www.ChrisLaBossiere.com

Ted Morton has been appointed as the new Provincial Finance Minister, and according to the Premier's website, the third in order of precedence of all of the ministers in the legislature. It is obvious that Morton is considered the furthest right of the conservative cabinet and I am glad there are others in cabinet, including the Premier, who are more moderate in their social politics. There is little doubt that his appointment to Finance, as well as his power in the Cabinet, is a direct response to the concerns of Albertans who are concerned about the fiscal management (or mismanagement) of the current government. I would agree that this government has failed in managing it's spending.

Things have changed now, in my opinion, when it comes to fiscal leadership. I predict we will see a hard right-turn to balanced, pragmatic budgets. This is a good thing. A little belt-tightening will help more in the long-run than it hurts.

However, in our inadequate single political-spectrum reality, right-wing politics does not just mean fiscal hawkishness. To many, Conservatism means resisting progress in areas of social and family values. The dangerous mixture of religion and politics, government and education and legislating morality etc.

Interestingly, Morton is also a very vocal Social Conservative.

Here is some valuable insight into our new finance minister, gleaned from an Edmonton Journal Article written on May 26th, 2009 by columnist Paula Simons.

A decade ago, a Calgary professor and conservative activist named Ted Morton went to Geneva to deliver a speech to the World Congress of Families, an event sponsored by a U.S. think-tank called the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society. Morton's speech was a passionate attack on "gender feminists and the gay rights movement" -- groups, he said, which "target the natural family as public enemy No. 1."

"According to the feminist-gay gospel, the great evils of this world are sexism and homophobia, and their breeding ground is the traditional family," Morton told his audience. "Hence, the gay-feminist project has become a social engineering project -- to use the coercive power of the state to undermine the existing family and to reconstruct in its place their gender-equal utopias."

To avoid the "soft despotism" of those he dubbed the New Egalitarians, Morton said it was vital to persuade governments around the world to subject all new legislation to a values test, to make sure that each new law supported "natural" family life. New laws, he argued, should be drafted to consider their impact on "parental rights and responsibilities -- especially the right to educate their children in the moral and spiritual traditions of their choice."

"Enlisting the coercive power of the state to force people to 'approve' homosexual relations is the antithesis of toleration," he said. "Toleration loses any meaning if we are not allowed to continue to disapprove of what we tolerate!"

What scares me, especially considering the above position of one of Governments most powerful ministers, is that there are many who would argue the Conservative party is no longer a Conservative party at all. That it is not far enough right, or that it is not doing enough to forward "conservative values".

Perhaps now we will get to see the dividing line on social issues between right, and right of right. Perhaps we will now get to learn if the Progressive in Progressive Conservative was meant for their stance on social progress.

At this point, at least in my very humble opinion, the PC Party has figured out half of the reason for discontent in this Province, I wonder if they have any idea what the other half is?

Thanks to Ken Chapman, I am reading an excellent document written by Paul H. Ray, PhD. Although 7 years old; it is very elightening on what the future of politics might look like.

Here are some words from the Executive Summary:

"We are entering into a time of transformation, i.e., changing shape and function, of many of our institutions, our political institutions are very much in need of repair or replacement, and this paper shows how to look at the emerging culture of our time as a support for positive change. indeed, it says that political culture, which is the substrate politics rests on, has already been changing for some decades now, and at this point in history, leads to new kinds of political demand.

Today's politics is dismal in part because of it's rigidity, it's corruption, and it's inability to supply what people want. We are looking at the political equivalent of what would be called market failure in economics and business:

the breakdown of supply and demand. Our democracy is at great risk of turning into a plutocracy: rule by and for the benefit of the rich."

I highlighted that one line because it really rang true with me, and particularly since this was written in 2002, a full 6 years before the major economic meltdown that proves ironic in this.

I strongly recomment this as a read, and you can download the full PDF version here. The real question of course is how can we reinvent our government within this new reality. Add to this social media tools and a fickle and non-partisan younger generation and we have a real environment for change. I have some ideas, and will make it my goal to share some of them here.

One last sentence that rings true, and will consume much of my thoughts over the next little while:

"In partisan political terms, we are looking at a slow decline of both left and right, and of both political parties. The term "center" doesn't communicate anything, and my research suggests it is a fiction. Social conservatism is slowly declining as its underlying culture slowly dies off: In the last fifty years, Traditionals have shrunk from about half of the population to under a quarter. We are also looking at the demise of the left, since only about twelve to fifteen percent of the people identify with it anymore."

Some interesting thoughts.