Will the Real Conservatives Please Stand Up?

Despite the fear they strike into the hearts of Canadian Liberals, Stephen Harper's Conservatives may not be all that right-wing, at least not by any standard the rest of the world would recognize.

If small government is one of the hallmarks of small “c” conservatism, the Harper administration’s ballooning cabinet size is a sign that the Conservative party is betraying right-wing ideology. That’s one of the lessons you can take from this intelligent column by the Ottawa Citizen’s John Robson. With the positions created by this week’s minor cabinet shuffle, “Canada now has 38 cabinet positions plus 25 parliamentary secretaries to various ministers, so fully 62 members of the 143-member Tory Commons caucus … are in cabinet or its penumbra.” To make matters worse, Robson judges that a good portion of those are incredibly inconsequential positions. ““[S]eriously,” he asks, “what political philosophy justifies keeping a minister of state for sport on the payroll? … Instead of pondering the electoral significance of our new secretary of state for seniors, we should be complaining about having one at all.” His solution? Backbenchers, and plenty of them.

The National Post’s Dan Gardner doesn’t have much patience for the idea that the Harper Tories are ultra-conservatives that are pushing the country hard to the right. For proof that Harper’s policies are firmly rooted in broadly held Canadian values, Gardner says all you have to do is look south of the border. On health care, economics, multiculturalism, and crime, the Republicans are much more conservative, and on “gods, gays, and guns” Gardner judges that “Harper is slightly to the left of Barack Obama on all three.” Despite the accusations from left-wing critics, Gardner says that “spending as much time watching Republicans as I do, it’s hard not to think the Conservatives are looking awfully Canadian these days." His call for some perspective on the Tories’ agenda is refreshing, but the idea that Harper is pushing the country to the right holds at least a bit of weight when you consider that over five years in power, he’s never garnered the support of more than four in 10 Canadians. And because those other six Canadians tend to vote for left-leaning opposition parties, one could conclude that Harper’s government is slightly to the right of the average voter.