Jay Currie

But Canadian conservatives—or liberals—shouldn’t be under any pressure to move to the centre to save themselves from anything. There are progressive conservatives—Red Tories—who are probably down with the direction things are taking. Power to them, but let the party be what it was created to be: a conservative voice that blends conservative ideologies, but excludes none. They should do what they do, believe what they believe, move on the issues that are important to them.

They need a Margaret Thatcher, not a Tony Blair.
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Dead right. What will be interesting is to see which way Harper jumps. There are, after all, real attractions to being the Brian Mulroney of your generation. And, realistically, there is nothing so badly broken in Canada that a few years of CPC run Liberal government would be the worst thing in the world. It would simply be dull and rather pointless.

For Harper and the CPC business as usual – but better run and scandal free – could be the ticket to anything from a slim majority to an overwhelming victory in a couple of years. But for what?

The argument is that the CPC has moved from the Reform’s populist roots to a more mature, responsible, worthy of trust, brokerage role. Which means that the “consenseus” of the Liberal era will remain intact.

This will leave us with the CRTC, advocacy funding, the Department of Canadian Heritage, Indian Affairs in all its glory, the CBC, official bilingualism, the pleasures of an unreformed (but improved) Canada Health Act, regional economic development and a government which, while it does not grow much, certainly does not shrink. Tax reduction will be incremental, debt reduction will be the work of generations, competitive position will gradually erode, family class immigration will remain a “good idea”: nothing fundamental will change.

Of course, some very fundamental things will and are changing and the steady as she goes policy will become increasingly detached from any larger, global, reality.

Here are three major changes which are in train.

1. Conventional oil reserves are running down if not out at the very same time as world demand for oil is increasing.

2. World fresh water resources are shrinking fast relative to population.

3. The Canadian birthrate is below replacement level.

Blairite, win the next election, thinking (and I have a lot of time for Blair on other fronts) is predicated on ignoring any longer term issues. It insists that management is all which is needed to deal with issues of public policy large or small.

Harper is in the position of the heir to a successful family business: he can go on making the buggy whips or film cameras which made his grandfather and father wealthy men or he can look around and try to devise a plan to make his grandchildren just as wealthy. The old family retainers assure the young man that all is well and the key thing is to make enough of the old reliable products to earn a decent living and keep the pension plan topped up.

The measure of the heir is not, of course, his ability to manage the gentle decline of grandad’s business – by that measure the last generation of Eatons were a success; rather it is is ability to take the company into the new world, his new world, which matters.

Politically, it is always easier to push a few more miles down the middle of the highway hoping to hell that you are going in the right direction, praying that there are no unmarked washouts and trying very hard to ignore the overtaking semi-trailer which does not seem to notice you. But it is rarely right.