If you want to know what Day is about, read this. It's long but it leaves no doubt as to what the man stands for. I know the link's been posted but this is too good not to post in entirety. Hard to see how this guy can be deemed so "radical". People are fearing the Alliance will bring more state control and intervention when that is the very thing Day argues against. You'd think Alberta had fallen under Nazi control the way the media fear mongers spin it. Anyway, this is a good read.......
Civitas conference speech
NOTES FOR SPEECH DELIVERED BY STOCKWELL DAY
The Fourth Annual National Conference of Civitas
Friday, April 28, 2000 - 07:00 PST
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to be here with you at Civitas. Some
people would think that by appearing before a group like Civitas, I am
taking a political risk. I am publicly identifying myself with
marginalized
social group in our country - namely conservatives. But I am who I am,
so let me say with pride: my name is Stock, and I am conservative!
For the past thirty years, conservative ideas have been considered
beyond the pale to many of our self-appointed Canadian elites, the
chattering classes, or as B.C.'s Rafe Mair calls them, our "higher
purpose persons." According to them, to talk about conservative ideas
make you reactionary, narrow minded, or perhaps even American. But
conservatism is deeply rooted in the Canadian tradition. This is a country
founded by Conservatives such as John A. Macdonald and
George-Etienne Cartier for the profoundly conservative purposes of
preserving the British identity of English Canada and the Catholic
identity
of French Canada.
But many in our chattering classes would have us forget this
conservative heritage. Our Canadian elites have been almost
monolithically liberal and socialist. For years, the most famous political
panel on the CBC featured the "diverse" views of the socialist Stephen
Lewis, the left-leaning Liberal Eric Kierans, and the Red Tory Dalton
Camp. And while they bickered about the issues of the day, they all
agreed that those nutty "neo-conservatives", those crazy tax cutters,
and dinosaurs like Ted Byfield were a threat to Canada. Being a true
conservative was somehow equated with being un-Canadian.
Dalton Camp said recently "anyone who claims to be a Conservative is
one. There is no litmus test, no bar to admission, or ban." I beg to
differ
with Mr. Camp: there is a meaning to the word conservative, and I want
to talk about what it means to be conservative today.
I am proud that the new Canadian Alliance has the word "conservative" in
its official name, and more than that, I want to make sure that unlike
that
other party, we will live up to our name. So what is a conservative,
ladies
and gentlemen? The American satirist Ambrose Bierce once defined a
conservative as "A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as
distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others."
This definition is humorous, but Bierce actually makes a very good point.
A conservative knows that there are limits to what we can change, that
there are some things that government cannot and should not do.
Liberals and socialists, on the other hand, are convinced that by
interfering with the free market they can create a better economy, or that
by social engineering they can create a new and improved human
nature. Time and time again, history has proved that the conservatives
are right and the liberals are wrong. Instead of eliminating the problems
that they saw, they have simply created a whole new set of problems in
accordance with the Law of Unintended Consequences. But the liberals
never learn their lesson: they think that the new evils they have created
can be fixed by ever more activist economic and social policies.
The conservative does not rush to use the power of the state to try to
radically change econobehaviour or social mores. Rather, the role of
government is to pursue a few limited goals and objectives that enable
citizens as individuals, families, and communities to achieve their own
goals. As Sir John A. Macdonald said, "It is not the place of government
to rule, but rather to govern, letting the citizen ebb and flow on the
tides
of justice and freedom in his own interest, unfettered by unjust laws
brought about by hysteria and ignorance."
Since the 1960s, Canada has seen the creation of an ever larger welfare
state that wants to rule and micromanage the natural ebb and flow of
Canadian society. Today, government controls almost 50% of our Gross
Domestic Product. We are taxed to the max, and we are controlled by a
maze of suffocating programs and regulations. The good news is that
Canadians are starting to say" we have had enough". It is time for a real
conservatism in this country, a conservatism that wants to give freedom
back to citizens, and return to a government that merely governs, but
does not rule our lives.
