The Importance of Balancing Ideology with Strategy in Canadian Conservative Politics

Brooke Brimo Edited by Mary Lynne Loftus

In order for a right-leaning party to win office in contemporary Canada, the party must strategically balance the defense of conservative principles with persuasive efforts to attract new voters.

ABSTRACT Throughout most of Canada’s history, federal-level conservative parties have been relegated to opposition status. The Canadian province of Alberta, on the other hand, has experienced long eras of unchallenged conservative dominance. Still, the Canadian and Albertan conservative movements have faced remarkably similar challenges in recent years: a new, strongly ideological right-wing party emerged; the old conservative party collapsed, unable to satisfy its supporters’ competing demands; the new party failed to appeal to moderate voters; the right regained power after a merger. This essay traces these trajectories from two contrasting perspectives: the rational-efficient and responsible-parties models of electoral competition, which propose that political parties should prioritize, respectively, winning office and advancing a distinct ideological vision. I argue that, in order for a right-leaning party to win office in contemporary Canada and, to a lesser extent, Alberta, the party must strategically balance its conservative principles against moderate appeals to the broader public.

INTRODUCTION “S hock, disbelief, joy and dismay” were terms that came to mind when describing Alberta’s 2015 election results. 1 Conservative parties in Alberta had experienced long eras of unchallenged dominance until the Progressive Conservatives’ record-breaking 44 uninterrupted years in office came to a stunning end. No longer invincible, the provincial party was forced to confront the internal divisions and external threats that had impaired its federal counterparts since before Alberta’s entry into Confederation. Federal conservative parties have been locked into a near-unending state of opposition within Canada’s predominantly progressive political culture. The conservative movement has been forced to accommodate the competing ideologies of social conservatism, progressive conservatism, market-based liberalism, and populism; and has not always managed to do so without splintering. 2 Despite these differences in political context, there are remarkable similarities between the recent fracturing and reunification of the Canadian and Albertan right. In each case, the dominant conservative party compromised its principles sufficiently to drive its traditional support base to form a new party, and then collapsed under the strain of an internally contradictory electoral coalition. The new party catered to an excessively narrow base and resisted ideological compromise, and therefore failed to appeal to mainstream voters. To each party involved, a merger appeared the logical pathway to gaining or regaining power. This paper argues that, in order for a right-leaning party to win office in contemporary Canada, the party must strategically balance the defense of conservative principles with persuasive efforts to attract new voters. Each of these considerations is counterproductive when it is not moderated by the other. This argument holds to a lesser extent in Alberta, where right-leaning parties have greater latitude for strategic maneuvering due to the relatively conservative nature of the province’s political culture.

THEORIES EXPLAINING POLITICAL PARTY BEHAVIOR Political scientists are conflicted as to how political parties ought to behave. The rational-efficient model theorizes that winning is the only acceptable election outcome because it is the only outcome that grants party elites the power to govern. All party activities should therefore be geared toward garnering popular support, and parties should employ whatever lawful means necessary to win. 3 This vision, however, leaves little room for parties to advance moral or ideological objectives. The responsible-parties model posits that parties are vehicles through which people democratically advance their visions of the common good. Elections should provide voters with meaningful choice among competing ideologies, and the winning platform should provide the government with a mandate reflecting the population’s desires. 4 But, this model neglects strategic considerations, notably the popularity of the ideology in question. In recent years, right-leaning Canadian parties have generally won office when they have found a balance between the rational-efficient model’s emphasis on strategic appeals to the masses and the responsible-party’s model’s emphasis on moral and ideological principles.

