"Canada ceases to exist"

Some insights on Canadian conservatism from Jonathan Kay:

The Future of Canadian Conservatism

As many of my right-wing critics on social media frequently point out, my conservative credentials are weak. I live in a left-wing Toronto neighbourhood alongside retired university professors and media types. As far as I’m aware, I’m aligned with these CBC-tote-bag neighbours on pretty much every political issue imaginable—except two.

The first is that I don’t think men can magically transform into women (or vice versa) by changing their pronouns on LinkedIn.

The second is that I’ve stopped pretending to believe that 215 tiny Indigenous corpses were lifted from “unmarked graves” in Kamloops four years ago.

That’s it. These two points of heterodoxy are all it takes to get you classified as a “conservative” in this country—which is quite amazing given that neither of these positions even constitutes an actual political viewpoint. They’re both just statements of fact. It’s shocking that saying either out loud should be considered controversial. But that’s Canada for you.

The organisers asked me to talk about the “core principles of conservatism”—which, if we’re talking in general philosophical terms, would take us into the historical legacy of the French Revolution. And yes, I’m sure there are a few people in this room who really do wake up every morning, confront a political problem, and think to themselves, “Gee, I wonder what Edmund Burke would do in this situation?” But as far as the Canadian political idiom goes, that kind of high-flown analysis of conservative thought is completely inapt.

That’s because being “conservative” in Canada often has little to do with one’s substantive ideological commitments. As exemplified by the two examples listed above, it’s more about your willingness to break unspoken rules of political etiquette by saying inconvenient truths out loud. It was perfectly obvious that immigration levels were unsustainably high under Justin Trudeau. A conservative is someone who said so in 2023 (or earlier), while a doctrinaire Liberal is someone who waited till 2024 to say the same thing.

Another reason I say that Canadian conservatism is usually more about manners than ideas is that the range of policy-based discourse in this country has become extremely narrow.

When I joined the editorial board of the National Post in the late 1990s, we would meet daily to discuss our newspaper’s editorial policy on abortion, capital punishment, embryonic stem cell research, senate reform, private health care, gun control, drug legalisation, and numerous other topics. There was a sense that all of these issues were still in play in Canada. We’d also have lengthy discussions about conservatism’s different types—such as social conservativism, libertarianism, fiscal conservatism, and, yes, crunchy conservatism. It all seems very antique.

Compare that to the current state of politics. Not a single one of the above-listed issues is a major theme of the current election campaign. Amazingly, you don’t even hear much about assisted suicide (rebranded in Canada as MAiD) despite the fact that it arguably represents the single most important legislative innovation advanced under Trudeau’s watch.

No one has the attention span for that sort of debate anymore, because social media (which didn’t exist when I began my career at the Post editorial board) has destroyed everyone’s attention span. As a result, Canadian conservatives—like everyone else—now spend their bandwidth on transient scandals and quasi-scandals involving open-mic gaffes, backbench bozo eruptions, old social media posts, press-conference malapropisms, internal party bickering, and, of course, the polls. Needless to say, Edmund Burke would be disgusted.

These petty controversies are what most pundits love writing about, too. Assisted suicide is boring and morbid. You can get far more hits by denouncing the treasonous ways of Wayne Gretzky, or calling out some Conservative politician for failing to tweet about Non-Binary Week of Resilience or whatnot.

A second challenge facing anyone hoping to promote a conservative agenda in Canada is the weak nature of our national identity. Globally, conservative political movements tend to be based on a nostalgic appeal to some collectively recognised set of norms and national characteristics. But as recent events show, our national self-conception is fundamentally unstable.

Recall that in 2021, our political and journalistic class responded to the “unmarked graves” social panic by denouncing Canada as a literal genocide state built on a mountain of baby Indigenous skulls. Trudeau lowered the flags on federal buildings for almost six months, and CBC hosts started referring to our country as “so-called Canada”—the idea being that we’re not just a crappy country, but a fundamentally illegitimate one as well. But now that Donald Trump has started a trade war, those very same politicians and journalists are demanding that we all celebrate our boundless Canadian awesomeness amidst blasts of red and white Liberal confetti cannons. As a country, we’ve gone from flags down to “elbows up” in less than four years. How does a conservative tap into the traditions of a country whose historical memory doesn’t extend past the current media cycle?

A third problem for Canadian conservatives—and this might be the biggest—is that Canadians are so obsessed with American political culture war that they take their cues on what words such as “progressive” and “conservative” mean from the United States. So while it’s nice that we’re all sitting around this room figuring out what it means to be a Canadian conservative, many voters answer that question by watching American media. Which means they casually equate Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives with the daily spew of inane pronouncements and economically self-destructive policies emanating from Donald Trump and Elon Musk. I can’t imagine how frustrating this must be for Canadian conservative politicians, but it’s the reality they inhabit.
I’m the furthest thing from a politician or political strategist, and so I have no insights into how Canadian conservatives can overcome these headwinds—except, perhaps, by focusing their efforts (and hopes) on provincial politics, which—being more directly staked to day-to-day issues such as education, land use, transportation infrastructure, crime, and health care—are at least somewhat insulated from the reality-field distortions generated by the American political circus. In Ontario, where I’m from, Conservative premier Doug Ford just won another majority—though I’d argue that it’s hard to classify him as any kind of small-c conservative.

I realise that this is a gloomy analysis I’m offering. But there’s at least one important bright spot, which is that the Canadian conservative movement has largely avoided succumbing to the strongman populism that now defines the Republican Party in the United States (as well as conservative movements in several European countries). South of the border, the word conservative has become more or less meaningless, as the Republican platform is essentially whatever Trump says it is on any given day. Destroying free trade, abandoning Ukraine to the Russians, ignoring the Constitution, flouting due process, and promoting crackpot vaccine conspiracy theories—that’s all on the right-wing menu. And I’ve been gratified to see that most Canadian conservatives generally have steered clear of these tendencies.

