Chretien: The original modern Conservative?

This morning, the Manning Centre unveiled its second annual poll  about how Canada is increasingly turning Conservative blue. It's called the Manning Centre Barometer and you can find it by clicking here.

Present for the (remarkably long, nearly 90-minute)  press conference  was  Reform Party founder Preston Manning (it's his centre, after all), as well as Allan Gregg from Harris-Decima and Andre Turcotte from Carleton University. Readers of the Star blogs will remember that Turcotte was one of our political-marketing bloggers during the election campaign.

Though I have immense respect for all the presenters this morning, I found myself a little puzzled by their description of what they describe as conservatism. In fact, as they were rhyming off "generally ascribed" Conservative values,  it seemed to me they could be describing Jean Chretien's philosophy to governing as much as Stephen Harper's. Question: Is this conservativism or pragmatism?

"Equality of opportunity," for instance, is billed as a Conservative value, (as opposed to the supposedly lefty emphasis on equality of results) even though Chretien put "equality of opportunity" in all kinds of Throne speeches throughout his rule. Smaller government too -- last time I checked, it was Chretien who  slashed government spending hugely in the 1990s,  while Harper has increased it over the past five years.  Have a look for yourself at the presentation (available at the link mentioned above) and see whether you'd accept the premise of the poll's description of Conservatism. For anyone who followed Chretien's government, as I did, almost everything here sounds very similar to his governing style. 

That said, there are some "values" I'd definitely associate more with Conservativism, especially Harper's brand. One of those is   a greater  emphasis on  patriotism and the military, where Harper has definitely veered in a much more pro-military direction than Chretien did. Another would be  a belief that the private sector has better ideas than government. But in  those uniquely Harper-ish  terms, Canadians' support for those values  is actually waning, the poll shows.So how is it possible to say that  conservatism is on the rise?

I asked about all this at the press conference, and here is the rather substantial reply I received from all three. If I'm not mistaken, I think they may agree with me. It picks up with Turcotte, first of all.

Turcotte: I don't think this (conservatism) can be traced to the last three, four, five years. I think that this is something, as Allan mentioned, you could probably go back to 1988 or the 1990s and we don't ascribe, we don't actually say who's responsible, because everybody who was in power, everybody who was involved in the political discourse over that 12-15 years has played a role. Without a doubt, the style of government that Chretien adopted -- he won three majorities -- and there is some similarity between the two (he's referring to Harper here.)  This is not .... We try to go beyond the day-to-day fluctuation. We want to take a longer view. And we are suggesting that this change has been going on and Harper is trying to capture this.... He's concentrated on the most prominent (views) among the electorate...

Gregg: The difference, I think, is that he (Harper) has tried to make a virtue out of doing nothing. (Laughter from the room.) No, I'm serious, you see this again and again.

Manning: Which is what Chretien did too.

Gregg: Chretien didn't try to make a virtue out of it, he just did nothing.But no, if you talk to him personally, he says government's role is not to generate change, it's to deal with it once it arrives. To the larger question about the role of government, I challenge anyone to tell me one major initiative that's emanated out of government for the last 20 years. Tell me.

[At this point, there was a small discussion among reporters and the panel about whether maternal leave counted as a major initiative from the federal government.]

Resuming the discussion, on the point of decline in support for patriotism and the military.

Manning: I think this is predictable, Susan, when countries actually get engaged in warfare, there's a declining... people get weary of it and worried, rightfully so. And I think that since the Afghanistan thing, and the longness, that's the main explanation we can see for that decline. 

Me: But isn't this the whole Don Cherry thing, standing up for the soldiers, and you say Canadians are getting tired of that?

Gregg: Oh, I think there's no question on Afghanistan, there's been a huge fatigue. I mean, Stephen Harper's tired of it. That's why.

Turcotte: Your point about the Conservative government making a stand on that. I think it was probably more true four or five years ago than now. I think that's one indication.

Gregg: And when we talk about the country becoming more Conservative... it's becoming more uniquely Canadian Conservative. Not American Conservative. In fact, the faith in the private sector has declined the last year as well. There's an argument that the country has become less Conservative in traditional, big C, or small-C, or American-C conservative values over the last year. But it's this emphasis on moderation, tradition, incrementalism, facilitation that I think is so dominant that it's become an orthodoxy in the country. (

[**  And here I'm thinking to myself --  so we're not turning Conservative at all, we're just redefining Conservativism, and it happens to resemble Chretien's Liberalism? *** ]

Turcotte: Yeah, we make the point, that this is not Republican-style, Tea-Party-style rejection of government. This is not what we're saying. It's Canadian!

 

Comments

[Karen Krisfalusi]

Government is about delivering services and investing in what works. The shift in ideology and process that is referred to here speaks to concerted effort on the part of the Liberals to broker attitudes to women's advancement with a view toward mitigating the costs of women's equal participation in the workforce. No doubt this is why maternal leave rung a bell with Journalists. However the real battles that Chretien won and that shaped Canada's political conservatism concerned reorganization of the public and private service female workforces through union busting, employment law changes and public service hiring practices that reorganized the workforce into contract positions to replace many fulltime jobs. I don't need to remind Susan Delacourt of the long battle Chretien fought against equal work legislation. Harper and Chretien are twinned on the score of feminist issues. The old guard (McCallum for instance) advising Dion kept faith with Harper when they didn't challenge Harper's daycare rhetoric. Peeling back Harper's social conservatism all he can really say about it is "we support parent's choice".

The equality of opportunity meme made it's first appearance in the last Conservative Convention with women's equality was replaced with "equality of participation".

This is ALL ABOUT failed feminism and it's a really sad show.

Karen

[Mark]

I take no issue with trying to define a party or government on the one-dimensional political spectrum as an academic exercise, but any practical relevance in ensconcing a party/government within a conservative or liberal definition eludes me. Why can't they just be parties with platforms X, Y and Z?

[Mary Serniak]

The charge Chretien was the original Conservative, has some merit. Change in direction for Liberals was initiated with acceptance of the FTA, albeit they campaigned on re-negotiation. Chretien allowed Martin free reign to implement Friedland economics, with severe cutbacks to force a balanced budget leading eventually to a huge surplus obtained on the backs of Canadians. Capitulation set up Martin and resulted in Chretien’s loss of control of the party. Neo con yes. But Chretien drew the line on building up the military. He opposed a combat role, as did Quebec. In this respect he remained true to Liberal principles. Chretien mused over a guaranteed income, and recognized the need for foreign aid to Africa. He never lost sight of the social responsibility of government. But it was too late. He did not realize the two ideas were irreconcilable. The neo con tiger had been set loose. The tragedy was that with the new millennium and a huge surplus he failed to use his power and resources to initiate a new vision. Neo Conservatism vanquished Martin, and set the stage for Harper. The enigma in the equation was Ignatieff – instrumental in Harper getting a majority. Was he, or wasn’t he a Conservative?