THE COLLAPSE OF THE CANADIAN AND ALBERTAN RIGHT The federal Progressive Conservative (PC) Party and the provincial Progressive Conservative (PC) Association of Alberta disintegrated as some of their supporters, betrayed by the parties’ abandonment of core conservative principles, formed competing political organizations, and their tenuous coalitions of support fell apart. At the federal level, the large electoral coalition assembled by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney collapsed in 1993. According to Carty, “aggregation excesses” arise when leaders construct “coalitions that contain more internal contradictions… than their party members are willing to accept.” 5 When an aggregation excess reaches an unacceptable level, party members begin to prefer exiting the party over internal party reform. Mulroney had won office by appealing to the regions that felt victimized by the previous Liberal government. He vowed to repeal the National Energy Program, which had lessened the Western provinces’ control over their oil and gas resources, and to initiate negotiations to affirm Quebec’s status within Confederation, after the Constitution was patriated without the province’s consent. 6 However, Carty warns that, although parties may want to cater to as many groups as possible, they must “be careful not to actually catch all.” 7 It proved impossible to fulfill the conflicting interests of both regions, the party’s traditional support base, and its new supporters at once. The federal PCs’ high levels of taxation and spending, implemented to satisfy economic progressives, alienated the party’s primarily Western fiscal conservative base. 8 The Meech Lake and Charlottetown negotiations infuriated Westerners, who perceived these efforts as special treatment for Quebec, and motivated the grassroots formation of the Reform Party. On the other hand, these negotiations’ failure to satisfy Quebec’s demands motivated the formation of the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois by federal PC and Liberal defectors. 9 Although the PCs had won using a rational-efficient strategy, the resulting aggregation excess caused the party to fracture.

At the provincial level, the Alberta PCs’ more gradual demise was precipitated by the accumulation of multiple problems including an aggregation excess. From 2008 to 2015, the PCs withstood the presence of a strong right-wing competitor and numerous scandals. The Wildrose Political Association was formed in 2008 when the pre-existing Alberta Alliance and Wildrose Party merged. Wildrose became a serious contender in 2009, when, despite the precarious state of the economy, PC Premier Ed Stelmach increased the energy sector’s royalty rates. In response, oil companies’ contributions to Wildrose increased from $230,000 to $2.7 million annually. 10 During Premier Alison Redford’s tenure, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith discredited the government’s moral authority by uncovering and publicizing illegal donations, sex scandals, and excessive personal expenditures on the part of PC caucus members. 11 In 2012, under new leader Jim Prentice, the PCs held onto office through a rational-efficient strategy, assembling a coalition of centrist and left-leaning voters who shared an aversion toward Wildrose. However, this coalition of negative partisans disintegrated as Prentice alienated each of its constituent groups whose fundamentally contradictory interests could not simultaneously be satisfied. He disappointed progressive supporters by making large budget cuts to education and health and welcoming 11 Wildrose floor crossers into the PC caucus. He abandoned fiscal conservatives by implementing 59 unpopular tax increases and projecting an unprecedented $5-billion deficit. 12 In 2015, the Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP) defeated the PCs, having capitalized on the prevailing desire for change. The PCs’ tenacity was a function of Alberta’s political culture. Conservative governments have significant room for political error before having to worry about electoral loss because Alberta’s political center is further right than the rest of Canada’s. Until 2015, Albertans had become complacently accustomed to long periods of single-party conservative dominance, turning out to vote in low numbers and consistently providing the most popular party with overwhelmingly large majorities. However, Albertans also tend to abruptly abandon their support for the incumbent in large numbers, as they did in 2015. 13 Therefore, both the federal and provincial PCs disintegrated in part because they unreasonably prioritized rational-efficient appeals to the masses at the expense of their ideological credibility.

