Soon enough we will hear a great deal more about the Wildrose Alliance. Even though the Wildrose Alliance has minimal political power in Canada, the Alliance represents a greater trend of a growing conservative political consciousness in Canada. Such a growth of conservative consciousness encourages a progression of capitalism and the different systems (patriarchy, white supremacy, etc.) that maintain Canada as an unequal and violent society.
Before we can understand our current political parties and why there is a growth in conservatism, we need to understand the historical conditions of democracy in the West. The democratic foundations of Canada are based in principles of expanding imperialism, colonialism, and capital accumulation. These historical conditions inform Canada's presently growing conservative political and economic systems under a Progressive Conservative federal government majority
Some of the main issues that the current federal government focuses on are matters pertaining to the recent economic recession and to multiculturalism. The economy and citizenship are considered primary issues for a properly functioning democracy by right-wing organizations like the Fraser Institute, Canadian Heritage Alliance, and the Northern Alliance. Although these organizations differ in their approach, (the first being a right-wing think tank, and the last two being white supremacist organizations) their political doctrine and the targets for their education practices remain similar. Conservative education tactics act to disguise historical conditions and how social relations are organized to create material realities while putting the blame for social ills on individuals. For example, often times, economic inequality is explained by the "floods" of immigrants who are exploiting the nation's resources and occupying jobs and homes that are entitled to true and good Canadian citizens.
When a population -- such as immigrants -- appears to be a direct threat to a state's existence, they do not appear to be lives, but as a threat to life. Thus, it is not only justified that physical violence and structural restrictions against these so-called threats is required for a properly functioning capitalist nation, but is also portrayed as necessary. Narratives of an outside threat and of an individual battering of the system are used to form a conservative consciousness in working-class people to understand the hardships of their daily life as being caused by particular individuals. This understanding of the transgressing individual protects the interests of the ruling class by hiding their role in the formation of social inequalities.
The Wildrose Alliance
The Wildrose Alliance is a political party in Alberta, Canada that was formed in early 2008. Alberta is a province that has had a long history of support for conservative political parties, and sometimes is compared to conservative Southern states of the United States. The Wildrose Alliance has been considered by many as the most right wing of all the popular political parties in Canada. Members of the Wildrose Alliance are notable supporters of the right-wing think tank The Fraser Institute, as well as experienced politicians who have been at the forefront of Canadian conservative movements for the past five decades. The Wildrose Alliance is particularly interesting for this case study because of its recent growth in popularity. In the 2009 Alberta election the Wildrose Alliance received 4,052 votes, which at the time, was slightly higher than smaller parties like the Green Party and the Social Credit Party. In the 2012 election, the Wildrose Alliance dominated election headlines and they ended the election as the official opposition to the minority Progressive Conservative government with a total of 442,429 votes (a 325 per cent increase from the previous election) (Smith, 2012).
A main reason for this incredible growth is the relationship between the Conservative majority federal government and the Wildrose Alliance. With growing nationalist racial supremacist movements in the U.S. and the U.K. (Tea Party and English Defense League, respectively), it would not be a great shock if we see Canada follow in similar footsteps. The Wildrose Alliance is now at the forefront of fostering a conservative understanding of present social issues like the economic recession and a dwindling social safety net. The consequences of the Wildrose Alliance gaining power is a continuation of imperialist policies and the formation of social relations that continue inequalities based on race, gender, class, ability, etc.
I have researched the speaking notes of the Wildrose Alliance leader, Danielle Smith and the mission statement published on the Wildrose Alliance website. I have reviewed topics that relate to issues considered to be of the utmost importance for white working-class people, such as human rights, property rights, agriculture and economics. Smith preambles many of her statements with how people have lost faith and trust in the Canadian political system. The Wildrose Alliance's response to growing distrust is that they will create greater governmental accountability and transparency. We saw the success of this political rhetoric in the most recent municipal election in Toronto, where conservative candidate Rob Ford was elected on the ground of organizing a government that represents and is visible to the taxpayer. We have seen from Ford's political occupancy and the reign of other conservative regimes, that accountability and transparency is only available to the ruling class and not for the disenfranchised people that were originally targeted. The use of "feel good" political rhetoric is essential in the promotion of conservative organizations. Rhetoric about accountability and representation is used to play on working-class people's real experiences of disenfranchisement in Canada. In Canada's economic system, where working-class people face daily exploitation, a new political party like the Wildrose Alliance can use emancipatory and rights language to attract working-class peoples' desire for a betterment of their social conditions.
Wildrose Alliance policy: The economic recession
Yet, for the Wildrose Alliance to be operative, they must have substantial arguments behind "feel-good rhetoric" to be effective in forming a conservative consciousness. Conservative organizations are very aware of the inequalities that working-class and marginalized groups face and therefore, they are able to focus on how the economic system could be changed to reduce inequalities by putting more money into the pocket of the citizen. Danielle Smith writes on the Wildrose Alliance platform for considerations of agriculture and that state of economics in Alberta:
Unfortunately, excessive regulation and barriers have burdened Alberta's agriculture sector and made it unreasonably difficult for producers to market their goods… the current provincial government has failed to ensure that our farmers and ranchers have the environment they need to succeed in the international marketplace. A Wildrose government will work with Alberta's agriculture industry to aggressively address these issues. We will work constructively with industry, the federal government, and foreign governments to minimize and eliminate regulation, open access to new markets, and immediately address emerging problems. (Smith, 2012)
In this statement, Smith is locating issues of economic struggle on individuals and structural organization. Smith is articulating that economic issues exist within Alberta because of individual decisions made by Alberta's Progressive Conservative party. Smith explains that structural transformations are needed to benefit the local farmer. Smith's structural recommendations organize the economy for the benefit of large corporations and continue the process of monopoly capitalism that is impoverishing local farmers. Later in the statement, Smith vehemently explains that the Wildrose Alliance fully supports the current federal Conservative government legislation to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Board. However, regulations, government subsidies and co-operative boards were initially instituted as a protection for local farmers to be able to operate in the Canadian market and sell their commodities at a price that was competitive with larger companies. Smith's goal in this statement is to provide an explanation for rural peoples' experiences of economic marginalization, as the problems exist within government policies that restrict and bind the local market for farmers. Ultimately, the Wildrose Alliance is successful in forming a conservative consciousness if people believe that economic deregulation will resolve economic inequalities, rather than fostering working-class people to develop a critical understanding of how deregulation is responsible for creating that economic inequality in the first place.
