As /u/Ticklishchap mentioned in a recent thread the American Farmer-Labour influences within the old CCF, I thought the good people here may be interested in another music post, this time exploring the similarities between the “Social Gospel” of the CCF/NDP, Canadian "Red" Toryism, and the American Farmer-Labor / Progressive / Democratic Socialist movements, and even the Anarcho-Syndicalism of the Industrial Workers of the World. Nearly all the musicians featured here were/are associated with those movements.

Perhaps this playlist is the result of someone growing up in a post-industrial Nova Scotian town in Northern Nova Scotia: in a county which was the lone Tory stronghold in Nova Scotia during the Canadian Confederation debates of 1867, and in a town which later organized a General Strike in 1919 with the help of the One Big Union associated with the Industrial Workers of the World. Interestingly, the Industrialists in Cumberland County essentially agreed to the strike demands, and the General Strike of 1919 was ended relatively peacefully, co-cooperatively, and quickly. On the other side of the province, a few years later in 1925, in a coal miner’s strike in Industrial Cape Breton, an immigrant coal miner named William Davis was shot dead by company police during that labour dispute. The date of Davis’ murder, June 11, is commemorated every year in Nova Scotia as “Davis Day”.

I personally became aware of most of these songs as a High School student in the early/mid 2010s:

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• All I Want

• Cold Iron

• The Man Who Burned The White House Down

• Automation Song

• Remember Me

• Denmark, 1943

• Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation

• The Men Behind the Guns

• The High Sheriff of Hazard

• Which Side Are You On?

• The Ballad of Joe Hill

• There is Power in a Union

• Failed State

• Crucifixion

• Too Many Martyrs

• William Moore

• The Ballad of Sharpeville

---

“All I Want” by Pete Seeger was originally released in 1941, and it contrasts the human suffering of the average person in the great depression with the luxuries enjoyed by the wealthy. I always loved the verse “Take the two old parties, Mister / No difference in them I can see / But with a Farmer-Labour Party / We could set the people free”. Pete Seeger would later support FDR’s former Vice President Henry A. Wallace in the 1948 U.S. Presidential Election, when Wallace ran for the Progressive Party; interestingly, Wallace’s family political background involved preaching the Social Gospel in Iowa.

---

Chorus: *

I don't want your millions, Mister

I don't want your diamond ring

All I want is the right to live, Mister

Give me back my job again

---

*

Now, I don't want your Rolls-Royce, Mister

I don't want your pleasure yacht

All I want's just food for my babies

Give to me my old job back

/

We worked to build this country, Mister

While you enjoyed a life of ease

You've stolen all that we built, Mister

Now our children starve and freeze

*

Think me dumb if you wish, Mister

Call me green, or blue, or red

This one thing I sure know, Mister

My hungry babies must be fed

/

Take the two old parties, Mister

No difference in them I can see

But with a Farmer-Labour Party

We could set the people free

*

---

“Cold Iron” by Leslie Fish (lyrics by Rudyard Kipling) is a very interesting song that I only very recently discovered. Leslie Fish, who recently passed in 2025, appears to have been an Anarchist folk singer inspired by Woody Guthrie (and who was associated with the IWW). Most interestingly, she set many poems by the English poet Rudyard Kipling to music. Perhaps relevant to Canadian Toryism, in the 1911 Canadian Federal Election, which was fought over free trade with the United States, Kipling wrote in support of Sir Robert Borden’s Tory Party: “It is her own soul that Canada risks today. Once that soul is pawned for any consideration, Canada must inevitably conform to the commercial, legal, financial, social and ethical standards which will be imposed on her by the sheer admitted weight of the United States.". Kipling wrote his poem “Cold Iron” in 1910.

So here’s a song played by an American Anarchist with the words written by an Englishman associated with Canadian Toryism: it describes a medieval Baron who starts a rebellion against his King for wealth, said Baron is eventually captured by the King’s forces, and realizes that said King is actually Jesus Christ in the flesh:

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Gold is for the mistress, silver for the maid

Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade

"Good," cried the baron sitting in his hall

"But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all"

/

So he made rebellion against the king his liege

Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege

"Nay," said the cannoneer on the castle wall

"But iron, cold iron, shall be master of you all"

/

Woe for the baron and his knights so strong

When the cruel cannonballs laid ‘em all along

He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall

And iron, cold iron, was master over all

/

Yet his king spake kindly, "Ah, how kind the lord

What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?"

"Nay," said the baron, "mock not at my fall

For iron, cold iron, is the master of men all

/

Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown

Alters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown

As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small

For iron, cold iron, must be master of men all"

/

Yet his king made answer, few such kings there be:

“Here is bread and here is wine, now sit and sup with me

Eat and drink in Mary's name while I do recall

How iron, cold iron, can be master of men all"

/

He took the wine and blessed it, he blessed and broke the bread

With his own hands he served them and presently he said:

"See these hands they pierced with nails outside my city wall?

Show iron, cold iron, to be master of men all

/

Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong

Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong

I forgive thy treason, I redeem thy fall

For iron, cold iron, must be master of men all

/

Crowns are for the valiant, scepters for the bold

Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold"

"Nay," said the baron kneeling in his hall

"But iron, cold iron, is the master of men all"

---

“The Man Who Burned The White House Down” by David Rovics recalls the burning of York (now Toronto) during the War of 1812, and how the British retaliated by sacking Washington. David Rovics, an Anarchist associated with the Industrial Workers of the World, mentioned in this live introduction to the song in a 2014 show in Belfast, that he was partly inspired to write the song because “The first time I went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, a labour organizer named Tony Tracy, wonderful guy, brought me to a cemetery where a man named Robert Ross was buried”, and also notes how because of the “complicated phenomenon of Ireland” he had a hard time understanding why Canadians would simultaneously refer to Ross as being either Canadian, British, or Irish. Also worth mentioning, it appears that a certain Tony Tracy has recently wrote a few articles for the socialist Spring Magazine on the legacy of Industrial Cape Breton for modern Cape Breton.

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Robert Ross was from Rostrevor, he was born there in County Down

His family was given land there, by the British Crown

He was a man born of the gentry, born with wealth and fame

But he joined the British Army, to serve his Queen and make his name

/

In the Napoleonic Wars he fought in many lands

In Holland and in Spain, and on the far-off Egyptian sands

He was wounded there in battle, came back to fight another day

And he was sent off to attack the USA

/

York had been sacked and burned, by invading Yankee men

But the Canadians regrouped, chased the Yankees home and then

The British Navy made its way to the shores of DC town

Where General Ross burned the White House down

/

The year was 1814, the US was in retreat

It was a Canadian victory, an American defeat

Without the French to help them, they got their ass whipped by the Crown

When General Ross burned the White House down

/

The place had just been constructed, only twelve years before

But it had to be rebuilt, soon after this disastrous war

The President turned tail and ran like a raggedy clown

When General Ross burned the White House down

/

He was killed a few months later, Irish rebels stopped him in his tracks

He was buried in Nova Scotia, in the town of Halifax

He might have been forgotten, but he’ll forever be renowned

He’s the man who burned the White House down

/

He’s the man who burned the White House down

---

The “Automation Song” by Phil Ochs is a song from 1964, and it is perhaps more relevant than ever with it detailing of the human cost of automation. As Phil Ochs’ music makes up a large proportion of this playlist, it may be relevant to note that Ochs’ contemporary (and part-time-rival) Bob Dylan once called Ochs more of a journalist than a musician in a heated argument in the early ‘60s. With that, here’s one of my favourite songs from the album “All The News That’s Fit To Sing”:

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Chorus: *

For the wages were low and the hours were long

And the labour was all I could bear

Now you've got new machines for to take my place

And you tell me it's not mine to share

---

Oh, I laid down your railroads, every mile of track

With the muscles on my arm and the sweat upon my back

And now the trains are rolling, they roll to every shore

You tell me that my job is through, there ain't no work no more

/

Though I laid down your highways all across the land

With the ringing of the steel and the power of my hands

And now the roads are there like ribbons in the sky

You tell me that my job is through, but still I wonder why

*

Though I laid down your factories and laid down your fields

With my feet on the ground and my back to your wheels

And now the smoke is rising, the steel is all aglow

I'm walking down a jobless road and where am I to go?

*

Though I laid down your factories and laid down your fields

With my feet on the ground and my back to your wheels

And now the smoke is rising, the steel is all aglow

I'm walking down a jobless road and where am I to go?

/

Tell me, where am I to go?

---

“Remember Me” by Phil Ochs describes an unnamed American soldier who was killed in the Second World War, and urges the listener to remember his sacrifice during all the social strife that followed the war:

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Chorus: *

Remember me, when the crosses are a burnin'

Remember me, when the racists come around

Remember me, when the tides of peace are turnin'

Remember me and please don't let me down

---

Oh, I am the unknown soldier who died in World War Two

Didn't want to fight, it was the only thing to do

I was the victim of a world that went insane

Will you show me that I didn't die in vain

*

On the south pacific islands and the Iwo Jima sands

We raised the flag of freedom over many distant lands

Every time I killed a man my own heart felt the pain

Will you show me that I didn't die in vain

*

And I carried my old rifle to the European shores

And every friend that died made me die a little more

Have pity on the man who put a bullet through my brain

And show me that I didn't die in vain

*

When the fascists started marching many millions had to pay

We saw them come to power but we looked the other way

It happened once before and it can happen once again

Will you show me that I didn't die in vain

*

---

“Denmark, 1943” by David Rovics describes the emergency boatlift of Danish Jews to neutral Sweden in late 1943; an act of organized resistance against Nazi tyranny that ensured nearly all of Denmark’s Jews would survive the Holocaust:

---

Chorus: *

I thank God for the fishermen who gave us a ride

And took us over, to the other side

---

When we heard the news we were to be arrested

We had no doubt exactly what our fate would be

We had hours to get out, only hours to be tested

For five thousand people to cross the Baltic Sea

/

We had to go at night in the cover of the darkness

There’s no way I could exaggerate the threat

We tried not to make a sound, wore nothing that would mark us

But no one knew how far across we’d get

*

To find so many boats ready for the journey

To find so many prepared to risk it all

Not everyone could read the stars, not every boat was worthy

Not everyone prepared to heed the call

*

Some risked everything for free, accepting nothing but a handshake

Some charged enough to live on for a year

But such details don’t matter when so much is at stake

When all that matters is a boat that you might steer

/

We lived out the war in Sweden while so many others didn’t

And most people now would easily agree

To say we deserved asylum would simply be redundant

In the boat lift of 1943

*

And took us over, to the other side

---

“Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation” by Tom Paxton, a contemporary of Phil Ochs, describes the mission creep that happened during in the Vietnam War in this 1967 song. Given how the current President of the United States campaigned on ending American Wars abroad only to start a War against Iran with no long-term end-goal, these lines seem particularly relevant in 2026, “Yet how sadly I remember / Way back yonder in November / When he said I'd never have to go”. Although unlike the bigot Donald Trump who purposefully stirs up racial hatred in his country, at least Lyndon Johnson’s ideal of a Great Society, and his support for Civil Rights legislation despite being a Southern Democrat himself, were commendable acts of statesmanship:

---

I got a letter from L.B.J.

It said, "This is your lucky day

It's time to put your khaki trousers on!