REFORM, ALLIANCE, AND WILDROSE

According to Lusztig and Wilson, “electoral realignment will occur when a large segment of public opinion on a significant issue or issues is not reflected in the agendas of existing partisan options”. 14 The Reform Party, the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, and the Wildrose Political Association, created out of dissatisfaction with the federal and provincial PCs, gave voice to rightwing principles unsupported by the other major parties. The PCs had adopted an incoherent ideological position to achieve the rational-efficient objective of winning. In contrast, these parties staunchly promoted a coherent right-wing vision of the common good in accordance with the responsible-parties model. At the federal level, the Reform Party, led by Preston Manning, distinguished itself by promoting conservative moral values, opposing Quebec’s constitutional demands, advocating democratic reform, promising lower levels of taxation and

spending, and expressing skepticism regarding immigrant-generated cultural change. 15 Reform failed to persuade mainstream voters to support a vision narrowly aimed at an ideological and regional minority. Most Canadians, who hold socially progressive views on issues such as criminal justice, LGBT rights, and multiculturalism, refused to endorse social conservatism. 16 The populist, Western alienation approach, which pitted hard-working Western Canadians against privileged Central Canadian elites, failed to gain traction outside the West. The party’s reputation was irreparably tarnished when racist organizations attempted to take control of local riding associations. 17 Manning launched the United Alternative campaign to reshape the party’s image, knowing that its potential for nationwide growth was limited unless it could moderate its platform and appeal to all regions. Reform rebranded itself as the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance and elected Stockwell Day as leader in 2000. Improvement in the party’s electoral performance was negligible, as its platform remained unacceptably socially conservative and the party remained inextricably associated with Western interests. 18 Wildrose similarly took a responsible-parties approach, articulating a clearly populist, democratic, and socially conservative ideological vision. Wildrose was more electorally successful than Reform and Alliance because this vision resonated better with provincial-level voters: the party’s highest-ever popular vote share was 34.3% in 2012, as compared to Alliance’s 25.5% in 2000. 19 The party portrayed its principles as Alberta’s central, defining values and accused the PCs of having abandoned these values. 20 This assessment of Albertan political culture was only partially correct. On the one hand, Wildrose’s platform astutely embodied sentiments such as Western alienation and populism that were prevalent among voters: for example, it advocated provincial autonomy over pensions and income tax, changes to the federal equalization formula, democratic institutional reform, and greater transparency of government in response to the Redford administration’s corruption. 21 On the other hand, the party’s right-wing economic, environmental, and social positioning ran counter to prevailing trends in public opinion. Alberta’s contemporary political culture may be the most conservative in Canada, but it is less conservative than stereotypes suggest. Albertans do hold more individualistic and populist beliefs than other Canadians, and the vast majority do believe their province is treated unfairly at the expense of Central Canada. But, about three-quarters welcome high government spending in areas such as health care, are critical of the energy industry’s role in politics, desire stricter environmental regulation to combat global warming, and believe that same-sex marriage and abortion should be permitted. 22 Even though Wildrose gave voice to substantial underrepresented minorities, the majority considered its platform unacceptable. Regionalism also played a role in Wildrose’s failure to form government; the party struggled to expand beyond its traditional bases of support in Calgary and Southern Alberta. The PCs kept Wildrose out of office by turning Wildrose’s strategy on its head, portraying their own moderate, centrist values as true Albertan values and labeling Wildrose as an extremist outsider. 23 Overall, Reform, Alliance, and Wildrose failed to win office because they excessively prioritized their ideological convictions at the expense of their popularity.

