Where are the Canadian Tories now? (well, in Alberta, to start with)
Jul 4th, 2005 | By L. Frank Bunting | Category: Key Current IssuesCALGARY. Monday, July 4, 2005. Much free advice is being offered to Conservative leader Stephen Harper on how to improve his performance in Canadian federal politics. But one question lingers. Just what does it mean that he is running for prime minister of Canada, and not president of the United States? The Harper headquarters of Calgary, Alberta, e.g., is a thoroughly Tory town. Yet in the wider global village the Canadian Tory himself or herself is a rare sub-species. More exactly, there is no longer such a thing as a Tory in the United States. (All the American Tories moved north to Canada after the American Revolution.) And, to pose another question raised by the scent of the northern barbecue in the summer of 2005: where is the story of the Canadian Tory going today? Is this just another tall tale that has almost come to an end?
Go west, young Tory …
The urbane cowboy glitter and quiet opulence of Calgary, Alberta today is at least one kind of evidence that Canadian Toryism is alive and well enough, and probably does have a future.
Oil-rich Alberta, as is often said, is Canada’s miniature version of Texas. (Miniature in terms of the numbers of people involved, if not quite in raw geography – Texas nowadays has some 22.5 million people on about 696,000 square kilometers of land and water, compared with 3.2 million people on 662,000 square kilometers in Alberta.)
There are also sometimes said to be more expatriate US citizens living in Southern Alberta today than in any other part of the world outside the United States itself. The full story, however, goes much deeper than that.
Some Canadian citizens in other places still complain, e.g., that the Canadian Toryism headquartered in Calgary today has evolved into too much of a vehicle for Western Canadian regional protest to play well back east – in any of Ontario, Quebec, or Atlantic Canada. But this seems a bit unfair or even misguided.
Stephen Harper sits for the riding of Calgary Southwest in the Parliament at Ottawa. And he has been based in Calgary since his student days studying economics at the University of Calgary.
But he was born and raised in the Toronto, Ontario inner suburb of Leaside. Like many others in the new West, his life began in the old East (or vice-versa). He does not really need to be told what the world back there is like. (And, though seldom remarked on, there are quite a few expatriate US citizens in Southern Ontario too.)
As local cab drivers will also hint at broadly, Calgary itself in the late 20th and early 21st centuries is in more than a few striking respects an authentic descendant of Toronto in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – the Toronto whose “rabid Toryism” a touring Charles Dickens once described as “I speak seriously, appalling.”
Or as the Toronto novelist and friend of Ernest Hemingway, Morley Callaghan, explained back in the late 1940s: “in the West they jeered at Toronto. But … the Toronto spirit was a skeleton hidden in their own closets.”
If you image-google “Darrel Stinson + Canada” on the Internet today, you will bump into a photograph that seems to summarize how at least one side of the new wild-west Canadian Toryism of the early 21st century still honours its deepest roots back east.
Mr. Stinson is the current Conservative MP for Okanagan-Shuswap, whose unfortunate illness has played a role in the latest great debates in the federal Parliament at Ottawa. As a sign that today’s wild-west Toryism is not confined to Alberta, Okanagan-Shuswap is across the mountains in beautiful BC.
As a sign that Mr. Stinson’s new conservative politics also remain attached to the older British North American Tory traditions in Atlantic Canada and Ontario (and western Quebec), in this photograph he is wearing a white cowboy hat, and standing in what looks like a very up-to-date barn. But he is also wearing a smart black dinner jacket, with both silk and velvet on the collar, and a black bow tie.
The West wants in …
Strategically, the key question about the, say, early 2006 federal election (that, whatever else, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives do seem to have finally wrung out of the Martin Liberals) is whether today’s most up-to-date edition of the Canadian Tories can win enough seats back east to form even a minority government in Ottawa.