Though it might seem very queer

We've got no jobs to give you here

So we are sending you to Vietnam”

/

And Lyndon Johnson told the nation:

“Have no fear of escalation

I am trying everyone to please

Though it isn't really war

We're sending fifty-thousand more

To help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese”

/

I jumped off the old troop ship

I sank in mud up to my hips

I cussed until the captain called me down

Never mind how hard it's raining

Think of all the ground we're gaining

Just don't take one step outside of town

/

And Lyndon Johnson told the nation:

“Have no fear of escalation

I am trying everyone to please

Though it isn't really war

We're sending sixty-thousand more

To help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese”

/

Every night the local gentry

Slip out past the sleeping sentry

They go out and join the old V.C.

In their nightly little dramas

They put on their black pyjamas

And come lobbing mortar shells at me

/

And Lyndon Johnson told the nation:

“Have no fear of escalation

I am trying everyone to please

Though it isn't really war

We're sending seventy-thousand more

To help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese”

/

We go round in helicopters

Like a bunch of big grasshoppers

Searching for the Viet Cong in vain

They left a note that they had gone

They had to get down to Saigon

Their government positions to maintain

/

And here I sit in this rice paddy

Wondering about Big Daddy

And I know that Lyndon loves me so

Yet how sadly I remember

Way back yonder in November

When he said I'd never have to go

/

And Lyndon Johnson told the nation:

“Have no fear of escalation

I am trying everyone to please

Though it isn't really a war

We're sending a hundred-thousand more

To help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese”

---

“The Men Behind the Guns” by Phil Ochs is an anti-war song rooted in a pro-war poem. Here, Ochs’ took an old poem from the time of the Spanish-American War by John J. Rooney in 1898, and changed a few verses to emphasize how poorly enlisted sailors can be treated compared to officers. Given the current US War in Iran, I can’t help but think of how poorly both the officers and crew aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln were treated in their nearly 1 year long deployment at sea without a port stop:

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Let's drink a toast to the admiral

And here's to the captain bold

And glory more for the commodore

When the deeds of might are told

/

They stand to the deck through the battle's wreck

When the great shells roar and pound

And never they fear when the foe is near

To lay their orders down

/

But off with your hats and three-times-three

For every sailor, son

For the men below who fight the foe

The men behind the guns

Oh, the men behind the guns

/

Their hearts a-pounding heavy

When they swing to port once more

With never enough of the greenback stuff

They start for their leave ashore

/

And you'd think perhaps the blue-blouse chaps

Had better clothes to wear

For the uniforms of officers

Could hardly be compared

/

Warriors bold with straps of gold

That dazzle like the sun

Outshine the common sailor boys

The lads who serve the guns

Oh, the men behind the guns

/

But say not a word till the shot is heard

That tells the fight is on

And the angry sound of another round

Says there must be guns

/

Over the deep and the deadly sweep

For the fire and the bursting shell

Where the very air is a mad despair

The throes of a living hell

/

But down and deep in a mighty ship

Unseen by the midday sun

Oh, you'll find the boys who make the noise

The lads who serve the guns

Oh, the men behind the guns

/

And well they know the cyclone blow

Loosened from the cannon's steel

And they know the hull of the enemy ship

Will quiver with the feel

/

And the decks will rock with the lightning shock

And shake with the great recoil

While the sea grows red with the blood of the dead

And swallows up her spoil

/

But not until the final ship has made her final run

Can we give the rest to the very best

The lads who serve the guns

Oh, the men behind the guns

/

So, let's drink a toast to the admiral

And here's to the captain bold

And glory more for the commodore

When the deeds of might are told

/

They stand to the deck through the battle's wreck

When the great shells roar and pound

And never they fear when the foe is near

To lay their orders down

/

But off with your hats and three-times-three

For every sailor, son

For the men below who fight the foe

The men behind the guns

Oh, the men behind the guns

---

“The High Sheriff of Hazard” by Tom Paxton is about a 1964 coal miner’s strike in Hazard, Kentucky:

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Now the High Sheriff of Hazard is a hard-working man

To be a fine sheriff is his only plan

With his hands in our pockets, he'll take what he can

For he's the High Sheriff of Hazard

/

He went through my pockets and searched them with care

But nary a nickel or penny was there

So I got thirty days and some bumps in my hair

God bless the High Sheriff of Hazard

/

He caught me one evening and here's what he said:

"You look like a Russian, you look like a Red

And if you are fond of your skin and your head

Beware the High Sheriff of Hazard!"

/

I thanked him politely, I thanked him for all

And five minutes later, I made a phone call

To call a strike meeting at our union hall

And damn the High Sheriff of Hazard!

/

Now men there are many who sweat out their lives

To scratch out a living for children and wives

They sweat for their pennies while the mine owner thrives

With the blessings of the High Sheriff of Hazard

/

And when union men strike and the troubles come on

The High Sheriff's word is the mine owner's bond

He's a mine owner, too; you know which side he's on

He's the wealthy High Sheriff of Hazard

/

Well, it seems to be so since this world first began

That some men are willing to scheme and to plan

To gouge out a fortune from the poor working man

For example: the High Sheriff of Hazard

/

But the answer is simple, the answer is clear

We'll all get together with nothing to fear

And throw the old bastard right out on his ear

Farewell to the High Sheriff of Hazard

---

“Which Side Are You On?” by Pete Seeger, was referenced in Paxton’s “High Sheriff of Hazard”, and is a 1941 version of the song which was originally written in 1931 by Florence Reece, the wife of a Kentucky coal miner during the deadly and bitter Harlan Country Coal Wars of the 1930s. I have a very funny feeling that the Cape Breton coal miner Clarie Gillis likely would have liked this song given what happened to William Davis in 1925:

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Chorus: *

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

---

Come all of you good workers

Good news to you I'll tell

Of how the good ol' union

Has come in here to dwell

*

My daddy was a miner

And I'm a miner's son

And I'll stick with the union

'Til every battle's won

*

They say in Harlan County

There are no neutrals there

You'll either be a union man

Or a thug for J. H. Blair

*

Oh, workers can you stand it?

Oh, tell me how you can

Will you be a lousy scab

Or will you be a man?

*

Don't scab for the bosses

Don't listen to their lies

Us poor folks haven't got a chance

Unless we organize

*

---

“The Ballad of Joe Hill” by Phil Ochs is a song that tells the life story of the Swedish-American Wobbly Martyr Joe Hill, who was executed by firing squad in Utah on November 19, 1915. This live version of Ochs’ playing the song in Sweden is an abridged version, believe it or not:

---

Joe Hill come over from Sweden’s shores

Looking for some work to do

And the Statue of Liberty waved him by

As Joe come a sailing through, Joe Hill

As Joe come a sailing through

/

Oh his clothes were coarse and his hopes were high

As he headed for the promised land

And it took a few weeks on the out-of-work streets

Before he began to understand

Before he began to understand

/

And Joe got hired by a bowery bar

Sweeping up the saloon

As his rag would sail o'er the bar-room rail

It sounded like he whistled on a tune

You could almost hear him whistling on a tune

/

So he headed out for the California shore

There things were just as bad

So he joined the Industrial Workers of the World

'Cause the union was the only friend he had

'Cause the union was the only friend he had

/

Now the strikes were bloody and the strikes were black

As hard as they were long

In the dark of the night Joe would stay awake and write

In the morning he would raise them with a song

In the morning he would raise them with a song

/

And he wrote his words to the tunes of the day

To be passed along the union vine

And the strikes were led and the songs were spread

And Joe Hill was always on the line

Yes, Joe Hill was always on the line

/

Now in Salt Lake City a murder was made

There was hardly a clue to find

Oh, the proof was poor, but the sheriff was sure

Joe was the killer of the crime

That Joe was the killer of the crime

/

Joe raised his hands but they shot him down

He had nothing but guilt to give

“It's a doctor I need!” and they left him to bleed

But he made it 'cause he had the will to live

Yes, he made it 'cause he had the will to live

/

Then the trial was held in a building of wood

And there the killer would be named

And the days weighed more than the cold copper ore

'Cause he feared that he was being framed

'Cause he found out that he was being framed

/

Oh, strange are the ways of the western law

Strange are the ways of fate

For the government crawled to the mine owner's call

And the judge was appointed by the state

The judge was appointed by the state

/

For thirty-six years he lived out his days

And he more than played his part

For the songs that he made, he was carefully paid

With a rifle bullet buried in his heart

With a rifle bullet buried in his heart

/

Yes, they lined Joe Hill up against the wall

Blindfold over his eyes

It's the life of the rebel that he chose to live

It's the death of the rebel that he died

It's the death of the rebel that he died

/

Now some say Joe was guilty as charged

And some say he wasn't even there

And I guess nobody will ever know

'Cause the court records all disappeared

'Cause the court records all disappeared

/

Say wherever you go in this fair land

In every union hall

In the dusty dark these words are marked

In between all the cracks upon the wall

In between all the cracks upon the wall

/

It's the very last lines that Joe Hill wrote

When he knew that his days were through:

"Boys, this is my last and final will:

Good luck to all of you

Good luck to all of you"

---

“There is Power in a Union” by Utah Phillips is a 1983 recording of a song originally written by Joe Hill in 1913. It should be no surprise that Utah Phillips was a Wobbly:

---

Chorus: *

There is power, there is power, in a band of working folk

When we stand, hand in hand

That's a power, that's a power, that must rule in every land

One industrial union grand!

---

Would you have freedom from wage slavery?

Then come join the grand industrial band!

Would you from misery and hunger be free?

C'mon do your share, lend a hand!

*

Would you have mansions of gold in the sky,

And live in a shack that's way in the back?

Would you have wings up in heaven to fly,

And starve here with rags on your back?

*

If you like sluggers to beat-in your head:

“Don't organize, all unions despise!”

If you want nothing before you are dead:

“Shake hands with your boss and look wise!”

*

Oh come all ye workers from every land,

And come join the grand industrial band!

Then, we our share of this earth, shall demand,

C'mon do your share, lend a hand!

*

---

I think Failed State by David Rovics is an excellent take-down of the modern American Empire from 2018, interestingly from the album “Ballad of a Wobbly”:

---

When you’re working two jobs and living in a tent

When a house costs a million bucks and you can’t pay the rent

When politicians say they’ll help but it keeps getting worse

Each time the landlord lobby pulls the strings of the purse

When the human right to housing isn’t even part of the debate

You know you’re living in a failed state

/

When millions of citizens are spending half their lives

Locked up in a prison for trying to survive

When laws must be broken just to have a place to stay

When the prisons pay the senators to look the other way

If you have to be a criminal to put food on your plate

You know you’re living in a failed state

/

When you’re facing climate breakdown, when the trees are all on fire

When half the country’s underwater, when a climate change denier

Runs the nation and the opposition party

Votes for oil rigs and pipelines, this is not so much a country

As it is a corporation, buckling under its weight

You know you’re living in a failed state

/

When your nation is an empire facing daily blowback

And the only thing your leaders can think to do is attack

Bipartisan consensus that we need to spend

700 billion before the year’s end

On a military budget To Make America Great

You know you’re living in a failed state

/

When almost every day some psycho with a gun

Has to open fire on a crowd before it’s done

When a music festival becomes a free fire zone

And all they can say is: “It’s OK now, he was acting alone!