Now it must be admitted that in recent years, after decades of promoting
huge increases in government programs and spending, that a few liberals
and even social democrats have begun to twig to the importance of fiscal
conservatism.
It is said that a neo-conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by
reality. And what we saw happen in Canada in the early 1990s was the
tax-and-spend Liberals being mugged by a 200-pound bruiser called the
debt wall. Faced with a threat of a devalued currency, massive interest
rate hikes, and radical program cuts, the Government of Canada finally in
1995 took the minimum measures necessary to cut the federal deficit.
The Liberals became deathbed converts to the virtues of balanced
budgets.
They became the beneficiaries of fiscally conservative policies at the
provincial level. The effects of reinvigorated economies in Alberta and
Ontario, the two provinces reformed by pursuing vigorously conservative
principles, helped to fill the federal Liberals coffers. By skimming
revenue
from this new growth, by reducing federal transfers to the provinces, and
by raising already punishingly high tax rates, they were able to eliminate
the deficit. After thirty years of Pearson-Trudeau-Mulroney economic
liberalism, the federal Government discovered, by observing the
provinces, that the fiscal conservatism of Mackenzie King and St.
Laurent had been right all along.
But having taken the first few steps along the path to fiscal sanity, the
Prime Minister and Paul Martin seem to have stopped in their tracks.
They seem to think that having eliminated the deficit, we should ignore
the crushing tax and debt burden and return to their old ways of reckless
spending.
The Prime Minister recently compared the fiscal measures of the 1990s
to having to wake up every morning and shovel snow. But now that we
have eliminated the deficit, according to Mr. Chretien, that means the
sun is out again and we can spend, spend, spend.
Canadians are going to reject this return to tax and spend economic
liberalism. They want us to continue onwards and cut taxes and reduce
the debt. And we have to keep on the path of fiscal discipline until we
get
right to the bottom of debt mountain - there is no turning back.
But while most Canadians, and many of our politicians, admit that the
fiscal reforms of the last few years were necessary, we now have a new
kind of politician in this country. They are found in all parties, in the
NDP, the Parti Quebecois, the Liberals - at least until the next cabinet
shuffle - and the Progressive Conservatives, who say: "I'm fiscally
conservative, but I'm socially liberal." Some of these people even argue
that this is a libertarian position - that they want government out of
both
our economic lives and our personal lives.
I do not doubt that most of these fiscal conservatives / social liberals
are
sincere, but I think they misunderstand what conservatism is about.
Conservatism is about acknowledging the permanent facts about human
nature, that we cannot make everybody a millionaire by economic
intervention, nor can we create an egalitarian utopia through social
engineering. Social conservatism is not about using the power of the
state to recreate a mythical "Leave it to Beaver" / "Father Knows Best"
society. Social conservatism is primarily about curtailing the power of
the state to manipulate society, while respecting the role of individuals,
families, and communities to determine how they want to live their lives
together.
While many of these politicians have at last grasped fiscal reality, they
have not yet awakened to our disintegrating social reality. But they will,
and the day they do, many of those fiscal conservatives -but- social
liberals will become unhyphenated conservatives. And when they do,
they will find a ready home in the Canadian Alliance.
Let me tell you why Canada is about to wake up to this social reality.
The same undisciplined government spending and social engineering
that has undermined our economy over the past thirty years has also
been tearing at the social fabric of this land. And while we may not yet
have hit the wall, we have built up a social deficit in this country that
is
every bit as daunting as our fiscal deficit ever was.
Let's look at a few of the facts. Since 1962, violent crimes have
increased from about 219 per 100,000 people to over 1000 per 100,000
people - a 500% increase. Divorce has increased from 36 per 10,000
people to 250 - a greater than 600% increase. Out of wedlock births have
increased from under 5% of childbirths to over 36% of childbirths. The
birth-rate has fallen in half, undermining our ability to replace our
population. Suicides have almost doubled since the early 1960s and
youth suicides - perhaps the canary in the mineshaft of social
disintegration - have increased from about 100 per year in 1960 to over
600 per year in the 1990s. From drug addiction to domestic violence, the
trends have all been going in the wrong direction.
