~ What do (Canadian) Liberals stand for? ~

A very good read and primer about the reason the Canadian federal Liberals have had so much success for so many decades.

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http://tinyurl.com/4hmzm

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Ideologically the Liberals have defined Canada as an open, peaceful and modern country. The federal liberal party has had its share of fiascos and idiots but Canadians have favoured the 'regime of tolerance' for decades. Wingnut mouthpieces like david frum and mark stern have tried to paint the centrist Liberals as pathetic, weak and lost but election after election Canadians favour the party of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Lester P. Pearson (equiv. to the peace minded Jimmy Carter) and the intellectually and internationally respected Pierre E. Trudeau (comparable to the world re-knowned genial mind and pecadillish Bill Clinton).

I've followed and supported the Liberal party both provincially and nationally and am (mostly) proud of their accomplishments. Canada's two largest provinces went Liberal just a while ago and the Feds seem to be holding their own in a minority gov't.

There are nuggets of gold in the 3 page article. Enjoy it and let your friends have the link.

•  I've followed them, too

  Living in the Detroit area, I am able to follow Canadian politics via CBC News. Lately, thet seem to be the only "centrist" party in the country. I was getting a little frustrated with Paul Martin because he never seemed to stand for anything. However, I have to give him a lot of credit for standing up to Bush on his missile defense scam.

  Once upon a time, the Conservative under Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney held a center-right position. Depsite his shameless loyalty to Ronald Reagan, Mulroney was actually ahead of us on sanctions against South Africa back in the bad old days of Apartheid. Now it looks like it's controlled by the Religious Right/Gun nut wing that always existed out wEst, but was fairly quiet.

  The NDP is an appealing party, but they never seem to be able to break through nationally, even though they are currently propping up the Martin government.

  by RandyMI on Thu Mar 03, 2005 at 05:55:32 AM PDT

  •  Current Conservatives

    Bear little resemblance to the party of Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney. And most of it is Mulroney's fault, since he manipulated politics for his own personal glorification. Not that they were all bad, mind you, as Margarate Thatcher once remarked (the party was then known as the Progressive Conservative party): "I recognize the Progressive part, but I have yet to see the Conservative."

    In any event, after 10 years in the wilderness (reduced from 157 to 2 seats in 1993), the party is currently called "Conservative" but is more properly the Reform party with a new brand. In this guise they are a lot more like the evangelicals in the Republican party--it will be a sad day in this country if they ever come to power. Fortunately, most Canadians seem to reject what they stand for. Only incompetence and corruption by the current Liberals will give them power.

    As for the NDP, they also struggled for years to be "slightly left" of the Liberals. They have now acknowledged that they need to distance themselves a little more (very similar to what the Dems are going through). Their biggest obstacle is never having been in power.

    As an interesting historical tidbit you may not be aware of, Kiefer Sutherland (of "24") is the grandson of the founder of the NDP, Tommy Douglas, who was recently voted the "greatest Canadian" (whatever that means) for having introduced Medicare and other core Canadian programs. Which brings us back to the Liberals, since it was actually Pearson who appropriated the Medicare idea from Douglas and actually brought it into being, and Trudeau who built it into what it is. Which is historically a great strength of the Liberal party--a willingness and facility for borrowing ideas from other parties.

    by thingamabob on Thu Mar 03, 2005 at 07:17:25 AM PDT

•  Thanks, moeman.

  That was interesting.  My favorite summary is this:
  

  This is "the Liberal brand." It is not so much an ideology as a modus operandi, an unalloyed pragmatism. Canadian Liberalism -- as opposed to classical liberalism -- means managerial competence, fiscal responsibility, and centrist government, usually leaning left.

  It actually reminds me a bit of why I like Howard Dean--he is a manager, a fiscally responsible pragmatist, he is to the right of me, but I can work with him because he leans to the left.  Maybe somethin' about Vermont having some Canadian air blowing past....

  But when it describes the "centrist" government, would you say that means somewhat more left than the corresponding center in the US?  Do you have a sense of that?

  PS: I'm seriously considering moving to Nova Scotia if the US moves more and more to the Bible as the mode of government....

  by mem from somerville on Thu Mar 03, 2005 at 05:55:37 AM PDT

  •  Oh, absolutely

    Except for the far right wingers, all Canadian politicians are to the "left" of the current US middle.

    by Northwatch on Thu Mar 03, 2005 at 06:16:15 AM PDT

    •  to the rest of the western world...

      ...American politics is very right wing.  I'll (loosely) quote someone on K5 who put it very well: "In Europe, universal healthcare and a woman's right to choose is what you have to bring to the table to prove you're not Atilla the Hun"

      We have our own problems to be sure but over here in the UK the Democrats would be a centrist party.  There's nothing wrong with that, Labour seems to have morphed itself to be in much the same vein. (certainly the Liberal Democrats are the true left wing party here in the UK now)

      From inside the fishbowl I can easily believe how easy it can be to describe the Democrats as "the Left".  To us foreigners peering in at you it seems to be a struggle of the center against the far far right.

      by Elohite on Thu Mar 03, 2005 at 09:29:05 AM PDT

•  A Brief Primer on Canadian Parties

  This originally came from a friend of mine.

  Liberals: We rule!  No, literally.  If it's a good idea and will keep up democratically elected, we'll do it.

  Progressive Conservatives (pre merger): We'd probably be able to run things if we weren't stabbing each other in the back on a regular basis.  Mulroney?  Never heard of him.

  Reform (pre merger): You don't have to be an idiot to vote Reform, but it's apparently a requirement to be a candidate.

  Conservatives (post merger):  I hear voices...no I don't!  Yes I do!  Shut up!  No, you shut up!

  NDP:  We come up with good ideas the Liberals steal.

  BQ:  We're for separation except when we're not.

  by Northwatch on Thu Mar 03, 2005 at 06:21:10 AM PDT

•  I ams SO stealing that . . .

  . . . "pecadillish" Bill Clinton.

  I love it.

  by privatewl on Thu Mar 03, 2005 at 07:12:17 AM PDT

•  The Liberals have defined Modern Canada

  Pearson, Trudeau, even Chretien.  Sure, they appropriated the NDP's policies here, or had conservative fiscal policy there, but this party and its platform have defined Canada.  National health insurance, mutli-culturalism, tolerance, the right to privacy - these are Canadian core values and/or institutions.  This puts Canadian conservatives in a precarious position, because the very policies they criticize or want to destroy are viewed as central to what it means to be Canadian.

  Case in point.  I occasionally check out CANOE, which is a Canadian news website apparently ran by the Sun Newspaper chain.  It is apparently very conservative, as all of their op ed columnists seem right-wing.  They criticize the high taxes, public health care, Canada's unwillingess to follow Uncle Sam wherever he goes, the small military.  But their criticisms come of as a general dislike of Canada.  They reming me of American conservative criticisms of Canada.

  American progressives, incidentally, seem to be in the opposite situation.  We often come across as "anti-American" for criticizing our imperialistic foreign policy, the importation of Christianity into public life, or the mere idea that the public sector does some things better than the private sector and - gasp - you have to pay for those things with taxes.

  by CrackWhore on Thu Mar 03, 2005 at 08:42:04 AM PDT