Buy some armour, pray to God and hide behind a gate!”

You know you’re living in a failed state

/

You know you’re living in a failed state

---

Crucifixion by Phil Ochs is a 1966 song which indirectly compares the assassination of John F. Kennedy with the Crucifixion of Christ, in a cyclical view of history; Phil Ochs once played this song for Bobby Kennedy in ‘67, who tearfully made the connection with his late brother, a year before his own assassination in ‘68:

---

Chorus: *

So dance, dance, dance

Teach us to be true

Come, dance, dance, dance

'Cause we love you

---

And the night comes again to the circle-studded sky

The stars settle slowly, in loneliness they lie

'Til the universe explodes as a falling star is raised

Planets are paralyzed, the mountains are amazed

But they all glow brighter from the brilliance of the blaze

With the speed of insanity, then he dies

/

In the green fields a-turning, a baby is born

His cries crease the wind and mingle with the ‘morn

An assault upon the order, the changing of the guard

Chosen for a challenge that is hopelessly hard

And the only single sound is the sighing of the stars

But to the silence of distance they are sworn

*

Images of innocence charge him to go on

But the decadence of destiny is looking for a pawn

To a nightmare of knowledge he opens up the gate

And a binding revelation is laid upon his plate

That beneath the greatest love is a hurricane of hate

And God help the critic of the dawn

/

So he stands on the sea and he shouts to the shore

But the louder that he screams, the longer he's ignored

For the wine of oblivion is drunk to the dregs

And the merchants of the masses almost have to be begged

'Til the giant is aware, someone's pulling at his leg

And someone is tapping at the door

*

Then his message gathers meaning and it spreads across the land

The rewarding of his fame is the following of the man

But ignorance is everywhere and people have their way

Success is an enemy to the losers of the day

In the shadows of the churches, who knows what they pray?

For blood is the language of the band

/

The Spanish bull is beaten, the crowd is soon beguiled

The matador is beautiful, a symphony of style

Excitement is ecstatic, passion places bets

Gracefully, he bows to ovations that he gets

But the hands that are applauding are slippery with sweat

And saliva is falling from their smiles

*

Then this overflow of life is crushed into a liar

The gentle soul is ripped apart and tossed into the fire

First, a smile of rejection at the nearness of the night

Truth becomes a tragedy limping from the light

All the heavens are horrified, they stagger from the sight

As the cross is trembling with desire

/

And they say they can't believe it, it's a sacrilegious shame

Now, who would want to hurt such a hero of the game?

But you know, I predicted it, I knew he had to fall

How did it happen? I hope his suffering was small

Tell me every detail, for I've got to know it all

And do you have a picture of the pain?

*

Time takes a toll and memory fades

But his glory is growing in magic that he made

Reality is ravaged, it's the freeing from the fear

The drama is distorted, to what they want to hear

Swimming in their sorrow, in the twisting of a tear

As they wait for the new thrill parade

/

Yes, the eyes of the rebel have been branded by the blind

To the safety of sterility, the threat has been refined

The child was created, to the slaughterhouse he's led

So good to be alive when the eulogies are read

Climax of emotion, the worship of the dead

As the cycle of sacrifice unwinds

*

And the night comes again to the circle-studded sky

The stars settle slowly, in loneliness they lie

'Til the universe explodes as a falling star is raised

Planets are paralyzed, the mountains are amazed

But they all glow brighter from the brilliance of the blaze

With the speed of insanity, then he died

---

“Too Many Martyrs” by Phil Ochs is another song from his 1964 album “All The News That’s Fit To Sing””, and this song commemorates Medgar Evers: a combat veteran of the D-Day landings in Normandy, and later a civil rights activist with the NAACP who was assassinated by the Ku Klux Klan in 1963. While Evers was buried with full military honours at the Arlington National Cemetery, two different juries refused to convict his known assassin in 1964; it wouldn’t be until 1994 that Evers’ assassin would be convicted.

---

Chorus: *

Too many martyrs and too many dead

Too many lies, too many empty words were said

Too many times for too many angry men

Oh, let it never be again

---

In the state of Mississippi many years ago

A boy of 14 years got a taste of Southern law

He saw his friend a-hanging, his colour was his crime

And the blood upon his jacket put a brand upon his mind

*

His name was Medgar Evers and he walked his road alone

Like Emmett Till and thousands more whose names we'll never know

They tried to burn his home and they beat him to the ground

But deep inside they both knew what it took to bring him down

*

The killer waited by his home, hidden by the night

As Evers stepped out from his car, into the rifle sight

He slowly squeezed the trigger, the bullet left his side

It struck the heart of every man when Evers fell and died

*

And they laid him in his grave while the bugle sounded clear

Laid him in his grave when the victory was near

While we waited for the future, for freedom through the land

The country gained a killer and the country lost a man

*

Oh, let it never be again

Oh, let it never be again

---

“William Moore” by Phil Ochs is another song about a murdered civil rights activist: this time William L. Moore, a WWII combat veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, who was shot during a protest walk where he attempted to hand-deliver a letter to the Governor of Alabama requesting an end to racial segregation. Despite it being known which Klansman shot Moore in 1963 during his protest walk, there was “not enough evidence” to even indict the shooter for a trial.

---

Chorus: *

What price the glory of one man?

What price the glory of one man?

What price the hopes?

What price the dreams?

And what price the glory of one man?

---

Walkin' down an Alabama road

Rememberin' what the Bible told

Walkin' with a letter in his hand

Dreamin' of another southern land

Walkin' down an Alabama road

/

And he went by the name of William Moore

“Now what are you doing, William Moore?”

“Why the letter in your hand?”

“There is only one southern land”

“And he went by the name of William Moore”

*

Remembering what his grandfather done

Fought for the South in '61

A hundred years have passed by since then

Now Moore is fighting’ for the South again

Remembering what his grandfather done

/

Remembering the time in World War Two

And the South Pacific Island that he knew

Remembering the young men that he killed

And the praying that the guns of hate be stilled

Remembering the time in World War Two

*

And they shot him on the Alabama road

Forgot about what the Bible told

They shot him with that letter in his hand

As though he were a dog and not a man

They shot him on the Alabama road

/

Did you say it was a shame when he died?

Did you say he was a fool because he tried?

Did you wonder who had fired the gun?

Did you know that it was you that fired the gun?

Did you say it was a shame when he died?

*

---

The Ballad of Sharpeville by Ewan Maccoll & Peegy Seeger, British brother-in-law and sister of Pete Seeger, is a 1978 recording of an Anti-Apartheid protest song about the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa. In regards to Canadian Toryism more broadly, the Disraelian “Red” Tory John Diefenbaker would take a stand against Apartheid South Africa a year later at the 1961 Commonwealth Prime Minster’s Conference in which South Africa was forced to leave the Commonwealth. Two decades later, the “Blue Tory” Brian Mulroney would use his personal influence with Margaret Thatcher & Ronald Reagan to continue the fight against Apartheid South Africa, against the wishes of the latter two, until Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990; Mulroney worked with everyone from the Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu to the NDP’er Stephen Lewis in helping to organize the final fight against Apartheid in South Africa.

---

From the Cape to Southwest Africa

From the Transvaal to the sea

In farm and village, shanty town

The Pass Law holds the people down

The pass of slavery, “DOM PASS!”

The pass of slavery

/

The morning wind blows through the land

It murmurs in the grass

And every leaf of every tree

Whispers words of hope to me

This day will end the pass, “DOM PASS!”

This day will end the pass

/

The sun comes up on Sharpeville Town

And drives the night away

The word is heard in every street

Against the Pass Law we will meet

No one will work today, “DOM PASS!”

No one will work today

/

It was on the Twenty-First of March

The day of Sharpeville's shame

Hour by hour the crowd did grow

One voice that cried, “The pass must go!”

It spoke in freedom's name, “DOM PASS!”

It spoke in freedom's name

/

Outside the police headquarters fence

The Sharpeville people stand

Inside the fence, the white men pace

Drunk with power, and pride of race

Each with a gun in hand, “DOM PASS!”

Each with a gun in hand

/

The Sharpeville crowd waits patiently

They talk and laugh and sing

At 11:15 the tanks come down

Roll through the streets of Sharpeville town

To join the armoured ring, “DOM PASS!”

To join the armoured ring

/

Neighbour talks to neighbour, and

The kids play all around

Until, without a warning word

The sound of rifle fire is heard

And men fall to the ground, “DOM PASS!”

And men fall to the ground

/

The panic-stricken people run

To flee the wild attack

The police reload and fire again

At running children, women, men

And shoot them in the back, “DOM PASS!”

And shoot them in the back

/

Sixty-seven Africans

Lay dead there on the ground

Apartheid's harvest for a day

Three times their number wounded lay

Their blood stained all around, “DOM PASS!”

Their blood stained all around

/

There's blood on the men who fired the guns

On the men who made the laws

There's blood on the hands of the Whitehall ranks

Who gave the thugs their guns and tanks

Who help in oppression's cause, “DOM PASS!”

Who help in oppression's cause

---

So I recently found this new youtube channel which is looking at different stories of the rise/fall/revival of different Canadian businesses.

Two particular themes occur over and over in the downfall of Canadian companies; 1. American buy-out (often by private equity firms) and 2. the use of loss-leader pricing to break Canadian businesses.

Co-ops are an interesting idea to me (whether consumer-owned, employee owned, or operator-owned) not because they tend to allow greater profits to stay in a local area, give workers a greater say in operations, or because they produce lower prices (although they can do these things). Rather, its because I think the co-op structure insulates the business in question from takeovers - especially American takeovers. A&W in Canada is an example of a franchisee-ownership model which has allowed it to put the unconnected American branch of A&W to shame. This isn't a total protection, however, Mountain Equipment Co-op was customer-owned but through its board of director's strategic use of bankruptcy protection (CCAA) they were able to sell the company and abolish the co-op element of the company without consulting the members. Given the organization and unhappiness of Tim Hortons franchise owners I could totally see them following A&W's example at some point and attempting to take control of the company for themselves (Tim Hortons itself being an example of buy-out by private equity).

A somewhat less frequent theme is the use of loss-leader pricing to drive a competitor out of business. This was a contributor in the end of Sam the Record Man when HMV began its effort to break into the Canadian market. Its also one of the pillars of Walmart's battle plan whenever it opens a new store to break local - often independent - competition. For this reason I think there should be some kind of limit on loss-leader pricing as it turns honest competition into who can absorb a loss for longer.

The old Sovereignist-Federalist debate has one again become a central theme in Québec as the spectre of a Parti Québécois government and another referendum hovers over the province. What's fast become a major point too is who's best positioned to defend Québec against the American tariff threat and Canada-US trade war.

Neither the Coalition Avenir Québec after it's 8 years of government mismanagement or the Parti libérale that suffers from a serious corruption problem deserve my vote, but I feel forced to make the decision to vote for one above the other. It's gross and I hate it.

There exists no alternatives and even if there were it would be a vote thrown away. The parti conservateur might as well be called the parti libertarien, Québec Solidaire has some interesting ideas but are very much a hard-left and Sovereignist party, the parti vert is irrelevant, so on and so forth.

This is a horrible election cycle to be a Red Tory and a federalist.

Thanks for listening!

Here is this week's essay: Retirement natural to a great mind.