But these numbers are not just statistical trends: they represent real
human tragedies. As a counselor to drug-addicted youth, I have watched
and held young men writhe through the night as they experienced the
agony of heroin withdrawal. I came to know that too often their addictive
and destructive behaviour was a consequence of growing up in
environments which lacked cohesion and security.
Clearly, something has gone awry in our culture to have caused these
escalating social problems. We know the statistical effects of these
problems on many of our nation's children. A greater tendency toward
poorer school performance, more susceptibility to drugs, violence, and
other social problems, poorer economic prospects. More and more
children are being brought up in common law unions. That is a free will
choice which people should have the freedom to make. But it is wrong to
inform people that Statistics Canada figures show that children born into
common law unions have a 60% chance of seeing their parents separate
by age 10, compared to only a 12% risk for children of married parents.
We are heading in a disturbing direction in this country, and government,
far from helping to solve it, is part of the problem. Our social policies
have not adequately supported marriage and have led to an increase in
illegitimacy. We have allowed children and adults to think that they can
commit crimes with impunity. And a whole generation has been brought
up knowing everything about their rights, but rarely hearing about
responsibilities.
[return to top]
Liberalism has contributed to the breakdown of our civil society. In the
long run it is impossible to maintain a combination of fiscal conservatism
and social liberalism because in the long run a socially liberal state,
with
its incumbent social challenges, is very expensive to maintain. It
requires a large welfare state and a costly judicial and police system. A
self-governing society with a limited state, by contrast, requires
citizens
who respect the virtues of family, faith, thrift, civility, and personal
responsibility. If we want a limited, fiscally conservative state, then we
must nurture and respect the institutions that Edmund Burke called the
"little platoons" of civil society- families, small businesses, cultural
and
faith communities - that give rise to these virtues.
The path we have been pursuing over the past thirty years has not been
to promote or respect these institutions, but to undermine them at every
turn. The socially liberal state agencies have determined that the
Playboy Channel is fine for Canadian airwaves, but a broadcast produced
by a crippled, septuagenarian nun named Mother Angelica is a danger to
Canada's pluralism and diversity. The socially liberal state funds works
of
"art" like the pornographic "Bubbles Galore" and documentaries like "The
Valour and the Horror" that mock the sacrifices made by Canadians who
fought in the Second World War, while neglecting to teach our children
about this country's noble history. The socially liberal state has
undermined tax benefits to married couples, and penalizes those who
raise their children at home while subsidizing out of home daycare.
Families should be free to choose, the care that meets their needs
without the weight of a government reward or punishment system on
their shoulders.
It is policies like these that have helped lead to this weakening of our
social fabric. Make no mistake, contemporary social liberalism is not
libertarian, it is not about leaving people alone. It is about using the
power of the state to promote certain social values and to undermine
others. This is why the formula of fiscally conservative / socially
liberal
will not work in the long run.
So where do we go from here? If government social engineering lead to
negative consequences, how do we turn things around? Let me suggest
to you what is not the answer: it is no solution to try to use the power
of
the state to promote traditional values. Government must exist to nurture
and respect healthy social institutions, but it is as mistaken to attempt
conservative social engineering as it is to attempt liberal social
engineering. Conservatism does not require big government solutions to
achieve its objectives. I think we will find that if government stops
promoting negative and counterproductive social behaviour, that people
themselves will respond, and human action will change in a positive
direction of its own accord.
As fiscal conservatives know, people respond to incentives. Research in
the United States has shown that birth rates, for instance, are strongly
related to the tax treatment of children. Simply letting married families
with children keep more of their own money through tax cuts, will reap
dividends in the form of more stable families and a subsequent reduction
in social problems.
This is, I think, the preferred path for conservative renewal in this
country:
strengthening families and communities by limiting the power and cost of
the state.
