Category: Politics

Revolution, liberalism vs conservatism, and the quest for a better life

 

Welcome to my new podcast!

Why go through all the bother to create a podcast?

What problem are you trying to address?

What answers are you trying to find?

The short video and essay offer answers below. (Different content in each)

Warning: some of the episodes get deep into political theory. We need to go beyond what retail media can sell, if we hope to understand our times. As Hamlet said,

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Here’s the essay from my Substack – please like and share!

Times always change, but our time is changing faster than usual. We live in a rare moment of revolution — a paradigm shift in culture, politics, economics … everything. As Ginny Roth said in episode #3, “Nothing is settled.”

Since World War II, western countries have held a shared set of principles — a common operating system, if you will. Most people call it ‘liberal democracy’. It includes a long list of assumptions about freedom, the individual, rule of law, deference to reason and evidence, trust in science, respect for experts, and much more.

Those ideas are no longer assumed or shared. Many academics abandoned them long before I was born, but regular people never doubted them until recently. The 2008 financial crisis shook many people’s faith in liberal principles, but we hoped it was a blip, a black-swan event.

In hindsight, 2008 was one car on an accelerating train. Trump’s ride down the escalator in 2015, Brexit in June 2016, and then Trump’s first victory in November 2016 are all connected. Even so, diehards refused to doubt their faith in liberal first principles, while the train kept gaining speed.

In late 2019-early 2020, China welded doors shut on apartment buildings to contain a novel infection. Western countries soon declared a state of emergency for a new SARS virus. Borders closed. Police arrested families out walking in the park. By the summer, we had George Floyd, Black Lives Matters, Capital Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle, and more.

Canada’ s Freedom Convoy in 2022 sparked similar events around the world. Prime Minister Trudeau’s Emergency Measures’ Act solidified his notoriety with citizens’ bank accounts frozen for donating $50, mounted policed trampling a disabled woman, and more.

All due to COVID, right?

But the train hasn’t slowed. Today, 98% of academic job postings discriminate based on DEI criteria. America has started to abandon identity-based employment discrimination, but Canada remains committed. Doctors must not question a teenager’s gender dysphoria to avoid breaking new law that bans ‘conversion therapy.’ Medical Assistance in Dying is now the 5th leading cause of death in Canada, in which most patients choose voluntary euthanasia with only a few choosing physician-assisted suicide.

It goes on with the Russia-Ukraine war. Hamas attacked a music event killing and kidnapping the old and very young. Canadian citizens celebrate Hamas with parties in the street. Students shut down universities in solidarity.

This long list is too short, of course. In isolation, each event might elicit a proper, liberal explanation. Citizens misunderstand freedom. Prime Minister Trudeau needs lessons on parliamentary democracy. Students mistake their own privilege. Conflict in the middle east would stop if we abandoned tribalism and historical grievances. Faith in the western liberal order need not waver. Except it does, and it should.

Leave aside the long list of events. The Israel-Hamas war by itself forces us to question our principled support for pluralism (see Sean Speer in episode #5). Given a decade of remarkable events, October 7 demands we reassess our assumptions about western liberal democracy.

Do our core assumptions still hold?

In a way, our revolutionary moment makes up for the unique, relative stability of the post-WWII liberal era. We are returning to a state more typical of modern human history: one that involves continual contest interspersed with moments of social order rarely enduring long enough to be taken for granted.

Revolutions awaken a search for ways to speak about things that most people already know to be true. Since the start of human history, children grow up, gain skills, develop interests, find mates, build homes, and raise families. This only sounds radical to modern, liberal minds — a tiny minority in human history.

Most Conservative parties and spokespeople have been, until now, essentially liberals (as many guests have noted on this show). But Conservative parties are changing. ‘Conservative’ political theory is shifting away from the basically liberal framework shared by other political parties. It is rediscovering a new conservatism (or a new, new-conservatism).

Roger Scruton, the late British philosopher, called conservatism a “work of rescue.” Many writers have noted how conservative ideas revive in times of crisis. People grow tired of a world that makes their heads spin. They abandon simple, ‘self-evident’ ideologies in favour of simple living. Regular people hunt for old habits and ideas that they can use to improve modern life. They rediscover meaning in a quest for a truly good life — a life well lived — instead of the limitless frenzy of late-stage liberalism.

