Rock and Roll Conservative

The past, present and future of conservatism in Canada

I must hand it to Immanuel Giulea. If you don't first succeed, try again. Immanuel recently tried to launch a conference in Montreal on the status of Canadian conservatism but unfortunately only a few dozen people showed interest. He's decided to host another conference, but this time in Ottawa.

The conference is entitled "The conservative movement at a crossroads: Lessons from the past, directions for the future" and will look back on the last six years and look ahead for next six.

He's got four high profile Canadian conservatives lined up as panel speakers: Gerry Nicholls, John Robson, Joseph C. Ben-Ami and Don Lenihan. Moderating will be Dr. Walter Newell.

It will take place on December 7 from 6:00pm to 9:00pm at the Parliament Pub at 101 Sparks Street (also an entrance on Wellington Street). Tickets are $10 (with appetizers) or $8.50 for students (with appetizers).

For more information and RSVP please contact Immanuel Giulea, Executive Director of Société Macdonald-Cartier Society at macdonaldcartier@gmail.com or 514-577-2669

Poster available here.

People, we may have a Conservative government in power but that doesn't mean that we as a movement can just sit back and enjoy the ride. Participating in the intellectual process to define our movement is something we all have to do. I have a magazine...do you have three hours?

Quel dommage...

A few weeks back I told you about a conference in Montreal on the future of Canadian conservatism to take place on October 29. Well, Canadian conservatism has spoken and only 40 or so people had signed up for the event.

The organizer states that he may attempt to organize a similar conference in Ottawa. Hope that one works out better.

They want you to insure your insurance

Back in ye olden tymes -- no really, the olden days of the early 20th century -- the argument was made that since the working man wasn't capable of saving for his own retirement, that employers should be encouraged to set up such systems. Thus, pensions became insurance for old age.

Sounds good?

Well, NDP Leader Jack Layton is never afraid to lard tax hikes and social spending on top of other tax hikes and social spending. The NDP announced today some "reforms" which would see all Canadians forced to buy pension insurance because of the "epidemic" of failed pension plans.

Sounds expensive? Sure is! And wait, there's more. The party wants to double your CPP contributions, toss in a another $700 million to seniors and create a new government entity to takeover "orphaned" pension funds.

I've seen this movie before

So once again the Conservative Party is opening up a lead over the Liberals. Once again Stephen Harper is poised to lead a campaign against a humourless academic. And once again a lot of conservatives are dreaming of a majority conservative government.

Don't get me wrong, this is all good news. And yet I can't shake the feeling that I've seen all of this before and I know ending of this movie. The Conservatives enter into a campaign with promise, the media eventually takes aim at them and some no-name Conservative candidate makes the party look like the far right-wing wackos its struggled mightily to avoid looking like.

And once again we're stuck with a minority government, meaning yet another Conservative government that swings towards the center to ensure surviving the inevitable confidence motions.

Hardly inspiring.

I'm almost tempted to go

Forget hockey, debate should be the national sport of Canada. For decades we've seen debates on what is it to be Canadian, social democracy, the monarchy and God knows what else. So why shouldn't conservatives do it too?

In that vein, there will be a panel discussion on the "Future of conservatism in Canada" in the most beautiful city in the country, Montreal, on October 29. They have some heavy hitters on the panel -- though I think they missed some obvious names -- and it should be a good time. Find out more here.

Quel dommage!

One of good friends is an immigrant from Libya and the man he hates the most is none other than strongman Moammar Gadhafi. If you hadn't heard, Gadhafi was threatening to spend a day in lovely St. John's, Newfoundland early next week. I was looking forward to the fireworks the next time I spoke to my friend.

Alas, Gadhafi has canceled his plans.

This, among several reasons, is why I don't consider Brian Mulroney a conservative

Bob Plamondon argued in his recent book Blue Thunder: The Truth about Conservatives from MacDonald to Harper that Brian Mulroney, who celebrated the 25th anniversary of his first election win today, was Canada's most conservative prime minister. An amazing assertion given that Lyin' Brian -- as many Canadians know him -- presided over the biggest tax grab in history, is a solid environmentalist, ran up monster deficits and passed exactly zero socially conservative policies.

Oh, and he supports Barack Obama's drive for an American universal health care system.

Want to know how unpopular Mulroney was during the end of his tenure as prime minister? George W. Bush had higher approval ratings at his nadir then Mulroney did at his. Now that's saying something.