Here is last week's thread: Rambler Reading Group, Week 6: Happiness not local. : r/Toryism

Substack Version

Part XV

Part XIV

This essay seeks to build on an idea that I argued for in the last few parts of this series: that both the British Labour Party and the Canadian CCF/NDP can be seen as ideological heirs to the “Tory Democracy” or “One Nation conservative” philosophy that is rooted in Benjamin Disraeli’s Tory Party; whether it be through Ed Milliband’s ideal of “One Nation Labour” that took simultaneous influence from both Disraeli and Clement Attlee, or the “Social Gospel” tradition of the early leadership of the CCF/NDP. To do this, I thought it would be interesting to explore David Lewis’ thoughts on the British Commonwealth Labour Parties Conference held in London, in Sept. of 1944, from his 1981 memoirs “The Good Fight”, and parts of M.J. Coldwell’s 1945 book “Left Turn, Canada”, where he gave a history of Canada.

As the majority of this essay will be exploring a period in time towards the end of World War II from the perspectives of David Lewis and M.J. Coldwell, I think Part XIII of this series, specifically the parts where Lewis describes the original CCF caucus elected in 1935, along with the "six currents of thought and opinion which had to be accommodated" in the CCF in regards to the outbreak of World War II in 1939, would serve as a good introduction to this essay.

As geopolitics, and Canada’s role in the world, is also brought up in this essay, another good introduction may be Part VIII, where I explore the broad worldviews of both the British Labour PM Clement Attlee and the British Tory PM Harold Macmillan. I also argue for Free Trade & Free Movement within the Commonwealth Realms, preferential trade & immigration policies for the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations, along with as much simultaneous Canadian & British integration into the European Union as the Europeans (and the Canadian & British people) will tolerate.

With that, and to give better context for these stories from Lewis & Coldwell, I thought it would be interesting to explore parts of the preface to “Left Turn, Canada”, which was written by Eric Estorick of New York City (who would later permanently move to London).

Interestingly, “Left Turn, Canada” by Coldwell is part of a book series called “The British Commonwealth Series”, in which it appears series editor Eric Estorick (an art collector who had a PhD in sociology, and during WWII he worked for US Intelligence) essentially asked various other prominent Commonwealth political figures for their political thoughts. Earlier entries in this series included “New Zealand, a Working Democracy” by Walter Nash of the New Zealand Labour Party, “Toward a Better World” by Jan Smuts of the South African United Party, and “Canada and the Fight for Freedom” by Mackenzie King of the Canadian Liberal Party. Perhaps of note in regards to the “Red Tory” tradition, it appears that Sir Walter Nash of New Zealand was a Christian socialist in the Anglican tradition. But now, excerpts from Eric Estorick’s preface to “Left Turn, Canada”, where he described the CCF:

---

…

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was founded by the farmers of western Canada and has within its ranks and in the leadership of the movement: industrial workers, farmers, professional and business people. The CCF -- as the party is known -- is a synthesized, functioning partnership of these groups. Its political creed is democratic socialism; consequently, it does not refer to itself as a Labour Party representing mainly industrial workers.

In the broadest sense it is a people’s movement. Thus, it has been able to avoid the major pitfalls of socialist parties in Europe which contested themselves with fighting the day-to-day issues of the industrial working-class movement for trades unionism and higher wages while ingoing the plight of the farmer, his mortgage state, and security of tenure.

On June 15, 1944, the CCF came to power in the province of Saskatchewan with the overwhelming majority of forty-seven seats out of fifty-two, establishing the first Socialist government on the North American continent. The Liberal party machine which had maintained an almost unbroken reign for forty years, ever since the Province was first established, was swept out. The composition of the CCF members elected to the Legislature -- twenty-six farmers, eight teachers, one housewife, one lawyer, one minister, seven wage workers, two merchants -- reveals how clearly the CCF is a people’s party and not a party representing merely one class or section.

…

Alarmed at the rapid increase in the CCF support through-out Canada, the Liberal and the Conservative-Progressive parties in the House of Commons, together with their press across the country, have conducted a virulent campaign against the CCF. To a large extent Canadians were swinging to the CCF because it advocated an all-out, total war effort, together with equality of sacrifice.

The CCF believes that only a fundamental reconstruction of society, based on the social ownership and control of banking and key industries, can solve the economic problem of the modern democratic capitalist state. From its inception, it has consistently emphasized this belief. Although the CCF does not believe that social reforms alone can solve the basic problems of modern capitalism it has always supported social reforms designed to improve the immediate lot of the Canadian people.

Such reforms, which the CCF regards as necessary, are instituted not only on moral grounds to alleviate suffering, but also on political grounds. It is their belief that only when the people are given greater security and independence will they develop the necessary courage and vision to take political and economic power to themselves -- away from monopoly interests. Thus, they contend, social reforms are actual steps toward the organization by the people of the democratic socialist society.

For these reasons, the CCF supports reforms, even those initiated by other parties; yet it does not believe that such reforms can avoid the base inequalities, the periodic crises, and the general threats to democracy and peace for which the capitalist economic system is responsible. A socialist organization of society, democratically controlled and directed with complete and ever-expanding freedom of speech, organization, and religion, can establish equal opportunity for all, eliminating injustice, depression, and war itself.

The CCF believes in democracy as strongly as it does in socialism. If a socialist society has attained economic security without political and social democracy, then its socialism has only been partly achieved. It is the party’s view that political democracy without economic democracy is inadequate and often sham, that economic security without political democracy is also inadequate, as is freedom without political democracy.

The society which the CCF seeks to build is one in which socialism and democracy, or economic freedom and political freedom, will be one and indivisible. In short, the CCF believes that democracy needs socialism: that socialism needs democracy. Without socialism, democracy cannot live: without democracy, socialism is not a complete social system.

...

David Lewis, CCF national secretary, has advanced two principles which have governed the developing structure of the CCF, and which account, in part, for the phenomenal growth of the CCF on the Canadian political scene. He writes:

“We did not lay down at first any kind of doctrinaire conception of a complete thing; we did not say that this is the way the CCF structure must look or else! We have from year to year and from month to month developed our organization and structure; we have adapted them in accordance with the experience which we are engaged, always relating the development to the first set of principles regarding the concept of democracy in the CCF. The second controlling idea . . . is our deep belief on which the entire work of the CCF is based, in the necessity, in the urgency of wide popular education as an instruction of political democracy and as a major function of a democratic political movement. This set of two principles -- the approach based on experience and the emphasis on popular education both inside and outside the party -- also govern the nature of the structure of the party. The aim of our party is unity on the basic objectives of democratic socialism but not uniformity of opinion.”

It is a thrilling augury, as Canada is shaking off her final ties of colonialism to develop those of mature responsibility in the world community, that a dynamic party such as the CCF should appear on the political scene. This is heartening to the people of the British Commonwealth of Nations, who have expressed their desire for dynamic democracy by electing Labour Governments in Australia and New Zealand, who support the powerful Labour Party of Great Britain, and who are building a Labour Party in South Africa. Indeed, to peoples everywhere who are striving and dying for a democratic way of life what will be honoured in the practice rather than in the breach, to those who reject the thesis that brute force is the criterion of what is right, the growth of the CCF places a sharp, constant focus on the objective of all democracy-believing people: a free society.

It is not surprising, therefore, that when the Canadian delegation finished its work at the first meeting of the British Commonwealth Labour Parties Conference (held in England, in September, 1944) that Harold Laski, world famous political scientist, wrote to M.J. Coldwell: “I don’t want you and your colleagues to leave England without putting on paper my own sense of the deep debt we owe the Canadian delegation to this conference for the clarity and courage with which it has expressed its views -- if I may say so, this was the outstanding achievement of the Conference.”

Left Turn, Canada is the substance of these views.

---

With that bit of background, David Lewis begins his recollection of the 1944 British Commonwealth Labour Parties Conference on page 237 of his memoirs “The Good Fight”, in which he writes that “The spirit of co-operation between the national and the provincial levels of the party had its place on the international stage as well.”. Lewis then notes that he had been corresponding with officials from the various Labour Parties of the Commonwealth in order to organize an international meeting. Lewis also notes that both he and M.J. Coldwell had been corresponding with the New Zealand Labour Party in particular as they had been governing since 1935, before then going on to briefly write of the Australian Labour Party forming a government in 1941, and the British Labour Party entering into a coalition government with Winston Churchill’s Tories during the war against Hitler.

Lewis then notes on page 238 that the “officers of the CCF… underlined the value and importance of a conference of Labour Parties of the British Commonwealth, for it seemed that these parties would play a significant role in the peace and post-war”, and Lewis then included part of a letter he sent to the general secretary of the British Labour Party where he “gave two reasons for our anxiety to see a meeting held”:

---

“As we see it, it is a matter of the utmost importance that the Labour Parties of the Commonwealth meet in good time, and that they arrive at some common policy regarding the peace negotiations and international order which will follow the defeat of the Nazis in Europe. It seems clear to us also that such a Conference of the Commonwealth Labour Parties could, and perhaps, should serve as the forerunner of a similar Conference of Labour and Democratic Socialist Parties of all countries.”

I realize now how much easier it was for us, an ocean away from the battlefield, to give most of our attention to the future. Finally, partly due to our insistence, a meeting was convened in London in September 1944.

---

Lewis then goes on to write that while the “results of the conference were not earth-shaking”, it was still “an exciting experience”, and mentions that the CCF delegation flew over the Atlantic in a converted bomber, passing the time by telling “endless stories” to each other. Lewis then describes the group who went to England:

---

Our delegation was a representative one. [M.J.] Coldwell and [F.R.] Scott were obvious choices; Clarie Gillis came as the Labour representative and Percy Wright, a successful Saskatchewan farmer MP, as farm spokesman. I was the fifth member of the delegation by unanimous choice of the Executive, since I had carried on most of the correspondence about the event.

---

Once in London, Lewis mentions that the group was housed in a Hotel called “the Goring”, which had the “unfortunate echo of ‘Goering’ ”, the head of the Nazi Luftwaffe. Lewis then writes that it was difficult for himself “to overcome the urge to insist that [the hotel name] be changed”, especially after a hotel employee was killed after his shift in a V2 rocket attack the first night the group was in London. On page 239, Lewis then begins writing of the conference itself:

---

The conference enabled me to renew the acquaintance of British leaders who had befriended me during my student days in England. Instead of being members of a dispirited opposition, they were now respected leaders of a country at war. Despite their demanding duties as key ministers in Churchill’s cabinet, they participated fully in the meetings. Thus we heard statements by [Clement] Attlee, [Herbert] Morrison, [Hugh] Dalton, [Manny] Shinwell, and Ellen Wilkinson as well as the trade-union leader Sir Walter Citrine, all of whom I had had the privilege of knowing.

---

Lewis then notes that the “discussions were necessarily general in nature, but they dealt with all aspects of the problems which were bound to face the victorious allies in general and social democratic parties in particular”, and mentions that the delegates from the British Labour Party were “aware of the strong possibility that they might be in power” after the next election, and thus “spoke with authority on every subject”. Lewis then writes that:

---

The CCF delegation took full part in all debates. We stressed particularly our unhappiness at the situation in India where Mahatma Gandhi was in jail again, and politely but firmly insisted that India and other colonies had to be given their freedom once the war was won. Coldwell made this a central theme of his opening major presentation.

