How Canada’s Right Wing Provincial Parties Turned Left

How many times can politician cry wolf before the electorate stand up and say, that is not “our way”:

• Conservatives believe in small government and limited regulation
• Liberals believe in larger government and substantial regulation

or at least they used to:

1. Alberta: United Conservative Party (UCP) Leader Jason Kenny is calling for the Provincial Government to actually step into the private sector and demand oil production cuts.  The “right” would say the solution is to increase the royalty rates temporarily and let the market figure it out… unless you don’t believe that companies make rational decisions to maximize their profit.
2. Saskatchewan: Scott Moe, Premier and Saskatchewan Party Leader, is picking winners and losers by hand selecting businesses and technologies to combat climate change rather than using the tried and true free market intervention that has been used for years, taxation that allows the market to find the best solution
3. Ontario: Doug Ford, Conservative Party leader and Premier, is scrapping their carbon tax that allows the free market to find the best solution.  He is replacing it with hand picked winners and losers.  Is anyone stupid enough to think that the money Doug Ford’s government is going to hand out fell from the sky.  It is YOUR tax dollars that THEY are handing out rather than letting the market clear itself.

In a political environment that rewards differences more than principles, Canada’s right wing provincial parties have turned left.

We sit in amazement and watch otherwise intelligent, educated, sophisticated people ‘on the right’ line up behind both:

1. the elimination of established and efficient free market solutions, AND;
2. the addition of left wing style selection of winners and losers

This is more than established economic theory, it is right wing political orthodoxy.  So how is it possible for ‘Conservative Leaders’ to push their parties so far left?  The answer is one word, tribalism.

Citizens have abandoned their fundamentals to a follow their political party leaders to a “winning is the only thing that counts” mentality.  Winning in politics now REQUIRES that the second political party take the opposite position of the party in power, even if that completely contravenes what we used to call principles.

Criticism at the edges in an effort to improve legislation and governance is no longer enough.  The left says “black”; the right must say “white” or their respective base voter support will not be energized.  Surely this will end badly when the voters realize what their leaders are promoting.

Politicians with real back bone like Ralph Klein would be sickened by current state of Canada’s so called “conservative” leaders.

You can only scream “FIRE” in a theater so many times before voters wake up from their political haze and realize that they are supporting politicians that will do and say nearly anything to gain power.

Voters need to quit following parties and start following ideas.