More than two-thirds of the seats the Conservatives won in June 2004, e.g., are in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia – which taken together have somewhat less than one-third of the Canadian population. To become even a serious anglophone national party, the Tories do need to gain more ground in the current Liberal strongholds of Ontario and Atlantic Canada. So far such things as Mr. Stinson’s dinner jacket do not seem to be doing the trick, all by themselves. Even a smart-looking white cowboy hat still seems to get in the way.
Of course this stereotype can be a bit misleading as well. Ontario already has more seats in the present Conservative caucus than any other province except Alberta. There is a side to what is now called rural Ontario that is a quite direct ancestor of today’s Prairie Provinces. And Stephen Harper has already convinced this surviving fragment of the old central Canadian market (which still vaguely remembers that Southern Ontario itself was once known as “Canada West”).
Conservative seats in the federal parliament elected June 28, 2004
Alberta | 26 |
Ontario* | 24 |
British Columbia | 22 |
Saskatchewan | 13 |
Manitoba | 7 |
Atlantic Canada | 7 |
Quebec | 0 |
Northern Canada | 0 |
TOTAL* | 99 |
*
Since Belinda Stronach crossed the floor to join the Liberals in mid-May 2005 there are only 23 Conservative seats in Ontario, and 98 in Canada at large.Similarly, in the provincial breakdown of the recent mid-June 2005 Ipsos-Reid poll on cross-Canada party support, the Conservatives are stronger in Atlantic Canada than in any other part of the country except Alberta. (And, intriguingly enough, back last fall Canadian opinion polls were also showing that support for the re-election of George W. Bush south of the unfortified border was strongest in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Atlantic Canada.)
Provincial breakdown of party support, mid-June 2005
Lib | Cons | NDP | BQ | Green | |
BC | 35% | 29% | 23% | 11% | |
Alta | 19% | 60% | 10% |
| 10% |
Man/Sask | 35% | 33% | 27% |
| 3% |
Ont | 44% | 31% | 16% |
| 7% |
Que | 22% | 9% | 12% | 51% | 4% |
Atl Can | 42% | 38% | 17% |
| 0% |
Source: Ipsos-Reid / CanWest Global. Methodology: Telephone interviews to 1,002 Canadian adults, conducted from Jun. 16 to Jun. 18, 2005. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.
It is also true, of course, that in the mid-June 2005 Ipsos-Reid poll the Liberals are still doing better than the Conservatives in both Ontario and Atlantic Canada. But then again the Liberals are doing better than the Conservatives in every province except Alberta.
Moreover, in this same poll the Conservatives are actually doing somewhat better in Ontario than in Darrel Stinson’s beautiful BC. Which at least hints at the point that the present-day Calgary-headquartered Canadian Tories are not so much a vehicle for Western Canadian regional protest, as a taut and often angry and frustrated but still admirable voice of Alberta national ambition.
Arguably enough, the most striking point about the provincial breakdown in the mid-June 2005 Ipsos-Reid poll is that Alberta and Quebec are the only provinces of Canada where a majority of voters have already made up their minds about which of the various sides currently available they are on. And this majority is considerably stronger in Alberta (60%) than it is in Quebec 51%).
From this angle at least one big problem with Stephen Harper’s party is vaguely reminiscent of one old big problem with the utopian Canadian vision of Pierre Trudeau. In Trudeau’s book, it has been said, the main solution to almost all serious problems of Canadian federalism was just for all other parts of the country to try harder to become more like his native city of Montreal.
For many Canadians elsewhere, apparently, the main solution to almost all serious problems of Canada in the vision of the Stephen Harper Conservatives is just for all other parts of the country to try harder to become more like the dynamic oil-rich province of Alberta today.
(Or, as Art Hanger, Conservative MP for Calgary Northeast, explained to Parliament on the night the Liberals finally cunningly rammed through the so-called “NDP Budget” Bill C-48, the fundamental problem with Canada today is that all the other parties have been overwhelmed by socialism. Why can’t all the people of Canada – and not just 60% of the people of Alberta – wake up and see the spread of this appalling disease for what it really is? It has now struck even the proprietor of Canada Steamship Lines, the Right Hon. Paul Martin, Prime Minister and leader of the, well, somewhat corrupt Liberal Party of Canada.)
