Hugh Segal - The Right Balance: Canadas Conservative Tradition

THE RIGHT BALANCE

HUGH SEGAL

The

RIGHT

CANADAS CONSERVATIVE TRADITION

BALANCE

Douglas & McIntyre
D&M PUBLISHERS INC.
Vancouver/Toronto

Copyright 2011 by Hugh Segal
Foreword copyright 2011 by Pamela Wallin

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Douglas & McIntyre
An imprint of D&M Publishers Inc.
2323 Quebec Street, Suite 201
Vancouver BC Canada V5 T 4S7
www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-1-55365-549-7 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-55365-790-3 (ebook)

Editing by Susan Folkins
Copy editing by Pam Robertson
Jacket design by Peter Cocking

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

To the Honourable William Grenville Davis,CC,
who, as premier of Ontario from 1971 to 1985,
and as anMPPand minister for a quarter of a century,
reflected the essential balance, decency, compassion and courage
that anchored and still reflects what modern
Canadian conservatism is at its inclusive and humane best

Contents

by Pamela Wallin

[ ] Accommodation, Respect:
The Tory View of Our National Soul

[ ] The Durham-Elgin Divide:
Ongoing Repercussions

[ ] Borden, Bennett and Twentieth-Century
Tory Nationalism and Internationalism

[ ] Mr. Meighen Builds the Bridge to
Modern Progressive Conservatism

[ ] Red Tory Prairie Populism and
Mr. Diefenbaker

[ ] Stanfield, Clark and Mulroney:
The Long Road to 1984

[ ] The Five Steps to Conservative Rebirth:
Manning, Day, Charest, MacKay, Harper

[ ] The Battle for a Balanced Future:
Canadian, not American, Conservatism

T his is a self-help book for the intellectually starved, the history deprived and for those who know that the medias take on todays politics is all too often a fact-free zone. Articulated by one of the brightest and authentically compassionate conservative thinkers of our timemy Senate colleague and long-time friend Hugh SegalThe Right Balance is a scholarly examination of the roots of Canadian conservatism and of the contemporary Canadian state.

His thesis, eloquently explored, is that each Tory leader since Confederation has, in turn, consciously constructed a vital piece of our national architecture. But history, too, has foreshadowed an interesting pattern, namely that Tories propose, engage and face the brunt and political cost for national and necessary policy innovation, while Liberals sort out how to more expertly profit politically in terms of seat totals and electoral outcomes. And today, too many still confuse liberal tactical flexibility with competence and integrity.

Threaded throughout this book, you will find a reasoned critique of the Liberal/Conservative divide, which is seldom about left and right, but always about attitude, moral leadership and a sense of nation.

Not surprisingly, Hughs most cogent commentary is on the contemporary, with a view to the road ahead. Hugh is long known and well loved in this country for his sharp political wit and analytical precision and he and I have spent many an early morning together on the set of CanadaAM so I am witness to this fact. But as he casts his eye back over the pages of history, the same finely honed skills come into play.

It has long been held that conservatives, by nature and ideology, are just thatconservative, mistrustful of the future, suspicious of change or improving things. As the late patron saint of American conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr., famously put it: the task for conservatives was to stand athwart history, yelling Stop. But nothing could be further from the reality of our incredible country and Hugh has tapped into the spirit of Conservative leaders who, through deed and not just word, have inspired our nations story.

Conservatives are not opposed to modernity, only to some of its excesses. And rather than being resistant to change, conservatism throughout our history has been about embracing it and managing it!

Canadian conservatism is uniquenot derivative, nor transplanted, but rather the child of geography and history. And those who, for partisan purposes, try to suggest that conservatives are Republicans North fundamentally fail to grasp both history and reality.

In the pages that follow you will find a story not often told because of the myths that persistperpetuated by the conceit of partisans who continue to cast the country as a Liberal one and themselves as midwives to our heart and humanity.

Yet, the record tells another tale.

Hughs grand theme of nation and enterprise captures the conservative belief that the Canadian approach to governing is found at the intersection of market freedom and public interest, and that this is the tie that binds this great nation. Sir John A. Macdonalds embrace of the twin forces of nation and enterprise fostered a national economy and forged a political consolidation, not to mention helped build the railway that gave life to a Dominion from sea to sea! Wartime leader Robert Borden introduced national instruments such as income tax and the NRC. And Arthur Meighen opened up universal suffrage (againnation building!), and helped define a national stance, declaring that we need not be cowed by British condescension or American exceptionalism.

A later prime minister, R.B. Bennett, sought to help a young country meet the Depression head-on by supporting pensions, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage and health insurance. But he also levered Canadas independent World War I effort and contribution to make certain that, in the future, we would have a Canadian voice proudly articulated. That would mean Canada had to be prepared to defend her values and that domestic political issues should not excuse us from carrying our weight or from engaging in the defence of those principlesa concept that even today often separates Liberals from Conservatives. It shaped our foreign and defence policy. Even the golden age of Pearsonian diplomacy was made possible, in part, because of the respect afforded our nation by the actions of its soldiers. And despite years of Liberal governments short-changing our military, our men and women in Afghanistan have reclaimed that lost ground for us because they have been such committed and brave warriors. And their extraordinary humanitarian effort, combined with war fighting, has again earned Canada a respected place at the international table of allies.