Big-tent Toryism replaced by U.S. populism

Dear Editor:

Conservatives say a virtual parliament doesn’t allow the robust cut and thrust of parliamentary debate.

As we saw, a virtual parliament doesn’t lend itself to heckling cat-calling and yelling across the aisle; which has become a favourite Conservative sport in order to create political theatre for manufactured partisan YouTube-clips to be posted online.

Attacks against anonymous elites, the liberal media or established Canadian tradition and institutions now emanate from the current crop of Conservatives, who represent a strange mix.

Some are anti-gun control, others antiLGBTQ rights or openly xenophobic; while others are cold war warriors.

Still others push for closer ties with America; advocating a kind of American-led continental republicanism and seem willing to sacrifice aspects of Canada’s sovereignty in order to appease our southern neighbour.

As an older Canadian, I remember scenes of MPs walking across the House floor to shake hands in congratulation or support; members like NDP stalwarts Stanley Knowles and Ed Broadbent and Progressive Conservative leaders like Robert Stanfield and Brian Mulroney.

But since western Reform conservatives took over the Progressive Conservative party machinery, the long tradition and history of Canada’s (big tent) Red Toryism was diluted out of existence; replaced with right-wing populism that shrinks government, placing profit over people.

A distrust of science that inconveniently contradicts political imperatives and an intolerance toward Canada’s progressive social nature unfortunately for us, has over time transformed Canada’s conservative tradition and its Conservative Party into a Canadianized version of the American Republican party — a legacy of the Stephen Harper era.

Jon Peter Christoff, West Kelowna