“I am fiscally-conservative but socially-progressive: a compassionate conservative”, says one. “I am fiscally and socially conservative: I’m principled”, says another. One might even say, “I consider myself to be more of a libertarian”. These are all common positions held within the conservative movement today. Personally, I think that the fact that these distinctive categories exist is indicative of just how broad of a coalition conservatism occupies within Canada– it signals an ability to question and be reflexive within our own ideology. Within our Story of a Tory group, it most certainly holds true as there are many of us occupying different spaces on the conservative spectrum. As an organization, and a group of engaged women, we work to overcome and understand these issues together, for the betterment of the conservative movement as a whole, however that may play out.

This distinction and method of identification, as it stands in current discourse, has the ability to divide many members and may even go as far as to fracture an electorate. Currently, in the landscape of Alberta Politics, we are seeing these distinctions boil to the surface. With groups of self-identifying progressive-conservatives taking their support to “centrist” (what defines centrism, anyways? Another day, another blog post) parties like the Alberta Party, and some MLAs going as far as to leave caucus, I had to take a moment to ask myself, why? The same thing happened to some extent, federally, upon Andrew Scheer’s election with Libertarians and red-tories questioning how well they can be represented under new leadership. More broadly, I attribute this dissention to a general lack of understanding in relation to social conservatism.

I have been vocal about my support for Jason Kenney in earlier blog posts. I have held true to my convictions that he is the right person to get Alberta back on track and restore our competitive advantage. I appreciate his moral conviction and commend his dedication to conservative causes, whatever they may be. More notably, he is a political campaign machine and, with the recent announcement of a by-election, he doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. There are some who, upon his election to leader of the UCP, say that they cannot support a party lead by a vocal social conservative. For context, Mr. Kenney has been known to promote traditional family values and support of pro-life legislation.

This issue of “where do I fit in” as a conservative has been one that has challenged me, ever since I got involved with politics. I have occupied a few spaces within the conservative movement, sometimes veering on the “progressive” end of things in my earlier years– albeit, these were my least involved years. Throughout all the noise and questioning of my own convictions I have come to a few of my own conclusions: I absolutely detest bureaucracy, believe in accountability and fiscal responsibility, really appreciate a good plan to lower taxation burdens and love red-tape reduction strategies. On the social/moral side of things, I know that my Faith plays a large role in the way that I interpret the world around me and influences my perspective on things like abortion, choice in education, value of volunteerism and the importance of strong families.

What frustrates me, to no end, is that I can usually make a lot of friends in conservative circles with my first list of convictions focusing on fiscal values, but once I profess to be a so-con all bets are off, conversation ceases, and I am viewed as unable to function at an arm’s length of my morality to make a rational decision, or bear a right to an opinion. This sentiment was reinforced after my open letter in defense of Rachael Harder, and has come up consecutively thereafter.  

I am not going to sit here and repeat Liberal verbiage that enumerates our strength lying within “diversity”, and I am most certainly not going to throw a Bible at someone I disagree with, but this incessant need to categorize and shut each other out needs to take a back seat. We are at a pivotal point in conservatism, here in Alberta, and as a nation. Canadians and Albertans are seeing conservatism as an option, a majority of young people within Alberta are mobilizing to defeat our NDP government in 2019– but we can’t be constantly fighting each other and still have the stamina to contest an election.

In Andrew Scheer’s federal Conservative victory, over 15% of of his votes came from social conservatives who voted for Brad Trost or Pierre Lemieux on the first ballot. This has been argued to be one of the factors that solidified his leadership win — to me, alienating this significant of a support base by dismissing their causes as “extreme” is asinine for a government-in-waiting. In the Alberta context, Bill 24 – an Act to Strengthen Gay Straight Alliances, has been met with considerable opposition from social conservatives who believe in fundamental parental involvement in their children’s education. Working within the Alberta political landscape, I can say with certainty that this bill is not only contentious, but has fired up our base like nothing I have ever seen before. Losing the support of these people, to appear more amenable (read: appease the left’s agenda and compromise), would be unbecoming of a party dedicated to a broad-tent coalition, downright foolish, one could argue.

Perhaps the coolest thing about being a conservative right now is that our party has an inherent commitment to grassroots policy development. The United Conservative Party is literally starting from the bottom. Instead of coming into a room, having already arrived at your own conclusion about someone as soon as they utter the words “pro-life” or something of the equivalent, let’s have a conversation. Let’s bring forward robust debate on policies at the founding AGM and let’s shape our movement as a team — as my, progressive-conservative friend Natasha put it so aptly, “if you want a seat at the table pull up a chair”.

Regardless of the popular discourse pushed in the twitter-sphere by those who seek only to undermine, not understand, we have an obligation as a movement to acknowledge all conservatives in our broad-tent coalition. When it seems convenient, we cannot let our principle fall to the wayside and become complacent with bland policy. Social-conservatives, we need to respectfully engage with those that we disagree with and progressive-conservatives, we need you to listen. The left likes to see us divided. They are salivating at the possibility of conservative fragmentation despite our overwhelming support of unity. Our story is only in the first chapter and we have the opportunity to write it together — so what will you choose? Will you stand with other conservatives and build our movement? Or will you compromise on principle to save face? The choice is yours.

*** The views expressed in this piece are the views of the author alone and not necessarily shared by all authors at Story of A Tory. Story Of A Tory is not formally affiliated with any political parties. ***