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A history
of Canadian conservatism -- Six-day series in the National
Post
September
24 - 30, 2005
*********
It all started with
Sir John A.
Adam Daifallah
National Post
Saturday, September
24, 2005
If the years following Confederation had been an indicator
of future political trends, Canada would have a very different
history. As the Conservative party's first leader, Sir John
A. Macdonald won six of seven elections he contested -- all
of them majority governments. With the exception of a single
term (1874 to 1878), he served as prime minister from 1867
until his death in 1891.
The Macdonald Tories, which were actually named the Liberal-Conservatives,
didn't espouse anything close to the ideas we associate with
conservatism today. Macdonald was basically non-ideological.
He had no particular aversion to using government to achieve
his goals. In the words of historian Michael Bliss, Macdonald
felt "the more areas of government activity the better ...
so long as they seemed to be vaguely useful and the taxpayers
did not revolt." After all, his focus was on building a new
country. That necessitated spending.
Macdonald might not have been a paragon of fiscal restraint,
but he was a masterful politician. The key to his success
was coalition-building. For example, he understood the importance
of having a strong Quebec lieutenant to represent French Canada.
Sir George-Etienne Cartier, who was like an associate prime
minister, filled that role until his death in 1873; he was
later replaced by Hector-Louis Langevin.
He was also a survivor. His political career looked all but
over in 1873 with the emergence of the Pacific Scandal, in
which Macdonald was caught accepting kickbacks from Montreal's
Sir Hugh Allan for awarding Allan's company the contract to
build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Canadians turfed him from
office, but sent him back four years later.
Macdonald's principal legacy was the National Policy, the
protectionist tariff regime introduced in 1878. Many have
concluded that Macdonald was anti-American and an anti-free
trader because of this. But according to McGill University
professor William Watson, this policy was not Macdonald's
preferred route. Rather, it was a reaction to the protectionism
of the Americans. Macdonald had actually attempted to negotiate
a free trade deal, but was rebuffed by our southern neighbour.
Macdonald died shortly after his last election victory in
1891. His death ushered in a lengthy bout of tumult for the
Tories. John Abbott, John Thompson, Mackenzie Bowell and Charles
Tupper served as prime minister over the course of the next
five years in quick succession. But in 1896, Sir Wilfrid Laurier,
the country's first French-Canadian leader, took power. Thus
began the Liberal hegemony that exists to this day.
******
From Borden to Bennett
Adam Daifallah
National Post
Monday, September 26,
2005
Sir Robert Borden assumed the leadership of the Conservatives
in 1901 and spent 10 years in the Opposition wilderness before
winning an election. Sir Wilfrid Laurier had seemed unbeatable.
But in 1911, the so-called "reciprocity election," Borden
rallied Canadians to the nationalist call for high tariffs,
defeating Laurier and his plan for more economic integration
with the Americans. (The West, today a bastion of Tory support,
voted for the Liberals and free trade.)
Like Sir John A. Macdonald, Borden won many seats in Quebec
-- 27 in total -- thanks to "outside help." Borden allied
himself with Henri Bourrassa's Nationalistes, and together
they sent Laurier into opposition.
In government, Borden did little in the way of conservatism.
He continued in the Macdonald nation-building tradition. Borden
extended free rural postal delivery, brought government into
the terminal grain elevator business and offered grants to
provincial governments to build highways.
During World War I, Borden, a strong supporter of the British
Empire, faced a crisis over conscription. In 1917, he formed
an alliance with pro-draft English Liberals, effectively isolating
francophone Quebec from the rest of the country. Running on
a Unionist ticket, Borden won a majority of seats but was
virtually wiped out in Quebec, where Laurier took 62 of 65
seats. After the war, Borden helped give Canada an international
voice, working to send an independent Canadian delegation
to the Paris Peace Conference.
Borden's departure in 1920 kicked off another period in the
wildness for the Conservatives. Except for two brief stints
as prime minister by Arthur Meighen, the party didn't form
another majority government until 1930, under leader R. B.
Bennett. Bennett's government created the Bank of Canada,
the Canadian Wheat Board and the Canadian Radio Broadcasting
Commission, precursor to the CBC.
Late in his term, Bennett proposed a package of reforms to
address the hardships of the Great Depression. Old Age Pensions,
unemployment insurance, a minimum wage and more regulations
on business were amongst Bennett's proposals. It was seen
as too little, too late. Many of the reforms were implemented,
but not by him. In 1935, voters returned William Lyon Mackenzie
King to power. He served as PM until his retirement in 1948.
