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How the left won Canada: By promoting a series of visionary ideas, socialists secured dominance within government bureaucracies, universities, co-ops, churches and the economy.

Article Excerpt
By: Paul Stanway

A century ago, Canada as a nation consisted of individuals in voluntary associations. Almost everyone believed that their prosperity, both material and spiritual, depended on their own characters, their faith, their families, their commercial enterprises and farms, their churches, their unions and so on. Government was small at that stage. Today, however, it is huge. From the time Canadians toddle into kindergarten to their pensioned years, they are taught to think that their well-being depends on mandatory government programs and policies.

This transformation of our nation did not occur by accident.

The men and women who promoted the expansion of the public sector--the entrepreneurs of socialism--did so through intelligent marketing. They painted visions, often from noble motives. Voters by the million bought large portions of these concepts.

What were the visions of the left? Citizens should all co-operate rather than compete like beasts of the jungle. The government should educate everyone, including infants. Workers could protect themselves by belonging to one big union. People would be better off if they were mass-managed by the principles of scientific sociology and psychology. Women's rights should be not only be protected but actively promoted by the state. So should minority rights. And the rights of cripples. Genetically unfit individuals should be weeded out at birth or earlier. Only judges and public servants can be trusted to protect the land and air. Peace is invariably holy, warfare evil. Pleasure is always good, pain always bad. And so on. These visions never die. Each concept evolves and entwines with the others to form the socialist movement.

The left now has the immense power of the state behind it, from ever-extending bureaucracies to every major university in Canada. Yet it was not always so. The original power of socialism stemmed from its ideas.

Unfortunately, Canadian conservatives have never been able to counater the left's visions with equally powerful ideas consistent with individual initiative and voluntary associations. As a result, the right's political influence has declined to near-impotence, above all at the federal level.

Again, this weakening is not an accident. It began at the time of Canada's birth when capitalists relied on government tariffs to fence out American competition. Whether necessary or not at the time, the National Policy created and maintained a central Canadian economy which was defensive, inwardly-oriented and above all reliant on the state. And the collectivist tale goes on from that beginning.

To launch the new monthly incarnation of this publication, we could find no subject more crucial to Canadians than the rise of coercive collectivism in their midst. Paul Stanway's essay looks at the march leftward from the perspective of the federal Cabinet, the...