It's so rare that anyone down here bothers to write anything about your politics that I felt compelled to post an article today that appeared in the National Review Online:
OTB
The Great Right North?
Conservatives may finally be getting their act together in Canada
By:John O'Sullivan
EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece appears in the April 11, 2005, issue of National Review.
If you had swallowed the general view of the Canadian news media, the national convention of the (relatively) new Canadian Conservative Party in Montreal was likely to be a sad and solemn wake. Unfortunately, nobody told the corpse, who got up and danced a decorous Canadian reel. About 2,900 Tories had gathered in Montreal — a pretty large gathering by Canadian standards and, as the Tories kept emphasizing, somewhat larger than the national convention of the ruling Liberals two weeks previously. Despite the urgings of the media that they should split back into the two hostile parties whose merger had created the CCP less than two years ago, they showed a firm determination to settle their disagreements within a unified party. And they gave off strong whiffs of enthusiasm, combativeness, and momentum.
Maybe, like Rick in Casablanca, they were misinformed, for Canada's political terrain is pretty inhospitable to the Right in several ways. In the first place, the Tories are living in a pre-Goldwater country — namely, one in which an essentially conservative population lives under the hegemony of liberal institutions, a liberal political culture, and liberal elites. As in the U.S., the major cultural institutions, the media, and even business corporations are solidly liberal in their leanings. They shape a political climate of liberal orthodoxy that inevitably distorts both the opinions and the allegiance of the voters. Thus, some perfectly respectable policies, such as regulating abortion, become more or less unthinkable because they run counter to the strong convictions of the liberal elite.
What makes Canada still more inhospitable to conservatism is the 1982 adoption of a new constitution with a Charter of Rights written by Pierre Trudeau. That subjected Canada's traditional parliamentary sovereignty to a written constitution interpreted by the courts. It thereby entrenched liberal policies against conservative electoral victories. The courts, for instance, are currently in the process of introducing gay marriage through constitutional interpretation. So Canadian liberalism enjoys political as well as cultural hegemony...
OTB
The Great Right North?
Conservatives may finally be getting their act together in Canada
By:John O'Sullivan
EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece appears in the April 11, 2005, issue of National Review.
If you had swallowed the general view of the Canadian news media, the national convention of the (relatively) new Canadian Conservative Party in Montreal was likely to be a sad and solemn wake. Unfortunately, nobody told the corpse, who got up and danced a decorous Canadian reel. About 2,900 Tories had gathered in Montreal — a pretty large gathering by Canadian standards and, as the Tories kept emphasizing, somewhat larger than the national convention of the ruling Liberals two weeks previously. Despite the urgings of the media that they should split back into the two hostile parties whose merger had created the CCP less than two years ago, they showed a firm determination to settle their disagreements within a unified party. And they gave off strong whiffs of enthusiasm, combativeness, and momentum.
Maybe, like Rick in Casablanca, they were misinformed, for Canada's political terrain is pretty inhospitable to the Right in several ways. In the first place, the Tories are living in a pre-Goldwater country — namely, one in which an essentially conservative population lives under the hegemony of liberal institutions, a liberal political culture, and liberal elites. As in the U.S., the major cultural institutions, the media, and even business corporations are solidly liberal in their leanings. They shape a political climate of liberal orthodoxy that inevitably distorts both the opinions and the allegiance of the voters. Thus, some perfectly respectable policies, such as regulating abortion, become more or less unthinkable because they run counter to the strong convictions of the liberal elite.
What makes Canada still more inhospitable to conservatism is the 1982 adoption of a new constitution with a Charter of Rights written by Pierre Trudeau. That subjected Canada's traditional parliamentary sovereignty to a written constitution interpreted by the courts. It thereby entrenched liberal policies against conservative electoral victories. The courts, for instance, are currently in the process of introducing gay marriage through constitutional interpretation. So Canadian liberalism enjoys political as well as cultural hegemony...