(We need not have worried; Attlee’s government gave India its independence as early as 1947, through peaceful negotiations, although the border which London imposed on India and on a divided Pakistan produced serious conflicts some years later)

The meeting also considered at some length the racist tendencies in South Africa and expressed fears which were fully justified by later developments.

My major task was to describe the origins, structure, and prospects of the CCF. I did this with the gusto and optimism which all of us felt in 1944. What amazed the delegates from other countries was the fact that the CCF was as much a farmer as a labour party, despite its socialist objectives. There were therefore many questions and a lengthy discussion which was revived when Percy Wright made a presentation about the place of agriculture in the post-war world. Scott dealt with the “world assembly” which should be established after the war. He outlined the suggested structure and purpose in considerable detail and with his customary clarity, drawing on many CCF discussions and statements on the subject. During his presentation he suggested what the future nature of the Commonwealth should and would be in a forecast so accurate that it deserves to be quoted here:

“The Commonwealth of the future is a Commonwealth of absolutely independent nations, whose associations is not based on a constitutional tie, but a voluntary and free association, which is the standard definition of our relationship.”

This reflected not only Scott’s own views, but the thinking of the Executive and Council of the CCF, which had often discussed the future of the Commonwealth and Canada’s place in it.

---

Lewis then spends the better part of a page describing his experiences in a “subcommittee of Britain and Canada” where he and the previously mentioned Harold Laski had to draft a statement for adoption by the conference. Lewis writes the following on pages 241/242 to finish his story on his travels to England during the war:

---

My weekend with Laski also gave me a taste of direct war experience. Late Saturday night Laski and I sat in chairs facing each other before a roaring fire. Suddenly there was a deafening explosion, the house shook to its foundations, and we were thrown out of our chairs, banging our heads together mid flight. Mrs. Laski came running, while Laski grabbed my hand and pulled me after her; together we ran into a deep ditch a few metres from the house. To my surprise I learned later that the missile had fallen a mile away. For the Laskis this had been a common experience for months since the V1s and V2s began to land on British soil and even earlier when the Battle of Britain was at its most severe. For a civilian from Canada it was a much more traumatic experience. Sadly, I recalled hiding as a small boy in the cellar of a home in Svisloch during the First World War. Man’s inhumanity still ruled, except that it had become more efficient in it’s cruelty.

Ellen Wilkinson, a lively and striking redhead, was a leading Labour MP who was attached to the Home Office, of which Herbert Morrison was the minister. Wilkinson was assigned the task of showing us war-torn London and the volunteer emergency organization which operated day and night in the underground quarters at a number of locations across the metropolis. She did so with both sorrow and exultation, as she took us to locations which had suffered the devastation of an air raid the night before. This is not the place to try to describe the havoc caused by the blitz or the ordeals of a silently determined and incredibly brave people. I want merely to record those of my reactions which may be relevant to this chronicle.

Simply put, I felt humbled. I recalled almost with shame the days that we of the CCF spent arguing about the nature of the war and about Canada’s part in it. I did not feel proud of those debates, even though I knew that they had been unavoidable. I learned more sharply than ever before how intellectually treacherous doctrinaire abstractions can be, if they are not subjected to personal experience and rigorous factual analysis.

Nor could I fail to wonder where Sophie and I would then have been, what role we would have been playing, if we had decided in 1935 to accept the invitation to remain in England. I did not feel any regret, but I did feel that Canadians had reason to be grateful to the British and Soviet peoples for withstanding the Nazi assault at such cost. Dry eyes were my most touching impression; people who had lost a sister or a daughter, a brother or a son, told of their loss with fury but without tears.

Even the most accomplished orator has his off-days, and Winston Churchill himself was no exception. The delegates from the Dominions were naturally taken to the distinguished visitors’ gallery of the House of Commons on an afternoon when the prime minister was scheduled to speak. As I remember it, he was to report on the war in North Africa as well as in Europe. Since victory was already in sight, one expected a speech of tribute to the forces and of exaltation and hope, as only Churchill could articulate it. Instead, we heard a deadly dull recital of names and battles with little order and less excitement. Scott and I had the same irreverent reaction; we took it for about half an hour and decided to leave. Coldwell and the others, particularly the Australians and New Zealanders, thought us rude to walk out while the great Churchill was still speaking, but we eased away quietly and without guilt. After walking for a little while, we came on a theatre which was featuring a matinee performance of Peer Gynt. That’s where Scott and I passed the rest of the afternoon before joining our colleagues for a scheduled dinner, when we were informed that the speech had not improved during our absence. I am sure that in one of his less stodgy moods, Churchill would have forgiven our truancy.

---

As it was mentioned in the preface to Coldwell’s 1945 book “Left Turn, Canada”, that the book “is the substance of [the] views” expressed by the Canadian delegation to that very Commonwealth Labour Parties Conference, I thought it would be interesting to explore parts of that book. I found the first half of Chapter Two, “Canada’s New Political Party”, to be particularly interesting as Coldwell essentially gives a condensed history of Canada up to 1945.

Coldwell starts the chapter on page 8, writing:

---

Seen from the outside, Canadian politics must have appeared in the past to possess the virtue of stability and the vice of dullness. There have been no revolutions in Canada for a century, but neither have there been any adventures in politics such as the American New Deal or Sweden’s “Middle Way”. Very little has come out of Ottawa that is politically colourful or economically imaginative.

---

After noting that only two parties, “the Liberals and the Conservatives (latterly rechristened the Progressive-Conservative Party)” have ever governed “since Canada became a Confederation in 1867, save for a brief period of Union government during the last war”, Coldwell goes on to write that the Liberal Party has dominated Canadian politics since 1896, with Mackenzie King himself dominating personally since 1921.

Coldwell then mentions that “All third-party movements in the past… have failed to create more than a temporary or local disturbance in the political arena”, using the examples of “French-Canadian Nationalists led by Henri Bourassa in 1911, the Progressives who had a meteoric career after the last war, or the late Mr. Aberhardt’s Social Credit Party”.

Interestingly, later on page 21, Coldwell describes the death of the Progressive Party:

---

The Progressives did not survive because they had no political philosophy to distinguish them from their opponents; they had the tactics of political revolt but no strategy of social change. To secure the future success of the CCF, it was necessary for its principles and objectives to be clearly defined in Canadian terms, and clearly distinguished from mere Liberal reformism. This definition was achieved at the first annual convention of the party held in Regina in 1933, when the now famous Regina Manifesto was adopted.

---

Back to pages 8/9, Coldwell then briefly argues that “The barrenness of the social philosophies of both the Liberal and Conservative parties since the last war” lead to both of them failing in practice as “channels for new social ideas”:

---

The truth of the matter is that Canada, the “Tory Dominion” as it has well been called in the past, has until very recently presented strong opposition to imaginative and progressive social change. For Canada is a country where private monopoly has long been firmly entrenched and where sectional divisions have always obstructed national reforms. It was not without justice that a distinguished American liberal columnist writing in the early years of the war could describe Canada as “the most reactionary country yet conquered by Hitler.”

The reasons for the political and economic conservatism are not hard to find. Canada is a young country. As in the United States, opportunities for the expansion of capitalist enterprise lasted longer than in most European countries. Until the first world war, indeed up to 1929, the Canadian economy operated moderately well under the so-called private enterprise system, despite its lack of intelligent, national planning. It was still possible for a few people to rise from poverty to comparative wealth. And the belief that persons suffering from poverty and want had only their own lack of initiative and ability to blame persisted long after that argument had been completely shattered by facts and experience.

---

After writing of “the complete domination of the country by big business and industry”, Coldwell continues on page 10:

---

The experience of the first great war demonstrated to Canadians what might be done through even rough and ready planning for a national purpose. That experience was reinforced by the Great Depression when the planlessness and anarchy of social policy begot such widespread misery and suffering. And it has been further strengthened during the present war when over-all planning, inadequate though it has been in many respects, dedicated to a common national objective, has wrought such miracles of production. As a result, increasing numbers of Canadians today realize that only democratic socialism can make possible social progress and security in this country after the war.

---

Over the next couple of pages, Coldwell writes of the democratic socialist successes of the New Zealand Labour Party winning three general elections, “which has made the most striking advances in the social ownership and control of the principle economic functions”, and he also makes note of Australia re-electing its sitting Labour government in 1943 with “an overwhelming majority”. After briefly noting how socialism can be a way to connect with “underground movements in Europe… those directing affairs in China… Nehru and the younger Congress leaders in India”, Coldwell writes -- rather optimistically -- that Russia will likely become more democratic because of its association with the western democracies.

In regards to Western/Soviet relations in the post-World War II world, I think Clement Attlee himself said it best in a 1963 interview in response to a question on how well the United Nations had developed since 1945:

---

Well, it’s developed to some extent not as far as it aught to have, and that was partly due to the fact that very soon after its formation, the Russians took their own line, and you got the Cold War. Secondly, looking back now, although it was impossible at the time, the essential for a real United Nations is some degree of surrender of sovereignty: particularly on war, and peace, and armaments. We couldn’t affect that at the time, I’m hoping we are yet to go on that line.

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In regards to Western/Russia/China relations: it may be important to note that when the Korean War broke out in 1950, M.J. Coldwell was later described by David Lewis to have supported the war effort so “vigorously and in tones which excluded the possibility that the [National CCF] convention might change that”, which lead to quite the bitter fight at the 1950 CCF policy convention. Both Lewis & Coldwell supported the UN, and later NATO, on anti-isolationist grounds; a “defensive power bloc” if I may briefly editorialize.

Back to Chapter Two of “Left Turn, Canada”, M.J. Coldwell writes on pages 11/12 that “Since the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation is a distinctly Canadian political movement, it will be well to review here some of the salient facts of Canada’s history”. After noting that foreign trade is likely Canada’s future, Coldwell then writes on pages 12/13:

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The history of modern Canada may be said to date from the year 1763. By the Treaty of Paris of that year the French monarch, by a mere stroke of the pen, ceded the French colonies in North America to the British. Thus years of intermittent warfare between the French and English for supremacy in North America, culminating in the capture of Quebec by General Wolfe in 1759, came to an end.

The early settlers in what later became Canada were for the most part Frenchmen, engaging in fishing for the fur trade, and in founding colonies along the Atlantic seaboard and up the reaches of the St. Lawrence River. But there had been English settlers too, father in the interior, who established outposts and traded with the Indians. It was not, however, until the American Revolution had driven into exile those colonists who were determined to keep their allegiance to the Crown, that the regions of Canada were really settled by people of British descent. These people who fled before the American Revolution, known as the United Empire Loyalists, found their new homes in the Maritime Provinces, where government already existed, and in the unsettled wilderness of what is now Ontario.

Shortly after the Treaty of Paris, in the year 1774, the British Parliament passed an act which is considered by French-Canadians to be their Bill of Rights. This was the Quebec Act and it guaranteed the French-Canadians the preservation of their way of life, their religion, their civil law, and their unity as a people. More than anything else this act led the French-Canadians to refuse to join the thirteen colonies in the American War of Independence.

