Canadian Conservatives met this past weekend with party leader Erin O’Toole looking to broaden the conservative tent by sidelining social conservative policies and putting the reality of climate change up for a vote. The charge for change proved to be less effective than O’Toole hoped for, with 54 per cent of delegates voting against expanding the party’s policy declaration to include the sentence “we recognize that climate change is real. The Conservative Party is willing to act.”
The motion on climate change faced the fiercest opposition from western provinces, with delegates from New Brunswick and Quebec showing the most support. The result clearly suggests there are competing visions for the party and O’Toole must be careful not to alienate social conservatives who form the party’s base or the moderates he needs to win the next election.
Such a balancing act is near impossible as the geographic centre of the Conservative party lies in western Canada, with well over half the current MPs hailing from Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C. and Manitoba. This means the CPC is a party torn between east and west Canada with no way of putting forth a platform capable of garnering national support.
Simply put, the CPC is experiencing a serious identity crisis that looks to inhibit their electoral success for years to come.
The modern Conservative party Canadians are familiar with is a coalition created in 2003 by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. Its prime objective was to form a party capable of seizing power from Paul Martin’s Liberals. The gambit worked, delivering the newly formed Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) to power from 2006 through to 2015.
While the move to “unite the right” worked then, it has been far less successful in recent years. The conservative merger was a marriage of convenience based on our winner-take-all politics and without electoral success to bind the factions together, conservatives are questioning the legitimacy and efficacy of such an alliance. In many ways, the partnership hid a simple truth of Canadian politics: social and moderate conservatives don’t belong in the same party because they believe in fundamentally different things. This is the inherent problem with big tent parties.
The Conservative’s main political rival, the Liberals, have shaken off this problem by voters taking matters into their own hands and forming their own parties. The NDP and Greens are the manifestations of disenchanted Liberal voters who jumped on the path of self-determination and gained political independence.
Rather than being a large single party that directly competes with the Liberals, conservatives should look to become two mid-sized parties that cater to the needs of different voters on the right-wing of the political spectrum. By acting apart, the two parties could obtain a larger percentage of the vote than one large right-wing party could; however, such an electoral strategy is only possible if conservatives support the adoption of Proportional Representation.
It wouldn’t be the first time conservatives supported PR. In 1997, Stephen Harper and Tom Flanagan penned an article stating “Many of Canada’s problems stem from a winner-take-all style of politics that allows governments in Ottawa to impose measures abhorred by large areas of the country. Modernizing Canadian politics would not only be good for conservatism, it might be the key to Canada’s survival as a whole.”
None of this is happening in a bubble as alternatives to the Conservative party are already emerging. In Alberta, support for the provincial Wildrose Independence Party is at 10 per cent while about nine per cent of Albertans say they’d vote federally for the Maverick Party. And of course, the People’s Party is still active, though with only about two per cent support nationwide.
Look, breaking up is hard. It takes courage to admit what you have is not what you want nor what you need. The current manifestation of the party as “anti-Trudeau” is only because their dual-natured identity prevents them from standing up for what they truly believe in. For Canadian conservatives to be politically successful, the CPC must give up its monopoly on conservative voters and free its members to form parties more aligned to their regional and ideological interests.
In other words, breaking up isn’t personal, it’s just good business.
Tell the Ontario Liberals you Support PR!
The Ontario Liberals have launched a public consultation survey to develop their 2022 platform. From March 21 to April 6, one of the topics will be “Every Vote Counts” which includes youth engagement, electoral reform and political financing.
The platform is public and open to all citizens – anyone can participate regardless of party affiliation.
Registration is not required, although it may be beneficial to have a full name and address attached to your submission. Be sure to vote strongly in support of Proportional Representation, and please leave constructive comments about PR, the need for a Citizens’ Assembly, and how ranked ballots are not the answer to democratic reform. While participants can only vote once, there are no limits on leaving comments – let’s try to keep commenting about PR for the next two weeks!
Participate in the survey by clicking here.
In 1993 the Canadian Right suffered such a severe fracture that the Bloc became the official opposition despite coming only fourth in overall vote share. The sovereigntist Bloc Québécois won almost half the votes in Quebec and, to date, this is the only time a party committed to the political secession of a region of Canada has become the Official Opposition of Canada. The Reform Party won nearly as many seats and replaced the PCs as the major right-wing party in the Commons, although it won only one seat east of Manitoba.
Toxic Unity: One party with two minds is a sign of a conflicted soul - Fair Vote Toronto
[…] for Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day and Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, as well as the battle around acknowledging climate change at this year’s CPC convention and the expulsion of former MP Derek Sloan earlier this […]