Mulroney-style moderates should ditch the Conservatives

Dear progressive conservatives,

On the occasion of what would have been Brian Mulroney’s 85^th birthday on March 20, I am asking you to honour his legacy and the legacy of the party he devotedly served: the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PC).

The party stood for moderate conservatism. Its merger with the Canadian Alliance (the Reform Party’s successor) in 2003 gave birth to the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). At the time of the merger, many hoped the CPC would become a mainstream centre-right party. That did not happen. The terms of the merger and Stephen Harper’s long leadership tenure (2004-15) ensured the CPC would turn into a version of the populist hard-right Reform Party that Harper helped build. The culture of the CPC today is starkly different from the culture of the PCs that Mulroney led.

For example:

1. The environment. In 2006, Corporate Knights magazine and its panel of experts honoured Mulroney as the greenest prime minister in Canadian history. He signed the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which aimed to protect the ozone layer. He helped pass the Environmental Protection Act in 1988. He created eight new national parks. He drove negotiations that led to the signing of the Canada-U.S. acid rain treaty in 1991. He signed an agreement to reduce greenhouse gases at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. As for the CPC, it has yet to develop a credible climate policy.
2. The United Nations. Mulroney and Joe Clark, as secretary of state for external affairs, worked with the UN to mitigate the Ethiopian famine in 1984-85 and to oppose the apartheid regime in South Africa. A CPC shadow cabinet member recently called for Canada to withdraw from the UN.
3. Public institutions. The governments led by Mulroney treated institutions with respect. They regularly engaged with the media. In spite of some funding cuts, they supported the CBC and the arts. The Harper- and Pierre Poilievre-led CPC often treats the media and other key institutions (for example, Statistics Canada, Elections Canada, the Supreme Court, the Bank of Canada and the CBC) with disdain.
4. Ukraine. Canada’s PC government was the first western government to recognize an independent Ukraine in 1991. The CPC recently called into question its support for Ukraine by voting against a Ukraine-Canada free trade agreement.
5. Law and order. Mulroney and Kim Campbell as justice minister introduced effective gun control legislation in 1991. The current CPC is hostile to a lot of sensible gun control legislation.

On the whole, Mulroney was respectful of norms. He was civil toward political opponents. He showed a great deal of humanity and compassion. He often appealed to what is best in us, such as our desire to help, at home and abroad, those who are less fortunate. The CPC, on the other hand, often appeals to negative emotions such as anger, fear and resentment.

The CPC does this in part for electoral reasons, but mainly because these sentiments are in the party’s DNA. In spite of its name, the CPC is actually not a “conservative” party. It is a radical right-wing party willing to bend norms to its advantage, just as Harper did during the 2008-09 prorogation crisis. The support that some CPC MPs gave the “Freedom Convoy” when it illegally occupied Ottawa two years ago fits this pattern. We must see the CPC for what it truly is and not for what we would wish it to be.

The CPC has been guided or led by Reformers such as Preston Manning, Harper, Andrew Scheer, Poilievre and Jenni Byrne. They did their best to damage the old PC Party. Over the last 20 years, they have worked to remove any remnant of moderate conservatism from the CPC. Progressive conservatives do not owe these Reformers any loyalty.

In hindsight, the PC-Alliance merger was not a reuniting of two feuding branches of the same conservative family. In fact, the merger was a takeover of the conservative brand by Reform, whose reactionary leaders had never shared progressive conservatism’s pragmatism or its willingness to adjust to new social trends. At heart, Reform and PC represented opposing views of life.

The merger was a defeat of progressive conservatism at the hands of right-wing reactionism. However, this defeat need not be final. Our country desperately needs a moderate conservative party. The defeat and breakup of the hard-right CPC is the necessary first step in the rebirth of a new progressive conservatism that can stand as an alternative to the Liberals and as a bulwark against right-wing extremism.

I am asking you to help this rebirth.

I am asking you to perform one more service for the memory of our Progressive Conservative Party that Mulroney served so long and well.

I am asking you to withdraw your support from the CPC.

Sincerely,

A fellow progressive conservative

Michael Huenefeld was an activist in the federal Progressive Conservative Party from 1998 to 2003. In 2002, he received an award from former prime minister Joe Clark for outstanding service to the party. He was active in the Progressive Canadian Party between 2010 and 2017 when it was led by former PC cabinet minister Sinclair Stevens and former PC MP Joe Hueglin. In 2022, he volunteered for former Quebec premier Jean Charest’s Conservative Party leadership campaign.