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Politics : Canadian Political Free-for-All -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gulo who wrote (3838)	4/6/2004 10:59:27 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 37179

Some people in it may be, but many more are not Now I will take exception with your statement - I am not naively painting the Reform/UA/CA with a blanket Soc-con brush. However, I think you'll find increasing pressure from social conservatives within the party. I've not done a tally yet but am aware of a number of ridings across the country where the board and importantly the nominated candidate were put in place by virtue of social/religious conservative voting blocks. One sitting MP defeated by same. The so-con faction of the Reform/UA/CA has always been sizable - just not a majority. I never said that they had control of policy. My statement - There are also extremely large interest groups within the CPC who do not believe in the separation between Church and State is completely accurate. I didn't say they controlled the entire party, I said it has been a very large group and guess what, its getting bigger. Almost a year ago I wrote an opinion paper that more or less predicted that Harper would work toward a merger partly because it would give him additional bodies to help moderate the membership by virtue of numbers alone. I have no doubt that Harper would least like to lead a party of the ultra-so-con right. Just the same, the social conservative wing of the party is by far the largest percentage wise when compared to the Liberals or NDP, and it is growing. So-con and evangelical groups are certainly doing a fair bit of organizing in some constituencies. Their increased strength and the support offered to Harper from this quarter make it only logical that the party will continue to be pushed in this direction. I'm aware of a number of candidates in winnable ridings who owe their position to so-con voting blocks and you can be sure that these IOU's will come to pass. Ah but you say policy is dictated by the membership? Two things wrong with that sense - first, the demographics of the membership are changing. But more importantly, we all know that once MP's get to Ottawa they have a funny way of acting on their own accord. See below for a relevant example. Recall is not coming to any parliament near you, any time soon. Regarding the US issue - support for certain U.S. policies are not central to the CPC agenda* Its unclear to me how you can avoid calling Harper's support for the US in Iraq as anything but "central" to the issue. His support for this was wrong on many levels. It was a bad decision. It doesn't reasonate with Canadian thinking. It is hugely unpopular and each passing day will make that more obvious. *Relevant example of "policy made by MP's and no one else" -- Most importantly, unless I am mistaken, I doubt very much that Reform/UA/CA ever had a policy in this area. Frankly I don't much care for a political leader such as Harper to extend his own world vision to represent that of the party's. But then Harper isn't much for seeking opinion from the membership, is he? For the record MacKay's own words on the conflict do not jive well with me, with a majority of Canadians nor with a significant percentage of the former PC and now the CPC. Harper did not merely state that we should be polite as we turn the US down in their request for willing coalition partners - his clearly expressed opinion was that the US action was justifiable, lawful and should be supported to the maximum degree possible. He's just lucky he wasn't actually PM at the time, having to make a real decision and live with the fall out.