Joe Oliver: Liberal party culture is past its best-by date
Philip Cross and I recently wrote articles on the same FP Comment page discussing Liberal culture’s negative influence on Canada’s economic growth. His focus was on entrepreneurship and innovation while mine treated climate-change catastrophism. We both described how culture can undermine fact-based analysis, rational decision-making and the economic well-being of ordinary Canadians.
Culture’s influence is pervasive and extends to human rights, sexual identity, the justice system, the military, historicity, race relations, national aspirations and more. Its power and influence may be benign and unifying, but it can also be manipulated by fear, virtue signalling, intolerance of dissent, financial inducements and the old standbys of mis- and dis-information.
Culture does not change by happenstance. In Canada, the prime driver over the past eight years has been federal government policies and rhetoric, led by the scold-in-chief, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He has been advocating a toxic brew of isms — socialism, progressivism, globalism and wokeism — that, paradoxically, do not actually reflect the preferences or self-interest of most Canadians, not even of all members of the Liberal party and caucus.
A large majority of Canadians support same-sex marriage and believe gay and trans people should be treated fairly and with dignity. However, they are uncomfortable when children are exposed to drag-queen performances and sexually explicit literature pushing an ideological agenda. They don’t have trouble defining “woman,” which was beyond the ken of U.S. Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, when she was asked to do so during her confirmation hearing. They generally do not believe that men who transition should be
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