Unlike their supposed analogues, the Democrats in the United States or Great Britain’s Labor Party, Canada’s Liberals are not a party built around certain policies and principles. They are instead what political scientists call a brokerage party, similar to the old Italian Christian Democrats or India’s Congress Party: a political entity without fixed principles or policies that exploits the power of the central state to bribe or bully incompatible constituencies to join together to share the spoils of government.
As countries modernize, they tend to leave brokerage parties behind. Very belatedly, that moment of maturity may now be arriving in Canada. Americans may lose their illusions about my native country; Canadians will gain true multiparty democracy and accountability in government. It’s an exchange that is long past due.
David Frum, “Woe Canada”, New York Times, 2005-04-19.
July 3, 2021
QotD: Canada’s Liberal Party
Comments Off on QotD: Canada’s Liberal Party
No Comments
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
