Desperate to try any tactic to dig them out of the hole they find themselves in, the Liberals appear to have looked south and borrowed the Democrats’ idea of calling conservatives “weird.” The tactic might just work for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her party. There are, after all, more than enough fringe Republican elements to make this somewhat convincing, especially as a sop to the Democrats’ political base and to independents who find political shenanigans ludicrous in general.
In Canada, though, this seems less likely to make the Liberals’ poll numbers budge. The irony is that in many respects, the basic argument is right. Conservatives in Canada are weird — or they’ve been made to seem so — just not in the way the Liberals think.
That’s because, to be conservative in Canada in the 21st century, is to be part of a new cultural out-group. Modern conservatism doesn’t emanate from the establishment outward, as it sometimes has in the past. Instead, if you’re looking for establishment figures today, you’d be more inclined to find them in parts of town that sprout red signs at election time, or even orange and green ones.
Over the last two decades, establishment values have changed. The rise of wokeism has transformed the institutional expression of official culture in this country. From land acknowledgements in schools and sporting venues, to school systems that push the politics of gender and critical race theory, Canada’s ins.