The unholy alliance with the Bloc Quebecois
So what, some Canadian Tories seem to say today? People in Ontario (and even British Columbia) voted for Pierre Trudeau, in large numbers, even though he did want to turn every place else into some replica of Montreal. Why can’t they do the same for Stephen Harper, even if he does sometimes still seem to want to turn every place else into a replica of Alberta?
Yet Trudeau’s saving grace here was that he was also a native son of Quebec who believed in Canada. And that was enough to forgive his Montreal fantasy (which was also quite clearly unrealistic, and just not going to happen in any case). The people of Ontario had to vote for Trudeau, because that’s what it took then to keep Quebec in Canada. The year that Trudeau became prime minister, 1968, was also the year that Rene Levesque became the first leader of the Parti Quebecois next door.
(And by the way again, let’s not forget Canada’s more distant Pacific Coast in all this history either. Trudeau won 70% of the seats in what some still call British California in the 1968 federal election – just below the 76% he took in Quebec and 73% in Ontario.)
Which all raises another big question for the great northern barbecue in the summer of 2005. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives won no seats at all in Quebec on June 28, 2004. And it now seems as close to a virtual certainty as you can get in democratic politics that they will not be improving on this performance in any near future. The absolute best they can hope for is to gain so much new ground in Ontario and Atlantic Canada that they win a majority of seats in the Canadian federal Parliament, without winning any seats at all in Quebec.
At a few points over the past year and a half, say, it has briefly seemed that the so-called sponsorship scandal in Quebec – or “Adscam” as the Tories prefer – just might be the magic elixir that could somehow bring this kind of cross-Canada Conservative majority outside Quebec into the real world. Yet these moments have been few and short-lived. Adscam, it would seem, may be quite a big political scandal, for Canada, but it is not quite that big.
Still more to the point, one optimistic thing about the true north strong and free has been confirmed yet again by the great spring 2005 soap opera in federal politics. The active Canadian democratic electorate – even or perhaps especially with a regrettably declining share of all eligible voters – includes a great many shrewd and calculating citizens, in both official languages, and coast to coast to coast. On almost all such shrewd calculations the by-far most likely best outcome for the Harper Conservatives in the coming next election will be to replace the Martin Liberals as the party with the mere largest number of seats in Parliament (and not at all a governing majority by itself).
Any version of Stephen Harper who is going to become prime minister on the back of this kind of performance will need parliamentary allies to form any stable Conservative minority Government of Canada. And when the many shrewd and calculating citizens look around, the only plausible allies of this sort are almost certainly the same ones who helped the Conservatives come within a single vote of bringing down Paul Martin’s Liberal government on May 19, 2005 – Gilles Duceppe and his federal wing of the Quebec sovereigntists in the Bloc Quebecois.
The Liberals have been flashing their teeth on this issue, and warning that they will fiercely attack any thought of such an “unholy alliance” actually trying to govern the United Canada of the early 21st century.
They even seem to have bullied Mr. Harper into openly disavowing any at all sensibly self-interested policy on Conservative-Bloc relations – in his quite remarkable late-June suggestion that Canada’s new gay marriage law of the land may not be altogether legitimate in the federal state, because it has only been passed with the support of Bloc MPs, who ultimately do not believe in the long-term future of the federal state. (Or so at least they still do say, even if the majority of Quebecers who profess support for “sovereignty” at the moment are also telling pollsters that they believe this will mean Quebec remains a part of Canada.)
As Canada Day 2005 passes, and the barbecue season begins in earnest, there seem only two things to say about this almost bizarre latest Harperian pronouncement – coming right at the end of what the media are calling “one of the stormiest sessions of parliament in Canadian history.”
