To the editor of the Sudbury Star,
I read Warren Kinsella's column in which he predicts the resurgence of the federal Liberal Party with great interest. At the present time, the conservative end of the spectrum has been staked out by the Tories while the NDP has a lock on the far left. The Liberals exist somewhere in the middle, where he suggests the average Canadians "swing left and right, as the circumstances warrant".
The flaw I see in Mr. Kinsella's argument is that he portrays the political spectrum in one dimension featuring left, right and centre. While I agree that most Canadians are not all left or all right, I believe after talking to many that they lean one way or the other, not based on circumstance, but rather based on the particular issue at hand. There is a second axis to the political landscape, and one end of it is populated by those who describe themselves as fiscally conservative and socially liberal. This leads them to sometimes side with the Conservatives and other times to back NDP ideas. These people fit the label of classical liberal, aka libertarian, and they are not comfortable at either end of the one dimensional playing field. But they are definitely not moderate (although the popular left/right model forces them to describe themselves as such).
In my opinion, if the Liberals want to stake out grounds to rebuild the party, they should move onto this other dimension. On a fiscal basis, Paul Martin proved as Finance Minister that the Grits can be more fiscally conservative than anything the Harper government has done in the last six years. Meanwhile, on the social front, a party that steadfastly backs individual rights without the overtones of members rumbling about the government legislating private moral issues such as gay marriage, abortion and a draconian war on drugs that has been singularly unsuccessful would be welcome to many of us.
So let the redefined Liberal Party embrace the fiscal right and endorse the social left without trying to be moderate. This libertarian, who has supported the Conservatives for the last few elections as a compromise, would be happy to change his allegiance.
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