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While it’s certainly disappointing to read Coldwell describe First Nations territory as being “unsettled wilderness” (I’m sure Joseph Brant and Tecumseh would be disappointed), over the next several pages he then briefly writes of early British settlers, the struggle for responsible government in the 1840s, and of Confederation starting in 1867. Coldwell also notes the transcontinental railway, describes the natural resources of Canada, and notes newer communities of German, Ukrainian, and Scandinavian immigrants.

Coldwell then writes of what he calls a constitutional crisis on pages 15/16, which I think is almost word-for-word applicable to today’s Canada as well:

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The salient political fact about Canada is that, like the United States, it is a federation. At the formation of the new Dominion in 1867, the Fathers of Confederation left to the Provinces jurisdiction over matters that could then be described as of local interest: such as education, health, municipal government and property and civil rights. Matters affecting the country as a whole, such as trade and commerce, defence, and banking, were assigned to the Federal Government, and in addition, any matters not specifically provided for in the Constitution were to be within the federal powers.

Judicial interpretations since that time have consistently reduced the powers of the Dominion Government, while expanding the “property and civil” rights of the Provinces to include almost anything. The result today is a severe constitutional crisis in Canada, for the Dominion Government has been deprived of those functions which, because of modern social and economic complexities, it alone can undertake, while the Provinces are without the finances to discharge their powers satisfactorily. Thus there is neglect of the public welfare services, and a grave absence of intelligent economic planning.

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On page 16, Coldwell describes another “salient fact”: that Canada has “long since achieved nationhood”, and that “the British Dominions are formally united only by a common allegiance to the Crown.” Coldwell then writes on the next page:

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Meanwhile, the British Commonwealth of Nations is strengthened, not weakened, by becoming in every sense a free association of equals, and in no sense a power bloc in world affairs. Future Commonwealth relations will develop along lines of fruitful co-operation and positive achievement, or not at all.

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To finish his general history, Coldwell writes of US/Canada relations, noting that they have “become increasingly cordial ever since the long-forgotten warfare of 1812”, and writes positively of continental defence and economic planning to defeat the Axis.

This is where I feel I must push back against Mr. Coldwell’s historical narrative, as the War of 1812 was not the last time the USA tried to force Canada into the Union, against the wishes of Canadians. In the process, I hope to help define that ideal pre-World War I “ ‘Tory Dominion’ as [Canada] has well been called in the past” that Coldwell alluded to on page 8.

To do that, I would like to briefly explore the memoirs of Canada’s last surviving Father of Confederation, Sir Charles Tupper of Nova Scotia, in his 1914 “Recollections of Sixty Years”.

For those unaware of Sir Charles, he was the Tory Premier of Nova Scotia (1864-1867) who introduced Nova Scotia’s first form of public education, and he brought Nova Scotia into Confederation despite it being extraordinarily unpopular in the province. As a Minister in John A. Macdonald’s first cabinet, Tupper then managed to convince the arch Nova Scotian Anti-Confederate MP Joseph Howe to eventually join cabinet, and Tupper himself would eventually briefly become Prime Minister for 69 days in the summer of 1896. Tupper would resign as Tory leader after the 1900 election and two losses to Wilfrid Laurier, and would relocate to England until his death in Oct. 1915, at age 94.

Chapter 8, on the National Policy, starts with Tupper defending the actions of Macdonald’s government during “the so-called ‘Pacific Scandal’ ” over several pages, which Tupper at one point refers to as “the Pacific Slander”. Tupper mentions that he accidentally coined the term “National Policy” in “the heat of a prolonged debate in the House of Commons in February of 1870”.

On pages 158-160:

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The various Canadian provinces enjoyed phenomenal prosperity under the Elgin Reciprocity Treaty negotiated in 1854. This treaty was abrogated by the United States in 1866. Times were especially good during the American Civil War period. The United States, owing to the vast population withdrawn from industrial pursuits, proved to be Canada’s best customer, and there was no question of a tariff issue as the abnormal conditions existing south of the boundary gave us all the protection we needed.

But this situation was not to last for ever. With the close of the Civil War was inaugurated a nationwide movement for the encouragement and protection of American labour and American industries by the imposition of heavy duties against foreign competitors. That policy has only recently been modified. The Hon. W. H. Seward, probably one of the ablest Secretaries of State, felt confident that the abrogation of the Elgin Reciprocity Treaty would force Canada into the American Union. In a famous speech just after the close of the Civil War he declared that Canada, owing to its geographical position, with Halifax on the Atlantic and a stretch of country extending to the Pacific, must inevitably dominate the trade with the Far East. He was a man of vision, and his prophecy in that respect has since been verified.

In those days, owing to the lack of railway facilities, there was little inter-provincial trade. The bulk of the trade of the Maritime Provinces was then with the New England States. The termination of the Reciprocity Treaty hit us a hard blow, and but for that circumstance we should probably have been unable to convince the people of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that our future was in a union with the Upper Canadian provinces. Gradually the restrictive policy of the United States tariff -- a policy wisely directed to the upbuilding of American industry -- began to be more acutely felt in the Dominion, and its full effects were experienced by the time the Liberals got into power in 1873.

[Alexander] Mackenzie did nothing to relieve the situation. His low revenue tariff permitted the American people to gain access to our market, while Canadians were virtually excluded from that of their neighbours. The effect of the American high tariff was not only felt by the Canadian farmers and manufacturers, but it produced a largely increased demand in Canada for American manufactures, and a more than corresponding increase in the demand for the manufactures of Great Britain, of which the trade returns of Canada showed abundant proof.

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After spending several pages going over his time in opposition, including the various places he practiced medicine while in Parliament, and noting that he would attend Liberal meetings to challenge their ideas, Tupper gives his thoughts on Tory policy after the 1878 election on page 170:

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Sir John was, of course, called upon to form an Administration, in which I accepted the portfolio of Public Works. I subsequently had the department divided, creating a new department -- that of Railways and Canals, of which I took charge. To this day [1914] that arrangement still exists, other public improvements other than railways and canals being under the direction of the Minister of Public Works.

The next four years represented years of ceaseless activity and constructive statesmanship, inuring to the agricultural and industrial development of the Dominion. True to our promises, we adopted the National Policy at the earliest moment, got under way a vast programme for the deepening of the waterways and canals of the St. Lawrence system, and after the completion of surveys, entered into an agreement for the building of a national transcontinental railway from Eastern Canada to the Pacific coast.

The effect of the substitution of a protective tariff for the Mackenzie revenue law proved magical. It restricted the exodus, gave employment in the factories to our own idle working man, stimulated every branch of manufacturing, led to the establishment of many new industries, and preserved the home market for our own people. The farmer was also given substantial protection. During the Mackenzie Administration Canada became the dumping ground for the surplus manufactured products of the United States, which, enjoying the benefit of a high tariff, rigidly excluded Canadian products of every description.

The National Policy, in my judgment, is one of the bulwarks of Canadian national life. It made possible the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, stimulated inter-provincial trade, and developed a solidarity of sentiment that has been growing stronger since Confederation was brought about.

We are to-day a self-contained people, and recent years have witnessed the spectacle of millions of foreign capital being invested in Canadian manufacturing industries. The farmer, too, enjoys his home market. Earlier experiences of Canadian statesmen showed the futility of efforts to induce the United States to negotiate an equitable reciprocity agreement. Our tariff, while ensuring reasonable protection for all our people, has never had the almost restricted character of the American fiscal system.

It was a great day for the Dominion when the people rejected the [1911] Taft-Fielding reciprocity agreement, for under the radical revision of the United States tariff Canada, without giving any equivalent, will reap enormous advantages. As a people we have demonstrated to the world our ability to develop along national lines. Who is there that does not recall with pride the attitude of Canada at the time of the enforcement of the [1890] McKinley tariff, many of the clauses of which were specifically aimed at our common country?

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Tupper ends the chapter with his speech that coined the phrase “National Policy”.

Interestingly, Tupper’s final chapters are titled “Empire Confederation” and “How to Federate the Empire”. With the Empire now transformed, what will we do with its legacy?

Recently, Trump 'ordered' Canadian companies doing business with the US to move down south. Certainly some will. This lead me to think; supposing this trade war goes on for a while and the Canadian business environment essentially hollows out, does it weaken the argument that Canada should remove its tariffs on the US if the US decides they want to play ball again?

Because, if at the end of this trade war a lot of Canadian businesses have moved south and we get some sort of free trade deal (either under this president or the next one) there isn't much incentive to move back in the short term as the border is no longer an issue.

Historically, Canada's tariff barrier is what led to branch plants popping up in Canada (in many cases the very same businesses Trump wants back in the US) as much as it protected Canadian businesses.

A secondary issue is that if Canada is serious about diversifying away from the US then leaving the tariffs up makes sense in order to direct Canadian companies towards other markets.

As much as I can be accused of being anti-American I don't think tariffs should be left up permanently. Rather, assuming this trade war does become ruinous, we should leave them up long enough for Canada's trade patterns to change, Canadian alternatives to get established, and branch plants to reopen. Then, and only then, should the tariffs we imposed on the US come down. If Trump is going to present an opportunity to move away from reliance on the US market we may as well take it.

But what do other people think our strategy should be?

I'm jumping around a bit chronologically as Henry St. John predated the previous man in this series, Samuel Johnson, by a generation. He is also the first to be a politician and, indeed, a leader of the tory faction. In his youth he was licentious which his marriage did little to tame.

He became an MP in 1701 when he took over the rotten borough of Wootton Bassett. He actually rose quickly on the strength of his elegance. However, he was a Jacobite and thus opposed to the Hanover succession. He briefly served as editor of The Examiner (1710–1714) which was a tory paper founded to counter the Whig papers of the time. His politics did intersect with Canada a little bit as he supported a failed naval expedition to take Quebec. While he did take leadership of the tories in the 1710s, he couldn't effectively control the backbenchers and Queen Anne's declining health had the tories correctly predicting the Whigs would be returning to power. With the accession of King George I Henry was dismissed from office. He would briefly join the Pretender in France as a member of his court for which he was voted a traitor by Parliament. He would eventually be pardoned and allowed to return.

His contribution to politics is mixed. Disraeli credited him as the founder of modern toryism and credited him with stopping the Whigs from turning England into an oligarchy but his time as party leader was fairly lacklustre and he had no influence in his later career. Perhaps his most lasting contribution was the idea that there should always be an organized opposition party to counter the excesses of the governing party.

In perhaps an ironic twist he was influential among republicans in the colonies. His vision of history as cycles of birth, growth, decline and death of republics was popular in the colonies. It should be noted that this cyclical view of history is directly opposed to the Whig view of history as ongoing progress.

The authors are, as far as I can gather, not fans and are likely the Continentalists George Grant warned often lurked in official circles. So, while it is a biased portrayal I think it does given an idea what Bennett was trying to do when he brought in reciprocal tariffs on the US (even if it did hurt 'friendship' with the Americans as the authors put it.

I'm curious to hear from everyone here about what Tories would think of Identity Politics. The knee jerk reaction is probably that Identity Politics is bad, since it tend to elevate one group or identity over others in a community. But writers like George Grant argued (without explicitly talking about Identity Politics) that local communities and traditions are important, so from that perspective, it is preferable to have local representatives of a community in government? He was very sympathetic to Quebecois rights, for example, and how it is important to have Quebecois representing their culture and traditions in government. At the same time, Grant was also skeptical of using identity as a will to power, and overriding the common good for a community.

