Courtesy of NealeNews comes this article by James Allan, a Canadian born and raised Professor of Law from Queensland University in Australia.
...When I raised this point during my time back in Canada -- that any well-functioning democracy needs the voters to kick parties out of power on a fairly regular basis -- I was met every time with this reply: "But Harper and the Tories are so right wing. We agree in theory, but really, no one could vote for them."
...But here's the odd thing. In global terms, it's simply not true. Take today's Tories and Stephen Harper out of Canada and plunk them in New Zealand and they would be to the left of Helen Clark's Labour government. Down in New Zealand, there is a two-tier health system; there are civil unions but no gay marriage; the economy is far less heavily regulated in terms of labour laws, tax policy and tariffs than anything Harper is proposing.
The same goes for Australia. Compare the policies of the left-wing Labour Party there (on defence, immigration, the environment, health, education, you name it) to Canadian Tories' policies and Harper consistently stands to the left of Australian Labour, not the right.
And this is the same Tory party that is demonized in Canada for being "too right wing." Frankly, it was disorienting to return to Canada and to be met, continually, with this total lack of global perspective.
The single most important factor that Professor Allan has left out is that the problem is that Conservatives are not far enough left of the Republicans. Canadians do not have a global perspective they a whatever the Republicans do, we will do the opposite perspestive. You see, it is not that we are anti-American, we are anti-Republican American. Since 17 of the last 25 years have had Republican Presidents it has become almost the same thing. The rest of the world does not matter in Canadian politics, as long as the Conservatives are seen to be to the right of the Democrats the MSM will continue to berate them.