Conservatism has no holy book. It has no prophet — no Oracle at Delphi. Instead it offers a messy library of trial and error.

Just to be clear, liberty predates liberalism by more than a thousand years. The rule of law, trial by jury, habeas corpus, private property, stable government and all the other key features of western civilization came about centuries before liberalism. Several thousand years of failures help us identify rare success. Things that work well almost never come de novo by genius and invention. The best ideas often appear to come by chance, after centuries of failure.

I created this podcast to tackle the massive shift we are experiencing in political theory, public policy, and modern culture. My starting hypothesis is that conservatism and liberalism are not the same thing. I hope to rediscover the differences between conservatism and liberalism in politics, culture, education, philosophy, economics, religion, history, and more. I think it holds the answer to a better life. I hope you will join me in the search!

Premiers’ meeting was a fight about federalism, not funding

Source: YT: Council of the Federation-Conseil de la fédération

The Premiers’ meeting in Halifax looked like a fight about money and control. It was actually an attempt to save federalism in Canada.

The latest premiers’ meeting looked different. Instead of begging for handouts, they talked (briefly) about refusing federal handouts. Does this signal real change?

Note: this piece was published with True North.

Premiers expressed intense frustration last week over the lack of federal support and partnership on healthcare. The premiers’ Council of the Federation met for three days in Halifax, and as usual, healthcare topped their list of priorities.

The frustration falls only four months after Quebec signed its own side-deal with the federal government – the last province to settle details from last year’s $196.1 billion healthcare-funding agreement.

Since the Council formed in 2003, meetings have centred on money and control. Provinces want more federal money and less federal control. The federal government wants more control, while continuing to pay the provinces as little as possible.

This year, discussions seem to have gone beyond funding to address the deeper causes of frustration.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called attention to provinces rejecting federal funding aimed at boutique programming. Smith said provinces end up funding the “lion’s share” of operational costs.

Historically, the provinces have grumbled at federal funding offers – bribes designed to build programs the provinces could not afford to build on their own. Grumbling aside, provinces usually accept federal cash and do so willingly, with one notable exception. The final pillar of medicare, the Medical Care Act (1966), came with an offer to fund 50 per cent of medical services funded by a new federal ‘social development’ tax. Taxes would increase whether or not provinces accepted the new funding. Ontario Premier John Robarts called it, “The greatest machiavellian fraud ever perpetrated on the people of Canada.”

The current group of Premiers have taken a different tack. They reject federal bribery cloaked in the constitutionally questionable use of federal spending power. The provinces can neuter federal power, if they stick together. The federal government knows this, which might explain the use of “side deals” in the 2023 federal-provincial funding agreement mentioned above.

In fairness, not all funding is bribery. It hinges on how it is structured.

Premier Tim Houston, Chair of the Council, sent a letter to Justin Trudeau on behalf of the premiers. In it, he calls for “true partnership to revitalize cooperative federalism in Canada.”

True partnership, according to Peter Block, organization development expert, includes four things:  an exchange of purpose, the right to say no, joint accountability, and absolute honesty. This means provincial and federal leaders should meet and build a shared purpose, before planning any new program. Each party should have the right to stop plans at any time.  Joint accountability would mean neither federal nor provincial governments could blame the other for poor performance. And neither side would conceal information about resources or true intentions.

True partnership captures the essence of what federalism was meant to be in Canada. Federalism was never a rigid protocol to delineate absolute rights between one level of government and another. Canadian federalism offers a place to start negotiating. It sets the table and gives everyone a voice.

Federalism is meant to be the basis of our ability to work together as a unified nation, not as a power play to force governments to do what they never wanted to otherwise.

Yuval Levin, Director of AEI, makes this same point about the American Constitution in his new book, American Covenant: How the constitution unified our nation – and could again. Negotiation frustrates political idealists. The constitution exists to facilitate peace and cooperation given a plurality of interests. Though different than American republicanism, Canadian federalism serves the same purpose – peace and compromise, not power and force exerted by one government on another.

The Premiers’ call for “true partnership to revitalize cooperative federalism in Canada” will require compromise by all. We cannot tolerate one level of government wielding anything against the other, be it ‘spending power’ or power of any other kind. Governments must embrace true partnership, or Canadian federalism becomes a charade.

