[LINK] "Social conservatives have gained little ground in Stephen Harper’s government"

[rfmcdonald]

Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hébert makes a good argument to the effect that the Conservative government of Canada, small-c conservative though it may be, has not been allowed by its leader the prime minister to fight American-style culture wars. The question is whether the party will it continue not to do so after Harper's departure.

There has never been a federal government caucus as dominated by social conservatives as the one that Stephen Harper currently leads.

Yet, over his tenure, they have failed to regain an inch of ground on abortion rights and they have lost the same-sex marriage battle.

Just last month, the majority of Conservative MPs who would have wanted to reopen the abortion debate were defeated by a majority in the House of Commons that included the prime minister himself.

[. . . ]

Even as Harper exercises iron-clad control over his government, his position on social conservative issues is a minority one within his caucus. The recent vote on abortion rights provided a graphic illustration of that reality.

[ . . . T]he Harper decade has not been kind to Canada’s religious right and some of its members are hoping that payback time will come upon his retirement. Many see Jason Kenney as a promising flag-bearer. The immigration minister shored up his social conservative credentials when he voted a few weeks ago to revisit the legal status of the fetus.

The battle over Harper’s succession could be a watershed moment for the Conservative party. Notwithstanding mainstream Canadian public opinion, it is not necessarily immune to the kind of fratricidal battles that have crippled the Republican Party in the United States.