This week, a social conservative crossed the floor to the Liberals and the reaction has been predictable from both mainstream newscasters, the right wing, and the left wing.
The mainstream starts spinning the web of drama: will Poilievre leave? Is this unprecedented? Here’s my clever one liner that I thought about before coming on (insert show or article).
The right wing says they’re shocked and appalled that their unpopular leader is still losing members (little insider tip here: They are not shocked, even if they are earnestly upset.)
The left wing is astonished that the Liberals would accept a social conservative, and they demand answers as to whether the Liberals have morals or values beyond power.
My audience (you) is more intelligent (and more attractive) than most audiences (you!), so I figured it would be a perfect time to talk about how nonplussed I am to see someone like Gladu cross the floor.
It’s time to shut the book on Trudeau, and reorient ourselves with the Liberals, and who they’ve always been, dive into generational trauma & psychology, and grasp a fundamental flaw at the heart of our system that allows politicians to claim they care about human rights while creating an economic system that benefits the few over the many.
A weird misconception
People keep telling me that Justin Trudeau was a conservative, and definitely not on the left.
The floor crossing this week, and the universal reaction that this “reflects poorly on Mark Carney’s values” indicates that people don’t really know much about the Liberals, or how far left Justin Trudeau moved the Overton window for Canadian politics.
Mark Carney is the standard. Justin Trudeau was an aberration.
People need to stop approaching Carney as the movement away from Liberal politics. Mark Carney is moving back to Liberal politics. Everyone got used to Justin Trudeau’s approach which was left wing. I know it hurts to hear me say this when you’re a rad leftist with deeply rooted values.
Trudeau wasn’t a social democrat, and he was far too quick to capitulate to corporate demands, but he was definitely a leftist. It’s a big ol’ spectrum.
Lefties, please don’t unsubscribe. I need you. I’ll literally die without you.
Justin Trudeau was further left than the NDP under Jack Layton and Thomas Mulcair. I think by now the partisans who read this newsletter are probably aware that I’m highly critical of Jack Layton and his move to liberalise the NDP in order to make it more appealing for the broader Canadian public. Not to say that Layton wasn’t a leftist. He was just closer to the center. Like Trudeau! Who had almost the same policy ideas as Layton.
Carney should not be compared to Justin Trudeau. Carney needs to be compared to Paul Martin, Jean Chretien, or Brian Mulroney. Yes, Mulroney and Chretien were in different parties, but we must look at history to understand why that doesn’t matter so much. Mainstream pundits saying “he’s a blue grit” or “he’s a red tory” doesn’t mean very much when they were both always purple.
The Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals used to be essentially the same party with some specific issues where there was a huge gap. From the beginning this is the case. The second Liberal prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier, learned everything about his approach to politics from the first prime minister, John A Macdonald. A conservative.
In the 80s the question was free trade. In the 70s it was the nationalizing of oil. Joe Clark wanted to privatize Petro Canada, but he also wanted to continue expanding and funding health care.
It’s not a hard stretch to argue that one of our best and most progressive Prime Ministers was John Diefenbaker, a Progressive Conservative. In fact, I’ve done it repeatedly!
He was a civil rights activist, an anti-racist (at least for his time), he believed in the Canadian Bill of Rights, and he fought against apartheid in South Africa. I’ve mentioned him in many different articles because he’s awesome. First prime minister to put women in his cabinet. A warrior for the freedom of religion and belief. I should do a profile on him or something.
Changed stances
Until the 1990s, the PC and Liberal party were essentially the same and led with the same consensus. The PC eventually fell apart, and Reform was born, and then eventually Alliance, and then the CPC.
But we can’t compare Carney to the CPC. He is nothing like them. Carney just announced $3.8 billion for nature conservation. Carney has a robust auto plan that will transition the country towards electric cars. Carney’s government has made free lunches for students permanent.
Stephen Harper moved the Conservative significantly to the right. The modern Conservative party is nothing like the Progressive Conservative party. The modern Conservatives are the child of the Reform party and the Canadian Alliance, where Harper cut his teeth, and where Poilievre got his chops.
This is how I would have framed the election with different leaders. This is the Conservatives under Harper, the NDP under Singh, and the Liberals under Trudeau.
Here is my interpretation of the current political landscape, with Lewis as NDP, Poilievre as Conservative, and Carney as Liberal.
Please keep in mind that this is my analysis and nothing more. The Conservatives, in Mulroney’s era, would have been much closer to the center and would have been comparable to the Liberals.
The Liberals are the center. They do some progressive stuff. They do some conservative stuff. They aren’t bound by ideology, they react to what’s going on as they see fit. It is how their tent is so large under Carney, and when we talk about Jean Chretien, we will see how it was similarly large under him. Now, under Trudeau I would have had the Liberals to the left of center, and I would have had them towards the Libertarian end of the scale. Under Carney, they are demonstrating a desire to control speech much more and to pass authoritarian laws, such as Bill C-12.
Avi Lewis’ NDP have moved further left, and I would put them towards the northern part of the graph because they would clamp down on neo liberal policies.
What’s interesting is that the NDP and the Liberals are much closer to their historical roots. The CPC, however, have remained further right and openly talk about it now. So how do we deal with Carney’s ideology? Who is he? Why does he have certain progressive ideals, and why do the Liberals “campaign to the left, and govern to the right?”
I believe I’ve found the answer.