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Loading ...Canada now more conservative nation, PM says
09.15.2008 2:21pm EDT
(Ottawa) Canadians have shifted to the right and made the country more conservative since he’s been in politics, Stephen Harper contended on the weekend.
But the prime minister also said that his Conservative party has simultaneously shifted more to the center of the political spectrum and he warned that it must remain there if it wants to continue governing.“I think the Canadian public has become more conservative,” Harper said in Fredericton, N.B., at the start of a weekend swing through Atlantic Canada.
“At the same time, I don’t want to say the Canadian public is overwhelmingly conservative or that it is necessarily as conservative as everybody in our party.
“And that means that our party has to make sure that it continues to govern in the interests of the broad majority of the population. That means not only that we want to pull Canadians towards conservatism but Conservatives also have to move towards Canadians if they want to continue governing.”
Harper’s comments appeared to be aimed at dispelling opposition accusations that he harbors a hidden, extreme right-wing agenda. And it was consistent with the message the Tories have been hammering home in television ads throughout the opening week of the campaign: Harper is a moderate, steady leader who’s in tune with mainstream Canadians.
Jack Layton, at least, was not buying it. At an enthusiastic rally in Toronto, the NDP leader painted Harper as a heartless puppet of big corporations who has no interest in the needs of ordinary working families.
Harper, who was first elected as a Reform MP in 1993, recalled that Canada was still debating the merits of balanced budgets and free trade when he entered politics.
But during the 1990s, he said, Liberal governments abandoned their anti-free trade rhetoric and traditional big-spending, high-taxing ways, adopting conservative principles of fiscal rectitude, deficit reduction, spending restraint and tax cuts.
“I think there’s been a tremendous change in that regard.”
Until now, at any rate.
Harper said the Liberals and other opposition parties have returned during the current election campaign to “a pre-free trade, Cold War kind of approach to the economy . . . where they want to spend money, they don’t care how they finance it, if they have to raise taxes, that’s fine.
“This is not where the Canadian public is in this day and age.”
Harper also said that the military has joined the CBC and medicare as a source of national pride. But he confined himself primarily to economic issues in making his argument that the country has shifted to the right.
He did not address the social side of the equation – issues such as capital punishment, abortion and same-sex marriage – where Conservatives have often found themselves out of step with mainstream views. Harper has resolutely tried to mute social conservatives within his party’s ranks.
Layton told about 400 party faithful in Toronto that an NDP government would focus on the needs of families “at the kitchen table” rather than Harper’s fixation on corporate executives at the boardroom table.
“Do you want a prime minister who’ll have us choke on dirty air because he can’t get the oil out of the tarsands fast enough?” Layton demanded.
“Do you want a prime minister who helps his CEO friends get richer while millions of Canadian children and their families live in poverty? Do you want a prime minister who broke his promise to end health care wait times while five million Canadians don’t have a doctor?”
The placard-waving crowd dutifully bellowed “No!” to each of Layton’s questions.
Layton has made no secret of copying some campaign tactics and rhetorical flourishes employed by Barack Obama in the United States. Saturday’s rally borrowed again from the Democratic presidential nominee, with Layton standing in the center of the crowd as he spoke, surrounded on all sides by enthusiastic partisans waving NDP signs.
I am a gay 22 year old male and will definitely be voting for the Conservative party.
I want a relevant Canada that has a strong military so that we can participate in Peace MAKING in areas like Darfur.
And I want a strong justice system where criminals and young offenders get the punishments that they deserve and stay off the streets.
If some punks commit a gay bashing I would be more comfortable with them behind bars for 15-25 years or labeled dangerous offenders rather than getting house arrest for a year because they were minors.
I also do not want a government that spends money on ineptly or down right steals it. (Sponsorship Scandal,Gun Registry)
Mr. Harper is more than a little delusional. This is not to say that he might not manage to pull off a majority government… but if he does get a majority government, what he is proving is that our electoral system is not functional, not that the population is becoming more conservative. Our current first past the post voting system is flawed. It works fine when there are only two parties in contention, but we have at least four parties (NDP, Bloc Quebecois, Liberal and Conservative) who are major players, and a fifth (Green) who are at the threshold of becoming a major player. With some very notable exceptions (my home province of Alberta for example), there are very few seats or regions that the Conservatives (capital or lower case) will win with a clear majority of the votes.
As for the relevance this has for LGBT voters concerned about Same Sex Marriage — the spectrum runs from the NDP (who went so far as to expel the sole MP in their ranks who voted against SSM), the Greens (whose policy documents are totally supportive – but who have no voting record), Bloc Quebecois (strong majority vote in favour of SSM), Liberal (majority voted in favour of SSM) leaving only the Conservative party (with a couple of honourable exceptions) voting against SSM. The spectrum is pretty much the same when it comes to votes on hate crimes / hate speech votes.
There is, and will probably always be, a sizable minority of the Canadian population who are “socially conservative”, but I see few, if any, indications that that minority is growing. If there was any significant growth potential there I am certain Mr. Harper’s own personal social conservatism would be front and center in the election campaign. That his biases in this area are completely hidden during the campaign, with muzzle orders out on his most paleo-conservative caucus members, is a pretty good indication that Canadians are NOT becoming more conservative.
Tom,
You are a Canadian residing in Canada
telling me as a gay American man residing in the USA that my future husband should not be able to protect each other with over 1,000 American federal rights, obligations and responsibiliities of marriage? Speak for your own country and not for mine,
please. I love Canada and Canadian people, they are truly great and our friends.
But here in my own US state of Maryland, there are committed gay couples in long-term relationships who are severely disadvantaged by the lack of legal gay marriage in our state. I am excited for the gay cuuples in Massachusetts and California who have achieved the vital protections of marriage.
