A working class hero’s a good thing to be

I’ve told my caucus repeatedly, if you make conservatism relevant to ordinary working people, you make the most powerful political philosophy in Western democratic society,” Mr. Harper said, looking relaxed and speaking candidly in his hotel room during a campaign stop in Ontario’s cottage country. “Where Conservative parties are successful, and successful on a sustained basis, that’s what they do.”

Mr. Harper noted that the working class, particularly in provinces like British Columbia, tended to move away from his party in 2004.

“Not that we lost it all last time, but it rolled back. That surprised me a bit because that’s obviously the element I’m from and I don’t think we’d done anything terribly different,” said Mr. Harper, whose father was an accountant.
globe and mail

Andrew Coyne calls this “a realignment” and, from his perspective it may be; but while I hitchhiked up and down Galiano Island I got a lot of rides from “the working class”. Basically old hippies who turned their hand to carpentry or plumbing in order to follow their dreams on Galiano.

While many of these folks smoked pot, hugged the trees they were not chainsawing for fire wood and thought gay marriage was just fine; they had zero interest in having the government intervene in their lives or take their money. They made this stick with everything from small pot plantations to a thriving, and entirely untaxed, wine and beer industry through to a strong preference for cash rather than cheque transactions. It was not that they were so much anti-government as they were keen to be simply left alone.

The old style socialist, “government is good”, nanny statism of the NDP and, increasingly, the Liberals, simply was beside their point. Pace Kevin Brennan who suggests,

I don’t see any party actively making the case that Canadian federalism is a good thing, and that the federal government should be actively doing stuff–even though a very substantial number of Canadians believe it.
tilting at windmills

The number of people who see government as the solution rather than as the problem is dwindling and dwindling fast.

The only groups who might embrace a message of bigger better government are a certain sort of urban unionist yuppie and the only reason why they would is that they would stand to personally benefit. Herein the great cleavage in the NDP between the actual working class and the psuedo working class of teachers, social workers and unionized civil servants.

The old working class, the working class of the IWA and the UAW, made things. Real things like lumber and cars. When sales went up and profits went up they felt themselves entitled to a piece of the pie they were helping to make. The bargaining was tough, the strikes intense; but labour and capital knew that they had to keep the business alive to make their money.

The new working class knows that its money comes from holding the taxpayer to ransom. And those taxpayers include a great number of the old working class.

It is not in the least surprising that the old working class, the guys pounding nails in civil servants’ island getaway homes which they could never afford, are less than impressed with the Liberals or the NDP. The last thing they want is endless taxes, endless debt and money being poured into social programs their kids are never going to have a chance to get into.

So they are going to vote for Harper and no one should be in the least surprised.

Written by jay on January 17th, 2006 with 27 comments.
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