In the States the closest to a “one nation conservative”, “Red Tory”, or “progressive conservative” would be Russell Kirk and those who have followed his philosophy and example. Those at Front Porch Republic and Rod Dreher are also examples of American Red Tories I think. The problem is that those who embrace progressive conservatism in the U.S. are in the minority compared to libertarians, neoconservatives, and evangelicals. What needs to happen is for all all these Anglo-American-Canadian progressive conservatives to form a international network to advocate their principles, form policy think tanks, put out publications, and get their message out to the public.

The problem with Russ’s defence of Quebec’s language laws is the premise that Quebec’s dminishing number of English speakers don’t have their own community. In the case that broke the notwithstanding clause for English Canadians, Valerie Ford, a many-generation Quebecker, posted a sign outside her shop saying “Laine/Wool”. For that she was vandalized and visited by the language police. She was charged and if she hadn’t either obeyed the law or got it overturned in court, she would have gone to jail.

The Supreme Court of Canada are hardly free-speech extremists. They said Quebec could require French on commercial signs. It could further require that French be in larger type than any other language. But it couldn’t ban bilingual signs if the non-French part of the sign was in smaller type. (How much smaller was to be left to another case.)

That was unacceptable to the purportedly federalist government of M. Bourassa, and he invoked the notwithstanding clause. English Canada howled, the Meech Lake Accord went down and Mulroney’s government never recovered.

And rightly so. People should be able to sell wool, and call it that.

I understand how you are using the term “egalitarian” now. I wonder though, if it is appropriate to describe the ideas and reforms of Disraeli and the original “one nation conservatives” as “egalitarian”. The ideal of equality was certainly in the minds of the organizers of the social revolutionary movements that were then developing across Europe. Conservatives like Disraeli (and Bismarck in Germany)had the practical motivation in the reforms they introduced, of trying to nip these revolutionary movements in the bud. Thus, while a lot of the reforms they introduced might seem “collectivist” or “socialist” by the standards of strict libertarianism, they were introduced, not to to bring about equality but to thwart those who demanded it and were willing to tear down the social order to get it.

What the “one nation conservatives” were striving for, in my opinion, was not equality but a national unity, in which the classes saw themselves as part of a whole with specific obligations to the other, rather than as two sides in a conflict.

With regards to the notwithstanding clause, the problem isn’t how the government has been using it, but what it allows the government to do. It allows the government to bypass everything in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that Canadians had already possessed as part of our basic prescriptive rights and freedoms under the Common Law, long before there was a Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I have no objection to Quebec’s desire to preserve her cultural identity. I wish English Canada were allowed to do the same. It is ironic, however, that the Bourassa government used the “notwithstanding clause” to protect Quebec’s language laws from the Supreme Court, considering that the Quebec government had refused to sign the repatriated Constitution (which incorporated the Charter) in the first place. To do so, they could not override the parts of the Charter about official bilingualism, which are exempt from the not-withstanding clause. So they had to use it to override Section 2 b which is supposed to guarantee Canadians “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication”.

These very freedoms have been under vigorous attack by the federal and provincial human rights commissions in a campaign which started very shortly after the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was brought in. This campaign has progressed from targetting fringe groups like neo-Nazis, to targetting Christians, to targetting national media personalities. I’ll concede that the government agencies responsible have not had to rely on the notwithstanding clause yet. It seems to me, however, that the Charter, by taking rights and freedoms previously considered to be the inviolable property of all Canadians by prescription and turning them into paper guarantees which the government can override by invoking a single clause, has contributed significantly to creating an atmosphere in which these rights and freedoms are no longer regarded as sacred.

Gerry T. Neal

[F]or the past 3 decades at least, it has referred to the element within the Progressive Conservative Party and now the Conservative Party that serve as the kept opposition to the Grits (the Liberal Party)….A member of the Conservative Party who supports the nanny state, the thought control campaigns of the Canadian Human Rights Commissions, taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, same-sex marriage, and unlimited immigration, is a “Red Tory” today.

I think you’re being a little hard on your home country there, Gerry, as well as on the current Conservatives, but basically I agree with you. Of course, as I said in my original post, there are no real Red/High Tories left, or at least hardly any. It doesn’t at all surprise me that the term has devolved to serve essentially as a description of socially liberal, “moderate” Conservatives; I’m saddened by the loss of a good concept, but not surprised.

