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JOHN OOSTROM per jfh
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Date Posted: 15:05:50 04/15/03 Tue
Author Host/IP: d150-99-156.home.cgocable.net/24.150.99.156
April 2003
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
* Newswatch
Time to merge left
Toronto Eye Weekly Editorial March 20, 2003
So here's some news that comes to us straight out of the
crazy-blip-on-the-radar-screen file: left-leaning organic farmer and
anti-free trade activist David Orchard is running a close second to Peter
MacKay in the race for the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives.
Orchard ran a distant second to Joe Clark last time around, at which time
Pokey Joe called him a "tourist" in the party. Similarly, MacKay's
supporters now accuse Orchard of being an imposter and are imploring
true-blue right-wing conservatives to buy memberships so they can vote
against the pinko. We suspect the true-blue right-wingers of the country
might be more moved by this call to action if all of them hadn't already
bought memberships in this country's true-blue right-wing party, the
Canadian Alliance.
After all the talk about "uniting the right" in this country, maybe it's
time to recognize that the right is already united in the Canadian
Alliance.
What's left of the Progressive Conservatives, other than Orchard's newly
signed-up carpetbaggers, it seems, are a bunch of centrists who can't
stomach the neo-liberalism of the Alliance and can't swallow the arrogance
of the Liberals.
We realize that it's early in the race (15 delegate-selection meetings
have been held so far, 290 are still to come) to be drawing any conclusions
from Orchard's strength, but we journalists love to play fantasy-league
politics.
So indulge us a moment while we play a game of What If.
What if the Tories realized that there aren't any right-wing members left
in their party? And what if they realized that historically, they have not
been a right-wing party anyway?
It was, after all, the party of John A. MacDonald that historically
opposed free trade. Even Brian Mulroney campaigned against it until, after being
elected, he fell into the limpid pools of Ronnie Reagan's Irish eyes.
The Conservatives have also been a party of large, interventionist
government: under MacDonald, they built the Canadian Pacific Railroad and
under Borden they nationalized five railroads to create the Canadian
National Railway. Conservative prime minister R.B. Bennett created the CBC,
the Canadian Wheat Board and the Bank of Canada. "Reform means government
intervention," Bennett said. "It means government control and regulation.
It means the end of laissez-faire." And John Diefenbaker, known to some as
the "prairie Bolshevik," won the 1957 election by moving his party to the left
of St. Laurent's Liberals by opposing continentalism and foreign ownership.
What if the Tories took a lesson from the Chief and realized that moving
left might be the only way to win? As philosopher and vice-regal consort
John Ralston Saul points out in Reflections of a Siamese Twin, "No
Canadian government has ever been defeated in a general election by a party running
to its right." This principle, he emphasizes, is as true of Conservative
governments as it is of Liberal ones. Besides, with Paul Martin poised to
make the Liberals the party of the centre-right, and Stephen Harper
already guiding the cuckoo-right, there isn't much wiggle room left.
And here's where we get to the really fun part. What if the Tories
abandoned their opportunistic attempts to woo the Alliance and instead began
courting the NDP? The NDP displayed a new hunger for success in electing the
charismatic Jack Layton as its leader. Neither party is a legitimate
government-in-waiting on its own. And they may occupy more common ground
than it first appears, particularly if Orchard's resurgent brand of
conservatism is more rooted in popular sentiment than it gets credit for.
His anti-globalization and environmentalism are natural matches with the
NDP. Orchard and Layton are also the only two men in Canada still trying to
make the moustache work.
But even the too-young-to-shave MacKay's more obviously conservative
proposals have some overlap with the New Democrats. Reformingparliamentary
and election procedures could be a place for Layton and MacKay to begin
talking. Add dedication to health care, national unity and education and
voilĂ : we're starting to hammer out a platform.
But even more intriguing is the fact that their merger would create a party
with a big enough tent to cover the spectrum of Canadian opinion, from the
left to the centre-right. Just the type of pragmatic, broad-based partythat
wins elections.
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