The Ford phenomenon
IF ‘MODERATE’ CONSERVATIVES WANT TO RESCUE US FROM THE ‘HARD RIGHT,’ THEY NEED CANDIDATES WHO DON’T SOUND LIKE KATHLEEN WYNNE IN A BLUE SWEATER
Well, well, well. So it’ s Doug Ford leading the Ontario PCs and very likely the province as well. After Donald Trump, Brexit etc. who saw this one coming? Who saw that an elite that could not control spending or smugness might repel actual people? Time to smell the over- brewed, bitter coffee, folks. Because until you offer better choices, it’s going to keep happening.
Months ago, I clipped an opinion column, “How to rescue Canadian conservatism from the hard right,” that claimed: “The more vacant the centre becomes, the more space there is for it to be filled by socially progressive, fiscally responsible centre-right leaders.” I’ve been pondering a response but I think the Ontario PC membership just answered it for me.
Some commentators claim the PCs took a foolish risk instead of the “safe” choice of a self-satisfied Red Tory insider. But offered a repeat of the party’s triumphs under Ernie Eves, John Tory and Tim Hudak, I say again: Smell the coffee. Doug Ford didn’t win despite Establishment hostility. Like Donald Trump, he won because of it. Even Patrick Brown, though he had cunning plans to campaign for premier as a bright red Tory centrist, ran for the leadership as a socially conservative outsider.
The rescue-from-thehard- right piece was by a self- proclaimed “moderate member of the Conservative Party of Canada” chortling prematurely over the demise of Ezra Levant’s Rebel Media. And his argument was that “Since John Diefenbaker, the conservative tradition in Canada has always stood for three primary things: emphasis on the rights of the individual; a commitment to sound economic management … and a celebration of Canada’s history as a country created and made better by immigration.”
I’m all for the rights of the individual, including free speech and free association. But it is not clear how this fabled “hard right” sweeping Canadian conservatism off its feet favours collectivism. I’m also in favour of sound economic management. But again it’s not obvious that the hard right opposes it, unlike the “moderate right” that can’t find a thing to cut in a $ 338- billion federal or $ 144- billion provincial budget both marinated in red ink.
As for immigration, the question is not whether we “favour” it or don’t. It is how much we favour, given concerns that what makes Can- ada “Canada” are cultural traditions that would rapidly be overwhelmed if, say, we set annual i mmigration quotas at 10 per cent of current population. ( Conservatives like myself who consider what was once called “conservation” a key part of our philosophy are also uneasy with neoliberal enthusiasm for tripling our population or whatever the plan is.)
Yes, you can argue that there is anger as well as despair in voters’ embrace of impolite populism. But you can’t argue that the movement that exploits, or at least benefits from, these feelings also created them. Someone else did that bit. And if the bien-pensant want to save conservatism from “hard- right” vulgar persons displeasing to urban sophisticates, here are four things they need to do.
One, check your condescension at the door. Two, develop a plan to stop runaway social spending from bankrupting governments and taxpayers. Three, start taking culture seriously including backing away from the militant feminist attack on Western tradition. Fourth, challenge bad climatechange science. (Fifth, if you need some smelling salts before continuing the conversation, visit a pharmacy.)
Was Doug Ford my ideal candidate? Of course not. I’m too prickly to have one, including myself. I would have preferred someone more libertarian on policy and more conservative on metaphysics. Ford seems to have no more idea what government should stop doing than Christine Elliott, who after nine years at Queen’s Park had none. Or Caroline Mulroney. Even Tanya Granic Allen, whose strong showing was another rebuke to elite “all social questions are settled in favour of the Rocky Horror Picture Show” attitudes, only seemed keen to cut a few specific, fiscally insignificant things like radical sex ed.
Ford can also be ill- mannered, blustery and factually sloppy. But if carelessness about truth makes a person unfit for polite company, Mr. Trudeau must go, too. ( Just as Donald Trump is prone to vainglorious whoppers, but after Barack Obama claimed there were 57 states and if you liked your health- care plan you could keep it, fainting at his successor’s supposed invention of the lie is pretentious as well as absurd. Not to mention Bill Clinton.) Ford’s no- nonsense attitude might make him teachable on key policy issues. Besides, what was the alternative?
So put this in your mug, hold your nose, and drink it: If “moderate” conservatives want to rescue us from the sausage- fingered boorish “hard right” they need to put forward candidates who don’t sound like Kathleen Wynne in a blue sweater. Until then, be ready for shocker after shocker you never saw coming.