Is the CPC conservative enough?

Is the Conservative Party of Canada conservative enough for Canadian conservatives?

It sounds like a riddle. But that’s the question now facing Canadian conservatives, small-c or capital-C, as the party’s caucus and grassroots supporters gather in Halifax for a policy convention. The weekend’s events are intended to draft the policies the party will run on in next year’s election — to victory, it hopes. But the attention has been partially hijacked, clearly deliberately, by Quebec MP Maxime Bernier, who announced on Thursday that he’s quitting the party and may form his own new, purer right-wing alternative.

“My party’s stand on several issues have convinced me that under the current leadership, it has all but abandoned its core conservative principles,” Bernier said. He cited supply management, immigration, corporate welfare and trade policies as areas where the Conservatives are letting down Canadians. “The Conservative Party has abandoned conservatives,” he added. “... If we want conservative principles to win the battle of ideas, we have to defend them openly, with passion and conviction.”

If any of this strikes you as somehow familiar, you’re not imagining it. The Conservative party is the generally successful (if not always happy) result of the last great conservative schism in Canada, dating to the Reform Party’s break from the Progressive Conservatives in the early ’90s. The split on Canada’s right was a major factor behind the sustained period of Liberal federal dominance — a Liberal winning streak that was ended only when the conservative factions reunited under Stephen Harper.

This context matters. What Bernier is proposing has been tried. The result was a disaster for conservatives, with the Liberals winning successive majorities with only modest popular vote victories relative to the combined conservative vote. That memory lingers for conservatives, and especially among Conservative political types. What Bernier is proposing cannot be contemplated absent the context that this has already happened and, to be blunt, failed.

That no doubt explains the immediate, clear reaction from many of Canada’s leading Conservative voices. Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney, Doug Ford — all of these men likely have ideological sympathy for Bernier’s economic positions, and yet all of them were quick to disavow the notion of a new party. “It is clear that Max never accepted the result of the leadership vote and seeks only to divide Conservatives,” Harper tweeted. “His decision today allows the Conservative Party of Canada to move forward united behind our Leader.” “As we’ve seen federally, in Alberta and elsewhere, unity is essential,” Kenney noted. “Unity in a big political movement means that people with divergent views get their say, but may not always get their way. After debate, we agree to respect the consensus. That’s what Maxime did in government.”

The establishment conservatives, clearly, are against Bernier. The grassroots will be wary. And the Conservative party has massive advantages over any potential upstart, or even an existing small party, should Bernier transfer his flag to it (the Libertarian Party being an obvious candidate). The Conservatives already have staff, donors, databases, volunteers, MPs, candidates and institutional strength. It is competitive virtually everywhere in the country and has pulled effectively even with the Liberals in the polls. The party is absolutely well positioned to form the next government. Considering the challenges the Liberals must tackle in the year ahead, NAFTA and the border being key, a Tory victory is a realistic possibility.

It would be madness to disrupt that ... and yet.

And yet. Bernier, whatever his personal failings and despite the obvious risks of his plan, isn’t entirely wrong. Why does Canada’s Conservative party support supply management? Why does it engage in corporate welfare with as much gusto as any Liberal when in office? Why did it shy away, when in office, from meaningful reforms to our tax, health-care and judicial systems? Why does even our nominally right-wing party treat the Armed Forces, and national defence more generally, as nothing but a regional jobs program?

Canadians are a pragmatic people. Canadian conservatives, especially, have learned to water down their wine. But Canadians would benefit from a Conservative party that was less afraid to articulate genuinely conservative policy proposals on issues that would meaningfully improve the lives of millions. A more competitive tax code, a leaner, more focused government, a renewed push for global free trade, even at the expense of alienating special interests, a genuine commitment to the military as something more than a prop for photo opportunities, a clearer defence of a Canadian identity than simple slogans on diversity — millions of Canadians who might not routinely vote Conservative would find these ideas, and many others, appealing.

And Bernier is right to ask if his former party is offering that vision and that leadership. The party may well be better off without him inside causing trouble. But it won’t win the next election, or any others, if it can’t connect with voters on the issues Bernier champions. His decision to quit is no doubt a relief to many in the party’s upper echelons. Fair enough. But they shouldn’t fail to see his departure as a warning, too. Like it or not, he speaks for many.

BERNIER, ... DESPITE THE OBVIOUS RISKS OF HIS PLAN, ISN’T ENTIRELY WRONG.