Where Canada's New Right May Be Going Wrong

By Adrienne Snow

A number of the new Conservative Party’s current officials and elected representatives such as strategists, Ken Boessenkool and Tom Flanagan, party leader, Stephen Harper, and, MP, Jason Kenney - are, or so their biographies seem to suggest, intellectuals. That is, they have often earned their livings by reading, researching, writing or speaking in universities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government.

They are, arguably, somewhat similar in that respect to some left-wing activists, academics and leaders, whose theory-derived approach to effecting social or economic change many conservatives have traditionally deplored. That a number of today’s influential Canadian conservatives seem to have little experience at jobs outside government, universities and NGOs, and at doing such jobs, not just for several years, but for 10 years, 20 years or longer, as most Canadians do, is, to me, somewhat surprising, given conservatism’s traditional associations with business and the military.

That the Conservative Party seems now to contain a number of individuals hailing, largely, from academe, government and the third sector is not necessarily, of itself, a cause for skepticism about the quality of public leadership the party’s planners and MPs may provide. As history demonstrates, intellectuals have often played important and beneficial roles in government and in public debates about the manner in which governments may best advance citizens’ interests.

However, the, arguably, surprising number of intellectuals now playing key roles in Canada's federal Conservative Party may inadvertently be causing some problems - or so the "disappointing", to paraphrase Mr. Harper, results of last month’s federal election appear to me to suggest - new to Canadian conservatives, if not to their counterparts on the Left, where adopting policy ideas straight from academic journals, or from research organizations’ seminars, has appeared for decades to be a favoured - although neither, it would appear, politically sound, nor, it can be argued, democratically responsive - strategy.

What About Public Opinion on Public Policy?

The apparent gap between the life experiences of some of Canada’s present conservative "elites" and those of most Canadians may, in the long run, not much matter, from a public management perspective.

But, for now, a case can be made that some apparent disconnects between the ideas being put forward by some Canadian conservatives, based, at least, on the recent federal Conservative Party's platform, and the priorities of Canadian voters, may mean the practical, common sense of the Canadian public is at some risk of being ignored, apparently in favour of some of the kinds of policy ideas that circulate in some conservative academic circles and NGOs.

Although making policy "by the polls" may not always lead to the best possible policies, when Canadians indicate through polls, such as those recently conducted by Ipsos-Reid and other polling firms, that better health care and lower unemployment are more important to them than lower taxes, that is, it can be argued, a reflection of the public's continuing good sense, particularly at a time when Canada’s aging population will consume more health care over the next twenty years than ever before. And, at a time when high unemployment has afflicted much of Canada for years.

Yet, the Conservative Party, presumably acting under the influence of its present MPs and strategists, still saw fit to campaign last month on a platform of relatively large tax reductions. In promising a 25 percent reduction in tax rates for middle class Canadians, the Conservatives appear, at least to this observer, to have proposed policies somewhat out of sync with the sound opinions of "ordinary" Canadians.

In short, while some of the Conservatives’ recent policy proposals may conform with certain fashionable economic intellectual orthodoxies, they are, unfortunately, both inconsistent with Canadian public opinion and with a growing body of international evidence.

Tax Cuts: The Triumph of Free Market Economic Theory over Current Research?

Although some Canadian conservatives continue to promote relatively large tax cuts, respected academics, such as Princeton economist, Paul Krugman, argue tax cuts may sometimes appear to create jobs temporarily, but are unlikely to create employment in the long run, except under a special set of economic circumstances called a "liquidity trap". Even some noted free market economists, such as Nobel Laureate, Milton Friedman, often invoked by many conservatives in other contexts, are unconvinced tax cuts inevitably stimulate the economy.

It is also interesting - particularly in light of recent proposals made by the Conservatives and by the New Democratic Party to reduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on some purchases - the United States was recently advised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to increase American prosperity, not by cutting taxes, in what increasingly appears perhaps to be the ill-informed hope doing so will magically "grow" the economy, but by adding a new tax, similar to the GST.

In short, large tax cuts increasingly seem not to be the economic panaceas some conservative intellectual theorizing about economic growth, conducted by various Canadian think tanks and NGOs, has, at least sometimes, suggested they may be.

Recent research suggests government policies such as pro-competitive regulations for businesses, more efficient regulations for financial markets and investment in research and development, are likely to be more direct paths to economic growth than significant reductions in either income or consumption taxes.

Therefore, it appears to this observer that, if ideology continues to prevail within conservative circles, at the expense of respect for research and for public opinion, as seemed to me to be the case during this year's federal election, conservatism in Canada may risk becoming a haven for an economically and socially risky, not to mention politically chancy, brand of - for lack of a better term - "intellectual correctness".

That is a matter toward which Messrs. Flanagan, Harper and some of the rest of Canada’s current federal Conservative leadership cadre may, in the post-election calm, wish to direct their intellectual efforts.

An edited version of the above was published by vivelecanada.ca on June 25, 2004.