National Post: Opinion: F.H. Buckley: Canadian Conservatives Shouldn’t Look South For Right-Wing Inspiration

THE NATIONAL POST: OPINION: F.H. BUCKLEY: CANADIAN CONSERVATIVES SHOULD STOP LOOKING TO THE UNITED STATES FOR RIGHT-WING INSPIRATIONFULLCOMMENT.NATIONALPOST.COM

PM Stephen Harper & PM Benjamin Netanyahu

The only thing I agree with F.H. Buckley in his piece comparing Canadian Conservatives with American Conservatives is that “Canada shouldn’t look South for right-wing inspiration”. For obvious reasons I believe, but a big one being that a Canadian Conservative is probably to the left of a American Center-Left Liberal Democrat. Canadian Conservatives look more like FDR Progressives than Goldwater Conservatives.

To risk stating the obvious Canadian conservatism even looks different from American conservatism even in the classical conservative sense like Barry Goldwater or Bill Buckley, or today with Senator Rand Paul. So so-called religious conservatism or religious conservatives who look like theocrats to most of the rest of the world would never fly politically to a Canadian country that if anything is more secular than America and if anything believes in a bigger separation of church and state than Americans as a whole outside of our Bible Belt.

Canadian Conservatives to me at least represent the best form of a right-wing movement perhaps in the Western world. Because as much as Canada gets stereotyped as a big government socialist state it really isn’t. Their Federal Government and they do have a Federal system spends less of their country’s Gross Domestic Product than we do. And they tax business less than America does. And they do believe in fiscal responsibility and fiscal conservatism more than American so-called Conservatives. At least in the sense of not taxing and spending and running up big debts and deficits annually. And take a conservative fiscal look across their Federal budget including their defense budget more than American so-called Conservatives do.

There’s really nothing wrong with the Canadian right-wing at least as I see it as an American. They have true Conservatives up there who believe in good government. But part of good government is limited government since there is a limit to the good that government can do for people especially if people aren’t willing to do everything for themselves. And Canada should simply just focus on what works in Canada. As Americans hopefully will get back to what works in America.

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