Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government have hit a brick wall in terms of capturing the imagination and support of Canadians.
It defies all common sense, but two years of solid governance, economic growth and billions of dollars in tax cuts for Canadian families have brought the Conservatives no closer to a majority than on Election Day 2006.
That fact is particularly disturbing since the Liberal Party has devolved into a dysfunctional, listless entity with a hapless leader whose approval ratings are usually in free fall. Canadians know it and polls repeatedly show that they don’t want Stephane Dion to be their prime minister, so why can’t the Conservatives break away from a statistical dead heat with the Liberals?
A recent Ipsos-Reid poll gives the Liberals a slight (not statistically significant) edge over the Conservatives (35 per cent to 33 per cent) on a national level, and that minute difference is primarily due to a massive 23 point drop in support for the Conservative party in Alberta, the very anchor and foundation for all things Conservative in Canada. Some pundits have attributed the drop to the “Stelmach Effect,” where anger at provincial Conservatives is exerting a similar impact on the federal party.
There is an increasingly negative perception of Premier Ed Stelmach’s competency to lead Alberta, and his decision to make a cash grab from oil and gas revenues has ticked off the investors and corporations that have long been the foundation of support for Conservative governments in this province.
It could be that. But I’m increasingly convinced the federal Conservative Party has gone as far as it can amidst an essentially small “l” liberal Canadian culture that it has been raised on, and is now dependent on, liberal ideals like the Nanny State.
In other words, big “C” Conservatives may have made a significant impact on Canada’s political landscape, but small “c” conservative ideas have yet to impact Canadian culture.
Decades of Liberal governments have accustomed Canadians to the notion that government should solve their economic, social, legal and even family problems.
We call on the government to take action if the dollar goes up or down, if medical wait lists are too long, if we feel discriminated against because a church won’t marry us or if we can’t get divorced fast enough or if university tuition fees are prohibitive.
Politicians willingly respond with more rules and more regulations.
All that noble nonsense about John F. Kennedy asking Americans to consider “not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” would never fly here.
In contrast, in a small “c” conservative culture, Canadians would call on the government to get out of the way and leave individuals to come up with their own solutions to their own problems.
That ideal hasn’t yet penetrated Canadian culture, but there are signs of hope.
Frustration with government inaction has led us to look outside the typical health-care box to private health-care facilities.
We’ve yet to reach this tipping point in other issues, but at least we’ve proven we don’t need to rely on government to successfully resolve our problems.
A key problem is that the ‘conservative’ label has gone through the wash so many times (especially over the past two decades with the decline of the Progressive Conservative Party and the emergence of the Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance and the new Conservative Party) that it is barely recognizable.
Canadians have yet to be presented with a concrete vision of conservatism and what Canada could become under its governance.
So it’s up to conservatives to define themselves; and until they agree on, and champion, a common set of conservative principles that will influence Canadian culture, Canadians will continue to be fickle in their political support and to focus on personalities instead of principles.
Liberal expectations will rule in our culture and the Conservative Party will always have a limited appeal to Canadians.
When the very foundation of Conservative support is eroding so rapidly, it’s obvious that the public’s primary understanding of conservatism is limited to what the Conservative Party will do for them when elected and is strongly influenced by the media, whose negative message about conservatism is more rooted in the personalities of George Bush, Stelmach and Harper than in any principle.
All this may sound like idle rhetoric. But the ideologies that control the culture also control the politics.
Until Canadians understand the benefits of conservatism and supports its principles, Stephen Harper and Co. are reliant on the whims of fickle voters. As polls have shown, that doesn’t amount to much.
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