Some people seem to believe that giving families tax breaks or other
benefits based on marriage is somehow discriminatory, but the Supreme
Court of Canada would disagree with them. Madam Justice, now Chief
Justice, Beverley McLachlin wrote in the Miron vs. Trudel decision,
"Marriage [and citizenship] may be used as the basis to exclude people
from protections and benefits conferred by law, provided the state can
demonstrate under section 1 [of the Charter] that they are truly relevant
to the goal and values underlying the legislative provision in question."
I
think given the tremendous Statistics Canada data available about the
value of marriage as a social institution, meeting the section 1 test to
justify providing certain benefits for married families would not be
difficult.
But not all issues are resolved as easily as giving a tax break. A few
so-called "hot button issues" have proved divisive and difficult in recent
years, particularly since the introduction of the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. And unfortunately, some people do not associate
social conservatism with a limited state, but believe that social
conservatives want to use state power to take away rights.
Some people actually believe that it is unseemly for politicians to even
talk about these kinds of issues. Jeffrey Simpson recently wrote that
"Canadians may remain divided on issues such as abortion, capital
punishment and homosexuality, but, in the public domain, agreements
have been reached on how to handle these issues, either because the
courts imposed their will or because legislatures decided some time
ago."
Mr. Simpson is right that the courts have imposed their will on some of
these issues. We have become all too familiar with judge-made law in
this country, and a major debate about the role and scope of judicial
review has been underway for some years. In fact, Mr. Simpson has
been one of the most eloquent critics of the impact of the Charter in
leading to the individualization and fragmentation of Canadian political
discourse.
Similarly, we often hear that "moral" questions have no place in modern
politics. But political discourse itself is essentially a series of moral
questions. Aristotle defined politics as "the art of free men deliberating
together the question: how ought we to order our lives together." That
ought is the basic moral question. Ought we to tax our citizens more or
less? What penalties ought we to impose on what crimes? Ought we to
protect human life, and if so at what stage?
I believe that on such matters politicians have a responsibility to state
their convictions clearly, but I also believe that these debates should be
conducted with respect for the democratic rights of all citizens, even
those who may disagree with us on these subjects. I will always state
my beliefs clearly, but I will always seek to conduct debate in an open
and democratic manner. As Prime Minister I would not - and could not -
"impose" my will on my party or the country. No Member of Parliament
has the right to do that.
To take but one example, it is well known that I am pro-life. I believe
that
the scientific evidence is overwhelming that human life begins at the
moment of conception, and I believe that all human beings possess an
inalienable right to life. I do not support abortion or euthanasia, and I
would personally favour measures to protect human life in Canadian law.
But I would not seek to impose my views on the Canadian people. I
would want issues such as these to be determined freely and
democratically by the people, either through a referendum initiated by
Canadians or a free vote of their representatives in the House of
Commons. Debates like this need to be conducted with the greatest
possible respect for democracy and the views of others, without the
angry and harsh rhetoric that too often prevents serious democratic
debate on moral questions.
So yes, I am a social conservative. And I am also a deeply committed
fiscal conservative who believes in limited government, and a deeply
committed political reformer who believes in democratic self-government
by citizens.
Finally, I have to address something that is a deep personal concern of
mine. I am a person of religious faith. Like 84% of Canadians, I believe
in
God. Some people react as though having religious beliefs somehow
disqualifies you from holding public office, (a view recently given
credence by the BC Supreme Court in the Surrey School Board case) I
would like to ask those who are always accusing religious believers of
being intolerant how tolerant they are of people who hold these beliefs.
[return to top]
Let me give but one example of the intolerance shown by some towards
those who have strong religious convictions in public life. In 1998, then
Progressive Conservative Senator Ron Ghitter delivered a lecture in
which he said: "the real threat to the advancement of human rights in
Canada today does not come from the skinheads, the Aryan Nation and
white supremacists... No, the imminent threat to human rights... comes
from what are known as the theo-conservatives"
And who are these people who Mr. Ghitter considers to be more
dangerous than neo-Nazis? He named people like Preston Manning, Ted
Byfield, Ted Morton, and the lobby group REAL Women. They are
accused by him of being scolding moralists who seek greater
government control over our lives, and pursuing policies which "strike at
the very foundations of human rights in Canada." Somehow, I find it hard
to take lessons in tolerance from somebody who calls religious
conservatives a greater threat to human rights than fascism.