If you pressed me I doubt I could name a single conservative cause that Brian Mulroney championed his entire political career -- with the possible exception of the free trade accord with the U.S, though free trade was traditionally a Liberal policy position throughout Canada's history. It's good to know that retirement hasn't changed the man.

Sure sure

So Michael Ignatieff today promised Canadians that he wouldn't enter into a coalition government with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois, not quite a year after he planned to do just that. Why should you believe him?

"I have a certain credibility on the coalition issue. I could be standing here as the prime minister of Canada (but) I turned it down," said Ignatieff.

Whoa there pardner. Yes, it's true that Ignatieff ultimately turned down a deal for a coalition government and did support the Conservative budget which precipitated our crisis (I covered the run-up to the budget vote for The American Spectator here if you need a refresher), but the real reason was simple: The attempted "coup" was massively unpopular with Canadians and Ignatieff knew that the Liberals would be punished during any future election or a non-confidence vote could trigger an election which he would likely lose.

So yes, technically Ignatieff was telling the truth, but only if you ignore the fact that he engaged in some political calculus before he did the right thing.

Another day, another made up Harper controversy

There will be no federal election in Canada this summer but it appears that the media didn't get the message and launched its traditional anti-Conservative campaign. The latest controversy?

Stephen Harper showed up for the G-8 photo op about a minute and a half late.

Yup. That's it.

It would be even less of a story than it already is but Harper missed a similar photo session back in London so now the media has a "trend" its following. What most are overlooking is that Barack Obama was also late and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak actually missed it completely.

Silly season has indeed started early.

Sigh

As experienced media watchers know, it's not usually until August that the media begins reporting every idiotic story as vitally important. As every conservative politician knows, it's not long before someone gins up a fake controversy to attack you.

Stephen Harper has learned the hard way that silly season has begun early by being the center of a "controversy" over communion wafers. The prime minister was at the funeral of Romeo Leblanc last week and may -- or may not -- have eaten a communion wafer offered by the priest conducting the service.

The big deal? Harper is a Protestant and apparently if you're a doctrinaire Catholic it's A Bad Thing for him to have eaten the wafer.

Or did he? No one can figure out if he actually ate the damned thing. Harper says he ate it, others say he just stuck it in his pocket (Youtube video here). I for one can't wait to see how Wafergate turns out.

I bet they're devastated

Canada has disinvited Iranian diplomats from Canada Day celebrations next week, joining the Americans who announced previously that diplomats from the Persian nation had their invitations withdrawn from Independence Day gatherings.

In the world of diplomacy this is apparently a strong signal.

Hey, I have an idea. Why not a Radio Free Iran that pounds that country with The Rolling Stones and news from the outside world? I heard something like that worked in Europe a few decades ago...but I might have heard wrong. Now that would be a strong signal. Damn, I'm clever...

That's a lot of cake

We're facing a $50 billion deficit up here in Canada -- relatively modest by the standards of the UK and USA -- and the fact of a coming economic slowdown was known two years ago. So how does our cost-conscious Conservative government prepare for it? Toss out billions in corporate welfare and environmental projects, among other things.

The CTF reports the top 100 federal handouts for 2008-09 here.

Good news...I suppose

According to our friends at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Canadains are done paying their taxes today, June 6, three days earlier than last year. It's a victory, I suppose, if we think it a good thing that we have to work half a year to support the state.

So on that note, Happy Tax Freedom Day!

Thanks, but no thanks

First the Europeans said no and now Canada has shown some sense and turned down Barack Obama's very kind offer to become host to Taliban soldiers currently residing at Gitmo University.

The cats have been cleared for release despite the fact that the U.S. government still officially believes they're members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a terrorist group. Frankly, given Canada's idiotically soft immigration policy, I'm surprised we actually turned the offer down.

The fact of the matter is that the Taliban featured three kinds of soldiers. The first group were native Afghanis who agreed with the Taliban's philosophy. While they are militants, there is the possibility they could rejoin Afghan society. The second group were native Afghanis who were forced to fight for the Taliban and are more than happy to get back to their fields, hopefully not growing opium poppies.

The third group, which includes these Uighurs, are hardcore, committed Islamists. Any foreign fighter for the Taliban, which includes Yemenis, Saudis and the like, travelled to Afghanistan as part of their jihadist creed and want nothing more than to kill Americans (and Canadians). Allowing them into Canada allows them a perfect staging area to launch attacks against the United States or Canada.

If Ed Husain was right in his book (which I reviewed this week), North America likely has enough of its own committed Islamists without having to import them from China by way of Gitmo University.

