I have to take exception to your statement, which I assume refers to a part of the Alliance contribution to the CPC: There are also extremely large interest groups within the CPC who do not believe in the separation between Church and State
NONSENSE! STEAMING HORSEAPPLES!
In all fairness to you, I realize that it was a common perception that a core of Alliance support came from the bible belt. That is true, but is coincidental. The bible belt just happens to be part of the Country where big government is least liked. The fact is, however, that separation of the state from all special interest groups has to be one of the most fundamental parts of the Reform platform, and this policy survived into the Alliance and, hopefully, the CPC. Never in the history of any of these parties was there any serious support to bring religious issues - or even related issues such as abortion - into the party's platform. That was not what the Reform movement was about and would have been a fatal distraction from the real intent - good, efficient and minimal government.
I am an atheist and I have rarely found myself differing on religious issues with Alliance members simply because religious issues rarely found their way into discussions of policy. I worked on the campaigns of a reform candidate, two Alliance candidates (one in Alberta and one in B.C.) and one (pre-Reform) PC candidate. Only the PC candidate and the Reform candidate had to deal with any significant religious interest groups in their ridings. Even then, issues such as abortion were not relevant to the campaigns. Since Reform was a political/economic movement, the religious types had to be satisfied with a hope that free votes would allow parliament to vote their way. (Fat chance, BTW.)
But I would not say its "wrong" for people to paint the CPC as being more "right" if "right" includes social conservatism and military support of the US in the pursuit of *their* foreign policy.
I would argue the opposite. It may not be wrong to label the CPC as "right", but it IS wrong to label them such for those reasons. Social conservatism and support for certain U.S. policies are not central to the CPC agenda. In fact, the party constitution outlines the CPC's support for "progressive" social policy (which is mercifully undefined). The party supports an independent foreign policy but it decries knee-jerk anti-americanism as much as it decries any form of bigotry. It might be correct to label the CPC as being to the right of the Liberals on economic matters because economics IS part of the party's platform. I also argue that it IS wrong to label the CPC as social conservative because it simply isn't. Some people in it may be, but many more are not. Enough more, in fact, that the party constitution reflects both libertarian and social progressive proscriptions against social conservatism.
Then again, I just argue a lot. <g>
-g |
