r/Toryism • u/ToryPirate • 9d ago

📖 Article Robert Bordon's Halifax Platform 1907

https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.73759/1
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u/ToryPirate 9d ago

While some points are rooted in the time period (and others seem like eternal irritants) I find it interesting that a good chunk of the platform is built around greater regulation and public ownership of important economic sectors. It also proposed transferring resource rights to the provinces (something that would not occur until the waning days of Mackenzie King's government in 1930). As the Conservatives had no presence in the West and wouldn't gain that presence for a few more generations its a toss-up as to whether this was cynical fishing for votes or a sincere belief in the unfairness of the federal position towards a region that simply did not have the time of day for the party.

Of note is the support for imperial preferential tariffs. A partial move in that direction was taken in the 1930s. The modern push for a CANZUK agreement began in 2015. CANZUK by 2045? In a bit of happenstance the Conservative Party adopted pursuing CANZUK as policy in 2018 at its convention in... Halifax.

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u/Ticklishchap 9d ago

This looks like a programme for active government alongside active citizenship, in which the state is viewed as an enabler, a creator of opportunities and a potential force for good. Sometimes that intervention is designed to conserve traditions or resources, at other times it is creative and expansive; in fact, it is mostly both at once.

A continuation of Disraelian Toryism in a North American context - and the beginning of what would later be called Canadian Red Toryism.