The 1960s in Canada (and in many other parts of the world) were an unsettling and turbulent time. Much was up for redefinition. Two important political tracts for the times were written, in Canada, in the 1960s. Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (1965)and Political Realignment: A Challenge to Thoughtful Canadians (1967). As we briefly unpack and unravel these missives, we will get a feel for how Canadians have, in our history, understood the meaning of conservatism in different ways. It is as these two traditions lived in tension, there was some degree of political health. It is as these two traditions have fragmented, the republican brand of conservatism has redefined Canadian conservatism in a right of centre manner.
George Grant and Ernest Manning were the authors of these political missives, and the impact of these texts linger with us to this day. Grant’s Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (1965) stirred and awoke a generation of political theorists and activists to ponder the fate and future of Canadian nationalism in a new and more demanding way. It is interesting to note that Lament for a Nation made quite an appeal to the New Left in Canada. This raises some interesting questions for Canadian conservatism. Grant emerged from the Tory wing of conservatism, and his ‘Tory touch’ evoked much in the New Left. Most assume conservatism is the opposite of the political left. Is it, though? What is it about the ‘Tory touch’ in Canadian conservatism that nudges it toward some affinities with the political left?
Manning’s Political Realignment: A Challenge to Thoughtful Canadians (1967) also claimed to speak from a conservative place. Political Realignment, in many ways, proposed a very different vision for Canada than Grant. Manning interpreted conservatism much more through the lens of the American republican tradition. Manning’s tract for the times very much appealed to the political and economic right on the political spectrum. Manning and Grant, Grant and Manning? Who are the real conservatives? Let us, all too briefly, ponder some of these issues.
Manning was the premier in Alberta (our most American of all provinces) for twenty-four years. Ernest Manning, in the acknowledgments to Political Realignment, said, ‘Particularly do I wish to express my appreciation to my son Preston who researched much of the material contained herein…’ Political Realignment is divided into six sections: 1.The Need for Reorganization, 2) Elements Required to Rationalize Federal Party Politics, 3) A Rationalized Two Party Federal Political System, 4) The Social Conservative Position, 5) A Possible Vehicle for the Reorganization of Federal Party Politics in Canada and 6) Conclusion. Most of this political tract for the times (it’s less than 100 pages) is an assault on the Federal government, an apologia for liberty and freedom on a variety of economic levels, a turning to the American republican tradition for a model and a distaste and abhorrence for anything left of the political centre. A sort of cynicism about the two major political parties and the inability of federal politics to deliver much of substance is the constant refrain and chorus in this text that was timed to be published 100 years after Confederation.
Political Realignment lingers, for quite a few pages, and rightly so, on the desperate need to return to solid and rock bottom political principles and ideals. It is from such principles and ideals, Manning argues, that a modern and comprehensive set of party policies can be articulated. The relationship between principle and policy is basic for Manning. It is from the roots of well articulated principles that the trunk of good policies will emerge. And, according to Manning, it is from such a firm and steady trunk that the foliage and fruit that a modernized form of political party organization will appear. What then, we might ask Manning, are the principles that might act as seed and root to this new way of thinking politically? Manning makes it quite clear, that when push comes to shove creative liberty and individualism must trump and take precedence over the nation, the common good and the collective. The language of liberty and individualism runs like a never failing river in Political Realignment. Manning further argues that, of all the federal political parties in Canada, only the Progressive Conservative party is best suited to implement Manning’s brand of republican conservatives. The NDP are quickly and curtly dismissed, the Social Credit are seen as too regional and the Liberals as inept and inadequate to the task.
Manning argued that there are two dominant ways of doing politics, at the level of principle, and it is from this basic starting position (or worldview) that different parties will emerge. Political Realignment takes the position that there are the ‘humanitarian socialists’ that are good hearted but quite off the latch, and there are the ‘social conservatives’ of which he sees himself. The political realignment that is needed is for the social conservatives to articulate why they are right and the humanitarian socialists are wrong. The social conservatives must see themselves within a North American context and work within its vast and promising potential. Canada, in short, is just part of a big market for Manning. It is interesting to note that Manning seems only capable of seeing two options on the Canadian political horizon. Has he no knowledge of Canadian Tory conservatism? Are there really only two options to chose from in realigning the political spectrum? This indeed is a blind spot and failing in Manning’s rather one dimensional understanding of Canadian conservatism. We might also ask, in all fairness, should we equate, within the Canadian political journey, social liberalism (and the welfare state) with humanitarian socialism? I don’t think so. The political left in Canada are more social democrats than either democratic socialists or humanitarian socialists. Manning, I fear, has created a false and distorted political scenario, and, in doing so, he has both ignored the Tory touch in Canada (of which Grant represents), and the more nuanced nature of social liberalism (which is hardly socialist). Manning pleads in the final few pages of Political Realignment for the Progressive Conservative party to adopt and adapt to his principles and policies. It is apt and timely to note that, in his time, the Progressive Conservative party still had enough of the Tory touch in it to offer a red light to such a perspective. But, as the republican (and western Canadian- Alberta/BC Social Credit) brand of conservatism has won the day, Manning’s manifesto has been, in many ways, vindicated. We now have a Conservative Party in Canada that has banished the much older and deeper Tory conservative tradition.
