Many Canadian conservatives speak of Edmund Burke as they would their first love. Their tributes are fond and wistful.

From Reagan-esque paeans to talk of common sense and gradual change, our intellectual and political right still speaks like it lives in a cohesive, recognizable country that treasures inherited norms and trusted institutions.

In practice, Burkean conservatism in Canada is mostly an illusion and an aspiration, not a serious program. The Canada that Burkeans describe, in which institutions broadly respect the past, simply does not exist.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Howard Anglin has argued that liberalism “dissolved most of the familiar pre-liberal bonds of stigma and prejudice that had bound society together below the level of the state, i

See Full Page