Sunday, August 26, 2018

Bernier Split From Conservatives Looks Like HH Stevens and his Depression Era 'Reconstruction Party'


Maxime Bernier’s recent split with Conservatives evokes memories of Lucien Bouchard and Preston Manning (and others, see here), both of whom formed and led their own Canadian political parties in the 1980s and 90’s.

Lucien Bouchard, a federal cabinet minister in the government of Brian Mulroney left in 1990, after the failure of the Meech Lake Accord.  He formed the Bloc Quebecois, a national party whose main purpose was to facilitate the independence of Quebec.  Despite only winning seats in that province in 1993, and its separatist agenda, the Bloc formed the Official Opposition, see CBC News clip from 1993.

In contrast to Bouchard, Preston Manning worked for years to organize the Reform Party at a grass roots level.  His success, largely in Canada’s West, directly fractured conservatives, who remained divided until the creation of the modern Conservative Party in 2003.

At this point, neither of these examples appears as a good parallel to Bernier’s recent decision to leave the Conservative fold, on the eve of its 2018 National Convention in Halifax last week (see clip of his remarks, here).

Both Bouchard and Manning had definite regional bases, that concentrated their support.  Bouchard also started with a handful of similarly minded MPs, and could count on the sympathies and skills of provincial separatists.  For its part, Reform's success came only after failed electoral attempts and years of work on the ground, see here.

By contrast, Maxime Bernier appears to have few committed partisans, see here.  No elected officials have joined his revolt, and while relatively popular, his support appears spread across the country.  Organizationally, Bernier has not registered his organization, and has yet to even come up with a name for the new party, see commentary on these & similar points by Andrew Coyne and Paul Wells.

Rather than the Bloc or Reform, Bernier’s exit instead brings to mind the experience of HH Stevens, who broke with the old Conservative Party under RB Bennett in 1934 to form the Reconstruction Party.
 
In the midst of the Great Depression, Stevens new Party favoured increased government efforts in economic policy and trade.  Bernier’s dissent from current Conservative policy is, for now, also centred on criticisms of trade and economics, though he favours less government involvement. 

In the election of 1935, Reconstruction ran candidates across the country, winning nine percent of the total vote, a figure comparable to some current estimates of Bernier’s potential impact:




One difference between Bernier and Stevens may turn out to be the disruptive effects of modern communications technologies.

As Donald Trump demonstrates, sometimes on an hourly basis, politicians can leverage these communicative tools in unprecedented ways to bolster their popularity.  Like the American President, Bernier seems apt to use platforms like Twitter, to enhance his profile and express controversial positions,  as his tweets about "extreme multiculturalism" in the last week demonstrate, see here.  As a side note, there may be a further synchronicity with Stevens own past opposition to Asian immigration, see here.

However, the disruptive effects of modern tech also present another potential parallel. The threat of widespread economic revolt was background to Stevens departure from the Conservatives in 1934.

Similarly, in 2018 much of the world also faces basic democratic challenges, though now it's related to the growing influence of social media.  In this sense, the Depression and online communications platforms may well represent comparable existential crises, that underlie past and present political turmoil within the Conservative Party, and more broadly, in my opinion.

Unlike more recent splits by the Bloc and Reform, the Reconstruction Party’s long-term effects were negligible. Stevens returned to the Conservatives in 1938, but was not subsequently re-elected.  In the end, though he made several attempts, including a leadership bid in 1942, he never again held public office.

HH Stevens defiance almost certainly hobbled Bennett’s electoral fortunes in 1935. But given the social catastrophe wrought by the Depression, they were probably trending towards defeat anyways, and few now remember that moment in Canadian history.  In the present day, Bernier runs the risk that like the Reconstruction Party, his break from the Conservative Party will also later be regarded as little more than an historical footnote. 

If, on the other hand, Bernier can organize and administer a new party structure, gain supporters and money, and maintain his profile, probably by leveraging social media, then he might have a chance to re-shape Canadian politics in the longer term.  At this point though, that seems like a big ‘if’.