Fighting the state

Libertarian writer and academic Pierre Lemieux has long battled the state. His latest battle is taking place in the courtroom and it's seeing him attempting to get a firearms license without telling the Canadian government who he has slept with.

Very nice of them

Ordinarily when a politician announces that the nation's deficit is going to be much, much larger than originally forecast, the people get a little angry. Canada? Socialists, left-center and conservative Canadians don't want Jim Flaherty to resign. Fitting, the massive "stimulus" spending was demanded by the Liberals and NDP and agreed to by the Conservatives. The crime belongs to all.

We're shocked...shocked!...to learn of rising deficits

I'm old enough now not to be particularly surprised at the mendacity and audaciousness of politicians. So I barely raised an eyebrow at news today that Canada's Liberal Party is outraged!!!1! that the nation's deficit is exploding because of auto bailouts and stimulus spending (and declining tax revenues, something they didn't mention).

This despite the fact that same Liberal Party back in December threatened an election in part because they wanted that same explosion of spending. Why, if we didn't join the rest of the world in giving billions to two companies already on the path to bankruptcy and billions more for pothole repair that the very nation was DOOMED!!!!!.

And yet here we are six months later and GM and Chrysler are no better off than they were in December and not a single cent of federal stimulus funds have been released to municipalities for "shovel-ready" projects. And the Liberals are complaining about the stuff they demanded.

How about just getting rid of the thing already?

Canada's long gun registry -- which doesn't appear to be registering very much these days -- will become even more irrelevant over the coming year. The federal government announced today that it is extending by another year an amnesty for long gun owners who have yet to register their firearms -- three years after the deadline ostensibly passed.

So why not get rid of it? Unfortunately with the Conservatives in a minority government situation and all three opposition parties united in their love for the program, it isn't going anywhere in the short term.

Sweet

Any time a new Canadian political web site launches is a good day -- particularly when its conservative in tone. The Daily Split recently went online and it already has a mountain of stuff for you to explore, plus it looks like they'll be friendly to the public providing content as well. It's already prompted me to reconsider a redesign of ESR...

Here's a surprise: Politicians like to spend money

If Canadians are wondering what happened to all those wonderous promises of slashed deficits and tax cuts, well, wonder no longer. According to the C.D. Howe Institute, no provinces in Canada actually managed to keep their budget promises, resulting in overspending and smaller (or no) tax cuts.

Read on. (PDF format)

Dumb and dumber

It was bad enough that Janet Napolitano declared that some of the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. via Canada, now Sen. John McCain has repeated the same myth.

It's beginning to be like Italy around here

I haven't followed Italian politics in a while but I remember growing up watching the news and always hearing about a new minority government being elected. I think at one point it had been forty years since the end of World War II and the country had seen something like 42 governments.

I bring that half-assed trivia up to point out that Canada seems to be walking down the same road. A new poll released today shows that the Liberal Party is in the lead over the governing Conservatives but they probably wouldn't have enough support to form a majority government unless they went into a coalition with either the Bloc Quebecois or New Democrats, both far left parties.

I know some poindexters out there are going to argue that this shows the Canadian nation in the midst of a grand debate over its future direction. Will we turn our back on the glorious big government ethos of Trudeau-ism, or will we adopt a more adventurous, laissez-faire vision? It's the most soul searching internal debate since we struggled with the question of "What does it mean to be Canadian?" during the 1960s and 70s!

Yawn.

There is no grand debate, no "vision thing" or soul searching. The simple fact -- my opinion only, of course -- is that the two main parties simply don't have compelling platforms either than one (the Conservatives) pretending that they aren't conservatives, and the other (the Liberals) pretending they're more conservative than they really are. Neither has been able to package their wussiness as a strength and until one does, we may be stuck with minority governments for a while.

I don't know which is more ludicrous

Today Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff backtracked off comments that he would raise taxes if elected. In his attack on tax hikes, NDP leader Jack Layton said "green bonds" and investment in environmental jobs would cut the deficit.

You have to love the left in Canada.

Shocking

A group opposed to tax cuts argue that they make Canadians poorer.

So it's on then

Under old leader Stephane Doin, Canada's Liberals couldn't raise money if they printed it but under Michael Ignatieff they're just raking it in.

The funniest part of the story, however, is a Liberal calling last year's fundraising gap with the governing Tories a "threat to democracy". No, that's Canadian's speaking directly to you...it's democracy in action.