October 21, 2008, Gerry Nicholls: Time for Tories to drop incrementalism

Gerry Nicholls:

The chief proponent of incrementalism is former Conservative campaign manager Tom Flanagan and it’s essentially based on the idea that the Canadian public doesn’t really like conservative ideas or conservative polices.

Hence, according to Flanagan, if a Conservative government actually tried to feed the Canadian public a true conservative agenda the public would start to choke and this would necessitate some sort of gigantic national Heimlich manoeuvre.

To prevent this from happening, Flanagan and his incremantalist followers argue, the only way to introduce conservatism in Canada is for the government to feed it to the public in tiny little itsy-bitsy bites –bites so tiny you would need a microscope to see them. This is what I call a good news, bad news theory. The good news about this “go slow” incremental approach is it would indeed succeed in creating a conservative Canada; the bad news is it would take about 5,000 years.

That means the Conservatives must soon do one or more of the following: cut taxes, make government smaller, reduce government spending, promote and protect individual freedoms. To put it another way, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has to put away his sweater-vest and stop trying to convince Canadians he is a warm and fuzzy guy. Instead he must start inspiring people with a conservative vision, a vision that’s an alternative to the tax-and-spend policies of the NDP and Liberals.

…Margaret Thatcher was a leader. Ronald Reagan was leader. In the last election, the Conservative party kept telling us Stephen Harper was a leader.

It’s time he proved it.