Jonathan Kay: My secret recipe for a Conservative leader who can win
I hate writing these Here’s-What-the-Conservative-Party-Needs pieces because it’s a well-worn genre, and every specimen tends to circle back predictably to the author’s own parochial interests. But someone’s got to step in to save the current leadership campaign from its descent into farce. This week’s video ad from Peter MacKay — a hyperactive light show that looked like it’d been created by Spaceship Guy from the Lego movies — came off as a particularly loud cry for help. The same is true of MacKay’s slogans, apparently programmed by a sentence-generating app locked in on Tautology mode: “Canada is free because Canadians keep it free,” “Canada is strong because Canadians make it strong,” and “I am proud because Canadians make me proud.”
MacKay has a reputation as a smart and conscientious politician. But the epileptic’s nightmare he’s spamming Canada with shows how hard it’s become for a Conservative to speak in anything except the blandest generalities. Canadians now inhabit a skewed social-media-dominated cultural and political space that stigmatizes not only conservative opinions, but even widely held centrist views that have been branded as wrongthink.
These include, inter alia, in no particular order:
- that responsible policy-makers must set limits on the flow of immigrants and refugees into Canada, and that reasonable people can disagree about what those limits should be;
- that Canada needs a military with the capability to wage war against enemies, not just perform search and rescue missions, domestic crisis management, and foreign nation-building;
- that it is perfectly reasonable for politicians and other public figures to discuss the same kind of national abortion regulations that exist in literally every other developed country on the face of the planet;
- that there are real biological differences between men and women that cannot always be addressed responsibly through a policy of anything-goes gender self-identification;
- that free speech and due process are bedrock values of any truly democratic society, and must be protected even when short-term results fly in the face of other desirable goals, including social justice;
- that we will never truly be able to help rectify Canada’s appalling treatment of Indigenous peoples if we pretend that every point of disagreement can be addressed by spending more money, offering more apologies or devolving more powers;
- that the economic and infrastructural dictates of energy production and distribution require a co-ordinated national strategy that occasionally may override locally expressed opposition;
- that excessive inter-regional cash transfers can undermine our national cohesion and incentivize the continuation of failed regional economies;
- that our system of publicly subsidized media — including the CBC — must be overhauled in a way that bridges the enormous disconnect between the cultural attitudes of ordinary taxpayers and the increasingly cloistered and ideologically cultish creative class that serves as the system’s rentiers;
- that all forms of dangerous extremism must be viewed with equal concern and countered with the necessary measures — whether it’s Islamist terrorism, murderous white supremacist hatemongering, or Antifa street violence;
- that Canada is a successful and prosperous country with a proud history, and that our necessary remembrance of past cruelties should not prevent our public institutions from celebrating our traditions;
- that the job of our prime minister is not to act as public scold, activist mascot, toxic-masculinity self-flagellant, or moral arbiter in matters of private behaviour, but rather to manage affairs of state.
These are my own views, of course. But I like to think that I’m also speaking for that great swathe of Canadians who have existed all of their lives as centrists, or even leftists, but now find themselves denounced as alt-right heretics because they dared to speak aloud one of the above-listed beliefs. The only politician I’ll be excited to support in the next election will be the one (of whatever party) who isn’t afraid to say such things aloud.
That didn’t include Andrew Scheer, who lost the election in part because he couldn’t decide if he was a truth-teller or a bromide peddler. On some issues (though admittedly not all), he got lost betwixt and between, and fell back on a default strategy of vacuous anti-Liberal sloganeering. This was often a turn-off. There are plenty of us, me included, who think Trudeau actually got many of the big issues right (including the biggest: handling Donald Trump and the existential threat to the Canadian economy posed by U.S. protectionism), even if we suspect a Conservative government could do better.
Several of the candidates in this leadership race — including MacKay — are old enough to have passed through the Canadian conservative realignment of the late 1990s and early 2000s. They need to remember that many of the leading issues from that period are dead, and that conservatives and liberals are, in substance, actually much closer than they were in the era of Jean Chrétien and Preston Manning. None of the young Canadian conservatives I meet these days opposes gay marriage. Few look to the U.S. economy as a model for our own, seek to tear down our highly regulated banking oligopoly (which saved us from the 2008 mortgage meltdown), substantially undercut our universal health-care system, starve our welfare state, or bring back capital punishment. If it’s important to make lists of truths that need telling, it’s also important to tick off policy areas that will simply turn people off.
Perhaps the biggest difference now is that many conservatives have come to take global warming seriously, and have little time for the outright denialism that was still common currency when MacKay was a 30-something Atlantic Canadian wunderkid. Which means that a Conservative leader has to offer something more than putdowns of Liberal/NDP carbon-abatement models.
