Building a new party is the easiest way to fix the old one

Many conservatives are reluctant to embrace the idea of new party. They ask if the PC Party of Ontario can’t be reformed. They wonder if the PC Party can become a bold, invigorated institution promoting free enterprise, civilizing values and democratic reform.

To which I say “yes, it can”.

The real question is figuring out how to get there.

One way is to elect a leader who can take us there. Margaret Thatcher and Mike Harris were two leaders who were able to overcome immense institutional inertia and decades of stagnation to revitalize their parties and make transformational societal change. Because Thatcher and Harris were not beholden to a conventional understanding of how to win elections (see also Rob Ford), they had immense strength of will and the conviction necessary to implement ‘radical’ ideas. To ensure their position at the top they were able to leverage the self-preservation instinct of their respective caucus members and make them fall in line.

The problem with this approach to party reform is that it tends to die out with the leader. Once the man (or woman) of conviction retires, the old forces begin to take over again and the direction of the party reverts to the mean. The strong leader is able to shift the Overton window for a time, even beyond their tenure (exemplified most notably in the U.K. case by the establishment of New Labour). But without a ground-up reformation of the culture of the party things begin to drift and the window narrows again.

The other way to reform the PC Party of Ontario is by exerting an existential threat from the right. Not a threat to the PC Party, but a threat to its raison d’être: winning government.

Let’s return for a moment to that quote by Milton Friedman from my first post:

“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office.”

If we want to establish a PC Party that is committed to doing the right thing, even when they have the wrong leader (which is quite often), then it needs to be politically profitable for them to do so. Or looked at another way, it needs to become politically costly for them to not do the right thing. When a new party on the right threatens marginal PC seats such that winning government becomes a mathematical near-impossibility, the new electoral reality will quickly right the listing PC ship.

That is why I believe it is more effective, more efficient, and more long-lasting, to reform the PC Party from the outside. A new party, with a new culture and a new membership of actual conservatives, oriented around ideology rather than winning elections, is a long-term solution to the problem of Ontario PC Party drift toward liberalism.

Craig Dellandrea can be found standing in line at the consulates of Switzerland, Monaco and Lichtenstein applying for refugee status. He can also be reached at craigdellandrea@sympatico.ca