Looking at the structural problems of Canadian conservatism at the close of 2016 (Part One)
By Mark Wegierski
web posted November 28, 2016
It must be said that Canadian conservatism has not made too many extensive and discernible advances in Canada, despite the winning of a majority government in the federal Parliament, by the Harper-led Conservative Party, in the federal election of May 2, 2011. The Conservatives ended up routed in the federal election of October 19, 2015. They had manifestly failed to create some kind of independent conservative infrastructures during the propitious time of their majority government.
What is most sorely lacking are some kind of major infrastructures outside the framework of the federal Conservative and provincial Progressive Conservative parties. In provincial politics in Quebec, the centre-right is grouped around the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ); in Alberta, the Wildrose Alliance has largely displaced the Progressive Conservatives (but there is an NDP majority government); in Saskatchewan, there is the centrist Saskatchewan Party; while in British Columbia, there is one large centrist Liberal Party.
There are also a series of minor parties – the Christian Heritage Party Canada; the Family Coalition Party in Ontario; federal and provincial Libertarian Parties; and the Freedom Party of Ontario.
There are a number of well-known foci, for what could be broadly considered conservatism, outside of the major party structures. These would include the Fraser Institute, the National Citizens’ Coalition (NCC), and the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation (CTF). However, all three organizations are almost exclusively focussed on economics, and all have a relatively low profile, compared to the multifarious infrastructures of left-liberalism. Indeed such groups as ideological feminists receive huge funding from various levels of government.
The right-leaning economist, Brian Lee Crowley, has recently established a think-tank called The Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
In 2010, the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada was established.
In the Western provinces, there is the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (FCPP), and in the Atlantic provinces, there is the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS).
After the failure of The Western Standard some years ago, there arose in 2011 two new, broadly right-of-centre publications – The Dorchester Review (which is named after the British nobleman who gave Canada the Quebec Act of 1774), and The Canadian Observer (which in its first issue, announced its ambitions to be a Cité Libre [1] of the Right). However, it appears to have failed subsequent to the appearance of the Spring 2012 issue.
The remnants of the long-standing Report newsmagazines in Western Canada (which had reached a height of about 80,000 subscribers, mostly in Alberta) are now represented by the Citizens’ Centre for Freedom and Democracy (CCFD).
The main, broadly right-leaning “ginger group” in Canada is Civitas, which has endeavoured to raise its profile somewhat in the last few years. Its main activity is the annual conference. Civitas was somewhat of a successor to the short-lived Charlottetown Society of the early 1990s, which failed when its main founder untimely passed away.
There has also arisen in recent years the Manning Centre for Building Democracy (MCBD), which could be seen as existing both inside and outside the Conservative Party.
The Manning Centre has helped to launch a prestigious e-journal: c2cjournal.ca .
There has also arisen in recent years the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF). After three highly successful annual conferences on legal and cultural issues, the CCF had decided to focus most of its efforts on litigation. The annual conferences, all of which took place in Toronto, were very warmly received, and it is unfortunate that there was such a long break (between 2009 and 2015), in their holding.
John Carpay, who had been one of the founders of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, has subsequently founded the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), which is especially devoted to freedom of speech issues, especially at Canadian university campuses.
Joseph Ben-Ami, a well-known conservative activist, has established a small think-tank called the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies (now, I believe, reconfigured as The Arthur Meighen Institute for Public Affairs).
To be continued. 
Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher.
Footnote:
[1] Cité Libre was the name of the intensely left-wing and intensely intellectual journal founded by Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his associates in 1950s Quebec – when the prospects for the Left in Quebec and Canada seemed very thin indeed. Cité Libre was arguably the launch-pad for the so-called Quiet Revolution in Quebec, and the somewhat later “Trudeau revolution” in all of Canada.