Where
have all the so-cons gone?
Leadership
campaign: Who will they vote for next weekend?
Adam
Daifallah
National
Post
It
seems as if it was just yesterday that Stockwell Day burst on to the national
political scene, catapulting himself to the leadership of the Canadian Alliance
with a scrappy outsider campaign, confounding the most experienced pundits and
experts.
Day
and his inner circle built a powerful grassroots movement that managed to sign
up thousands not previously involved in partisan politics. Many were
"social conservatives" ("so-cons" for short): people who,
either religious or not, place a high importance on moral issues -- curbing
abortion and preserving traditional marriage, for example.
One
of the people who helped Day vault to the leadership was Roy Beyer, the
founding president of the Canada Family Action Coalition. Like many social
conservatives, Beyer was entranced by Day's openness about his faith. Stockwell
Day was a hero. He was "one of them."
"The
fact that I would have large crowds of supporters in beer halls was nowhere
near as interesting to [the media]," Day says now, "as when I'd speak
to supporters in a mosque, synagogue or church. So the national media, who have
a phobia about people of faith ... just couldn't handle the fact that I had
other supporters."
Beyer
founded Families for Day, a grassroots organization he says directly signed up
3,500 people and thousands more indirectly in the 2000
So
where are those people today? Where will they mark their X next weekend when
they cast their ballots for a leader? There is no short answer.
Beyer
estimates about 30% of the new Conservative Party's membership are
"pro-family": people for whom family values concerns are the top
issues. While none of the candidates is strong so-cons, Beyer has thrown his
support behind Tony Clement, who has come out in favour of traditional marriage
(as has Stephen Harper) and has told him so-cons would have a seat at the table
under his leadership.
No
backroom deals were made with Clement in exchange for support, Beyer insists.
The fact that Clement is willing to give so-cons a hearing is enough for him.
Though
that may be a modest expectation, the so-con "movement" has without
fanfare reinvented itself since the Stockwell Day experience, working to move
into the mainstream.
"It's
kind of a more low-profile approach," Beyer says. "The social
conservative movement is maturing. A lot more people are just 'conservatives'
now. Ghettoizing them as 'one-issue' people is just not accurate."
Upward
of 80% of Americans identify themselves as Christian, of whom more than
one-third call themselves evangelical or born-again.
Not the same here. According to census data, more than 75% of Canadians call
themselves Christian, but less than 3% of the total population is evangelical.
(Note that so-cons are not just evangelical Christians; some are Catholics,
Jews, Muslims or secular.)
While
Beyer supports Clement, he acknowledges there isn't much of a gap between
Clement and Harper on policy.
"Winnability
is the big issue," he says. "I think Tony has the ability to win a
greater level of support in
"I'm
very proud of having social conservatives on my team," Clement said at a
recent meeting with the National Post's editorial board. "I don't say that
from a defensive point of view. It shows how I can keep building the bridges in
our party.
"I
said to [Beyer] that in the Conservative Party of Canada we should be open to
the debate on issues from a social conservative point of view, from a social
libertarian point of view, from a fiscal conservative point of view, from a
communitarian point of view."
Clement's
open embrace of so-cons is a bit surprising, but he is happy to have any
support in a race where he is behind. Most observers would say the lion's share
of so-con votes are going to Harper. Stockwell Day estimates that's where most
of his former supporters are lining up.
"Social
conservatives have generally lined up behind Stephen Harper and have done so
mostly because the Canadian Alliance under his leadership seemed to stand up
against the judicially led redefinition of marriage and the Liberal
acquiescence with the courts," says Paul Tuns, editor-in-chief of The
Interim, a Toronto-based life and family issues newspaper with a distribution
of 30,000. "However, organizations that place an emphasis on the pro-life
side of the ledger -- and here I'm thinking of Campaign Life Coalition -- are
taking a more circumspect look at the leadership candidates. They haven't found
a potential leader who is willing to offer anything on the abortion issue,
anything at all to warrant an official endorsement."
While
the mainstream media's tendency has been to paint the so-con constituency as a
monolithic group of fundamentalist rubes, there are clearly divisions on
strategy and tactics. The current leadership race is a case in point. People
such as Beyer and Tuns represent a younger, more pragmatic approach willing to
ingratiate themselves within the larger conservative movement, while Campaign
Life may be said to be "the old guard."
Campaign
Life -- or at least its leadership -- represents the more hard-line part of the
so-con movement. They are not really prepared to make compromises on the issues
that matter to them. Mary Ellen Douglas, the veteran
"I've
had people phoning me about Harper, and they say he's pro-life. They say, 'Go
to his literature,' but there's nothing in there. He doesn't make any stand
whatsoever; he says he'd allow a free vote,"
It
is true Harper has never felt comfortable with the so-con label. For years,
this stolid policy wonk was thought of as a libertarian within conservative
circles and generally considered wary of touching the social issues at all.
"Even
though he's considered a traditional conservative, he doesn't believe in
imposing his values on others. We have to respect that [so-con] voice and
listen to it. We show respect where the Liberals try to stifle that
voice," said Line Maheux, Harper's spokeswoman. She adds he is not opposed
to some kind of civil union or domestic partnership arrangement for gays.
Maheux,
a respected conservative spin doctor, worked on Stockwell Day's leadership bid
in 2000 and says the difference between her current and former boss is Harper's
ability to better communicate his message.
"I've
never felt Stock was in favour of imposing his own personal values. I think
that we did not communicate that properly, and it was a big mistake,"
Maheux said.
Jason
Kenney, the feisty MP from Calgary who was Day's campaign chairman in the 2000
Alliance race and stood with him in the divisive 2002 battle, is with Harper
this time.
He
acknowledges that none of the contenders is a so-con white knight.
"Perhaps
because they don't have a record on these issues and because they don't
identify personally or culturally with socially conservative constituencies.
Mr. Day won a lot of support from evangelical Protestants, as did Mr. Manning
before him, without reference to issues but simply because of cultural
identification," Kenney said.
But
while so-cons may be reluctantly or unenthusiastically voting for Clement or
Harper, they are even less impressed with Belinda Stronach. Her campaign is not
directly targeting so-cons; hers is the only campaign not to answer a social
conservative leadership questionnaire sponsored by the Canada Family Action
Coalition, "because they do not have time," according to the Web site
where the answers are posted.
Stronach
is the lone candidate who endorses same-sex marriage, earning praise from such
groups as Canadians for Equal Marriage and Egale
The
Magna magnate's candidacy has created the closest thing the race has to an
"anybody but" sentiment. A few so-con groups have gone on the attack.
For example, Real Women, a so-con women's group, issued an "urgent action
alert" to their members warning them about Stronach, singling out three
gay campaign workers and warning that if Stronach were to win, "the
homosexual agenda will be a high priority."
Stronach's
campaign has taken offence at this.
"Her
views are very clear on a number of issues that seem to be lightning rods for
these groups," said Geoff Norquay, a campaign spokesman. "Certainly
when they target key people in our campaign by name, that's beyond the pale as
far as we're concerned. They've made their views known, and we've made our
views known. This type of thing is unacceptable and reprehensible."
But
Stronach's camp isn't without socially conservative supporters. John Cummins, a
B.C. MP with socially conservative views, is behind her and supports her
position of allowing a free vote on contentious issues of moral conscience.
No
matter who wins the leadership race, the so-con constituency is not going away
any time soon. It is a potent force in the new Conservative Party. And with the
so-con movement coming of age, its views will be ignored by the new party at
its peril.
Adam
Daifallah is a member of the National Post editorial board.
©
National Post 2004