“If there is one test for distinguishing genuine Christianity from spurious Christianity (and this test should be rigorously applied to Christian people seeking public office), it is that genuine Christianity never seeks to impose itself or its solutions on those who do not choose to receive it.”

- Preston Manning, The New Canada, pages 99–100.

The repeal of the American Roe v. Wade court case, which guarantees access to abortion in the U.S., cast a shadow over the federal Conservative leadership race. Interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen instructed her caucus not to speak on the issue, and said as much in a one-line public statement. Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative race’s front runner, publicly stated that a government he led wouldn’t pass any legislation restricting abortion. His rival Leslyn Lewis, who was the social conservative favourite in the previous Conservative leadership race won by Erin O’Toole — the only candidate who didn’t explicitly call herself pro-choice — was very specific about the kind of restrictions she supported, including banning sex-selective and coercive abortions, while also increasing funding for pregnancy centres.

During Stephen Harper’s reign as prime minister, he stopped any attempts by his caucus to revive the abortion debate, even as some of them joined the It Gets Better movement in support of gay youth. Here in Alberta, former premier Ralph Klein allowed Alberta’s use of the notwithstanding clause to limit the definition of marriage between a man and a woman to expire, and flat-out refused to use the clause to overturn the Vriend case that had the Supreme Court order Alberta to include gay rights in our provincial human rights code. Harper and Klein suffered exactly zero political consequences for their refusals, including here in Alberta. Some social conservatives might have been unhappy, but the rest of us simply shrugged and changed the channel.

The ways in which Canada and the U.S. have both treated the abortion issue illustrates some subtle but important differences between the two countries. For decades, Canadian conservatives have been saying and doing things that would have destroyed their careers if they lived in the American Bible Belt. From everything I’ve seen, the kind of social conservatism represented by repealing Roe v. Wade is an extremely hard sell in Canada, even here in Alberta. Sometimes it’s flat-out political poison, given that the homophobic “lake of fire” comments made by a candidate were seen as one of the things that cost the Wildrose Alliance Alberta’s 2012 election.

The differences between Canadian and American conservatism aren’t limited to abortion and gay rights, of course. Canadian conservatives were some of the loudest critics of the former long-gun registry, but nobody seems to care much about the handgun registry Pierre Trudeau created in the late 1970s. Every long-gun owner I’ve ever asked has been fine with the handgun registry. Similarly, every conservative I’ve ever asked, even here in Alberta, has supported public health care.

In short, social conservatism, particularly evangelical conservatism, is much stronger in the U.S. than in Canada.

   

But social conservatism is endangered. I think the trend to polarize politics is leaving only the 'left' as the possible social conservatives, where the more authoritarian 'right' rejects anything outside narrowly defined standard values.

While people on the right may not outright reject the concepts of equal rights for those not white and heterosexual, they aren't speaking out too loudly at the SCOTUS hinting at repealing decisions that normalize sexual equality and race or ability based discrimination.

   

In some places it's much stronger in the US than in Canada. FTFY

In rural Alberta and Saskatchewan, social conservatism is very strong, and it's influence on the CPC is one of the biggest reasons the CPC lost the last two federal elections.

Even just outside Alberta's two largest cities, social conservatives are still present and parties such as the Christian Heritage party run candidates with strong social conservative values. Take a drive down some rural roads and highways in Alberta and you'll see signs wanting abortion banned, American style gun ownership laws, socialism eliminated, etc. Over the course of the pandemic, I camped and drove down a lot of highways in Alberta and was often shocked at some of the signs and billboards in rural Alberta, many representing views that belong in 1822, not 2022.

   

How come those social conservative values rarely, if ever, seem to turn up in conservative policy? Like I originally wrote, Harper and Klein never seemed to suffer any consequences for refusing to act on social conservative issues like gay marriage or abortion. And Danielle Smith pretty much had our provincial election in the bag ten years ago until things suddenly seemed to turn after the "lake of fire" crap. And when was the last time a Christian Heritage Party candidate was a significant challenger?

And maybe I just need to talk to more people, but every single gun-owning Albertan I've ever asked about it, rural or urban, who hated the long gun registry have been fine with handgun registrations. Without exception.

Same thing with public healthcare. Whenever a conservative Albertan has told me they support private healthcare, they want it to coexist alongside the public system. They think the private system will take pressure off the public one. Again, without exception.

   

As the old song goes, that was then but this is now. And ten years ago might as well have been a century ago given how quickly things on the ground have changed in the last decade. I don't see very many conservatives who aren't now completely willing to push things to the extreme & exploit intense reactionary people & groups when doing so obviously results in so much electoral success. After Trump's wins? After the dissent from the hard right of the party that essentially destroyed Jason Kenney's government? After Erin O'Toole was so ruthlessly deposed? After the freedumb convoy successfully coalesced so many fringe characters & groups into one large co-operative movement? They've finally stumbled onto what so many of them have wanted for so very long - a magical winning formula that simultaneously turns them into winners and at the same time salts the political/social ground with so much genuinely hateful toxicity that future co-operation or compromise becomes impossible.

Read the Postmedia papers about the incident in Grand Prairie - most of the comments in the newspaper articles are in total support & sympathy for the redneck oaf who did the attack on the deputy PM. The way things are going if the next incident involves a physical attack or even an assassination attempt on a non-conservative politician, I fully expect those same comments to be made once again in support of the assailant. And it won't be just a few wingnuts saying things like that when it happens. It'll be a lot of them and they'll be speaking for thousands & thousands more who feel exactly the same way but who haven't gotten around to saying it out loud themselves. They're no longer scared and are more than willing now to crawl out from underneath their respective rocks and make themselves known.

Not going for broke in order to gain the power to alter society & state, and to mercilessly punish any and all opponents or dissenters, is now what the right demands it's leaders to do in order to win. The old conservatism is no longer dying. It's already dead. Whatever people like Preston Manning had in mind, assuming they were even being honest in what they were saying to begin with, what's resulted & gained strength is entirely different (and essentially opposite) to what they had envisioned. The upcoming twin victories of Poilievre and Smith are going to convincingly prove it too.