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

To: Michael Watkins who wrote (3839)	4/7/2004 3:18:54 AM
From: Gulo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 37180

You make a good point re "policy made by MP's and no one else" , but I still think it is unfair to paint the entire party with that brush. There is no doubt that there are more so-cons with the CPC than with the Liberals or the NDP. But we seem to agree that the so-cons do not set the agenda in most cases. The ridings you are familiar seem to be very different from the ridings I am familiar with. In the ridings I have worked with, religion was largely a non-issue. As for the demographics changing, surely you don't think religious groups are gaining more power within the CPC. I think they have largely already lost what little actual influence they might have had. In any case, I hope that you are wrong in your assertion that their influence is growing. The demographics seem to me to be making the CPC a mainstream economically conservative/socially liberal alternative to the Liberals. Most members of the CPC were recruited recently. I don't recall any so-con issues being even discussed recently (except perhaps gay marriage, because it was in the news, but which again, has not entered policy). I agree that Harper is more so-con than much of the party, but remember, he is hired by the party and not the other way around. I don't see him as having the power or desire to bring the party into a so-con position. He was formerly with the Canadian Taxpayers Association, not with the Canadian Heritage Party. My most pleasant surprise about the whole merger thing was the reading of the CPC party constitution. Read it. It seems almost like a soft-libertarian manifesto. The new entity shuns the social conservatives and embraces economic conservatives. I realize that the party constitution is not the voice that is likely to take the PM's seat, but Harper can't stray too far from it before getting serious lashback. As you said, Harper's interest in the merger is that it gives him additional bodies to help moderate the membership. -g