Are two conservative parties better than one?

[Argus]

Andrew Coyne has, of course, written on the Bernier matter, and his opinion is not much different than most of the pundits. But he did have an interesting suggestion, which is that the fact we have the NDP has pulled the political centre leftward and made left wing ideas much more respectable than right wing ideas.

As I’ve argued before, the splitting of the left-of-centre vote between two (later three, and four) parties since 1935 has not stopped the Liberals from winning 16 out of 25 elections in that time. It may even have helped. The presence of two parties saying broadly similar things has entrenched progressivism as the default mode of Canadian politics, leaving the Conservatives, to the extent they have occasionally demurred, looking like the outliers.

The fact that we have a political party in parliament constantly voicing socialist beliefs and opinions, but no similar party on the right has made Marx respectable, but the instant anyone voices even mildly conservative views people are aghast. Because the 'Conservative" party so rarely ever does. It, like the Liberals, hugs the centre, and though it has conservative people within its ranks they're constantly told to be be quiet lest they cause offense to the media and world at large. Would a conservative variant of the NDP voicing those opinions regularly, both in media and in the House of Commons help to draw the political center further to the right? I think that's quite possible.

On the other hand, as Coyne goes on to say. 

But to say that a new conservative party might be a useful addition to the political landscape is not to say that this is that party, or that now is the time, or that Bernier is its leader.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-why-this-crazy-leap-in-the-dark-by-maxime-bernier/wcm/b83acb1c-0deb-4be8-a9ad-b3ba609de2a4

Edited August 25, 2018 by Argus

[-1=e^ipi]

I don't like any conservative parties. Conservatism is about conserving stupid ideas, be it conserving the dairy cartel in Canada or conserving a policy where women are beheaded for shopping without a male escort in Saudi Arabia.

 

However, one of the benefits of proportional representation, is it allows for more views to be represented. This allows for a greater competition of ideas and for the people to have more choice and be better represented. More competition of ideas allows the best ideas to win in the long run. What we have in Canada with our Trudeau-Scheer supported first past the post system is a sad lack of choice, diversity of ideas, and competition of ideas.

 

What's the point in having 300+ MPs if they all agree with each other on every issue?

 

What we need is not a conservative party, but a party that supports free trade. A party that doesn't want to go into a giant trade war in order to support some cartels that make food unnecessarily expensive for poor people. A party that supports freedom such as the freedom of same-sex marriage, the freedom to get an abortion, the freedom to do marijuana, the freedom to do cocaine and other hard drugs, the freedom to engage in prostitution, the freedom to buy/sell sperm, eggs and surrogacy services, and the freedom purchase private healthcare.

Edited August 25, 2018 by -1=e^ipi

[scribblet]

It's not a good idea to split the vote under our current system as it would allow the Liberals to come up the middle to win again.   As much as I agree with a lot of what Bernier says, he's just thrown the next election.   Monte Solberg believes Bernier will fail, so do I.     If we had proportional rep. then IMO his party would gain seats, the reason that Prop. Rep, is not the system of choice for Trudeau who would prefer the Ranked Ballot.

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/i-was-a-reform-mp-and-i-supported-maxime-bernier-for-leader-heres-why-hell-fail/

Bernier’s idealism, as he will surely soon discover, must be tempered by judgment in politics. And critically, these recent events indicate that he doesn’t seem to know when to wait, defer, deflect or compromise—all essential skills in politics. You can’t die on every hill. You need the wisdom to know when it is best to back away, no matter how tempting it would be to engage, because engaging might send the wrong message about priorities—and, lately, about whether you even understand the Canadian cast of mind.

[Machjo]

43 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

I don't like any conservative parties. Conservatism is about conserving stupid ideas, be it conserving the dairy cartel in Canada or conserving a policy where women are beheaded for shopping without a male escort in Saudi Arabia.

 

However, one of the benefits of proportional representation, is it allows for more views to be represented. This allows for a greater competition of ideas and for the people to have more choice and be better represented. More competition of ideas allows the best ideas to win in the long run. What we have in Canada with our Trudeau-Scheer supported first past the post system is a sad lack of choice, diversity of ideas, and competition of ideas.

 

What's the point in having 300+ MPs if they all agree with each other on every issue?

 

What we need is not a conservative party, but a party that supports free trade. A party that doesn't want to go into a giant trade war in order to support some cartels that make food unnecessarily expensive for poor people. A party that supports freedom such as the freedom of same-sex marriage, the freedom to get an abortion, the freedom to do marijuana, the freedom to do cocaine and other hard drugs, the freedom to engage in prostitution, and the freedom purchase private healthcare.

