THE FITZGERALD GRIFFIN FOUNDATION E-PACKAGE
                   View from the North
                     October 30, 2007


CONSERVATIVES FACE A TOUGH BATTLE
IN THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT OF CANADA
By Mark Wegierski

     In Canada today, the Conservative Party truly faces 
an uphill battle against the Liberal Party and the 
extraparliamentary Left.

     Canada seems to combine the most liberal aspects of 
America and Europe. Like some European countries, it 
embraces social liberalism -- as demonstrated by the 
federal Parliament's acceptance of "same-sex marriage" in 
2005 -- under the direction of the Canadian judiciary 
(based especially on the court decisions in Ontario and 
British Columbia in 2003).

     What conservative critics call "judicial activism" 
is in Canada a comparatively late but now flourishing 
development that began in 1982 with the Charter of Rights 
and Freedoms. The Charter essentially enshrined virtually 
the entire agenda of Pierre Elliott Trudeau -- the 
emphatically Liberal prime minister from 1968 to 1984 
(except for nine months in 1979-1980) -- as the highest 
law of the land. After Brian Mulroney's huge Progressive 
Conservative majorities of 1984 and 1988, with abysmal 
records with respect to social and cultural conservatism, 
Liberal Jean Chretien comfortably won the elections of 
1993, 1997, and 2000. Chretien's successor, Paul Martin 
Jr., lost the Liberal majority in the June 2004 election 
but continued with a minority government until January 
2006.

     Unlike some European countries, Canada lacks a "hard 
right" that can attract up to 20 percent of the vote, has 
no "organic peasantry," and has few right-wing 
intellectual traditions. Canada, which has very high 
rates of immigration, has strongly embraced 
multiculturalism, affirmative action (officially called 
"employment equity" in Canada), and programmatic 
"diversity."

     Canada has also acquired some of the more negative 
aspects of American society -- such as the excesses of 
pop culture, the trend to political correctness, and 
growing litigiousness. However, it lacks many aspects of 
American society that may temper these trends. The 
government accounts for about half of the gross domestic 
product (in contrast to about a third in the United 
States). Taxes are high. The medical system is 
socialized. The gun-control laws are stringent. 
Fundamentalist Christianity plays virtually no role. 
Canada has a rather small and underfunded military, and 
there is major elitist disdain towards the military. 
Canada's security provisions, refugee policy, and control 
of its borders are lackadaisical.

The Trudeau Legacy

     Canadians have historically displayed an unusual 
deference to governmental authority. Before 1965, Canada 
was probably a more conservative society than America. 
Now, however, the paradigm at the top has been 
fundamentally altered in the wake of the Trudeau 
revolution, and most Canadians have followed.

     Indeed, right-of-center outlooks are rarely present 
in the political conversation in Canada (except perhaps 
in the western Canadian province of Alberta). It could be 
argued that any existing right-of-center tendencies are 
being continually ground down.

     Evidence of this abounds in the left-liberal 
predominance in the Canadian media (especially in the 
taxpayer-funded CBC), the educational system (from 
daycare to universities), the judiciary system, the 
government bureaucracies, the so-called high culture 
(typified by government-subsidized CanLit), the North 
American pop culture and youth culture, the big Canadian 
banks and corporations, and (on most issues) the 
leadership of the main churches in Canada.

     Numerous left-wing, extraparliamentary 
infrastructures enjoy funding (largely from government) 
that dwarfs that of putatively right-wing 
infrastructures, such as the mostly economically focused 
National Citizens' Coalition and Fraser Institute (which 
relies strictly on private donations). The effectiveness 
of these left-wing infrastructures has contributed to the 
disproportionate intellectual influence of the socialist 
New Democratic Party (NDP) -- the NDP has usually held 
only about 25 seats in a federal Parliament of about 300 
seats. Trudeau was a former NDP member, and some have 
indeed suggested that he "hijacked" a more traditionalist 
and centrist Liberal Party in a radical direction.

     In the last 15 years (presumably in reaction to the 
collapse of Soviet Communism) left-liberalism has also 
clearly become far more willing to concede some major 
fiscal and economic issues to the "managerial Right" -- 
while continuing a ferocious struggle against any 
more-substantive conservatism. It appears that, in the 
main, only "fiscal conservatism" is permissible in Canada.

Hostile Environment

     The near-total left-liberal intellectual hegemony 
and comparatively little authentic academic or 
journalistic debate do not offer rosy prospects for a 
truly humane future for Canada. There is certainly no 
intellectual balancing of Left and Right in Canada today. 
This concretely means that a Conservative electoral 
triumph -- should it even occur in such a difficult 
environment -- is likely to be overwhelmed by ferocious 
infrastructural opposition -- in much the same way that 
Mulroney's huge majority in 1984 was sandbagged.

The Conservatives -- holding on to their minority 
government (the largest number of seats but without a 
majority in the federal Parliament), won in the January 
2006 election -- are hoping to finally win a majority 
when the next election ensues. (Because of the 
minority-government situation, an election can happen any 
time a more important bill is voted down in the federal 
Parliament when the three opposition parties -- including 
the separatist Bloc Quebecois -- combine against it.)

     The ongoing, decades-long, "prior constraint" 
against the exercise of any meaningful degree of power in 
Canada by the "centre-right opposition" fundamentally 
contradicts Canada's parliamentary and democratic ideals. 
(The centre-right opposition has included the Reform 
Party of Canada, founded in 1987, which eventually 
transformed into the Canadian Alliance, then merged with 
the "ultra-moderate" federal Progressive Conservatives in 
December 2003 -- renamed together as the Conservative 
Party.) It remains to be seen whether the anticipated 
federal election will somehow give some scope for a more 
substantive conservatism in Canada.

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Read this column on-line at 
"http://www.sobran.com/fgf/wegierski/2007/mw071030.shtml".

Copyright (c) 2007 by Mark Wegierski. All rights 
reserved. Permission has been given to the Fitzgerald 
Griffin Foundation to distribute and post this article.

Mark Wegierski is a Toronto-based writer, social critic, 
and historical researcher and is published in major 
Canadian newspapers, as well as in U.S. scholarly 
journals. His writing has also appeared in Polish, 
British, and German publications.

Mr. Wegierski holds a B.A. (Hons), M.A. in History, and 
M.L.S., all from the University of Toronto, as well as a 
graduate certificate in creative writing from Humber 
College.

Contact the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation at 
FGF@vacoxmail.com to obtain permission to reprint this 
article.