed since he was elected leader, Mr. Dion has not been able to unify the clashing factions of his party. Rumours are abound as to the role Michael Ignatieff or his supporters might have played in purposely ensuring that Dion’s hand-picked candidate would lose. Further, Dion has failed to implement a cohesive organization framework that would help him win elections. The campaign was sloppy, with candidate signs and campaign literature taking far too long to hit the streets, which means leaving potential voters wide open to being influenced by every other party. Having been reached first by everyone else, voters were left to wonder why they should vote for a party that doesn’t even have the capacity to distribute pamphlets to them.

But what truly clinched the win for the NDP was the /La Presse/ poll released four days before the by-election showing that they were leading by six points. At this point, it was pretty much over. I live in the Plateau, but I swear I could hear the air being sucked out of the Liberal campaign office on the other side of Mount Royal. Viral pessimism infected every volunteer who came into the campaign thinking they were backing a bona fide winner. Desperate to salvage the campaign, Liberal staffers from Ottawa were scrambled to help out the struggling candidate. The last minute actions were in vain, however, because the negative publicity from the poll grew exponentially as political commentators all over the country mused loudly about why the Liberal were in jeopardy of losing such a safe riding and why Stephane Dion couldn’t get his act together. Liberal volunteers lost faith in their candidate and his ability to win, while the NDP were reinvigorated by the possibility of their first election victory in Quebec since 1990. The poll deflated any enthusiasm left in Liberal camp and drove the NDP to what would eventually become a twenty point margin of victory.

While many of my fellow Tory partisans have declared that the Outremont by-election results were desirable, I look at it with a bit of caution. I’m not worried about the NDP in Quebec – they will have to poach a lot of famous provincial cabinet ministers to make any sort of a dent here. What I am worried about is the excessive destabilization of Dion’s leadership. While this may seem like it would benefit the Conservatives, consider the long term gains of having Dion stick around; he is not a strong leader, nor is he someone that has a lot of potential for growth. Let the man flounder, I say. I want him around for a long time to come.