******
In comes The Chief
National Post
Adam Daifallah
Tuesday, September
27, 2005
After R.B. Bennett
lost the 1935 election to William Lyon Mackenzie King, another
22 years in the wilderness passed before the Tories won government
again. This time, it was under the leadership of John Diefenbaker.*
Diefenbaker was cut from a distinctly different cloth from
that of Conservative leaders past. He was the first prime
minister not of pure British or French origin, having been
born to a father of German descent and a mother of Scottish
ancestry.
He came to power with a minority in 1957, but in 1958 won
what was then the largest majority in history. In that election,
he significantly increased the party's seats in Quebec by
essentially turning over the province to premier Maurice Duplessis
and his Union Nationale machine.
That coalition would not last long, however: In 1962 Diefenbaker
was reduced to a minority government, and in 1963 and 1965
lost to Lester B. Pearson, who formed minorities.
While in office, "the Chief" seemed to lack a coherent ideology.
He wasn't really a conservative, once stating his belief that
government was "the great equalizer." Above all, he was a
Prairie populist with demagogic tendencies who had no qualms
about using Ottawa's tax-and-spend powers to achieve his goals.
As University of Calgary scholars David Bercuson and Barry
Cooper have noted, Dief was the first prime minister to use
the bully pulpit to promote "social justice."
This latter move represented a real shift. Before the advent
of Diefenbaker, the federal government had been relatively
modest in size -- even under Liberals -- and had shied away
from activism and social engineering. But under Dief's watch,
federal spending ballooned by 32%. He increased farm subsidies
and established the Royal Commission on Canadian Health Services,
which laid the groundwork for socialized health care. His
government introduced hospital insurance in 1961.
Diefenbaker also appointed Canada's first female cabinet minister,
Ellen Fairclough, and gave aboriginals the right to vote.
He introduced the Canadian Bill of Rights.
On foreign affairs, his record was spotty. He brought Canada
into NORAD and took a strong stance against South African
apartheid, but his bungling of the Cuban Missile Crisis hurt
relations with the Americans.
Sadly, Diefenbaker is known as much for his downfall as for
anything he did in office. In 1966, an increasingly paranoid
Diefenbaker was forced out as Tory leader in what was Canada's
first modern leadership review. He ran to replace himself
but was trounced by Robert Stanfield. He continued to serve
as MP until his death in 1979.
(*I made a mistake
in the printed version, accidentally stating that Bennett
lost in 1930 instead of 1935. A correction was printed.)
*******
Also-rans of the Trudeau era
Adam Daifallah
National Post
Wednesday, September
28, 2005
John Diefenbaker was replaced as leader of the Tories in 1967
by Robert Stanfield, who had been premier of Nova Scotia.
It was the beginning of another long period in opposition
for the party, as Stanfield went on to lose three consecutive
elections to Pierre Trudeau.
Stanfield came to power with the backing of Dalton Camp, the
party's national president, who'd led the charge to dump Diefenbaker.
Though decent and intelligent -- Stanfield was a cum laude
graduate of Harvard Law School -- he came across as boring
and uninspiring next to Trudeau. Given that his family shared
its name with the underwear brand it created, and he was prone
to media mishaps, Stanfield was easy to caricature. He was
also unilingual, so he had little appeal in Quebec, even though
his party had gone to great lengths to woo support in that
province with the introduction of its deux nations ("two founding
nations") policy.
As leader, Stanfield kept the Tories ideologically vague.
He campaigned in the 1968 election on a guaranteed annual
income -- an idea even the Liberals rejected. In 1972 he proposed
wage and price controls, a scheme later implemented by Trudeau's
government.
Although he succeeded in bringing Trudeau down to a minority,
Stanfield was never able to beat him; dispirited, he stepped
down in 1976. He was replaced by Joe Clark, who came out of
nowhere to win the leadership against Stanfield's Quebec lieutenant,
Claude Wagner.
Clark, then a first-term MP, was another Dalton Camp disciple.
He was a lifelong political operative, having served two terms
as president of the PC National Student Federation. While
a born-and-bred Albertan, Clark exhibited few of the characteristics
usually associated with Western conservatism. His political
ideas -- or lack thereof -- were close to Stanfield's: non-ideological
and wishy-washy. His wife, Maureen McTeer, was an outspoken
feminist.
In the 1979 election against Trudeau, Clark won a minority,
and at 39 years old became the youngest prime minister in
Canadian history. He announced he would govern as if he had
a majority; nine months later, he was out of office.
Clark had campaigned on cutting taxes but in government did
a U-Turn, proposing a budget with an 18 cents-per-gallon gas
tax. He failed to line up enough votes to get his budget passed
and the government was defeated. Clark called an election
for Feb. 18, 1980. A reborn Trudeau was back with another
majority.