The first is that Mr. Harper certainly does appear to be giving up on doing anything at all constructive and interesting with the concept of a Conservative-Bloc federal governing alliance, that fate and the current practical logic of Canadian politics would probably seem to be forcing on him in any case. (And for which there are in fact a few good enough precedents in the now rather long history of the Canadian Tories – arguably stretching back all the way to John A. Macdonald himself, and at least to the early 20th century.)
The second is that, if he is giving up on any constructive approach to such a potential Conservative-Bloc federal governing alliance, how can Stephen Harper at all credibly claim to be an alternative prime minister to Paul Martin? Unless of course he can credibly claim that he still really does have the potential to win an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in Englosh-speaking Canada, without winning any seats at all in Quebec.
Could Stephen Harper actually be a good Prime Minister of Canada?
At this exact moment, just after Canada Day 2005, the shrewd and calculating active Canadian electorate would appear to be quite sceptical about the ability of the Harper Conservatives to increase their support in Ontario and Atlantic Canada to anything like the extent that winning a parliamentary majority outside Quebec would require.
Virtually all the latest polls seem to confirm this scepticism. (As does much gossip closer to the ground in Ontario – and both Atlantic Canada and at least BC as well, and possibly Manitoba or even Saskatchewan?) What can Stephen Harper possibly show the people of Canada on the barbecue circuit this summer – outside Alberta in any case, that might change this perception?
That is of course Mr. Harper’s problem – and his to figure out the answer to as well. But a recent survey of one well-informed and urbane Ontario voter has put a final thought in my mind. He used to think that Harper had some authentic intellectual and policy depth – a head on his shoulders, as an earlier generation would say. And that was impressive, whatever else. But, my informant went on, this perception has shrunk to almost nothing over the past three months.
Others outside Alberta from many different backgrounds may have had similar perceptions of Mr. Harper in the past, that are now shrinking too. Such things probably have been one of the Conservative leader’s main strengths. He at least used to be the present-day Canadian Tory from Alberta who had a head on his shoulders, and just might be a better-than-average prime minister if he ever did somehow accidentally get into office.
As the universe seems right now, in any case, no amount of mere smiling and wearing casual clothes successfully on the barbecue circuit this summer is likely to change any of this. Somehow Stephen Harper has to show Canadians that he really does still have a head on his shoulders.
The Canadian democratic electorate, viewed from his angle, is not at this point looking for some nice and personable fellow to run the country – someone who looks and sounds good at a barbecue. Pierre Trudeau was not a nice guy (and did he ever even drive past a barbecue in his 300 SL?). Neither was Jean Chretien. (Or is Paul Martin, it would now appear clear enough.)
What the electorate finally seems to want today is someone who does have a head on their shoulders, whatever else. Because a great many shrewd and calculating citizens do understand that Canada is the kind of complicated and difficult place that you sometimes do need a head on your shoulders to manage at all well. And now is probably one of these times.
So Mr. Harper just needs to be saying things about what he might do as prime minister that seem quite sensible. Canadians at least like to imagine that they are a sensible if somewhat necessarily crafty people, in both official languages and all parts of the country again.
On the old most aggressively right-wing Canadian Tory view, the popular electorate is not really too bright or too interested, and can be best won over by assorted tricks and pandering. Yet what is best about the new Conservative Party of Canada that Stephen Harper and many others have been working hard to build is that it is supposed to have more respect for the great many shrewd and calculating citizens and their opinions. (The kind of respect Chuck Cadman from BC has shown so nicely – and encouragingly – in the spring 2005 Ottawa soap opera.)
Anyway most of the people of Canada probably do have better things to do this summer than attend political barbecues, where everyone just smiles and says agreeable things. Who really cares about that? (And, by the way, this year’s Calgary Stampede will be running July 817, 2005: and it’s still “the greatest outdoor show on earth,” whatever the Humane Society of Canada might say.)