Remove party names from the ballot, let each candidate run as an independent, and there you'll have 300 plus diverse ideas in Parliament.

 

step 1: remove party names from ballots.

[Centerpiece]

No - I don't think it is. A significant number - maybe a majority of Canadians (I don't know the real number) are politically or personally engaged enough to have an ideological choice that puts them with the Conservatives, Liberals, or NDP. That leaves the remainder - still a large number - who can be swayed to some degree. Unfortunately, more and more  of that remainder seem to have the default mentality of "what can the government do for me?". That puts them at odds with the Conservative vision of smaller, more efficient government. I don't see that changing anytime soon. That's why splitting the vote on the Left is as important as ever. Another Conservative Party - one even more dedicated to smaller government is not going to help.

All that said, I think there is opportunity for Scheer to steal back Blue Liberals - those Conservative voters who drifted to LIberal-land through Trudeau's promise of a balanced budget - and those fiscally responsible Liberals who should be outraged at Trudeau's deficits and debts. Add to that the Liberal ideological shift to the Left and that might shake loose disaffected Liberals. There is/should be a lot of Buyer's Remorse out there. If Scheer can make inroads in Quebec - and Ontario comes back into the fold, anything can happen. Lots of potential drama out there.

[Queenmandy85]

What draws a major party to the left or the right is not a fringe party. It is the electorate. The centre is defined by the voters. It is where the bulk of the electorate resides. The first rule in politics is (as in sales) the voter is always right. The Trudeau government and Sheer's CPC are reacting to what the voters want. That is not only good politics, it is democracy.

[Queenmandy85]

30 minutes ago, Centerpiece said:

All that said, I think there is opportunity for Scheer to steal back Blue Liberals - those Conservative voters who drifted to LIberal-land through Trudeau's promise of a balanced budget

Just for historical accuracy, Trudeau promised a deficit. It was the CPC and the NDP who promised a balanced budget. 

[Machjo]

10 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

What draws a major party to the left or the right is not a fringe party. It is the electorate. The centre is defined by the voters. It is where the bulk of the electorate resides. The first rule in politics is (as in sales) the voter is always right. The Trudeau government and Sheer's CPC are reacting to what the voters want. That is not only good politics, it is democracy.

Not entirely correct. Yes, a party can govern by the polls. Alternatively, a candidate can try to persuade the electorate and may or may not succeed. A party that governs by the polls is the one that will govern the most often, whereas the candidate who strives to persuade might not even win an election or, if he wins an election, will most probably sit as a backbencher in opposition. That said, he will probably change the political landscape far more than any PM or cabinet member will because whereas he might change a few voters' minds, they will simply have adapted themselves to the popular opinion.

 

It's the reality of politics. The party in power implements the will of the people whereas the opposition backbencher changes the minds of the people.

Edited August 25, 2018 by Machjo

[Queenmandy85]

5 minutes ago, Machjo said:

The party in power implements the will of the people whereas the opposition backbencher changes the minds of the people.

A politician who tries to change a voter's view on an issue is telling the voter "I'm smarter than you." Not the best idea for electoral success. A good government tries to be a reflection of the people. That's why I find it funny to hear all the garbage about how bad politicians are. 

Edited August 25, 2018 by Queenmandy85

[Machjo]

Just now, Queenmandy85 said:

A politician who tries to change a voter's view on an issue is telling the voter "I'm smarter than you." Not the best idea for electoral success.

That's why I said that at best, he'd be a backbencher, assuming he wins his seat at all. It might even be more accurate to say candidate in an election than backbencher. It can happen sometimes that a politician succeeds in changing a few minds. But again, the politician who tries to do that will certainly never sit in cabinet or at least not for very long.

The reality is though that the party that best follows opinion polls stands the best chance of forming a government.

[-1=e^ipi]

43 minutes ago, Machjo said:

Remove party names from the ballot, let each candidate run as an independent, and there you'll have 300 plus diverse ideas in Parliament.

step 1: remove party names from ballots.

People will form parties anyway and people will know who will correspond to which party.

Furthermore, you would still have the problems of the first past the post system. Socialists in rural areas will get zero representation. Libertarians will get zero representation. Conservatives in urban centres will get zero representation, etc.

 

What's the point of having a representative democracy if it fails to adequately represent the electorate? Some people care more about universal ideas than they care about the best interests of their particular riding at the expense of society.

[-1=e^ipi]

21 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

The first rule in politics is (as in sales) the voter is always right.

The first rule of politics should be to convince the electorate of the merits of your position through argument. That is the best long term strategy.

