It’s only been a decade, but the conservative way is redefining us
By: Lawrence Martin
Last week’s issuance of the Harper government’s new citizenship guide came as a fitting capper to the first decade of the new century. With its emphasis on the military, law and order, the monarchy, with expressed limits on cultural tolerance, this was a document that affirmed Canada’s new conservative way.
Rarely, if ever, have the Tories had it so good. For the Liberals, the past decade has been the lost decade. For the Conservatives, it’s been gold. Trends of all sorts are working for them – political, demographic, media, geographic.
Canada has had an image as a liberal Eden since Thomas Edison did his light-bulb thing. The image is not yet undone. One need only look at the big-spending, deficit-building spree of today’s government. But the old conception of Canada is at risk, threatened by an emerging conservative consensus that no one 10 years ago could have foreseen.
Under Jean Chrétien, the Liberal fortress looked impregnable. But starting off the new millennium came the trauma of 9/11. It shifted the political spectrum rightward. It led to the war in Afghanistan, to a redefinition of Canada’s military role, to a glorification of the armed services and men such as Rick Hillier whose agenda was to get out there and kill, as the general put it, all those “scumbags.”
The backdrop eased the way for Stephen Harper’s government to reshape Canadian foreign policy away from the soft-power Liberal inclinations of the previous half-century. Our old voice of moderation – on the Suez crisis, on Vietnam, the arms race, the Cold War, on peacekeeping – is no longer much in evidence. And Canadians don’t seem to mind…[more]