Your suggestion that “egalitarianism” is part of Toryism is confusing. I can think of no sense of the term “egalitarian” that would apply to a true Tory.

If you mean by “true Tory” a supporter of the hierarchical, land- and class-based social and economic environment that held in pre-19th-century Britain, and thus the early years of Canada as well, then I would agree with you. But Disraeli and “One Nation Conservatism” changed much of that; there was a clear sense, at least amongst a certain cohort of conservative thinkers, that the preservation of national and cultural mores would require “labor and capital” to be more closely aligned, with the result that in Britain and Canada, “Red Tory” leaders advocated such egalitarian measures as trade unionism, job protectionism, fair (and family oriented) wages, and so forth. Don’t confuse all forms of egalitarianism with a crude Marxist kind of equality.

I can see nothing admirable or “localist” about the notwithstanding clause….What is localist about allowing the federal government to pass laws that violate a person’s freedom of thought or which allow a person to be arbitrarily detained? That’s exactly what the notwithstanding clause allows the government to do.

Again, I think you’re being a little hard on your country, though as one who lives there you obviously have a better grasp on the situation than I. Still, I have to confess that I am unfamiliar with so much as a single example of the “notwithstanding clause” being used to arbitrarily detain or imprison someone, or disrupt worship services, or shut down newspapers or websites, or anything of the like. My understanding is that the clause has been used almost solely for one purpose: to allow Quebec to maintain the linguistic flavor of its own distinct society by obliging local governments, schools, businesses, and other organizations operating in its borders to follow French-first or French-only regulations. And maybe I’m reveling a bit too much Quebecker sympathy here, but it seems to me that enabling a distinct group of people to exercise some control over their own linguistic/cultural future really is localist, or at least federalist, in a good way.

The term “Red Tory” may have at one time referred to traditional Canadian Tories, but for the past 3 decades at least, it has referred to the element within the Progressive Conservative Party and now the Conservative Party that serve as the kept opposition to the Grits (the Liberal Party). They may, sometimes, invoked the principles of High Toryism, but they do so to support, not the traditional order of English Canada, but the revolutionary New Order brought in by Mr. Trudeau and his allies in the 60′s to 80′s. A member of the Conservative Party who supports the nanny state, the thought control campaigns of the Canadian Human Rights Commissions, taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, same-sex marriage, and unlimited immigration, is a “Red Tory” today.

Your suggestion that “egalitarianism” is part of Toryism is confusing. I can think of no sense of the term “egalitarian” that would apply to a true Tory. A Tory believes in a hierarchical, not an egalitarian, society. “Egalitarianism” would far better describe the liberalism masquerading as conservatism that you decry. By turning everyone into relatively richer or poorer members of a single class of “consumer” it has accomplished the old Marxist dream of a “classless society” far better than any attempt to actually institute Marxism could have done.

I can see nothing admirable or “localist” about the notwithstanding clause. Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, allows both federal and regional governments to pass laws contradicting certain sections of the Charter but not others. It does not allow any level of government to pass laws that contradict official bilingualism, multiculturalism, or feminism. The parts of the Charter the government is allowed to ignore, are Sections 2 and 7-15. Section 2 includes such things as freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of thought, and freedom of association. Sections 7-15 include the basic legal rights of Canadians, such as the right to life, liberty and security of their person, the right to security against unreasonable search and seizure, the right not to be arbitrarily detained, etc.

What is localist about allowing the federal government to pass laws that violate a person’s freedom of thought or which allow a person to be arbitrarily detained? That’s exactly what the notwithstanding clause allows the government to do.

Having said all that, I am not a big fan of the current Canadian Conservative Party, or what currently passes as mainstream “conservatism” in America. I can see nothing conservative about globalization, open borders, and placing the interests of corporations ahead of families, communities, and the nation. I suspect, at the basic philosophical level Mr. Fox and I would be in close agreement about most of these things.

Gerry T. Neal
High (not Red) Tory
Winnipeg, Mb.

As an avid Canuck FPR reader…glad to see some Canadian content….even if it’s only one day a year.

Our Conservative Party leaves much to be desired…