The federal Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) was created in 2003 and the provincial United Conservative Party (UCP) was created in 2017 as the two right-of-center competitors merged. Party mergers, in which two or more parties unite into a single new party and cease to exist as independent organizations, are rare occurrences in stable democracies. Bélanger and Godbout argue that parties will only unite if they share ideological commonalities, in accordance with the responsible-parties model, and if a merger makes strategic sense, in accordance with the rational-efficient model. 24 Ideologically speaking, each pair of parties shared similar conservative objectives, although one had compromised them and the other had overemphasized them. Multiple strategic incentives can exist. First, a single-member plurality (SMP) electoral system can disadvantage ideologically similar parties. Parties other than the most popular one tend to receive smaller shares of legislative seats than votes, and right-wing vote-splitting tends to make a centrist or left-wing party the most popular. In the 1993, 1997, and 2000 federal elections, the PCs accordingly received a much smaller percentage of seats than votes. Reform, due to being concentrated in the West, earned nearly identical vote and seat shares, as SMP tends to overrepresent parties that concentrate their efforts in particular regions. But, when Alliance attempted to expand nationwide, it became underrepresented as well. Both federal parties therefore had an institutional incentive to merge. 25 The same incentive existed for the Alberta PCs following the 2015 election. Due to being regionally concentrated in Southern Alberta, Wildrose’s vote and seat shares corresponded. But, the PCs received 27.8% of the popular vote and only 11.5% of the seats. 26 Second, mergers are likely to occur when both parties stand to gain valuable new resources they could not otherwise access. In accordance with the spatial theory of voting, when two parties exist to the right of the median voter, and when a popular centrist party exists, the right-of-center parties must share or compete for resources such as votes, party members, staff members, and donations. 27 The federal parties were motivated to unite by the prospect of pooling Eastern PC votes with Western Alliance votes, assuming that most conservative voters would remain loyal to the merged party. Both parties, especially the struggling PCs, were also motivated by access to money. Corporate leaders disadvantaged by Liberal policies pressured the two parties to merge, threatening to withhold contributions from both of them if they remained separate. 28 In addition, Bill C-24, which would take effect before the 2004 election, banned corporate political donations, capped individual donations, and designated pervote state subsidies to be paid to each party. Both parties were funded primarily through large corporate donations and small contributions from grassroots members, but the PCs were relatively more reliant on corporate donors and, with low popular support, could not expect the subsidies to compensate for the loss of these contributions. 29 At the provincial level, a united party could count on geographically widespread support thanks to voters’ strong attachments to Wildrose in Calgary and Southern Alberta and to the PCs elsewhere. Each party also felt financially threatened by the other. The NDP government and Wildrose opposition had crippled the PCs by banning the corporate donations on which

they depended. However, the winner of the 2017 PC leadership race, former CPC cabinet minister Jason Kenney, demonstrated superior fundraising capabilities and threatened to diminish Wildrose’s relative financial standing. 30 Third, parties are likely to merge when they perceive rebranding as strategically necessary. Marland and Flanagan define political branding as the creation of a desired image through market research, which seeks to identify and understand target audiences, and the propagation of this image through advertising and media relations. 31 A party whose ideological positioning no longer resonates with a sufficiently large segment of the electorate must shift its ideology to remain relevant. When its reputation holds it back, rebranding is advisable. At the federal level, Alliance struggled to alter its socially conservative, anti-Quebec, Western protest image. 32 Alliance leader Stephen Harper orchestrated the merger negotiations with PC leader Peter MacKay, driven by the conviction that, within a progressive political culture whose voters could not easily be persuaded to support conservative causes, a right-leaning party could only form government if it was moderate and united. Harper aimed for social conservative voices to be outnumbered, yet still represented, in policy deliberations, so that both moderate voters and the party’s traditional support base could identify with the platform that would result. 33 Harper was elected leader of the merged CPC in 2004. At the provincial level, following the PCs’ 2015 defeat, Kenney was elected PC leader with a mandate to negotiate a merger with Wildrose leader Brian Jean. PC members believed that rebranding was necessary to dissociate the party from scandal and corruption and recommit it to conservative principles. Wildrose members also aimed to downplay the unpopular ideological positions associated with their party. Kenney was elected UCP leader in 2017, defeating Jean. 34 In the early 2000s, the CPC’s approach to politics constituted an optimal compromise between a rational-efficient political persuasion strategy and a responsible-parties promotion of a conservative vision. CPC marketing strategist Patrick Muttart revolutionized Canadian campaigning through audience micro-targeting: rather than appealing to broad demographics such as regions and social classes, strategists segment the electorate into lifestyle-based subgroups using sophisticated market intelligence collection techniques and convey a customized message to each group deemed persuadable. 35 This technique hinges on perception. The party formed a minority government in 2006 and 2008 by targeting fiscal, progressive, and social conservatives, Western populists, and Québécois nationalists. Although these ideologies can conflict, their adherents could each perceive the CPC’s carefully crafted platform as a coherent expression of their preferred ideology or could at least concede that the CPC was their best possible option; aggregation excesses were thus avoided. 36 The CPC formed its first majority government in 2011 in part due to the micro-targeting of immigrants. Immigrants are becoming the main carriers of traditional family values, and those who came to Canada legally tend to be intolerant of the abuse of the immigration system. As Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Kenney constructed a comprehensive database of persuadable immigrants and appealed to their conservative tendencies. 37 Therefore, the CPC won office by strategically balancing the defense of conservative principles with persuasive efforts to attract