Political Realignment became, for many in the 1960s, the conservative manifesto of the time. And, it was from such a manifesto that Ernest Manning’s son, Preston Manning, would start the Reform/Alliance party. The new Conservative party in Canada is very much a child, in many ways, of Ernest Manning’s brand of republican conservatism, and Political Realignment is the sacred text of such a clan. Needless to say, American republicans would be most pleased by Manning’s tract.
Lament for a Nation was written to lament the defeat of Diefenbaker in the 1963 election. Lester Pearson played nicely into President Kennedy’s hands, and Kennedy was pleased with him. Much of the history of the Liberal party in Canada has been a history of finding ways and means to integrate and annex Canada to the empire to the south of us. Diefenbaker dared to oppose the Camelot crowd in Washington, and he felt the wrath of Kennedy for doing so. Lament for a Nation, like Political Realignment, is a small book, but much is packed into the few pages that walks a very different path than the trail Manning has hiked down. Grant, unlike Manning, argued that historic Canadian Toryism was about building a strong and free True North, and the role of the Federal government was to provide for the commonweal or commonwealth of this nation. It was also the role of the Federal government to keep the Yankees and Uncle Sam at bay. Tory Canadians, Grant argued, have been, from the founding of this nation, suspicious of the liberty loving Americans to the south of us. We have been more concerned with order, justice and good government rather than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This was the vision of Sir J.A. Macdonald and the best of the Conservative tradition, Grant pointed out in the clearest way. It was conservatives, Grant argued, that created such important national institutions as the CBC, Bank of Canada, CNR and Ontario Hydro. Conservatives, in short, are not for privatization, deregulation and a perpetual wariness of Ottawa. Lament for a Nation is a historic, political and philosophic unpacking of the differences between conservatism and liberalism (both in Canada and the USA). Grant, in fact, argues that socialism is more conservative than liberalism. ‘Yet what is socialism, if it is not the use of the government to restrain greed in the name of the social good? In actual fact, socialism has always had to advocate inhibition in this respect. In doing so, was it not appealing to the conservative idea of social order against the liberal idea of freedom?’ p.72). Grant is suggesting, unlike Manning, that a firmer and stronger state (that promotes and protects the common good) is more in the spirit of conservatism. We can see why Grant’s understanding of Tory conservatism (and its affinity with socialism) had an appeal to the New Left in the 1960s.
Lament for a Nation is divided into 7 chapters. This political missive reads like a political novel that walks and leads the curious reader ever deeper into the larger questions of political theory. Chapter 1 unpacks and unravels the context of Diefenbaker’s defeat in the 1963 election, chapter 2 points out the follies and failings of Diefenbaker (viewing him as a tragic figure) and chapter 3 highlights the nobility and grandeur of Diefenbaker. Chapter 4 cogently points out why the Liberal party in Canada has such an appeal and yet why the Liberal party has betrayed Canada. Chapter 5 illustrates why Marxism has strong conservative tendencies, and why liberalism is more revolutionary than Marxism. The collectivist orientation of Marxism runs head on with the liberty loving and hyper individualism of liberalism. Grant concludes this chapter by pointing out that the Anglo-Canadian tradition of Toryism that runs from Plato, through Hooker, Coleridge and Disraeli is quite different from the liberal tradition of Locke, Smith and their disciples in the USA and Canada. Chapter 6 further unpacks the English and French High Tory tradition, and, in doing so, laments the fact that such a tradition (in theory and practice) is fated to disappear as the juggernaut of liberalism rolls on and runs over anything that gets in its ideological way. The final chapter ponders our fate and destiny as we live in an age and ethos dominated by such liberal notions as liberal, individualism, equality, change and little or no limits on human desire, human willing and the right to shape and form the world and self as the individual see fit. Grant argues, in a succinct and to the point way and manner, that it is in the USA (as an empire) that such liberal ideas are found in their most ominous and worrisome outworking. Grant, therefore, as a High Tory Canadian, does not see us as part and parcel of one big and happy North American market. Canada has a distinct and unique history, and it is our brand of High Tory conservatism that distinguishes us and makes us different from the American form of republican conservatism. Grant and Manning do have, without much doubt, very different notions of what it means to be a Canadian conservative.