So what does everyone think? How should modern Tories or Red Tories respond to Identity Politics as we know it today? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to see what this group thinks.

Recently Canada announced that it was further winding down its peacekeeping operations by a further 40-50 personnel. This has provoked a discussion regarding a conflict between what has been termed 'two mythologies of peacekeeping'. Since I don't think we've had a discussion on it before I thought it might be interesting to look at Peacekeeping, and the UN more broadly, from a tory perspective. What is its future? What, if anything, needs to change?

Here's the last of the "Red Tories and the NDP" essays that I didn't post here in full, slightly edited for changes since 2026, plus a supplement at the end from Part X of this essay series that highlights some of the leading philosophies within the Nova Scotia NDP from my point of view.

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“Red Tories” and the NDP Part V: Tory Social Justice in Nova Scotia

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One reason a Red Tory may want to get involved with the modern NDP is because of its institutional legacy. The CCF/NDP is arguably the political institution in Canada that has most consistently throughout the years pushed for meaningful social equality for all of the people currently living in Canada, and has actually done something about improving the lives of the poorest and most marginalized among us.

While this essay will be most relevant to those living in the Maritimes, I hope this essay will be able to provide those elsewhere with another interesting thought exercise around defending the very concept of social justice itself using Tory language and imagery. To do that, I’ll need to briefly explain the history of chattel slavery in Maritime Canada before then exploring the thoughts or actions of Tory figures such as Samuel Johnson, Sampson Blowers, Richard Uniacke, and Robert Stanfield. As the modern-day institutions that govern the Province of Nova Scotia are among some of the oldest continuously existing political institutions on the American continent, this essay not only seeks to provide “tangible examples” of institutional racism throughout history, but also seeks to provide examples of “ye olde social justice warriors” that were actually staunch conservatives. “Radical Tories” one could argue, but conservatives nonetheless.

Slavery existed as part of the “common-law of the colonies” in Nova Scotia from the moment Nova Scotia was created. Nova Scotia never had the Southern-style “slave society” where a small percentage of the population owned huge numbers of slaves that largely worked in agriculture; Nova Scotia could be described as “a society with slavery” instead, similar to the New England states. Typically, the wealthy would have “house” slaves that would work as full time servants, while those in the middle class would purchase slaves skilled in a trade such a metal working or carpentry to grow their businesses with free labour. However, chattel slavery as an institution was virtually dead in Nova Scotia prior to Imperial emancipation, thanks to a prolonged multi-pronged legal attack by local abolitionists. The “prongs” of this attack against the institution of slavery included enslaved people breaking the law to gain their own freedom, two different abolitionist-leaning Supreme Court Chief Justices who were described as “waging a judicial war against slavery”, and a firebrand zealot of an abolitionist in the House of Assembly who would rally the legislative majority on three different occasions against slavery to back up the judiciary in their work. In modern lingo, these groups could be described as marginalized people and their allies.

Harvey Whitfield describes “the death” of slavery in the Maritimes on page 107/108 of “North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in the Maritimes” (2016):

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Although it is highly likely that this process was complete by the mid-to-late 1820s, we cannot be sure when the last slave gained freedom. New Brunswicker Caleb Jones, not surprisingly, published one of the latest slave advertisements, in 1816. Six years later, the New Brunswick government claimed that there were no slaves in the province. A few probably remained in Nova Scotia after 1820, but this cannot be known. If Jacob Troop’s slave Hannah did not achieve her freedom until the age of thirty, at least one person would have remained in bondage as late as 1824. There were probably “some theoretical slaves in New Brunswick at the time of Imperial emancipation in the 1830s”, Bell suggests, “Although none are are known. The situation was probably similar in Nova Scotia and Lower Canada, notwithstanding judicial policy to the contrary.” Ultimately, runaway slaves, abolitionist whites, and sympathetic judges made regional slavery increasingly unsustainable, and even the conservative judges in New Brunswick could not prevent the emancipation of all the province’s slaves in the 1820s. The political winds of change and the substitution of servitude for slavery simply recognized the reality that most white people would no longer tolerate slavery. What they would tolerate, unfortunately, was racial discrimination and the economic marginalization of the black population. Thus, as the nineteenth century unfolded, black Maritimers had few options other than becoming self-sustaining and self-supporting, in relative isolation from the mainstream.

Black people played a significant role in the struggle against and eventual ending of slavery in the Maritime colonies. Like their counterparts elsewhere in British North America, the Bahamas, and Jamaica, they challenged their masters on a personal level through interactions within households, but more significantly they pushed for the end of slavery in courts and by absconding. They were supported in this endeavour by anti-slavery whites, who harboured runaways and willingly challenged owners in court. As time passed, an increasingly broad swathe of the white Maritime population and most politicians were not willing to give statute recognition to slavery. Like Loyalist slaveholders elsewhere, owners did everything they could to strengthen and continue slavery, including re-enslaving free blacks, but they became an even smaller and isolated group. By the early 1800s, as their acceptance of slavery became anachronistic, the likes of Stair Agnew, Joseph Clarke, James DeLancey, Jesse Gray, and Caleb Jones simply were not representative of the Maritime population. Others who were inclined to own slaves could simply move to the West Indies or the United States. In many ways, the ending of slavery can be seen as a positive example of black-white co-operation and humanitarian impulses.

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The abolition of slavery in the Maritimes is both unique and similar to the process in neighbouring New England. As Joanne Pope Melish points out, the slow and torturous end of slavery in New England was accompanied by the growth of racism and various attempts to remove blacks from the region. Afro-Yankees also faced tremendous economic discrimination -- like their counterparts in the Maritimes. Emancipation or gradual emancipation had been achieved in most New England states by 1784, but slavery lingered there for decades -- in fact, there were at least 1,488 slaves in 1800. In both the Maritimes and New England, the end of slavery was slow and tepid, sometimes helped along by judges and sometimes by acts of local legislatures. Unlike Rhode Island and Connecticut, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick did not legislate gradual emancipation; instead, the court system and private transfers from bondage to indentured servitude slowly made the institution of slavery untenable, As Melish notes, the end of slavery in New England was “vague”, “ambiguous”, and “protracted”. These words also fittingly describe the long process in the Maritimes, perhaps culminating in Prince Edward Island’s 1825 repeal of its slavery statute and Britain’s 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.

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For a quick history of Black Nova Scotians being settled in Africa to help start the Sierra Leone colony, I highly recommend reading Bill Casey's blog post where he recalls the time a rural village matriarch from Sierra Leone explained to him the Nova Scotian heritage of her community.

Before continuing on in Nova Scotia, one thing to keep in mind would be just how old the political institutions are in the Province of Nova Scotia. The current House of Assembly was founded in 1758 under its current constitution, and has been meeting in its current chamber since 1819 when Province House first opened. The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia was founded in 1754, and used to meet in what it now the legislative library in Province House. That’s to say that while there may not have been any “slave trials” or “slavery debates” in Province House by 1819, that first generation of parliamentarians to inhabit what is still the House of Assembly would have been intimately involved with either killing slavery or trying to preserve slavery. Those very voices would have echoed in the same chamber that still appears on the nightly news.

English writer Charles Dickens had this to say about the opening of what would have been the 16th General Assembly of Nova Scotia in 1842, when Nova Scotian democracy was in its 84th year:

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It happened to be the opening of the Legislative Council and General Assembly, at which ceremonial the forms observed on the commencement of a new Session of Parliament in England were so closely copied, and so gravely presented on a small scale, that it was like looking at Westminster through the wrong end of a telescope. The governor, as her Majesty’s representative, delivered what may be called the Speech from the Throne. He said what he had to say manfully and well. The military band outside the building struck up “God save the Queen” with great vigour before his Excellency had quite finished; the people shouted; the in’s rubbed their hands; the out’s shook their heads; the Government party said there never was such a good speech; the Opposition declared there never was such a bad one; the Speaker and members of the House of Assembly withdrew from the bar to say a great deal among themselves and do a little: and, in short, everything went on, and promised to go on, just as it does at home upon the like occasions.

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6 years later in 1848, the Nova Scotia House of Assembly would become the first legislature in the British Empire to achieve responsible government, other than the House of Commons in London. Other colonial legislatures would soon follow. As of the re-publishing of this essay in 2026, Nova Scotian democracy is in its 268th year under the same constitution; it has been 178 years since the House of Assembly achieved complete sovereignty in its own affairs.

Highlighting how old these institutions are has one key benefit when trying to explain what systemic racism is to someone with a conservative mind: like any other “organic entity”, if the Government of Nova Scotia can pick up “healthy habits” like parliamentary democracy throughout the years, then it’s bound to have picked up some “unhealthy habits” throughout the years as well. The older the person/institution, the more potential for “habits” one way or the other. Like with our personal habits, we need to “own up” to our bad institutional habits, along with the good, to have any legitimate claim to morality; to do so otherwise would be hypocrisy. There’s also the saying, “You can’t fix a problem unless you know it exists”.

With all of that background, but before we explore the Nova Scotian abolitionists, I would first like to explore the writings of the arch-Tory Samuel Johnson, the English essayist that was also the creator of the first modern English dictionary. As a friend once pointed out to me, to quickly illustrate the kind of man Johnson was, look at his 1755 “A Dictionary of the English Language”. For his entry for Whig, Johnson describes the Whig Party as “The name of a faction.”; in his entry for Tory, however, Johnson lists a supporter of the Tory Party as “One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to a whig.”

Johnson’s biographer Walter Jackson Bate had this to say about Johnson’s views on colonialism on page 328 of his 1977 book “Samuel Johnson”:

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The Seven Years’ War had begun. In political articles, [Samuel Johnson] strongly attacked the policy of imperial and commercial expansion. The quarrel of the British and the French in America, as he viewed it, was the quarrel of “two robbers” for the land stolen from the Indians. Of the two, the French had at least the credit of treating the victim -- the natives -- with more consideration.

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Not only was Johnson against the expansion of the British Empire, but he was an early supporter of the abolitionist movement long before it entered the political mainstream. From his Idler essay series, Johnson had this to say in Idler #11, published on 24th June, 1758:

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Forms of government are seldom the result of much deliberation; they are framed by chance in popular assemblies, or in conquered countries, by despotick authority. Laws are often occasional, often capricious, made always by a few, and sometimes by a single voice. Nations have changed their characters; slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.

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Later, in Idler #87, published on 15th December, 1759, Johnson had this to say on a couple of different social issues:

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Many relations of travellers have been slighted as fabulous, till more frequent voyages have confirmed their veracity; and it may reasonably be imagined, that many ancient historians are unjustly suspected of falsehood, because our own times afford nothing that resembles what they tell.

Had only the writers of antiquity informed us, that there was once a nation in which the wife lay down upon the burning pile only to mix her ashes with those of her husband, we should have thought it a tale to be told with that of Endymion’s commerce with the moon. Had only a single traveller related, that many nations of the earth were black, we should have thought the accounts of the Negroes and of the Phoenix equally credible. But of black men the numbers are too great who are now repining under English cruelty; and the custom of voluntary cremation is not yet lost among the ladies of India.

