Thucydides said:
Rather curious, what sides do Mr Dion, Bob Rae and Micheal Ignattief fit in the Liberal "civil war"
...
Dion and Rae are,
I think, squarely in the Trudeau/Chrétien camp – both by inclination and experience/loyalty.
Ignatieff appears to be a more nuanced person – even after he tosses aside his principles and worships at the alter of
Trudeaumania.
Consider this article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s
Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081006.wcoadams07/BNStory/politics/home
How conservative are Canadians?
MICHAEL ADAMS
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
October 7, 2008 at 1:14 AM EDT
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his team have expressed the desire to move Canada in an incrementally more conservative direction through successive Conservative governments. Although opinions and expectations differ on where exactly Mr. Harper is headed, in anticipating scenarios for the future it's valuable to consider the political orientations of the country he leads today. As of 2008, how conservative are Canadians - and where might they be nudged to the right?
This discussion cannot get far without at least a brief discussion of what we mean by conservatism. There are, of course, fiscal and social strains of conservatism, and adherents of these two strains do not always sit cozily together under a single political tent. Americans have recently been wrestling with their own definitions of conservatism, with a President who sees "liberal" as a dirty word but has presided over an unprecedented government spending blitz.
For the Harper government's purposes, it seems safe to say that conservatism consists, on the fiscal side, in diminishing the size of government and cutting taxes and, on the social side, in taking some steps to promote what it sees as traditionalism and propriety. These latter steps have been halting thus far - like the inconsequential reopening of the same-sex marriage debate in 2006, and efforts to withhold public funds from artists whose work the government deems inappropriate.
Where do Canadians stand on this kind of conservatism? Polling and behavioural data show Canadians to be prudent in their fiscal mindset when it comes to both personal finances and the federal books. Canadians have no interest in shrinking government until, in the words of the American anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, it can be drowned in the bathtub. But nor do they have much taste for profligacy and waste. Mr. Harper's emphasis on restrained spending and a rolling assessment of all federal programs' efficacy and efficiency is likely to appeal to Canadians' fiscal caution, a small-c conservative orientation that is one of this society's most abiding characteristics.
Social and cultural issues are another matter. Public opinion and values research data reveal a population that is socially liberal: secular, tolerant of differences, profoundly committed to social equality. Canadians are proud of the equality measures that have been advanced by their courts and governments in recent decades; in this area, the dominant orientation is liberal. Canadians, moreover, have relatively little appetite for culture wars. So-called ordinary Canadians demonstrated this aversion recently when they declined an invitation to engage in some angry resentment of greedy, effete big-city artists. It isn't clear that Mr. Harper's tactic of attacking artists as separate from real Canadians succeeded in energizing the Conservatives' small-town base, but it is clear that it backfired in Quebec.
Finally, although Canadians believe in the power of markets to advance a range of worthwhile objectives, they display strong faith in government intervention in areas where they believe fundamental issues of fairness are at stake - and they are willing to pay for it. Nine in 10 Canadians believe that social spending should either be maintained at its current level (41 per cent) or increased (50 per cent). Easy to say, but what about when these opinions hit us in the wallet? It is true that a slim majority (55 per cent) believe their tax burden is too high. But the rest believe current tax levels are about right, or, in a few cases, 3 per cent, that taxes should be increased.
Shaving points off the GST and reducing the diesel tax will probably generate warm feelings toward Mr. Harper among Canadians who are feeling hard-pressed, and broader reductions may be welcome in some quarters. But sweeping tax cuts and the drastic shrinking of government are not likely to be the keys to a lasting majority. Despite Canadians' fiscal prudence, they like having a government with plenty of capacity to intervene in areas such as health care, the environment and, these days, potentially salvaging the economy and the jobs and savings of average citizens.
Canadians don't want bloated government, but they do want leadership that is sufficiently well resourced to respond in areas where they believe core values or urgent social and economic imperatives are at stake.
On the whole, then, when it comes to representing conservative principles in a way Canadians are likely to find palatable, Mr. Harper has done an excellent job during this campaign. He has emphasized fiscal prudence and stability, announced new youth crime measures but steered clear of more volatile social issues like abortion, and has proposed tax measures - like the diesel tax cut - that are simple and highly visible to the general public, but not too radical. In other words, finding Canadian attitudes as they are, Mr. Harper has been able to navigate them with considerable savvy in adapting his party's principles to the reality of Canadian public opinion and values.
As to moving those attitudes in a direction he and his caucus might find more in keeping with their own - the Prime Minister himself has acknowledged the gulf between his team and the public at large - that is a much larger challenge. Social change tends to come as a result of broad economic and historical forces, not at the behest of political strategists.
Still, if recent trends in the U.S. and European economies continue, broad economic and historical forces may be coming our way - forces that may put a new premium on compassionate government. Predicting whose political fortunes those forces will ultimately favour is miles beyond any pollster's margin of error.
Michael Adams is president of the Environics group of companies and author of Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Canadian Pluralism
I think Adams is right and
I’m guessing that Michael Ignatieff (like most of us here) falls rather neatly under the centre of his (Adam's) bell curve:
• We are, by and large, fiscal conservatives – we expect the government of the day to manage the economy (our money, after all) in a prudent manner – a large political plus for Stephen Harper.
I'm guessing that, despite his public comments, Ignatieff falls into this camp;
• Equally by and large, but to a lesser degree, we are social liberals – we tend to ‘live and let live’ even when our own personal, private values are offended by the actions of others – a moderate political minus for Harper because many Canadians
suspect that he is a closet social conservative.
I'm certain this (social liberal) view describes Ignatieff; and
• Many, but by no means most of us are wary of the power of markets – many agree that the state can use the market to promote
equality but at least as many believe that
equality can only be advanced by lawful individual actions – a political
wash,
I think: no advantage for anyone.
I'm not sure where Ignatieff sits on this but my
guess would be that he tends to the
individualistic point of view.
Ignatieff used to be a fiscal black hole – he had no discernable interest in economics, nor did he display any strong (published) opinion on those issues. Until, that is, he ran for the Liberal Party of Canada leadership when he proposed to campaign “on the left” in order to regain power. This appeared to many, including many Liberals, to be a cynical attempt to join the
Trudeaumania wing of the Party where, many Liberals felt, he did not belong because of his recent philosophical musings on the use of American power.
For me, the most significant and illuminating thing about Ignatieff is his
biography of Isaiah Berlin. I do not claim to have read everything Ignatieff has written, not even most of it, but I have read some and
Isaiah Berlin is an outstanding piece of work and, again and again, as is so often the case in really first rate biographies, the author’s (Ignatieff’s) views are clear and, like his subject, he makes a resounding defence of
classical liberal values. Those values are decidedly a odds with almost everything for which Trudeau stood. Ignatieffwas not an anti-Trudeau, he was, like most
classical liberals about 90° (rather than 180°) out of phase with him (Trudeau).
Thus,
I’m guessing that Ignatieff is in the St Laurent/Turner/Martin camp – a
traditional Liberal, in other words, with some quite
liberal values.