new voters.

The UCP’s policy declaration represents an even stronger affirmation of conservative values. The platform incorporates fiscal conservative principles, such as limited government and free enterprise, social conservative principles, such as the centrality of the family, and principles upon which both factions generally agree, such as self-reliance and the protection of public safety. 38 Sayers and Stewart expressed concern that the staunchly right-wing UCP might be too unattractive an option to pull back the centrist former PC voters who had supported the NDP as an act of protest but had become disillusioned by the government’s performance. 39 Nevertheless, in the 2019 provincial election, the UCP earned 54.9% of the popular vote, as compared to the NDP’s 32.7%, and this despite allegations that Kenney colluded with leadership contender Jeff Callaway to undermine Jean’s leadership campaign. 40 This election result suggests that the 2015 surge in support for the NDP was likely not indicative of a permanent shift in Alberta politics, although only time will tell whether this is the case. The UCP’s strong ideological commitments therefore appear not only driven by moral conviction but also by an understanding of Albertan voters’ preferences. Overall, the CPC successfully formed government thanks to a strategy that allowed the party to both advance a vision of the common good and persuade new voters to endorse it. The UCP experienced similar success even with its more strongly conservative positioning.

CONCLUSION Although conservative parties in Canada and Alberta operate within dramatically different political contexts, their recent trajectories share remarkable similarities. The Canadian and Albertan right fractured as the PCs, in order to maximize their electoral support, attempted and failed to balance between the contradictory interests of too many groups. Reform, Alliance, and Wildrose expressed views that had been absent from mainstream politics but failed to appeal to voters beyond a narrow minority. These events demonstrate the importance of balancing between a principled commitment to a political vision and strategic effort to garner electoral support; each of these considerations is counterproductive when it is not moderated by the other. The united CPC found a compromise solution through its revolutionary micro-targeting strategy, which effectively persuaded diverse new voters to identify with the party’s carefully constructed conservative platform, and the UCP successfully incorporated select fiscal and social conservative principles into a platform that a majority of Albertan voters could support. However, it would appear that the parties’ paths are once again diverging. The UCP’s success and the CPC’s failure to win office in the 2019 provincial and federal elections, respectively, suggest once again that the conservative positions popular in Alberta do not sufficiently resonate with the Canadian electorate as a whole, due to the CPC’s strategic choices, voters’ ideological leanings, or some combination of both.

