The question often comes up in political discussions as to whether conservatism is actually making any headway in Canada. Conservatives are split on the issue. There are those who see improvements and others who see us falling further and further behind.
The Harper government has made some strides, especially when it comes to tone (emphasis on the military, for example -- and when was the last time you heard anyone talking about the Charter of Rights?). In the the North American context, there have been so many victories over the past four decades it is hard to count them, which is what has led (in part) to the current crisis of faith in the Republican Party.
The Cold War has been won and communism is a marginal force. Tax cuts are accepted as mainstream even in some centre-left parties. Income taxes are so low millions of people don't even pay them in the US and Canada. Welfare rates remain low. Crime is so small an issue it barely registers in polling. And until the last few months with the onset of the global credit meltdown, no one would have ever thought of nationalizing private enterprise anymore. Recent events have dealt conservatism a blow. There is little doubt about that. It will recover, but it may take time. (The debate over the root causes of this crisis has also been totally lost by the right, due in large part to unilateral withdrawal from the intellectual battlefield, but that's for another day.) The immediacy with which governments around the world coalesced around the idea of state intervention to "solve" this crisis was nothing short of breathtaking. To get an idea of how bad it has been, consider that more than one commentator is saying that the Harper government has managed the crisis the most conservatively of all Western nations. Scary.
But where conservatism is definitely losing the battle and has for many years without any sign of push back is on what I would call the "nanny state" issues -- the gradual encroachment of state involvement into more and more areas of our lives through regulation. Smoking by-laws, banning this and that behaviour, boating licenses, gun registration, etc... are all rampant and there's no sign of it slowing down. And now this:
Edmonton — Mayor Stephen Mandel is calling for regulations around the sale of dangerous knives after an innocent city man was stabbed to death.
The man in his 20s was attacked early Saturday by a group of men, all of whom had been patrons at a west-end bar.
He was stabbed and left for dead behind a strip mall near 182 Street and 89 Avenue around 3:45 a.m.
“Like any citizen, I’m abhorred that this could happen to (anyone) whether it was someone innocent or not,” Mandel told Sun Media today. “It’s even more horrific when it’s someone innocent.”
The sale of large knives capable of inflicting fatal wounds should be controlled, he said.
I would be surprised if anything were to ever be done on this issue, but you never know. I thought we would have metal detectors at bus and train stations by now after that decapitation incident in Manitoba -- so far we don't, but we're heading in that direction. The battle against this kind of senselessness is being lost, in part because too few people are actually fighting it. Let's help those that are.