[Centerpiece]

21 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Just for historical accuracy, Trudeau promised a deficit. It was the CPC and the NDP who promised a balanced budget. 

Not quite. He promised deficits of no more that $10B and a balanced budget by the end of his first term.

[Machjo]

12 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

People will form parties anyway and people will know who will correspond to which party.

Furthermore, you would still have the problems of the first past the post system. Socialists in rural areas will get zero representation. Libertarians will get zero representation. Conservatives in urban centres will get zero representation, etc.

 

What's the point of having a representative democracy if it fails to adequately represent the electorate? Some people care more about universal ideas than they care about the best interests of their particular riding at the expense of society.

What makes you think a candidate should represent just the best interests of his riding? In my opinion, he should focus on the best interests of mankind even when it might be at the expense of his riding. He should also have the courage to trust that many of his constituents likely think the same way.

Also, people don't always fit in neat little cookie cutters. for example, I don't fit so neatly into right or left and so even in pro-rep, I still would have no party to vote for. By just removing party names from ballots would encourage individual candidates to present new ideas that might not always fall so neatly along the left and right spectra.

[eyeball]

54 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

What draws a major party to the left or the right is not a fringe party. It is the electorate. The centre is defined by the voters. It is where the bulk of the electorate resides. The first rule in politics is (as in sales) the voter is always right. The Trudeau government and Sheer's CPC are reacting to what the voters want. That is not only good politics, it is democracy.

Sounds good except it completely ignores the effect of lobbyists and influence peddling on democracy once the election is past.

[Queenmandy85]

45 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Furthermore, you would still have the problems of the first past the post system

What about a run-off election in those ridings where the leading candidate doesn't get a majority. That keeps it local and each MP has a firm mandate. PR entrenches the power of the parties and the voters of Kootenay-East end up with a party bagman from Toronto as their MP. Parties already have too much power. Under PR, you would never have any independents. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Argus said:

On the other hand, as Coyne goes on to say. 

But to say that a new conservative party might be a useful addition to the political landscape is not to say that this is that party, or that now is the time, or that Bernier is its leader.

Parti-Bernier may not be the answer and it will likely mean another Liberal government next election; but, I'm hopeful that it will lead to better conservative options going forward. The CPC is further right than many can stomach and probably too liberal for social conservatives. I would love to see a fiscally conservative, centre-right party that ditched the social conservatism, Christian BS. This may be possible if a second party existed further right.

Along with an additional conservative option I would love to see PR happen so that each party with seats had some actual power (proportional to their support) to get things done.

[Argus]

3 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

I don't like any conservative parties. Conservatism is about conserving stupid ideas, be it conserving the dairy cartel in Canada

This presumes all ideas are stupid and none should be preserved. The dairy cartel, btw, is definitely NOT conservative. It's a socialist scheme. That's why Bernier was angry at the Conservative party supporting it.

3 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

However, one of the benefits of proportional representation, is it allows for more views to be represented. This allows for a greater competition of ideas and for the people to have more choice and be better represented. 

Absolutely. We have 49% of the population saying that immigration is too high and 0% of politicians willing to represent that view.

3 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

What we need is not a conservative party, but a party that supports free trade. 

A conservative party WOULD support free trade.

[Argus]

1 hour ago, Queenmandy85 said:

What draws a major party to the left or the right is not a fringe party. It is the electorate. The centre is defined by the voters. It is where the bulk of the electorate resides.

But what convinces the voters where the centre is? If left of centre ideas are constantly being discussed respectfully in parliament and in media courtesy of their being a 'respectable' left wing party in the NDP but no conservative ideas are discussed because there is no respectable party advocating for them then does that not convince the electorate that conservative ideas are scary and irresponsible?

[Argus]

1 hour ago, Queenmandy85 said:

A politician who tries to change a voter's view on an issue is telling the voter "I'm smarter than you." Not the best idea for electoral success. A good government tries to be a reflection of the people. That's why I find it funny to hear all the garbage about how bad politicians are. 

The NDP have advocated for Left of centre ideas the public had no interest in for decades, and eventually, many of those ideas have now become mainstream and been implemented.

[Argus]

24 minutes ago, Slick said:

Parti-Bernier may not be the answer and it will likely mean another Liberal government next election; but, I'm hopeful that it will lead to better conservative options going forward. The CPC is further right than many can stomach and probably too liberal for social conservatives. I would love to see a fiscally conservative, centre-right party that ditched the social conservatism, Christian BS. This may be possible if a second party existed further right.

Along with an additional conservative option I would love to see PR happen so that each party with seats had some actual power (proportional to their support) to get things done.

