The reason why a majority of Canadians reject the Right-wing is because the authentic conservatism of hearth and home has been replaced with the ideology of unrestrained capitalism. Family and flag have become free trade and free markets.
The removal of land from Toronto’s greenbelt by Ontario Premier Ford’s government is an excellent example of the corporatization of conservatism. A bombshell report by Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk recently revealed that at least nine of the fifteen greenbelt sites on the chopping block were proposed by developers. In a mafialike process, favoured developers dined with the Ontario Housing Minister’s Chief of Staff Ryan Amato, where he was handed brown envelopes containing the details of desired sites.
Premier Ford is sponsoring more development to accommodate immigration-driven population growth. Ontario receives the largest share of immigrants out of any province. In just one year, 504,600 permanent and temporary immigrants were added to Ontario’s population, an astronomic 3.4% growth rate. It is now the fastest growing region in North America.
Large-scale immigration is by definition an agent of change in society: linguistically, culturally, socially, and economically. In the tradition of Edmund Burke, a true conservative is skeptical of major changes, preferring peace and stability to seismic transformation.
Premier Ford, however, welcomes with open arms the arrival of a staggering half a million annual immigrants to his province. Justifying his decision to pave over parts of the greenbelt to accommodate immigration-fuelled growth, Ford recently tweeted that Canada’s “so far unwavering support for immigration” is one of our “core Canadian values”.
In welcoming large-scale immigration, Ford is forced to allow for another agent of change: large-scale development. Duffins Rouge Agricultural Reserve east of Toronto boasts rich crop fields, plenty of forest, and pretty hamlets. After being removed from the greenbelt, 30,000 homes are planned for the area. Developers are well known for the profitable model of buying up large lots and dividing them into tiny, uniform, characterless subdivisions. In doing so, they replace organic community with strip malls, big box stores and suburbia.
While the essence of conservatism is opposition to radical change, establishment politicians like Premier Ford happily oversee the total transformation of Canada as we know it through large-scale immigration, and its necessary corollary, large-scale development.
This serves the interests of large corporations. Sky-high immigration and development mean sky-high profits. I recently discovered that the Century Initiative, the influential immigration lobby calling for 100 million Canadians by 2100, receives funding from BMO, Scotiabank, TD Bank, the Power Corporation of Canada, AGT Food and Ingredients, and the Business Council of Canada.
If conservative politicians begin to hold big business to account rather than serve their interests, they will see an unprecedented wave of support from Canadians who have had enough of endless population growth and development, and want a conservatism which actually conserves things.
Editor’s note: My bi-monthly Counter Current column is originally published in the Islands Marketplace magazine (islandsmarketplace.com/issue.pdf).
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