When I thought of pulling Canada closer to Conservatism, I immediately thought of the Death Star pulling the Millenium falcon into its grasp in the first Star Wars' movie. Thats how scary these guys are, Ontario learned its lesson, in chaos. Total choas, and destruction of public health, and education. Ontarians were so afraid of these neo-cons they drove the progressive John Tory out of his seat last election.
Then I realized that Stephen Harper was actually describing liberal (some would say neo-liberal) economic policies. In terms of fiscal responsibility. He just totally got it wrong in calling liberal fiscal policies conservative.
The fiscal argument that Canada is more conservative, is silly. Its a semantic debate, if we look at this history of Canada, I specifically remember Sir Wilfred Laurier losing the 1911 election because he wanted reciprocity with the Americans. Because the Conservatives were afraid Canada would be taken over by the Americans. This played well in Ontario.
Selective historical memory plagues Canadians. Free Trade is a far from Conservative idea, in history, Liberals in Canada, all shades of Europeans have endorsed free trade. Claiming small "c" Conservatism in the free market is interesting as well, Liberals were the first to do so in Canada.
But lets be honest, socially, we are much more liberal, Canadians have rights, and by Canadians I mean all Canadians. Not just white males, and people who want to control others. I don't think a majority of Canadians want to take away the status of women office, or the charter court challenges program. Oh crap, the Media has selective memory on that.
1 comment:
Unfortunately the Conservatives are liberal in the real sense, the traditional sense. Conservatives believe in free trade, free markets, strong property rights, and that people should keep the money they earn. Big L liberals on the other hand are no longer 'liberal' in the real sense. They no longer believe in individual rights, but rather prefer fascist and communist 'group rights' ideas which empower individuals with special rights (de facto discrimination) based on their belonging to protected groups such as Islam or homosexuals. They that speech should be controlled by the state because some opinions are too socially dangerous and should be prohibited by the intellectual and moral authority of bureaucrats. Conservatives believe one should not be discriminated based on your skin color, gender or sexual behaviour such as being given prefernce in employment because you happen to belong to one of these groups. Conservatives also believe that freedom of opinion and consciounce, as horrible as some opinions may sound to others, are the basis of democracy and should be protected. Now that is liberal in the real sense of the word.
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