With a full week of rodeo events and fun ahead, I wonder if any local politicians or campaigning PC leadership candidates are about to make any bold statements.
I ask this because a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper had something bold to say at his hometown rodeo in Calgary. Harper asserted that the long Liberal era is over, calling liberalism a 40-year costly experiment.
“As with disco balls and bell bottoms, Canadians have moved on,” the Calgary Herald reported the prime minister saying to a room full of supporters. Canadians are moving in a conservative direction, he further stated. While a bit of bravado at his hometown’s biggest annual event can be forgiven, perhaps the prime minister has declared mission accomplished too soon.
With the possible death-blow dealt in the last election to the Liberal Party, courtesy of both the Conservatives and NDP, he is likely correct that the era of the Liberal Party is over. While Liberal party-faithfuls cling to the skeleton that’s left, all signs point to the end of a once grand party. Locally, the Liberals earned the confidence of only a few dozen more voters than the Greens in 2008, and have fallen from nearly 20 per cent of the vote in 2004 in Westlock–St. Paul to six per cent this year.
As an article in this week’s Journal shows, traditional Liberal votes on First Nations reserves have turned to the NDP in the riding. Nationally, the reduction from 77 to 34 seats in the House of Commons certainly indicates big problems. But whether the era of liberalism is over is another question completely.
A look at the country shows liberalism to be doing quite well, perhaps even thriving. The Government of Canada supports the Canada Human Rights Commission, which has challenged the traditional justice with a quasi-court system many have called “kangaroo court.” The human rights tribunals in each province and federally are responsible for many betrayals of justice, have penalized people for thought-crimes as silly as telling an unfunny joke, in the case of a comedian in B.C. Free speech is one of the most important rights and the feds can’t move fast enough to reform or get rid of this relic of the liberal era.
That the liberal era is far from over can also be seen with the big funding for social programs with negligible effectiveness. Massive amounts of arts funding and the $1.1 billion budget of the state broadcaster also seem out of step with ideals of a small-c conservative government.
Observers need not look far to see the tattered flag of that battered but defeated party still flying. The Conservative majority could be a breath of fresh air in an otherwise pungent air of rotting liberalism. It is either a choice of reforming or challenging it. Conservatives are poised to lead the country forward, but will they?