9 McGill Journal of Political Studies | Winter 2020 NOTES 1 Emily Mertz, “Shock, disbelief, joy and dismay: social media reaction to Alberta election,” Global News, 6 May 2015. 2 Broadbent Institute, “Canadian Values Are Progressive Values,” Broadbent Institute, (2013): 2. 3 John Kenneth White, “What is a Political Party?” in Handbook of Party Politics, eds. Richard S. Katz and William J. Crotty London: SAGE Publications, (2006): 9-10. 4 White, “What is a Political Party?” 10-11. 5 Roland Kenneth Carty, “The Politics of Tecumseh Corners: Canadian Political Parties as Franchise Organizations,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 35 no. 4 (2002): 723-745. 6 Éric Bélanger and Jean-François Godbout, “Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Con- servative Party of Canada,” Parliamentary Affairs 63, no. 1 (2010): 41-65. 7 Carty, “The Politics of Tecumseh Corners: Canadian Political Parties as Franchise Organiza- tions,” 726. 8 Michael Lusztig and J. Matthew Wilson, “A New Right? Moral Issues and Partisan Change in Canada,” Social Science Quarterly 86, no. 1 (2005): 109-128. 9 Bélanger and Godbout, “Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada,” 43. 10 Karen Kleiss, “Analysis: How the Alberta Progressive Conservative dynasty fell,” Edmonton Journal, December 26, 2015. 11 Karen Kleiss, “Analysis: How the Alberta Progressive Conservative dynasty fell.” 12 David Taras, “Politics, Alberta Style: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Conservatives, 1971-2015,” in Orange Chinook: Politics in the New Alberta eds. Duane Bratt, Keith Brownsey, Richard Sutherland and David Taras (Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press, 2019), 26. 13 David Taras, “Politics, Alberta Style: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Conservatives, 1971-2015,” 16. 14 Lusztig and Wilson, “A New Right? Moral Issues and Partisan Change in Canada,” 110. 15 Lusztig and Wilson, “A New Right? Moral Issues and Partisan Change in Canada,” 111. 16 Broadbent Institute, Canadian Values Are Progressive Values, 10. 17 Kelly Gordon, “The Conservative Party and Ideology” (PowerPoint, 2019). 18 Bélanger and Godbout, “Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada,” 58. 19 “Thirty-seventh general election 2000: Official voting results,” Elections Canada, 2000. 20 Anthony M. Sayers and David K. Stewart, “Breaking the Peace: The Wildrose Alliance in Alberta Politics,” Canadian Political Science Review, 7, no. 1 (2013): 73-86. 21 Sayers and Stewart, “Breaking the Peace: The Wildrose Alliance in Alberta Politics,” 74-80. 22 Sayers and Stewart, “Breaking the Peace: The Wildrose Alliance in Alberta Politics,” 401- 402. 23 Sayers and Stewart, “Breaking the Peace: The Wildrose Alliance in Alberta Politics,” 418- 419. 24 Bélanger and Godbout, “Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada,” 50-51. 25 Bélanger and Godbout, “Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada,” 51-54. 26 “Election Results,” Elections Alberta, 2019. 27 Bélanger and Godbout, “Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada,” 54-57. 28 Michael D. Behiels, “Stephen Harper’s Rise to Power: Will His ‘New’ Conservative Party Become Canada’s ‘Natural Governing Party’ of the Twenty-First Century?” American Review of Canadian Studies 40, no. 1 (2010): 118-145. 29 Bélanger and Godbout, “Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada,” 56. 30 Sayers and Stewart, “Breaking the Peace: The Wildrose Alliance in Alberta Politics,” 413. 31 Alex Marland and Tom Flanagan, “Brand New Party: Political Branding and the Conservative Party of Canada,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 46, no. 4 (2013): 951-972, doi:10.10170S0008423913001108, 952-953. 32 Bélanger and Godbout, “Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada,” 58. 33 Behiels, “Stephen Harper’s Rise to Power: Will His ‘New’ Conservative Party Become Canada’s ‘Natural Governing Party’ of the Twenty-First Century?” 123. 34 Sayers and Stewart, “Breaking the Peace: The Wildrose Alliance in Alberta Politics,” 412- 416.

35 Marland and Flanagan, “Brand New Party: Political Branding and the Conservative Party of Canada,” 956-957. 36 Behiels, “Stephen Harper’s Rise to Power: Will His ‘New’ Conservative Party Become Canada’s ‘Natural Governing Party’ of the Twenty-First Century?” 122. 37 Marci McDonald, “True Blue,” The Walrus, 28 May 2014. 38 United Conservative Party (2018). United Conservative Party Policy Declaration. Issued by the United Conservative Party, 2018, 5-17. 39 Sayers and Stewart, “Breaking the Peace: The Wildrose Alliance in Alberta Politics,” 417- 419. 40 “NDP Gain Nine Points Since January, But UCP Lead,” Mainstreet Research, 21 March 2019.