The premiers have taken the high ground and asked for change. Will Justin Trudeau listen?

Politics trumps patient care when governments are failing

Patients on gurneys line the hallway due to an over-capacity at the Humber River Hospital emergency department in Toronto on Jan. 25, 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic. PHOTO BY NATHAN DENETTE / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Much of medicare’s dysfunction comes from compromises made to win votes in moments of political weakness

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a popular talk-radio host about the 177-to-2 vote on the Medicare Care Act, 1966. He said, “Who were the two who voted against it?”

This sparked a short trip into parliamentary records to uncover events around the “unanimous” and “near-unanimous” votes that gave us medicare.

As always, the details reveal a different story. The article is on the National Post site.

Enjoy!

Politics trumps patient care when governments are failing

Policies that are not necessarily the best for the long term, including those affecting health care, are often implemented by weak governments only concerned about votes, writes Shawn Whatley. (from the photo caption)

Medicare emerged during failing and minority governments, much like the time we find ourselves in now. Three pillars of medicare legislation passed with near unanimous support during periods when the opposition could not risk debate.

The first pillar of medicare, the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act (HIDSA), passed unanimously in 1957. The majority Liberals had been in power since 1935. HIDSA introduced dollar-for-dollar cost sharing between the federal government and the provinces. The Diefenbaker Progressive Conservatives offered unanimous support, and months later won an upset minority. In 1958, Diefenbaker won again — the largest majority in Canadian history, up to that point.

By 1963, voter sentiment had reversed, and voters had tired of Diefenbaker. The minority Liberals tabled the Medical Care Act. The MCA promised to expand Parliament’s 50:50 funding to include doctors’ services. Provinces needed to nationalize medical insurance and create publicly-funded, single-payer provincial insurance plans to qualify for federal funds. Parliament passed the Medical Care Act in 1966 by a vote of 177 to two. The two “nays” came from Social Credit MPs: Robert N. Thompson, from Alberta, and Howard Earl Johnston, British Columbia. The Liberals, Progressive Conservatives and NDP offered unanimous support. Pierre Elliott Trudeau won a majority in June 1968, and the MCA took effect weeks later on July 1.

The last pillar of medicare, the Canada Health Act, came when Pierre Trudeau faced historically low voter support, much like his son does now. The Canada Health Act, 1984, leveraged public fury over hospital user fees and physician “extra billing,” even though extra billing accounted for only 1.3 per cent of total physician billings under medicare. An amendment to the MCA could have fixed the issue, but new legislation presented a perfect wedge.

Mulroney saw through the trick. He ignored the bait and whipped the vote. The CHA passed unanimously, and the PCs went on to redefine “landslide election” victory that fall. It remains the largest majority government in Canadian history.

Much of medicare’s permanent dysfunction comes from compromises politicians made to win votes in moments of political weakness. Medicare escaped meaningful debate.

Remember, the Diefenbaker PCs supported social programs and even appointed the first Hall Commission on universal medical insurance, 1961-1964. But they abandoned program design to left-leaning visions in a failed quest to regain voter support. Again, political survival became the only concern and compromise knew no limit.

As Carson Jerema, National Post’s Comment Editor, recently put it, “All governments debase themselves for partisan advantage, but it isn’t clear that (the current Liberal) government is capable of doing anything else. Every policy, every action, every pronouncement is designed, not to achieve a particular goal, but to wedge the Conservatives, or appease the NDP.”

Wedge-and-bait politics creates serious risk for Canadians. Radical ideas escape debate and run unopposed. Weak governments do not worry about long-term impact. They only worry about how to make the opposition look bad. The opposition also ignores long-term impact, while fretting about whether critique could weaken voter support. For example, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre held back criticism of the capital gains tax until days before the vote in Parliament, no doubt to lessen time for the left to foment negative press.

All politicians face a fundamental dilemma: stick to principles or pursue popular support? Stand up for what you believe, and never get elected, or compromise to get into power?

Minority governments generally require compromise. But compromise leaves voters shackled with ideas we can never adjust or abandon, especially when passed with “unanimous” or “near-unanimous” support.

Polling shows Conservatives have strong support in Canada right now. Let’s hope Poilievre feels strong enough to oppose the inevitable wedge-and-bait politics we can expect this fall.