Link: https://archive.is/qwzZ7

 

The author starts with "I agree with Liberals on almost everything" and then proceeds to disagree with them on rather important stuff. Manipulative drivel, like most "intellectual" Conservative writing nowadays.

 

You can only disagree with Liberals on non-important stuff. You're right.

 

That isn't not at all close to what he said.

to wit, "The author starts with "I agree with Liberals on almost everything" and then"

 

Terry Newman: Where's the 'crisis,' Carney? (National Post)

The Trump annexation scare sure evaporated quickly

Link: https://archive.is/MeLMs

It was not that long ago, merely March, when Prime Minister Mark Carney, fresh off his Liberal party leadership win, began telling Canadians that his party needed a “strong mandate” because they were “facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Donald Trump’s unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty.” He insisted a snap election was essential, as was electing him, the self-proclaimed “crisis manager,” to address it.

The election is over now. Where’s the “crisis,” Carney?

As for Canada’s military and security relationship with the U.S., it appears the period of deepening integration is not, in fact, over. It’s been reported that Trump said Canada wants in on Trump’s Golden Dome — a missile defence shield that can identify and intercept incoming projectile threats and destroy them mid-flight — with Carney’s office confirming that discussions are ongoing.

Asked Wednesday by Global reporter MacKenzie Gray about this apparent about-face on deepening security relations with the U.S., Carney responded with gibberish,”We are in a position now where we cooperate when necessary, but not necessarily cooperate.”

In late March, Carney told reporters “I’ve managed crises before. This is the time for experience, not experiments.” He’s managed something, alright — a masterclass in political theatre.

 

USA tariffs against Canada currently sit at 25%. For a major trading partner that used to be best allies, I'd consider that a continuing crisis. I'm not very familiar with Canadian politics so can't speak to the other issues you raise.

 

The Prime Minister says one thing to the Canadian public and implements a completely different thing. That's not to say that Trump hasn't poured gasoline on a fire, but the Canadian economy has been in terrible shape prior to Trump's tariffs, a result of Liberal Party's years of governance. The Prime Minister talked tough about Canadian counter-tariffs, but it was all rhetoric, as shown below.

Here are the facts:

"Despite all the rhetoric from Mark Carney and the Liberals, a new report shows that Canada has effectively eliminated tariffs on most goods. Oxford Economics, a global advisory firm, looked into the matter and found tariffs are nullified by exemptions and suspensions to effectively mean the tariffs are either gone or near zero in most cases.

“It’s a very strategic approach from a new prime minister to really say, ‘We’re not going to have a retaliation,'” Tony Stillo, Oxford’s director of Canada economics, said in an interview with Bloomberg this week.

"So far, the Carney government hasn’t commented on the report, but it does raise questions about all the tough talk during the election and since." (Source: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/carney-dropped-most-tariffs-the-day-after-meeting-trump)

And from today's National Post's column (source: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadas-populist-movement-will-have-its-day):

"The Trump trade war overtook the many other crises affecting Canada as one of the top election issues, but it did not extinguish them. If anything, Trump’s attempt to reshape the global economic order will only exacerbate the problems this country is facing. Canadian cities remain mostly unaffordable and riddled with drugs and petty crime, and the broken immigration system will not repair itself."

"When Trump started rambling about annexing Canada and launching a trade war, the Liberals seized the opportunity. The American president was all they needed to activate their base and garner the support necessary to remain in office. For millions of older voters, the Canadian election became an opportunity for them to stick it to Trump by voting for Carney, the guy they thought would put his elbows up and hopefully catch Trump on the nose. The Liberal party has evidently taken its victory as a validation of its decade in office, in which the country went into perceptible decline. "

"The Liberal vision of Canada’s social contract involves redistributing wealth to the top of the age pyramid. Whether it’s enlarged pension payments, maintaining the exorbitant rent charged by “mom and pop” landlords or providing cheap labour to big businesses through mass immigration, the Liberal economic platform can only be described as “gerontocratic.”

"Youth unemployment is the highest it has been since 2012. In 2022, the number of Canadian-born people who left for the United States increased by 50 per cent over pre-COVID levels. This is fuel for anger and populism, and it is justified."

"Considering that the Liberals plan to allow in 400,000 people a year by 2027, we should not expect demand for housing to slacken or for prices to meaningfully decrease. Crime, drug addiction and homelessness are still rampant, and the Liberals are unlikely to seriously address any of these issues."

"Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government oversaw the great decline of Canada into a more barbarous, low-trust and hopeless society. Unless Carney has a plan to truly turn the page, his political ascension will only have deferred the Liberals’ day of reckoning."

 

Thank you for the information.

I'm sorry that our POS President has placed a 25% tariff on our great neighbor to the north. It is just hurting both of our countries. Nothing good can come out of this, at least nothing that rivals the harm it is causing.

 

Tariffs between the U.S. and Canada are nothing new and might be more popular with our Friends in the Great White North than one might think. Anti-Americanism not only exists in Canada, it’s fairly fundamental to the Canadian national identity.

A YouTuber and pretty well known political writer from Vancouver B.C., JJ McCullough, has blogged on this subject and he is far from alone.

 

Having said that, my own experiences in Canada, boy and man, have all been in B.C. and Alberta. Those folks aren't sure whom they hate worse, Washington D.C. or Ottawa!

 

Incidentally, for Americans considering emigrating to Canada, a few considerations:

1. It's not so very easy to get a residence permit,

2. Canada's staggering cost of living isn't offset by their generally lower wages, and

3. It's cold.