Conservatism in Canada is no longer a coherent political philosophy. It has become a hybrid of a business that sells access to power, and a collection of people who have been drawn into utterly paranoid conspiracy theories. The slide into this place has been a long, slow process, and I don’t think it’s necessarily all intentional.
Let me explain why I think this is the case, and then we can get into how we got here in the first place.
I see that Poilievre has borrowed another page from GOP politics - this time he’s going after birthright citizenship.
Birthright citizenship is really nothing more than “if you are born in Canada, you are deemed to be a Canadian Citizen. It’s really that simple - in a nation that was literally built out of immigration, it makes a certain amount of sense that we might look at citizenship through such a lens. Many of us were born here when one, or both parents, were not yet citizens themselves.
Frankly, when the subject comes up, nobody seems to have any idea what pressing problem Canada is facing would be solved by revoking birthright citizenship. Are there suddenly a whole bunch of citizens of Canada that are causing problems because they aren’t “Canadian enough” for Pierre’s tastes? Or is this a revisitation of Harper’s infamous “Old Stock Canadians” nonsense?
I’ve seen a few people whine about “anchor babies”, or “birth tourism”. Of those arguments, I am inclined to be more than a little suspicious that the people making that argument are doing so more because they don’t like the idea of people from certain cultural backgrounds. However, so-called “birth tourism” babies are hardly a large number of Canada’s births - some 5,000 or so annually, on a total birth rate of ~365,000 - and nobody has demonstrated that those 5,000 births are resulting in “a problem” for Canada.
Frankly, the problem I see with this is that it creates a whole subclass of people who are born in Canada, may live their lives here, and are denied citizenship because of their parents’ circumstances at the time they were born.
Additionally, it gives politicians with malicious intentions an easy tool upon which to make the lives of Canadians more difficult. Removing birthright citizenship suddenly means that a person who has lived in Canada their entire lives could have to prove not only their citizenship, but also that of their parents.
Consider some of the possible scenarios:
Someone travels to Canada for work reasons, and for one reason or another has a child while residing and working in Canada. Subsequently they decide to become a permanent resident. Does the child's status follow that of the parent? Or have we just created a situation where the child, having been born here to a person classified as "temporary" ends up effectively stateless?
Or, let's say the child becomes an adult (18 years old) when the parent finally gains Permanent Resident status. What then? Do we suddenly deport that 18 year old to a country they have no experience with?
Similarly, let's say that a child of a "temporary resident" grows up in Canada, and applies for citizenship under this new regime. Do we then demand that they go through the same process of applying for "Permanent Resident" status, and then on to citizenship a decade later? Do we demand that they apply through the same immigration system that they would have to apply through if they were coming from abroad, and they would have to "qualify" under the admission criteria? Does that make any kind of sense?
Let's consider the case of someone who has been born and grown up in Canada. Regardless of the status of their parents, they are asked if they are citizens. Now the question rests not on "where were you born?", but "who were your parents, and what was their immigration status when you were born?". I dare say most adults in the country would have a very hard time proving the citizenship status of their parents - especially if their parents are deceased, or their documentation isn't readily available.
It creates an environment where, like the US, a huge amount of energy is wasted on "finding illegal residents". This will stratify society further, making a subclass of people who live here, and may have done so their entire lives, who have no legal status. As we have seen in the US, that subclass of people becomes ruthlessly exploited by employers looking for cheap labour they can abuse.
I'm not arguing that our immigration systems are perfect or ideal. They need work - a lot of it. There is an honest discussion to be had around what immigration to Canada should look like, and how the various streams should flow. Stripping birthright citizenship from the equation creates problems, it does not solve them.
Poilievre's tirade doesn't make Canada a safer place, it makes Canada a much more dangerous place for the people who live here already.
The Alberta “United Conservative Party” hates you - and it’s with a level of visceral loathing that is inexplicable. Live in an urban centre? Well, the cancellation of the Green Line is one of many examples of their loathing for anyone that isn’t “them”.
Then the National Post published some of the policy proposals that the party is looking at for this fall’s convention. To call it ‘hate-filled’ is perhaps the kindest thing I can say about it. The levels of ignorance and hatred contained in the motions is stunning, but also telling.
With Pierre Poilievre the newly anointed leader of the CPC, Canadians can take a step back and breathe a sight of relief - the masquerade is over.
Ever since its formation in 2003, the CPC has been a hardline right wing ideologue party that cloaked itself in the moderate nature of the old PCs. They called themselves Tories, and under Harper’s leadership, they were more or less able to maintain the appearance of not being quite as radical as many said they were behind the scenes.
Then they won a majority in 2011. No longer fearing losing power by way of a confidence motion in parliament, Harper allowed the party to begin implementing its more aggressive policies - although there was some restraint because Harper still believed he could be re-elected.
Major project impact assessment processes were gutted, agencies stripped of their power to make rulings on substantive matters, laws related to citizenship were modified, making many Canadians’ citizenship conditional, and they tried enacting what amounts to a voter suppression law (guess who wrote that little stinker? - Oh right - they party just picked him as their leader).
Then there was the 2015 election. Some very high priced advisors came in and the CPC introduced a series of policies that to be kind, most Canadians found appallingly racist at their core.
That was just the party dropping the veil. Way back in 2013, I wrote a piece on here comparing Harper’s governing style to the traits associated with modern day fascism (not Hitler’s fascism, but rather that fascists have become since the end of WWII). I was surprised then by the number of boxes on that list that Harper ticked off. It wasn’t just a few. No, it was a lot.
Having watched the Reform party emerge from Alberta politics, I had always been suspicious of how easily that movement could slide into authoritarianism, if not into overt fascism. There was an ugly underside to Reform that few outside of the “Alberta Bubble” seemed to recognize. “Oh, they aren’t really that bad”, or “Once in power, the normal constraints on power will moderate their behaviour” were common refrains. Then there was the reality of it - the radicalism, and fervent belief that they had the “Right of the Matter” in all things to do with government meant that they chafed at those restraints. The 2015 election was merely where the party dropped any pretence of being “nice”.
In selecting Poilievre, the CPC has signalled that the takeover is complete. What remained of the old PCs is dead, done and buried. It was notable that on Poilievre’s “coronation night”, Peter MacKay declined to speak. Even the last leader of the PCs couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
The CPC may attempt to cloak itself in “reasonableness”, but that seems unlikely with a man like Poilievre being the public face of the party. He isn’t a man known for being reasonable to begin with.
Since the departure of Stephen Harper in 2015, the party has changed - the factions that Harper was able to hold in check through sheer force of will are no longer so easily tamed - they’ve seen how they can take a bigger slice of the pie - the MAGA movement in the US, and the Kenney-led UCP have shown them what they can do by being more overt.
Poilievre has shown us through his run at this leadership that in fact he is perfectly willing to let the extremes off leash, and they have heard that message loud and clear. Expect the next policy convention to be a sharp turn even further right. Topics that had been off the table under Harper will be on the table now - and it’s going to be ugly.
It’s Friday - end of the week, and the last 2 days of politics in Alberta have been a whirlwind … on Wednesday, Kenney said he would step down after getting 51.4% support in a leadership review vote, and on Thursday, the UCP caucus voted to keep Kenney on as the leader until a leadership race is concluded.
So … kind of a “I’m leaving … fooled ya, I’m still here” couple of days.
What does all this really mean?