The American Catholic intellectual Richard John Neuhaus has said that
modern democratic societies are creating a "naked public square" - a
society in which religion and matters of fundamental moral conviction are
exiled to the margins of private behaviour, and cannot be mentioned in
public. Jeffrey Simpson expressed a view typical of this attitude when he
recently wrote that "A curtain has been drawn between the religious and
the secular, between the private world of religion and the public world of
politics. And a politician who does not respect that curtain risks
political
retribution." Well, I'm sorry, but I don't accept that, and I don't think
that
the Canadian people accept that. I do not seek, nor do other persons of
faith I know seek to impose their spiritual beliefs on anybody else. As a
conservative, I have no intention of making my religion someone else's
law. But neither is it possible to demand that the convictions I express
on Sunday should have nothing to do with the way I live my life the other
six days of the week. In other words, I believe in the separation of
Church and state; but am opposed to any suggestion that citizens
separate themselves from their beliefs in order to participate in the
government of their state.
In 1906, the Liberal Party in England nominated the Catholic writer
Hilaire Belloc as their candidate in Manchester, a heavily Methodist
area. The media said a Catholic couldn't get elected in that area, and
Belloc's campaign manager told him to avoid religion. But at his first
campaign rally, Belloc got up and said "Gentlemen," - for all the voters
were gentlemen in those days - "I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go
to Mass every day." He reached into his pocket and pulled out an object.
"This is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads,
every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God
that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative!" And
after a few seconds of stunned silence, the crowd burst into applause,
and Belloc went on to be elected as the first Liberal from Manchester in
decades.
Like Mr. Belloc, ladies and gentlemen, I too am a Christian, although of
a different tradition. And like Mr. Belloc, I do not fear that the
electors
would choose to reject me on account of my religion.
I know that the Canadian people are more tolerant than that, and more
tolerant than those in our chattering classes who belittle the religious
beliefs of millions of Canadians. Canadians know that the religious
beliefs of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and today of Muslims, Hindus,
Sikhs and many others, are what form our deepest convictions.
Religious faith is part of what helps keep the social fabric of Canada
together, and most Canadians, whether or not they are church goers or
religious believers themselves, are at least willing to acknowledge the
importance of the religious roots of our society as a force for social
good.
The real intolerance in Canadian society is shown by those who would
deny people of faith the right to participate in public life. As a social
conservative, I honour the communities of religious faith which do so
much on a voluntary basis to build families, educate children, feed the
hungry, and care for the sick and dying. As a practising Christian within
my own faith community, I have been active in some of these areas
myself. And I do not believe that a person who has a religious faith is
more worthy of democratic and heart-felt respect than someone who is
not a person of faith
I have tried to share with you, ladies and gentlemen, some of my
deepest convictions -- my economic beliefs, my social beliefs, my
political philosophy, and my personal faith. I want to help reform this
country, to bring about new policies that will liberate our economic
potential and restore the social health of our communities. In this effort
of
reform, I believe that economic conservatism and social conservatism go
hand in hand. But the way we go about implementing our conservative
convictions is equally important. We must respect the democratic will of
the Canadian people, and use the power of government in a prudent and
limited way. As much as possible, individuals, families, and
communities should govern themselves, and government should support
them in their efforts. As leader, I will promote pro-growth economic
policies and will use the democratic principles of the Reform movement
to give government back to the people themselves.
This is my philosophy, one which I am proud to call a "reform
conservative" philosophy. And I would be proud to accept the honour and
responsibility of being the first leader of the Canadian Reform
Conservative Alliance to help make this vision a reality. |
