Tasha Kheiriddin, who appears to have become a regular contributor at the National Post, writes about the Manning Centre’s report on Canadian values in today’s Full Comment. Conducted by Canadian pollsters Allan Gregg of Harris/Decima and Professor André Turcotte of Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication, Ms.Kheiriddin writes that the results suggest that Canada’s definition of the political centre has moved to the right [I would report on this myself, but the report isn't available to the public yet].
The findings aren’t initially surprising. Of the 1,000 Canadians surveyed, 65% described themselves as centrist. Of these, 47% admit voting for the Conservative Party in 2008. Since the actual voter turnout for the Conservative party was only 36%, the survey is already slightly skewed in favour of a conservative viewpoint. This important consideration should not elude anyone.
On moral issues, Ms.Kheiriddin reports, 89% strongly agreed with the statement “nothing is more important than family.” And if that kind of social conservatism is a little ambiguous, she writes that 67% believe in the definition of marriage of being between a “man and a woman”. 60% strongly agree that abortion is morally wrong.
This certainly seems at odds with other polling results that suggest Canada is still a fairly socially liberal country. According to an Angus Reid survey from September of 2009, 61% of Canadians agree with same-sex marriage, while a further 23% agree with civil unions respecting all legal rights of coupling for homosexuals. That’s 84% of Canadians who, in some way, want to validate homosexual marriage.
As for abortion, Angus Reid held a poll on the issue in June of 2008, which found that 49% believed in the unfettered right to access for pregnancy termination. A further 42% agreed that abortion should be legal under certain circumstances. So, again, that means 91% of the country are open to the moral ambiguity of abortion rights. Hardly a ringing endorsement for social conservatism in Canada.
But as Ms.Kheiriddin explains, perhaps that’s because the Manning report found that only 31% of Canadians, less than one third, believe government should play any major role in regulating moral quandaries.
Turning to economics, and again with a large grain of salt, considering 47% of the respondents voted Conservative, 61% feel the government is doing the right thing on the recession, with an equal number supporting its profligate spending.
Does this report make a convincing argument that Canadian values have shifted to the right? I’m not certain it has. If anything, the Conservative Party has moved the spectrum to the left, shifting the centre along with it. This is a continuing part of the Conservative strategy to usurp the Liberal Party in the centre and become the “Natural Governing Party” by adopting Liberal policies and then slowly squeezing the Liberals out of the centre by getting voters to adopt the Conservative brand.
The Conservatives have already used aggressive marketing tactics to fund-raise involving mainly uninspiring themes along the lines of, “well, at least we’re not the Liberals, right?” And although it seems to be working, there’s little evidence that this means a shift in Canadian adoption of conservatism.
Stephen Harper is a Big Government Conservative, after all, and that hardly fits with most fiscal conservative supporters. The massive deficits which will lead to record debt, with the increased bureaucracy, bloated civil service, and creation of regional development agencies and crown corporations, is not at all shifting Canada to the right. Add in the market interventionism, stimulus, and increased spending on social programs, and you wind up with a party that spends like Bob Rae’s Ontario, but cuts taxes like Mike Harris’s. And that still doesn’t make it more conservative.