Who then is the real conservative? Grant or Manning? Manning seeks to conserve American republican notions such as the rights of the individual, the competitive nature of the marketplace, lighter taxes and lighter government. Grant seeks to conserve the rights of the common good and the nation, limit the exploitive power of the marketplace, tax well and fair so each and all will have access to the basic goods of this state. Manning seeks to conserve such liberal principles as liberty, individuality, choice and agency, whereas Grant seeks to conserve such Tory principles as order, the commonweal and a limiting of choice so the goods of the nation can be equitibly distributed. Republican conservatism seeks to conserve liberal principles, and such liberal principles as liberty and individuality are rather new notions in the human journey. Tory conservatism seeks to conserve much older notions of the organic nature of society, the classical notion of the good and responsibilities of one and all to contribute to the commonweal at both the level of society and the state.
Who then is the real conservative? Grant or Manning? Much hinges on what is trying to be conserved. There is no doubt, though, that both brands of conservatism are part and parcel of the Canadian political psyche and soul. And, there is no doubt that Grant’s brand of conservatism is deeper and older than Manning’s brand of conservatism, and it is Grant’s type of Tory conservatism that has played a significant role in the shaping and making of Canada.
Just a short comment by way of conclusion. William Aberhart’s was Premier of Alberta before Ernest Manning, and Aberhart’s Social Credit party was seen as conservative by many. In fact, in Political Realignment, Manning argues that the Social Credit tradition of Aberhart in Alberta and W.A.C. Bennett in BC best embodied the social conservative position. The problem with the Social Credit perspective is that it never could reach beyond regional and provincial politics. This is why Manning urged those who voted Social Credit at a provincial level to vote Progressive Conservative at a federal level. Manning was convinced that the national Progressive Conservative party was the closest thing to Social Credit principles and policies. Stephen Leacock (probably the finest political theorist and literary humorist Canada has produced) travelled to Western Canada in the 1930s, and his book, My Discovery of the West (1937) pondered the politics of western Canada. Leacock, like Grant, was a tory conservative. Aberhart, like Manning, was a republican conservative. Needless to say, Leacock had little good to say about the conservatism of the Social Credit and Aberhart. Leacock argued that both the thinned out and questionable economics (and the underlying principles that animated Social Credit thought) had little to do with the Canadian High Tory tradition. My Discovery of the West was, it should be noted, merely one book in a long line of books that Leacock had published on the Canadian political tradition and the role of High Tory politics within such a tradition. George Grant merely stood in a tradition that looked backed to Leacock, and Leacock carried the torch from a much older Anglo-Canadian High Tory heritage. It goes without saying that the High Tory conservatism of Leacock and Grant and the republican conservatism of Aberhart, Bennett and Manning do walk different paths and trails, and such a walking does take them to different places on the political landscape. We do need to ask why, though, our older notion of Tory conservatism is being dismissed and forgotten and the more republican form of conservatism is coming to dominate the day? Has this something to do with, increasingly so, Canadians being drawn ever more rapidly into the American intellectual, political, economic, military, cultural and linguistic gravitational field? It is only by being grounded and rooted in the best and wisest, the more time tried aspects of our Canadian High Tory tradition that we will have the language and resources to resist and oppose the immense pull and power of the American imperial way. It is only as we do this that we will be able to break free of the colonial mindset and way of life and define and shape the True North once again.
Who then are the real conservatives? Leacock and Grant or Aberhart, Bennett and Manning? I think the answer is obvious the more we understand the political differences between American and Canadian intellectual and political history. When the Greeks, after their long battle with the Trojans, left the Trojan Horse on the outskirts of the city, many a wise and shrewd Trojan said, ‘I fear the Greeks , especially when they come with gifts’. Those who stand within the High Tory tradition of Leacock and Grant might equally and aptly say, ‘I, as a Canadian, fear the American republican conservatives, especially when they come with gifts’. And the gift of the new Canadian Conservative party is very much the Trojan Horse that must be seen for what it is.
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Professor Ron Dart teaches in the department of Political Science/ Philosophy/Religious Studies at
University College of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, BC. He is the author of The Red Tory Tradition:
Ancient Roots, New Routes (1999).
Stumble It!
1 capitalized a : the principles and policies of a Conservative party b : the Conservative party
2 a : disposition in politics to preserve what is established b : a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change
3 : the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change
I think George Grant & Benjamin Disraeli fit the definition of conservative better than Manning or any other \"conservative\" like Thatcher or Stronach. Here\'s why David Orchard thinks he\'s a conservative:
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"So many right-wing Christians, so few lions." - t-shirt I saw @ school