Roundup: Party fault lines

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With social conservatives trying to stake out turf, along with Kellie Leitch’s “Canadian values” testing, Michael Chong’s Red Toryism and Maxime Bernier’s Freedom!-crying Libertarian-ish-ism, the question has been posed as to whether the Conservative leadership is opening up old schisms in the party. And the answer I would surmise is that probably, and it’s almost inevitable that it would. The party is a fairly big tent with some big divisions that got patched over by Stephen Harper in his quest to take down the Liberal party, and at the time, he was able to get enough disaffected factions together to do just that and keep them together while they achieved power, because power is its own reward. But now that they’re no longer in power, with Harper no longer at the helm, and the conditions that predicated his leadership have moved on, it’s not surprising in the slightest that these factions are now getting restive and trying to find different leadership camps to rally around. It’s not uncommon, and I have to wonder if there is anyone with enough personality and charisma to keep the factions together, given that there seems to be little appetite for another Harper (not that one could really be found among the current crop of leadership candidates). One could add that it should be a warning to Jason Kenney that the same conditions that allowed for the Conservative unification federally may not exist in Alberta given the history and challenges of the separate parties there. I would also note that given the diversity of views to be found in that big tent, this is likely not a discussion that we would be having if Canada were to adopt a Proportional Representation voting system. There, each faction would be more likely to splinter off into its own party in the hopes of forming an external coalition with more leverage for trying to achieve their goals rather than the internal coalitions that exist in big-tent brokerage parties currently, which moderate the excesses of the various factions in the hopes of achieving government. It’s one of those reasons why we need to be sceptical of those poll analyses that would show how the election might have gone under another system, given that it’s not likely that our parties would continue to exist in the same way under a different system.

Meanwhile, in case it was keeping you up at night, Kevin O’Leary continues to say he’s waiting to see who else is running before he announces if he’ll make a leadership bid of his own.

Good reads:

  • From the G20 meeting in China, there was an agreement to boost trade and fight protectionism (which Trudeau says we’re in less danger of here).
  • Also from the G20, Canada re-committed to eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, and Trudeau says he raised consular cases with Turkey and Indonesia.
  • Veterans Affairs is gathering a tonne of data on medical marijuana use by veterans, particularly as it’s being used to treat PTSD.
  • Here’s a look at how recent CRTC regulation changes are affecting Canadian television production, for the worse.
  • The CRTC is also holding hearings about how the “skinny basic” cable packages were rolled out, which wasn’t very well.
  • Despite 25,000 signatures gathered, the government isn’t budging on reclassifying AR-15 assault rifles.
  • Our navy is starting to train crew in Antarctic waters with Chile, in advance of our getting the Arctic offshore patrol vessels.
  • People have an increased level of trust in the government, which may be a “Trudeau effect.”
  • Rona Ambrose has disavowed Kellie Leitch’s proposed screening for “anti-Canadian values.”
  • Stephen Gordon looks at the changing nature of unions and labour in Canada, and how the perceptions around them are also changing.

Odds and ends:

Here’s an interview with independent Senator André Pratte on his first few months on the job.

Peter Mansbridge announced that he will retired on July 1st.