The only currency employers, corporations, insurance companies understand here in America (as evidenced by the lack of recognition of say New Jer
sey civil unions which the state of New Jersey expects all to abide by even
national US companies and US insurance companies doing business in New Jersey
using gay New Jersey employees in NJ civil unions)is that called Marriage.
Sorry, but even civil unions are ignored by them as niceties to be ignored. Full legal marriage cannot be lawfully ignored in the 2 states to get gay marriage.
In Maryland we have had to make up in a piecemeal fashion legislative requirements and protections that all straight marriads get immediately by law such as uninterfered with hospital visitation, medical decision making, we gays have had to fight for those things that are the automatic rights of straight marrieds.
Gay couples cannot leave property to surviving partner named in will. if one dies The surviving partner has to pay high taxes if Maryland real property going to survivor(land and house oo it) is valued over say I believe the current tax obligation is for over $650,000 and many properties in our state now very easily exceed that. Surviving husband or wife are of course exempt from any taxation in my state and can continue to dwell in their in the same house with no interference from tax authorities, Not so for gay couples.
Gay couples in my stste suffer in other ways, challenges from doctor’s offices if the non-biological mom or dad in a gay couple brings in the couples’ child. That parent is not recognized and can be barred from bringing the child in for doctor office visits.
Birth family of deceased partner can swoop down like vultures and kick the survivor out of house that was shared with partner and deceases family can cart off the dead person’s stuff even if it were shared between them when alive.
Then there is the horrible saga of a grieving survivor caught up in years of acrimmny and expensive litigation trying to stop his dead partner’s partner from relocation his partner’s body to another cemetery. All of these incidents and many more in my non-gay marriage state of Maryland.
Fully legal gay marriage on the both the state and federal level would make a huge pile of legal problems for US and foreign gay couples solvable or preventable (on federal level you gay Canadians who legally married to each other in Canada are not family to US customs agents and may not stand together as family and must be process separately on separate forms US Government recognizes no gay marriage from the 2 state where it is legal nor from any foreign country be it Canada, from Europe or from South Africa).
Even gay marriage is not on list of priorities or you don’t believe in it, I believe in it if the US gay couple is to adequately protect itself in ways that wills and piecemeal legislation cannot. Wills cannot provide for social secuity payments to surviving partner, cannot stop a nursing home or retirement home from barring a gay couple from rooming together and the list goes on and on for gay couples in the USA not legally permitted to marry each other.
Civil marriage as opposed to religious marriage is not cute or funny, it is serious business, it is not about social approval as it about myriad vital legal protections that can be attested to by any public official duly authorized by a state anywhere and anytime that meets the requirements of a particular US state.
A(n) Harper/Palin/McCain cabal:
_______________________________
… Last week I was enjoying Sarah Palin: Until she voiced her unschooled opinion on the medical matter of abortion procedures.
As a gay man with no children [a lot of gay people do have children] I nonetheless found *that* – moreso than her religiosity (and I am atheistically-inclined person)- troublesome. Mrs. Palin is not a qualified health professional [and, as such, has no business practising malpractise].
– end of segue —
As a Canadian, it terrifies me to imagine a Harper majority government elected in October followed by a McCain/Palin win in November. This concatenation of events will send North America into a ‘far-right’-wing spiral that will not abate for at least four(4) years [for the American readers who are unaware, current PM Mr. Harper enacted a law which entails a necessary fixed election date in the event of a majority government 'win' (and yes, with the other posters on this topic, I do concur that Mr. Harper violated the spirit of that law his government introduced in calling this election).
About me: I am a Moderate who does not approve of sanctioning gay marriage in either country [the gov't should stay outa the marriage business]. However, I am seriously worried that social policies affecting the Canadian social safety net (something important to many more Canadians than is gay marriage) will be aborted.
I am Canadian, gay, and live in probably one of the most socially progressive places in the world (Quebec). I can tell you that Harper is a liar and has been from the start. His government has tried to quell political dissent, ignored the media, and run our parliament into deadlock. Thank god Canadians aren’t stupid enough to buy this.
Harper is full of it. And the last thing Canadians need is more Corporate ‘Free-Trade’ bullshit. Look where it got us here in the US. No Manufacturing Base equals No Middle Class.
And watch out for anyone who claims the ‘military’ is a source of ‘pride’ that’s just pseudo-patriotic bullshit.
No wonder they have to have a hate crime hotline. Teenage boys who are raised by conservative fathers are the ones most likely to commit anti gay hate crimes, so this is only the beginning of a long era of persecution against gays and other minorities in Canada. Not a good sign at all.
Speaking as a proud gay Canadian I can assure Mr. Harper that although, yes, we have become somewhat more conservative, he should not confuse fiscal and governmental conservatism with social conservatism. Canadians have always been conservative on issues of spending, government and the military even though some governments have not.
That said, our friends south of the border should take note, Canadians do not practice American conservatism, except for those few in the west and to a degree Mr. Harper. It is for this reason he continues to hover near a majority of the electorate but has yet to make it a reality in parliament.
Most Canadians feel the social issues such as abortion, capitol punishment or same sex marriage are now dealt with and any attempt to re-open them would bode ill for anyone trying to do so.
Harper is full of nonsense. Canada has held relatively constant for the last several decades. We’ve elected Liberals who were fiscally conservative, and PCs (remember them?) who were socially liberal. The only difference with Harper is that he’s run a stealth government, implementing his most conservative policies below the radar and out of the news. Frankly, it has fooled a lot of people, which is exactly what he needs for a majority. Free from any election threat (including apparently his own law which still requires an election next year) we’ll see the true Harper.