*******
The Mulroney years
Adam Daifallah
National Post
Thursday, September
29, 2005
The 1980s were a hopeful time for conservatism. Margaret Thatcher
was turning Great Britain upside down. Ronald Reagan captured
the White House. But Canadian voters returned Pierre Trudeau
in February, 1980, after Joe Clark's disastrous nine-month
interregnum. The reason had little to do with Trudeau's record
or Clark's incompetence: Canadians trusted Trudeau to win
the Quebec referendum, which which would be held in May. And
he did.
In January, 1983, the Tories held a national convention in
Winnipeg at which Clark's leadership was reviewed. Party delegates
gave Clark a weak 67% endorsement. He called a leadership
convention and subsequently lost a bitter race to Brian Mulroney.
Many thought Mulroney would be Canada's Reagan. The man from
Baie-Comeau, Que., was charismatic and perfectly bilingual
and had campaigned in the leadership race on conservative
ideas. After Trudeau's final term, Canadians had seemingly
had enough of big deficits, high taxes and patronage.
Unfortunately, they would get more of it.
There were many accomplishments of note from Mulroney's time
in power: the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the negotiation
of NAFTA, the GST (an improvement on the old hidden Manufacturers'
Sales Tax), deregulation of the transportation and financial
services sectors, Canadian military support for America's
first Gulf campaign in 1991, the Acid Rain Treaty, an uncompromising
stand against Apartheid, and privatization of a few Crown
corporations.
But on the economic front, Mulroney fared no better than Trudeau.
The national debt more than doubled during Mulroney's tenure:
from $206-billion in 1984 to $450-billion for the 1993-94
fiscal year. When he came to power, the deficit stood at $38-billion;
when he left it was $40-billion.
However, the biggest disappointments of the Mulroney years
had nothing to do with economics. They were the two failed
attempts at constitutional renewal, and the subsequent combustion
of the Tory coalition. Meech Lake and Charlottetown were valiant
efforts to, as Mulroney had promised, bring Quebec back into
the constitutional family "with honour and enthusiasm." But
their collapses will forever haunt his legacy. The founding
of the Reform party in 1987 and the Bloc Quebecois in 1991
ended up splitting the conservative family for more than a
decade, and the Bloc's continued existence has dashed any
hopes of a Tory comeback in Quebec.
******
The long road to a united right
Adam Daifallah
National Post
Friday, September 30,
2005
After the Liberals
won majority governments in the 1993 and 1997 elections --
the latter achieved with just over 38% of the national vote
-- it was obvious things had to change. The internecine warfare
between the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform party
had gone on too long.
Although members of both parties had been talking informally
about co-operation for some time, the first significant event
in the "unite the right" movement took place in May, 1996,
when David Frum brought together a small group of writers
and activists at the Winds of Change conference in Calgary.
No changes came about as a result of the Frum confab, but
it did give the unity idea more visibility.
In late 1997, Reform leader Preston Manning began talking
of bringing anti-Liberal Canadians together to form a common
front. He called his initiative the United Alternative (UA).
While the UA idea was well-received by Reform's grassroots,
it was shunned by the PCs. The Tory brass, namely then-leader
Jean Charest and his inner circle, disliked Reform more than
the Liberals and wanted nothing to do with Manning.
But when Charest quit federal politics in 1998 to lead the
Quebec Liberals, progress seemed possible. Unfortunately,
Charest's successor, a reincarnated Joe Clark, was even more
intransigent. Clark was still angry that Manning had destroyed
the old Mulroney coalition and believed that if his PCs were
just patient enough, Reform would die off like other protest
movements before it.
Despite Clark's opposition, Manning's first UA convention
in February, 1999, was a success. Delegates from across the
country called for the creation of a new political party.
A second UA convention was held in January, 2000, and the
Canadian Alliance was born. That summer, Stockwell Day was
elected the party's first leader. But the Clark Tories kept
soldiering on. As a result, there were still two centre-right
parties for the November, 2000, election and the Liberals
easily won a third-straight majority.
The Alliance and Tories soon went through leadership changes.
After a caucus revolt against Day, he was replaced by Stephen
Harper in 2002. The next year, Peter MacKay replaced Clark.
Any hope of reconciliation appeared dead. Harper won the Alliance
leadership on a platform of no truck or trade with the Tories,
while Peter MacKay took the PC title campaigning openly against
co-operation.
But due to a variety of factors, including pressure from Bay
Street fundraisers and what seemed like an impending Paul
Martin juggernaut, secret merger talks began in the summer
of 2003. Each party sent a team of three emissaries to negotiate
a possible deal. Talks broke down a few times, but on Oct.
16, 2003, an agreement was announced. Members of both parties
ratified the deal in short order and Stephen Harper became
the new Conservative Party of Canada's first leader in March,
2004.
The decade-long conservative divide was over.
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