SHUNNING ‘ THE CHIEF’
Harper’s attitude to minorities would have appalled Diefenbaker
If Canadian politics is not broken, as the CBC frames the question, then it certainly is seriously bent. For one thing, we are desperately short one centre- right political movement. The Progressive Conservative party of Diefenbaker, Stanfield, Mulroney, Clark, Wilson et al is dead and gone. Rarely has its absence been more keenly felt than now, in this oddest of pre- election seasons.
It will not be lost on anyone who watches Canadian politics that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is preternaturally fond of the legacy of John G. Diefenbaker, or seems to be. He peppers his speeches with references to him, for reasons that seem obvious. Dief ( 1957- 63) was the dominant Conservative leader of the mid20th century and the only Tory prime minister of stature in living memory, except, of course, for Brian Mulroney ( 1984- 93).
The relationship between Mulroney and Harper was always complex, in that the latter’s Reform Party arose in the late 1980s in opposition to the former’s Quebec- inflected brand of Progressive Conservatism, as much as to Liberalism. This tension deepened greatly in 2007 when Harper cut ties with his predecessor over the Karlheinz Schreiber affair. Mulroney latterly has been pointedly critical of some Harper government actions, including its feuding with the Supreme Court of Canada, and publicly kind to Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, from which politicos will draw their own conclusions.
All this to say that, for reasons philosophical and personal, Harper has not set himself in a historical lineage that includes Mulroney. But here’s the twist: in important respects, Mulroney and Diefenbaker Conservatism are the same, whereas Harper Conservatism is different. The most obvious difference, much in the news of late, is in these three men’s attitudes toward minorities.
For Diefenbaker, upholding minority rights was a life’s work. It came to fruition in his Bill of Rights, enacted as a federal statute — though not a constitutional amendment — in 1960, with explicit protections from discrimination based on race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, and protections for freedom of religion, speech and the press.
In his speech to the House of Commons of June 30, 1960 ( https:// www. collectionscanada. gc. ca/ primeministers/ h4- 4052- e. html), Diefenbaker stressed he believed the work of the Bill of Rights, though important, was not complete. “I want to make it clear that we would favour any measure that would increase or extend the effectiveness of a Canadian bill of rights when and if agreement can be reached with all the provinces,” he said. “We would certainly sympathetically consider the suggestion of making it part of the Constitution when the provinces agree.”
They did eventually agree to make it part of the Constitution, in 1982, with the advent of Pierre Trudeau’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, essentially a more robust version of Diefenbaker’s idea. This is the same Charter, of course, of which the Harper Tories have repeatedly run afoul, on issues ranging from prostitu- tion to assisted death, which they declined to celebrate on its 30th anniversary and which they seem to view as, at best, a nuisance.
It is impossible to imagine Diefenbaker, whose belief in minority rights was by all accounts deeply personal and sincere, saying “that’s not how we do things here,” about a Muslim Canadian woman’s choice to wear a veil, let alone standing mute after his backbenchers made racist or anti- immigrant remarks, as two of Harper’s MPs have done recently.
It is not coincidental, probably, that Mulroney was a longtime follower of Diefenbaker, and the former was also an ardent pluralist, who led the Commonwealth in the mid- 1980s in opposing South African apartheid and was recognized for this by Nelson Mandela on his release from prison.
This is not to suggest, to be clear, a hypothetical Harper government of the day would necessarily have fallen into line with Britain’s Margaret Thatcher or the U. S.’ s Ronald Reagan, neither of whom had any time for Mulroney’s advocacy against apartheid.
But it is to suggest in his approach to a variety of issues — whether it be Quebec’s place in Canada, the environment, justice or democratic pluralism — Mulroney was progressive. That is how he managed to cobble together a coalition of Quebec soft nationalists, Ontario commonsense progressives and Western conservatives, in two decisive majority victories ( 1984, 1988).
It is possible, I grant, that Canada has moved so sharply to the right since the 1980s that Mulroney- style progressive conservatism is anachronistic. But if that were true, would the Liberals and Dippers be edging as they have been into Red Tory territory, seeking to win Ontario votes?
The combination of free markets, fiscal conservatism and social idealism remains deeply appealing to many Canadians. It’s more than passing strange that Harper has so deliberately marched his party away from what remained of its progressive antecedents, now of all times. It’s almost as though, after 10 years of “incremental” conservatism, he has just had enough of that.