Canada's Social Conservative Revolution?

[Zarquon]

Story (http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/03/19/harper%E2%80%99s-hard-right-turn/)
Sounds like utter rubbish to me, given only one right-wing advocacy group's study was cited, and vile, irresponsible policies were lauded, and the article does not even pretend o be objective.
Still, is any of this true, Michael?
And that fool, David Brooks, is selling facetious nonsense (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/opinion/19brooks.html) yet again.

[Donkey]

Conservatives don't have revolutions, they have reactions.


*grumble grumble grumble*

[Michael]

Story (http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/03/19/harper%E2%80%99s-hard-right-turn/)
Sounds like utter rubbish to me, given only one right-wing advocacy group's study was cited, and vile, irresponsible policies were lauded, and the article does not even pretend o be objective.
Still, is any of this true, Michael?
The author is a longtime rightwing hack. :shrug:

It is perhaps surprising to most people to find that much of Canada's private media (tv, radio, newspapers) are owned by the same kind of rightwing-conservative media moguls that own the media in the USA. Izzy Asper's Can-West-Global empire as well as the Eaton-Bassett family Baton Broadcasting empires and Ted Rogers' Media empire (MacLean's) are all old family controled corporations and solidly conservative and always have been. The only two large private media groups that are not conservative-slanted are the Toronto Star newspaper group and the massive Thompson Media Group (Globe & Mail, et al, owned by the third Lord Thompson of Fleet, Canada's only legal and private held title - quite a remarkable fellow he is!).

Only the Globe & Mail has any kind of reputation for independent integrity of politics. The CBC has a famous liberal bias (only because everyone who works there is a liberal) but they are pretty honest and balanced in coverage. Everything else in English Canadian media has a rightwing slant, just like in the USA. Quebec-French media is totally different and definitely much more leftwing entirely.

Anyway, this kind of pro-conservative puff-piece in the mainstream English media is very common stuff up here. The private media tends to flatter those in power.

From a pure political perspective, the ONLY way the conservatives have had the success that they have had is by avoiding all social conservative issues and campaigning entirely on fiscal/government/trust issues. Canadian public opinion is still a solid majority liberal country, our legal same-sex marriage and abortion laws are in no danger whatsoever. These are considered dangerous topics for the Conservative party (electoral suicide) and there is no sign of any change here - except the fact that Harper has become a bit more publicly open about admitting the fact that he is an evangelical 'born again' Christian.

As I've stated a few times, the present electoral strength of Harper and the Conservative party is entirely a function of the leadership problems of the Liberal party. So long as the Liberal party has a weak leader (first Dion, now Ignatieff), Harper gets a free pass.

One must keep in mind that it was this same dynamic in reverse that kept Jean Chretien's Liberals in office for ten years while the Conservatives had all kinds of leadership problems.

It is the one key characteristic of the British-Canadian parliamentary system is that the leader of the winning party automatically becomes the Prime Minister. So if the people don't like the leader, the people won't vote the party into a majority - even if they traditionally prefer to support that party.

Canadian federal elections are always won/lost based on the quality of the leaders alone, one on one between the Liberal and the Conservative party. That's it, that's all. Whoever has the better quality or more popular leader wins.

And yes, Canadian politics is as diverse as US politics in the extremes. :)

And that fool, David Brooks, is selling facetious nonsense (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/opinion/19brooks.html) yet again.
Brooks is an idiot. He worships 'centerism' and 'bipartisanship' as long as it mirrors the Eisenhower-era 1950's political 'center'.

[Zarquon]

It is the one key characteristic of the British-Canadian parliamentary system is that the leader of the winning party automatically becomes the Prime Minister. So if the people don't like the leader, the people won't vote the party into a majority - even if they traditionally prefer to support that party.

Canadian federal elections are always won/lost based on the quality of the leaders alone, one on one between the Liberal and the Conservative party. That's it, that's all. Whoever has the better quality or more popular leader wins.
Unlike India, where nobody knows who'll be PM until after the horse-trading has been done to form a majority (Except the latest election in which we knew both candidates from the beginning).
I thought it was the best feature of the parliamentary democracy that the leader could be changed at any stage; how come the party-leader/PM isn't changed by the members after attaining a majority? the govt. is sworn in afresh after all, isn't it?

[Michael]

Unlike India, where nobody knows who'll be PM until after the horse-trading has been done to form a majority (Except the latest election in which we knew both candidates from the beginning).
I thought it was the best feature of the parliamentary democracy that the leader could be changed at any stage; how come the party-leader/PM isn't changed by the members after attaining a majority? the govt. is sworn in afresh after all, isn't it?
Yes, the best feature is that the leader can be changed. But the media over here has ruined that - they object vehmently when that procedure is used. They prefer long dragged out affairs that they talk about for six months and where the media themselves becomes part of the process.

Full party convention votes are just as corrupt as private caucus votes so I don't see why anyone thinks there is any kind of improvement.

Fact is, the parties can use a half-dozen different techniques to dump/replace a leader and can switch back and forth between various techniques. And the Liberals won't do that until after Igantieff loses the next election. They won't do it before hand because they don't seem to realize that Ignatieff will never win an election and is the reason they are trailing in the polls.

Given the ham-handed Harper Government making countless stupid moves and acting extremely arrogantly, it takes a really shitty Liberal Leader for the Liberals to NOT be in the lead in the polls. Harper is serving up fat lobs across the plate and the Liberal Leader doesn't even seem to notice. Liberals should be cake-walking into power here since Harper is marching down GWBush lane and alienating just about everyone with his hyper-partisan politics, crony-loving policies, tax cuts and massive sky-rocketing deficits.