Political Parties: Moderate Liberals

Canada Dept: It was a year in which a country built by moderate Liberals and moderate Tories saw the forces of moderation shrink. Core conservatives won a majority, they decimated the Liberals, they put in place many of their doctrinaire policies and they deepened their potential for continued dominance with the elimination of the public subsidy for political parties, with seat redistribution and other measures, according to Globe and Mail. But at the same, it was a big year for ideological advances. They came in such areas as crime and punishment, in foreign policy where Canada has become one of the hawks of the Western world on the gun registry, on citizenship and immigration, on the military, on the Wheat Board and on the environment. On the latter, we recall Mr. Mulroney, a progressive Tory, winning an award as Canada s greenest prime minister. As a show of how the party has changed, the Harper government will likely be a candidate for the brownest and for core conservatives, those of the doctrinaire variety, nothing can compare to the successes of the year now passing. In 2011, Canada took its sharpest turn right in its history. It will go down as the year of transformation in Canadian politics, the year when the political right gained unprecedented control, when the traditionally dominant centre was hollowed out and when the party of the left, for the first time, became the country s official opposition. The political tremors didn t reverberate with the shock they may have. The Conservatives prudent policy-making in some big-ticket policy areas has served to alleviate fears of their being excessively redneck. Their work on the economy, as seen most recently in the fiscal update, was an example of pragmatic decision-making. The recent bilateral border accord won them applause, as perhaps it should so long as it doesn t contribute to our becoming an extension of the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Harper s playing up of traditional symbols like the monarchy allays concerns of the old Canada fading away. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.