For all of my adult life, I’ve been a Liberal believing in the defence of rights, the constraining of power, an equitable society, and an independent foreign policy. It’s been a narrative that many Canadians have strongly believed and supported.
Since 1982, the Charter gave us a core liberal centre that wasn’t really about party; it was about courts that could check governments, refugee protection as something we owed people, reconciliation as a shared obligation, gender equality, tackling poverty international law, building an activist role to counter Realpolitik.
These weren’t just policies. They were identity. That story is being rewritten.
The language hasn’t changed. Ministers still invoke the Charter, the “rules-based order,” Canada’s role as a constructive middle power. But watch what’s actually happening, and a different picture emerges: human rights moving steadily from the centre of public policy toward its edges, increasingly; poverty and homelessness being ignored.
I made no actual normative (“is this good”) statement there.
Neither did they.
Mulcair moved the NDP to the centre and got trounced in that election. It’s bad strategy.
Actually:
And “Canada has been sliding downward” arguably qualifies as well.
Furthermore, starting with “I disagree” implies that what was said in OP is itself an opposite normative statement. It was actually just a description of the political landscape to help explain how it is that Carney can be so far to Trudeau’s right but still a Liberal.
Fair enough, point taken, however I also provided a perfectly good explanation of why the notion that the NDP would gain by moving rightward has not borne out historically. So sure, the earlier commenter had a perspective, but it’s a perspective that is clearly shared by many potential voters.
Yup. There is a precedent for moderating not going so well. Although nobody directly after Layton passed had much of a chance.
It doesn’t guarantee anything in a counterfactual where the NDP goes another way, but it’s a fact that the Liberals aren’t worried about losing MPs and support (kind of the opposite really), even though there’s a lot of Liberals who actually liked the carbon tax - which used to be the signature policy - and aren’t sure why you’d ever put the capital gains tax down below the income tax again.