The present Conservative party has already ditched the social conservative stuff. What's socially conservative about them? As to fiscally conservative, since the median of politics has been shifted to the left by the combined left wing parties, it's hard for a party under FPTP to get into power without promising a ton of goodies, just like the other parties are doing. 

[-1=e^ipi]

1 hour ago, Machjo said:

What makes you think a candidate should represent just the best interests of his riding?

I think you misunderstand what I wrote. I was arguing for the opposite.

If we merely keep the first past the post system with ridings and get rid of party names, it won't really change anything, except give voters less information to make informed choices.

[-1=e^ipi]

1 hour ago, Queenmandy85 said:

What about a run-off election in those ridings where the leading candidate doesn't get a majority. That keeps it local and each MP has a firm mandate. PR entrenches the power of the parties and the voters of Kootenay-East end up with a party bagman from Toronto as their MP. Parties already have too much power. Under PR, you would never have any independents. 

 

That's what Justin Trudeau wants, and it will result in even less political diversity in parliament. In a representative democracy, all voices should be represented, even the extremes.

 

A PR system doesn't entrench the power on the parties since parties can freely split and form without concern about splitting of the vote. Furthermore, if there are more parties then there is more competition between parties. Rather a first past the post system entrenches the power of parties as we see in parliament where the slightest dissent from party ranks isn't allowed.

 

And why must everything be local? It is a national election for national issues. Perhaps if the political system weren't so focused on local issues we would have better governance and less caving into special interest groups.

[-1=e^ipi]

47 minutes ago, Argus said:

This presumes all ideas are stupid and none should be preserved.

 

Rather, basing an ideology around conserving things for the sake of conserving things is rather silly. Conservatism is a relative political ideology rather than an absolute political ideology. Conservatism only has policies once you take into account the society you are in, where has something like Classical Liberalism has policies that apply everywhere regardless of society (freedom of speech, equality between men and women, etc.). That's why conservatism means beheading women who go shopping without a male escort and killing gay people in Saudi Arabia. Why people would want to associate themselves with the gay-killing Saudis is crazy to me, but it makes a bit more sense once you take into account Andrew Scheer's dislike of gay marriage.

 

47 minutes ago, Argus said:

A conservative party WOULD support free trade.

 

Conservatism has nothing to do with free trade. That's revisionist history. Traditionally, conservatism in most societies has been about conserving traditions and not wanting to trade with foreigners. The conservative parties in Canada were opposed to free trade until the 1980s. It was conservatives that opposed free trade with the Americans during the time of Wilfred Laurier.

 

Trade liberalization is a Classical Liberal idea, not a conservative one (see Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill). If you look at the origins or the terms right and left with respect to politics (i.e. late 18th century France), the right consisted of monarchists, catholic theocrats, and protectionists wanting to restrict economic freedom & trade.

 

Bernier is not a conservative, he is a libertarian. It is too bad that he has bought into this revisionist history rather than correctly identify himself as not conservative.

Edited August 25, 2018 by -1=e^ipi

[Machjo]

3 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

 

Rather basing an ideology around conserving things for the sake of conserving things is rather silly. Conservatism is a relative political ideology rather than an absolute political ideology. Conservatism only has policies once you take into account the society you are in, where has something like Classical Liberalism has policies that apply everywhere regardless of society (freedom of speech, equality between men and women, etc.). That's why conservatism means beheading women who go shopping without a male escort and killing gay people in Saudi Arabia. Why people would want to associate themselves with the gay-killing Saudis is crazy to me, but it makes a bit more sense once you take into account Andrew Scheer's dislike of gay marriage.

 

 

Conservatism has nothing to do with free trade. That's revisionist history. Traditionally, conservatism in most societies has been about conserving traditions and not wanting to trade with foreigners. The conservative parties in Canada were opposed to free trade until the 1980s. It was conservatives that opposed free trade with the Americans during the time of Wilfred Laurier.

 

Trade liberalization is a Classical Liberal idea, not a conservative one (see Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill). If you look at the origins or the terms right and left with respect to politics (i.e. late 18th century France), the right consisted of monarchists, catholic theocrats, and protectionists wanting to restrict economic freedom & trade.

 

Bernier is not a conservative, he is a libertarian. It is too bad that he has bought into this revisionist history rather than correctly identify himself as not conservative.

I'm a constitutional monarchist, believe that human life begins at conception, and favour strict laws pertaining to addictive products and services.

Yet I favour open borders, a mostly capitalistic economy but with social services to give those in need a hand up, school vouchers but public funding for those vouchers.

So, what party would best represent my views? None! That's why I favour weakening the power of the party whip so as to allow individual candidates the freedom to share new ideas from outside the box.