DOHM: A party needs a philosophy — classical liberalism is up for grabs

In his recent column on a potential BC Liberal revival, Mo Amir argued that “a brand is not a party agenda, and name recognition is not a reason to exist.” 

A spot on assessment. 

If a new centrist or Liberal party were to materialize in British Columbia, it would need a vision to pitch to voters — even if it would like to pretend, for political reasons, that such a thing is not “ideological.”

Here is one wild idea: maybe a new centrist party could be the party of classical liberalism? Eric Lombardi is making waves in the Ontario Liberal leadership race by running on this very notion. 

The promise of a liberal democracy is simple and powerful: every individual, regardless of origin, stands equal before the law, equal in opportunity, and equal in their claim to dignity. The nations built on these premises have produced the most prosperous, tolerant, and innovative societies in human history. 

But in Canada, they have been unravelled by the prioritization of ancestry over individuality, group grievance over universal standing, subjective experience and traditional knowledge over empirical reason, hereditary rights and judicial activism over democratic consent, and orthodoxy over the open contest of ideas. 

As a result of this unravelling, Canada’s broader political landscape offers two dominant options of late: a populist conservatism that speaks the language of grievance while offering little in terms of substance or structural reform, and elitist progressivism that has hollowed out its origins in favour of identitarianism and institutional erosion. 

A return to classical liberalism represents a coherent alternative to both options not because it makes calculated tradeoffs from each, but rather because it draws from a different and far deeper philosophical well entirely.

Canada’s drift away from the principles of classical liberalism has been multi-faceted. 

For one, our courts and policy makers have reframed equality as requiring equity rather than equal individual treatment. Discriminatory hiring practices are now widespread throughout academia and ubiquitous in government funding regimes. Leniency in sentencing on the basis of ancestry or immigration status routinely contradicts the foundational notion of equality under law, and seems a likely contributor to declining public confidence in the justice system. 

Private property rights and underlying Crown title have been voluntarily subordinated to hereditary land claims. Individual rights to harvest common resources such as fish or wildlife are superseded by inherited rights, which also hamper the government's ability to effectively manage these resources. Critical infrastructure projects face regulatory paralysis rooted in jurisdictional uncertainty that worsens with each new court decision, and even law making and governance authority themselves are being challenged on the basis of the duty to consult and government’s obligations to hereditary rightsholders.

A pervasive and growing problem of antisemitism violates principles of tolerance and freedom of conscience. Proposals to criminalize discussion of sensitive topics such as residential schools curtail free expression, and the proliferation of government-funded journalism undermines the open marketplace of ideas and media objectivity that liberalism depends on to function.

We must be clear eyed about what has been sacrificed as a result: competitive markets, individual accountability, technological innovation, and efficient democratic governance. Not to mention the public’s trust, which is declining in both government and public institutions. 

Classic liberalism originated from the Age of Enlightenment. Philosophers championed reason, individual autonomy, and secular logic over traditional authority. These ideals fuelled a rejection of absolute monarchy, mercantilism, and feudalism in favour of new principles that lifted humanity out of the Dark Ages. These ideals were hard-won and are not self-sustaining. 

Whether the tenets of classical liberalism still qualify a centrist ideology is a topic of debate. The genuine pursuit of many of its principles would constitute a monumental shift from policies currently fielded by Liberals across the country. Indeed, Lombardi’s contention that “the law should apply equally to everyone; people should be judged on merit; markets should be competitive; opportunity must be real for all; government should be secular; speech should be free, and excellence should be celebrated” has yielded concern from “establishment” Ontario Liberals who appear worried about conservatives taking over the party. 

Regardless of which principles a hypothetical BC Liberal party would embody, the notion that a party could rise to power simply by cobbling together a series of policy tradeoffs designed to appease the mushy middle is shallow thinking. 

Attempting to replicate the federal Liberals approach of “we like good things and not bad things” may be tempting, but also inadvisable. Because while a portion of voters find the ideological bent of both the BC NDP and BC Conservatives problematic, that does not mean that they would instead vote for a party that effectively stands for nothing of substance except their own self-interest and the pursuit of power. 

After all, this was the ideology that the BC Liberals brand became most closely associated with preceding their recent collapse.

Laurisa Dohm is a BC-based consultant and policy advisor. She holds an M.Sc from Gothenburg University.