Thank you for all of your comments. Especially Voice of the Damned, your right that was a silly oversight.
the problem seems to be that these conservative types also tend to produce rather large families...while we socialist types tend to limit our breeding...this has resulted in a plethora of ultra conservative, ultra religious, ultra free market types...and if the conservative mind is partially genetic...then we socialists are in big trouble...
P.S.
Again, as in previous postings during the provincial election:
"The Wild Rose; in the game of thrones, beware of the thorns!"
With Daniel "Sith," never before have I seen such a haven for E-vil and skulduggery...
Corporate Tyranny, The Liberal / Conservative (Conservative Extremist) Bi-partisan Dictatorship and Canada’s Young Population.
(Just have to tag on here, however it applies, and get some of this ‘ship’ of my chest)
“Just my Opinion!” Last week there was a media escalation in the great lie about Canada’s aging population. Odd as in January, I believe, there was a back door announcement from the Federal Government that the average age of a worker in Canada was down to 34.
Last weeks news flurry was in the face of the facts that there was another abet smaller baby boom in the 1980’s that continued into the 1990’s and extends even to today. Plus, the corporate influenced Fed’s have flooded the country with new immigration since the late 1960’s and had virtually double the national population by the end of the last millennium.
“Funny” …remember, right up and into the ‘90s they had everyone convinced there was “0” population growth, 1.5 kids per family? Yet by that time Calgary's and Edmonton’s population had doubled (although denied officially) and B.C.’s Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and the Okanogan valley had nearly tripled yet the rest of the country was still growing (I’m a 30 year commercial pilot right, I’ve seen our world evolve from the air – retiring in 2006, and privately since 1972).
35 Billion Dollars for a hand full of jet aircraft, 114 Billion in secret bailouts and waivers to the five major Canadian banks during the current recession yet they're telling us there is no money for Education, Healthcare and Pensions? And they just cut 30,000 federal employees and the associated services!
When I was in High School, College and S.A.I.T. here in the early 1970’s, Calgary’s population was 450K. Finally, just a year or so ago, the city ‘Finally’ fessed up, confessing that we now have over 1.2 million people - after years of perpetual un-truths.
Proof – proof of where I’m coming from? Look at the age of people around you (at shopping malls etc.). Look at local maps or aerial photographs of the above locations from around 1970 and then look at the same on Google Earth today. THEN, on top of that, factor in the trend to high density housing that also started in the late ‘60s; back to row housing – town houses and condo’s, and then apartment buildings and high rises, and reducing the single family housing lots from 50 feet to 25 (Huh! …isn’t that a fire hazard? And look at where all our trees are going!).
Aging Population or Population Explosion?
Further:
Corporations are manipulating our Government when corporate greed has already wreaked havoc on most of the western world. Corporate Government is trying to tear down the entire social infrastructure we, our parents and grand parents built and contributed to. In Alberta, public utilities are already gone; they're already talking about tolling our roads and highways – electronically (the wonders of proposed privatization).
(QR77, "Capitalist Radio, Calgary" did a poll just yesterday -June 6- asking Albertain's if they were in favor of tolling our roads and highways "To Make Them Safer").
REMEMBER: The new investors don’t make a profit until they get their money back. As with our public utilities, we here in Alberta didn’t personally realize any of the proceeds of the sales, yet we once owned them and now have to pay for them all over again.
Where did the money go? Foreign and domestic give-a-ways (cash, natural resources, student seats?), corporate hand outs and private contractor mega profits.
Things are going down right now, people. Rise up and be heard before it becomes illegal everywhere. Support the Students and the protesters of the Subjugation Bill in Quebec! It's a dictatorship when the provincial government of Quebec refuses to listen to it's people and sticks to it's own agenda. Subtly, it's been coming this way for a long time, maybe it always was.
Henry Ford said it best; a society needs "a working and productive middle class who can afford to buy the products they make."
Then P. Trudeau said; " ...but you people don't understand, we have to get back to a two class system." - national news, out side parliament buildings circa 1982.
The article seems confused in its terminology.
In paragraph 5, the writer refers to the Alberta PCs as having a "minority government". But in terms of seats, the PCs have a majority, and always have.
Possibly, the writer means that the Alberta PCs are a minority in terms of popular vote, which is true. However, in the next paragraph, he refers to "Conservative majority federal government", even though Harper's government is a "minority" in the popular-vote sense.
The article's analysis of Wildrose is largely accurate, but falls onto shaky ground in suggesting that the growth of the party in the last election has significant imlications for Canada as a whole. It's true that the federal Conservatives and the Wildrose share ideological roots in the Calgary School and, beyond that, American neo-conservativism. But Harper had managed to achieve his parliamentary majority, with representation from nearly all provinces and territories, almost a full year before the last Alberta election. I'm pretty sure that most federal Conservative voters in 2011 neither knew nor cared what Danielle Smith and her team of four MLAs were doing in Alberta.