Fortunately, there’s a window of opportunity. Few voters, even among the (suburban) left, are excited to vote for more taxes and higher prices. But they will take a generous view to investments in technology that allow them to keep their cars powered and homes heated using zero-emission fuels. I happen to be a big fan of nuclear, wind, solar and even micro hydro. But whatever the wattage mix we end up with, the larger point is: build green capacity up instead of taxing the economy down.
And one more thing: stop spending your money on earnest, humourless video segments targeted at people with 15-second attention spans. They reek of focus groups, and make you look old and out of touch — even if your young assistant is circulating them on all the latest interwebs. Get yourself campaign advisers who watch, and listen to, Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Rachel Maddow, Trevor Noah, Joe Rogan, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and, yes, Jordan Peterson. Don’t let anyone into the room who doesn’t make you laugh at least once per day. The data show that your voting audience will binge-consume endless hours of challenging content if it’s clever, sharp, sincere and principled. But Canadians won’t spare a second for anything that comes off as institutional propaganda, no matter how many times you flash your coloured lights and scream “spaceship!”
nationalpost.com/opinion/jonathan-kay-my-secret-recipe-for-a-conservative-leader-who-can-win
Sadly the Conservative party might do better with redneck Tanya Granic Allen than with RED TORY Peter McKay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At least Granic Allen has FIRMLY HELD VALUES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As a Red Tory - McKay is TOO WISHY WASHY to be a strong contender for PM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
McKay may win simply because LIE-berals have offended so many Cdns...............................
but a McKay win will be more of a loss for LIE-berals than a win for Conservatives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A Conservative win will require a leader who SCORNS BACK ROOM DEALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A leader who SCORNS sucking up to special interest groups!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A leader who realizes that debt is a ECONOMY KILLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A leader who wants to put THUGS IN JAIL - for lengthy sentences!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A leader who wants to DEPORT illegals and foreign born criminals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A leader who will enforce the HONEST INTERPRETATION of rules on refugees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A leader who will restore sanity to our immigration courts and reduce the amount of stalling and time wasting that curently prevails!!!!!
Brian Mulroney was the ULTIMATE RED TORY and his LIE-beral Lite policies DESTROYED HIS PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LIE-berals Paul Martin, Stephan Dion and Michael Ignatieff all tried to distance themselves from Chretien LIE-beral values...............
and Martin, Dion and Ignatieff FAILED MISERABLY with their effort to become RED TORIES - rather than LIE-berals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The next SUCCESSFUL Conservative Pm will be a person of STRONG, LOGICAL VALUES............................
firmly held and staunchly defended and thus supported by the majority of Cdns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The successful Pm will follow the three F`s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Meaning "firm, fair and frugal" - in no particular order of preference!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And in related news - Ontari-owe teacher HOGS have now begun talking of "BENEFITS" with Ford govt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AS I have mentioned before - there are HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS worth of LIE-beral promised pension IOU`s.........
to our 4 levels of govt HOGS - and the HOGS ARE FRANTIC TO COLLECT.......................................
before the Cdn economy is crippled by the LIE-beral mandated FACE PLANT INTO THE DEBT WALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The LIE-beral credit cards are going to be MAXXED OUT AND CUT OFF one day soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The TRUE AMOUNT of pension promises made by LIE-berals in exchange for HOG SUPPORT may never be known!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cdn LIE-beral loving media whores STOPPED REPORTING on the soaring debt charges on those unpaid IOU`s IN 2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And Ontari-owe LIE-beral Wynne-bag GOT CAUGHT LYING about those debts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And federal LIE-beral finance minister Morneau HAS ALREADY BEEN WARNED NOT to LIE -Wynne-bag style - about the debts!!!!!!!
The LAST REPORTS WE HAD in 2012 reported OVER THREE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS OWED to federal HOGS ALONE!!!!
That same year we were told that OSSTF - Our Ontari-owe high school teachers held IOU`s .................................
that - with interest charges - would REACH FIFTY FIVE BILLION DOLLARS by June 2018!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is strong reason to suspect that HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS MORE LIE-beral IOU`s are held
by the other EIGHTEEN ONTARI-OWE HOG UNIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And hundreds of BILLIONS MORE IOU`s held by municipal union HOGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And even MORE HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS IN IOU`s held by our Crown Corporations such as....................................
Ornge, E-health, Metrolinx, the hospitals and the colleges and the universities as all of them HOLD LIE-beral IOU`s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just like OSSTF HOGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Platitudes - no matter HOW ROSY - will not produce strong, useful govt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rob nd Doug Ford and Jason Kenney have shown the winning formula!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now our future is in the hands of Conservative candidates who will choose between Red Tories and strong leaders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
