“When you look across the country, what we’re seeing is political leaders scurrying to the sidelines. Political leaders of all political stripes — they’re all trying to get to the edge,” he said. “And you’re trying to do the exact opposite. You’re trying to preserve this political middle ground that has saved Canada so many times and that has preserved our country.” The only question now is how the Center Ice Conservatives — or any other group of disgruntled center-right conservatives — could do this. Although a possible name change was teased at the end of the day’s debates, the group now known as the Center Ice Conservatives was founded by Rick Peterson, a former investment banker who ran for Conservative leader in 2017 and finished 12th (he also came in briefly in the Conservative leadership race in 2020, but dropped out after two months). “We are a platform that intends to be a strong, bold and proud voice for the centre-right of Canada’s political spectrum,” said Peterson explains on the team’s website. Former British Columbia premier Christy Clark praised attendees of the Ice Center Conservative conference for “trying to maintain that political middle ground.” (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press) Thursday’s event was billed as the first annual “Let’s Grow Canada” conference, and panelists included a mix of academics, journalists and politicians — former Conservative MP Leona Alleslev, former Conservative senator Marjory LeBreton and former Conservative candidate Ann Francis. The only active politician in attendance – and one of the most impassioned speakers of the day – was Dominic Cardy, minister of education and early childhood development in New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative government. “There is a void at the heart of Canadian politics. If we don’t fill it, we will lose our country,” Cardy said ominously in an essay which preceded the conference this week. The day’s discussion covered many broad themes, and panelists were exposed to ideas such as the importance of economic growth, the value of fiscal discipline and the need to seriously address global threats that lie beyond Canada’s borders. In her keynote speech, Clark lamented that both the Liberals and Conservatives were divisive and exclusionary in their rhetoric. (Moments later, in response to an audience question, Clark said this calls for an Alberta Sovereignty Act they were “crazy”. So apparently it’s okay to condemn certain things in emphatic terms.) “We have an opportunity to change the cycle of divisive politics in this country, and this meeting today, I think, is the beginning,” Clark said.
Is there a void at the center of Canadian politics?
Broad appeals for centrism often rest on weak assumptions and false equivalencies. Not all disagreements are best resolved by choosing the middle ground between the political left and the political right. Equal compromise is not always possible or preferable. The middle ground between two opposing views is not inherently more reasonable. Sometimes choices have to be made and sometimes making people unhappy is inevitable. But the corrosive extremism and unnecessary division is worth pointing out. And it’s not wrong to wish politics were more serious, more thoughtful, or more rational — which seemed to be the undercurrent of much of Thursday’s debate. Conservative leadership hopeful Pierre Poilievre addresses Brandon supporters at the Victoria Inn on Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022. (Chelsea Kemp/CBC) (Chelsea Kemp/CBC) It’s also not hard to see why moderate conservatives might feel the urge to speak out now – and see a potential opportunity to do so. Under Pierre Poilieve, the Conservative party would move further to the populist right. Under Justin Trudeau, the Liberal party is further to the political left than it was under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin (although the extent to which the party has moved to the left is sometimes grossly overstated) . But how would moderate conservatives actually bridge the space that might now exist between Poilievre’s and Trudeau’s parties? Near the end of Thursday’s rally, Peterson pointed out that his group is not affiliated with the federal Conservative party. “We’re talking about bringing together ideas and people that could have an impact on any political party or any person running for political office,” he said. So perhaps the Ice Center Conservatives could become a Progressive Conservative answer to Canada’s Strong and Free Network, originally founded by former Reform Party leader Preston Manning. Perhaps this would allow moderates to exert some modicum of influence on the agenda of a Poilievre government – or prepare for some future post-Poilievre leadership race.
Why not a new party?
At the start of the one-day conference, Peterson was also adamant that he was not interested in starting a new political party. “Believe me, nobody here wants to do that. Who wants to set up a 338 EDA?” Peterson said, referring to constituency associations. “That’s worse than 338 root canals.” Certainly, the establishment of a new national political party would be neither easy nor painless. But — to extend the hockey analogy — it’s hard to score goals if you’re sitting on the bench. Would a new conservative party risk splitting the vote on the political right, as happened when the Liberal party won majorities in 1993, 1997 and 2000? It can. But if there are really moderate conservatives who are seriously concerned about the direction of the Conservative party, they may have to make some tough decisions next time around about what they are willing to do to respond to it. A new centre-right party might not just split the vote either. He could hope to win enough seats to hold the balance of power in a minority parliament, a result that would give moderate conservatives a chance to have real influence on a government’s agenda — similar to what the NDP is doing now and has done in the past . In the longer term, a new center-right party may also hope to have the influence that the Reform party had on the reconstituted Conservative party that returned in 2003. Or it could simply influence the future direction of the Conservative party, as the People’s Party appears to be doing now. Perhaps the Center Ice Conservatives are not the group to lead such an effort. But if they’ve put their finger on a real problem, it may take more than panel discussions and op-eds to address it.
