Conservatives of the World Unite!

Sovereignty is overrated, it's time to create a giant North American right-wing government.

In an excerpt of his new book on Canadian conservatism reprinted in the National Post, Senator Hugh Segal makes the case for creating what he calls a North American Community, an EU-style merger of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico complete with its own parliament. He believes that sovereignty is not an end unto itself but a means to promote our freedoms, and at this point those freedoms are best pursued within a North American framework. Forming an NAC would, among other things, “[increase] social justice and economic development” he says. Segal’s suggestion (which is of course merely a pipe dream) comes at an interesting time. On the one hand Stephen Harper is currently negotiating increased border harmonization with the U.S., but on the other the U.S. is suffering crushing debt and Mexico looks increasingly like a narco-state, and as such greater union with both countries seems an unlikely way to ensure economic prosperity or social justice.

John Geddes at Maclean’s isn’t sure he sees the point of creating an NAC, but is “misty-eyed with nostalgia” at the thought of returning to the days when conservatives presented big-picture ideas like that. “Consider only the old-school assumption that such an ambitious, informative, debate-provoking [policy idea] might be generated,” he writes. “The Harper government hasn’t bothered to produce anything of the sort even on policy files where its activist agenda clearly calls for one.”

Sun Media’s Brian Lilley is aghast at the proposal, especially because it seems at such cross-purposes to Segal’s beloved conservative values like the ideal of small government. “Where Segal sees opportunity for unencumbered trade flows and economies of scale,” he writes, “I see the potential for government moving further away from the people and being overtaken by a massive bureaucracy. Just like in Europe.” Since the creation of the EU, the Brussels government has enacted all kinds of “crazy rules” like mandating only straight bananas can be sold in Europe and has even attempted to limit the amount of cleavage bartenders can show. Now that is scary.