Like a Candle in the Wind

First Joe Clark jumped ship and now Scott Brison has switched sides. And I am civic minded individual without a party. Prudence would suggest that I wait until the New Conservative Party comes out with its own constitution and find out exactly where they stand on key issues, but I'm very worried about how those decisions are going to play out. To take a line from the saga "I have a bad feeling about this."

I'm not a social conservative. This could mean a variety of things to you as I encountered this term being used in completely opposite ways today. The way I've come to understand the term, social conservatives are those who are conservative about social issues. Not the other meaning where social conservatives are more socialist leaning on social issues. Confused yet? I'll break it down for you. I'm a fiscal conservative. Government should be efficient and small and generally stay the hell out of people's lives. The way I define it, social conservatives like to make all kinds of laws about what people can and cannot do. I'm not one of those.

Which is a big part of why I'm so adrift right now. One of the things I liked about the PC party was that they were liberal (not in the Liberal party sense) about social issues. The Alliance, not so much. Which was why I was really happy to see all those social conservatives go when that party was created. And now they're back. Yee-fucking-haw.

I understand that some ideological values had to be undermined to create a party that could actually pose a threat to the Liberal government. But I wonder what the trade off will be. How many PCs will turn to the Liberals instead of the New Conservative party? I'm thinking a lot since Paul Martin is a rather blue Grit. But will I be one of them? Martin hopes to "make the Liberal party attractive to other disillusioned Tories." I just can't see that happening. Yet the prospect of spending the rest of my voting days spoiling votes almost breaks my heart.

HRH