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Issues of social justice also featured in Johnson’s 1775 essay, “Taxation No Tyranny: An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress” where he wrote:

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Their charters, being now, I suppose, legally forfeited, may be modelled, as shall appear most commodious to the mother-country. Thus the privileges which are found, by experience, liable to misuse, will be taken away, and those who now bellow as patriots, bluster as soldiers, and domineer as legislators, will sink into sober merchants and silent planters, peaceably diligent, and securely rich.

But there is one writer, and, perhaps, many who do not write, to whom the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous, and who startle at the thoughts of “England free, and America in chains.” Children fly from their own shadow, and rhetoricians are frighted by their own voices. Chains is, undoubtedly, a dreadful word; but, perhaps, the masters of civil wisdom may discover some gradations between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will be restrained without them. This contest may end in the softer phrase of English superiority and American obedience.

We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

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That’s not to say Johnson is perfect by modern standards, he was certainly a man of his time. But keep the abolitionist attitudes of Samuel Johnson in mind for the rest of this essay. The fact that as the American Revolution was happening in real time, one of the most staunch Tory voices in the British Empire was calling out the American Founding Fathers as being hypocrite slavers for 20 years by that point, should be a sign that mass social movements such a “Black Lives Matter” are nothing new. It could be argued Johnson would be a good example of what the modern Red Tory philosopher Ron Dart dubbed “an older conservative tradition... what might be called a leftist form of conservatism” on page 4 of his book “The Red Tory Tradition: Ancient Roots, New Routes” (1999)

Now with this better understanding of “Tory social justice”, onto how it applies to the Nova Scotian context specifically. Two of arguably the most important abolitionists in Nova Scotia would have been the Supreme Court Chief Justice Sampson Blowers, and the Attorney General Richard Uniacke who was a Member in the House of Assembly. They also both hated each other with a burning passion, and had challenged each other to duels on multiple occasions. Uniacke also got into a drunken fight with a close friend/colleague of Blowers one time, which resulted in the man’s death.

Blowers was a Loyalist through-and-through, and in 1770 even assisted future U.S. President John Adams in his legal defence of the soldiers being tried in the Boston “Massacre”. Blowers eventually left for Britain when tensions got heated in the colonies, only to return once the Revolution did break out; he was amongst those evacuated to Nova Scotia at the end of the war. Uniacke, on the other hand, actually fought against the Crown at Fort Cumberland in the Eddy Rebellion during the Revolution, only to be spared the noose due to his Loyalist family connections. Uniacke would later become a vocal critic of “atheistic republicanism” in the United States, and would become an early advocate of the colonies of British North America unifying in 1806, and again in 1826, for common defence against the Americans.

As far as abolitionism goes, Blowers was continuing the work of the previous Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Strange, along when Blowers himself was Attorney General, where they would “chip away” at the institution using the legal precedent found in the 1778 Knight v. Wedderburn case in Scotland. When a slave named Nancy in New Brunswick tried a similar legal theory as promoted by the Nova Scotia judiciary, the Chief Justice of New Brunswick, George Duncan Ludlow, ruled the opposite and put her back into bondage. From the point of view of a slave owner like George Duncan Ludlow, slavery was “the common-law of the colonies”, and he wasn’t exactly wrong.

That’s why the efforts of the abolitionist Richard Uniacke was critically important in killing slavery in Nova Scotia, as he consistently held his ground throughout the fight. In court, he would boldly claim that slavery didn’t exist in the province as not a single statute law referenced the institution, and would rally the legislative majority against laws that would “regulate slavery” or “make it more humane”, as that would give statute recognition to slavery in the province. Comparing Uniacke with Blowers shows just how fragile the coalition towards progress can be; these men quite literally were willing to publicly kill each other in front of witnesses because of how much they personally despised each other. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed.

This is traditionally where the story would end; the age old argument of “We freed the people that we originally enslaved in the first place, we patted ourselves on the back for it, and everything that happened after can be safely ignored because we did one good thing”. Similar to how some people will bring up the Royal Navy task force dedicated to ending the slave trade, but will always ignore the British role in creating the slave trade in the first place. But because this story still has over 200 years before we reach the present day, we now need to look at the conditions that free Black Loyalists faced when they were originally settled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolution, along with the conditions that similar “late” Black Loyalists would also face in getting their land grants after their service in the War of 1812.

As Harvey Whitfield wrote on page 59 of “North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in the Maritimes”:

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The real issue for former slaveholders and government officials was how best to maintain and exercise control of black labour, a goal that could be accomplished without relying on slavery by ensuring that the black population remained poor labourers for hire. During and after the War of 1812, thousands of black refugees were settled on the worst land in Nova Scotia. They were plugged into a pre-existing system whereby cheap black labour could be easily exploited. This is not to say that all black refugees did poorly in Nova Scotia: rather, they encountered nearly insurmountable odds. The local government attempted to ensure that most would not become self-sufficient farmers by assigning them ten-acre plots, regardless of family size or service to the British Crown. The government knew quite well that the settlements of black refugees in Hammonds Plains and Preston were to destined to struggle mightily, as previous white settlers had given up on the sterile land. In 1815, one local official bluntly explained why he wanted blacks to settle in Preston: “[They will] serve to improve the Place in general, and afford assistance to us towards repairing the Roads, but likewise furnish us with Laborers of whom we stand in too much need to make tolerable progress on our own improvements.” Twenty-six years later, though blaming black people for their use of fuel, the government admitted, “in this severe climate at least 100 acres would be required for each family in order to afford a proper supply of fuel”, Former slaves, free black Loyalists, and the black refugees did the most menial jobs, and their economic welfare was kept at barely a subsistence level. Government policies and racial discrimination dictated that many black people remained in the lowliest forms of employment, including tenant farming or sharecropping, which was precisely what John Clarkson described as being “in a state of slavery”. For this to occur, only economic marginalization and racial subordination were required -- slavery was unnecessary. Perhaps, in the decades after 1783, the political and legal ruling elite of the Maritimes realized that the difference between free blacks, black slaves, and black indentured servants was somewhat untenable. As a result, smothering these distinctions under the guise of racial homogeneity made sense. Slavery could be abolished, but its economic benefits would still be extracted from the free and marginalized black population. Moreover, the racism that kept black people on the lowest rung of society could easily be continued an in fact worsened after the end of slavery. Whatever the case, the policies described by John Clarkson and those faced by black refugees were particularly unfair, and some Nova Scotia officials challenged them, only to be rebuffed by British officials. In 1837, Secretary of the Colonies Lord Glenelg scolded Nova Scotia’s lieutenant-governor, Colin Campbell, who had complained about the poor land that black people had been given. Glenelg stated that Campbell had accepted the “mistake & mischievous notion” that, should free blacks “subsist at all, it must be as proprietors of Land and not as Labourers for hire”

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One way to look at it, when the white United Empire Loyalists got their land grants after the American Revolution, they were able to plant firm roots and grow their communities in abundance. However, despite black Loyalists fighting for the same King & Country, after the Revolution they were relegated to the wastelands of society and had the chance to be enslaved by a local slaver backed up by a local magistrate. To add insult to injury, even if a black settler managed to get a good homestead going, it was perfectly possible for a white settler to essentially squat on that land to take it over, as the government wasn’t granting proper titles for the land given to black Loyalists. Of course, all of this ignores that this “free land” actually belonged to the Mi’kmaq.

The government that started to fix that land title problem for black Nova Scotians was that of Progressive Conservative Premier Robert Stanfield in 1963. However, Stanfield wanted to go one step further and attempt to relieve the economic injustice that had been inflicted on black Nova Scotians for generations by this point. As Stanfield’s biographer Geoffrey Stevens wrote of page 111 of “Stanfield” (1973):

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Dick Donahoe can remember only one occasion when Stanfield failed to get his way in cabinet. That was when the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities came to make its annual submission to the Cabinet and Stanfield broached the idea of developing housing and welfare policies that would give preferential treatment to the sorely impoverished Negroes of the province. “ He was shot down in flames by a lot of people from the municipalities who said it would be discriminatory,” says Donahoe.

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However, much like the time of Blowers & Uniacke, once Stanfield was gone, no one either had the political desire, will, or capital to continue the work of social justice with as much passion. And much like how systemic racism wasn’t squashed out in the time of Blowers & Uniacke, in 1962 the city of Halifax started bulldozing the community of Africville to make way for the Mackay bridge.

And as recently as 2020, a black Nova Scotian man by the name of Christopher Downey had to take the provincial government to court in order to get a proper title to land that his family has been living on for generations. Since the framework to get a land title hadn’t really been updated since Stanfield started the process in 1963, the courts of 2020 found that the process is now overly burdensome, expensive, and bureaucratic by modern standards. That right there is, unfortunately, a great example of systemic racism in the modern day; despite the government making claims of equality, the only reason actual equality happened in this instance was because Mr. Downey had enough time, energy, and resources to fight the good fight in court. What would have happened to Mr. Downey if he didn’t have the time, energy, or resources?

Despite the glaring negatives that will always accumulate when institutions stretch beyond their first generation, there are some positives to come out of Nova Scotia’s ancient constitution and legal system. There are currently 5 “special” ridings in Nova Scotia that are protected by the courts to ensure some of the oldest and most historically discriminated against communities are guaranteed representation in the House of Assembly; these are the Acadian ridings of Clare, Richmond, and Argyle, and the black riding of Preston -- a new Acadian riding in Chéticamp was created in 2026. Of note, Darrell Dexter's NDP tried to abolish the 4 old ridings, but the courts intervened in the matter to ensure minority representation. In keeping with the theme that the Mi’kmaq are often an afterthought in a lot of the political discourse in Nova Scotia, I’ve always felt the province should look towards New Zealand with how they have Maori electorates in their House of Representatives. While nothing can erase the legacy of colonialism in the current day, at least guaranteeing Mi’kmaq voices are in the Assembly would go a long way towards meaningful equity.

Where does this leave the modern NDP in Nova Scotia? The NDP already has the social justice issues down pat I think. Now the NDP just needs to find people who are able to break down social justice issues and communicate them in ways that don’t come off as paternalistic or pretentious to potential supporters; and it appears that the Nova Scotia NDP is starting to develop a strategy for that. After all, the Nova Scotia NDP already has most of the urban Labourers of Halifax & Sydney on their side, along with all the Socialists in the province; now the party only needs to find a way to bring the rural Farmer back into the fold. That old “Farmer-Labour-Socialist” coalition seems particularly viable in Nova Scotia at the moment.

Currently, the main bastion of support is in Metro Halifax. Interestingly, while the pre-Alexa McDonough-Halifax-breakthrough NDP mostly has its origins in the labour movement of Industrial Cape Breton -- perhaps best represented by the old CCF MP Clarie Gillis and current NDP MLA Kendra Coombes -- there is a potential Tory strain within the provincial party that should be explored in an attempt to make inroads on the mainland beyond Metro HRM.

While Industrial Cape Breton already had it’s own unique set of Labour circumstances, when sympathy strikes to the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 were spreading across the country, the town of Amherst, in Cumberland County, also experienced a general strike organized by the One Big Union. The same part of Cumberland County that had been so bitterly divided in the Eddy Rebellion during the siege of Fort Cumberland in 1776 that Richard Uniacke participated in. The general strike of 1919 resulted in better wages/conditions for the workers, and in the Nova Scotia General Election of 1920 5 Labour MLAs were elected: 4 in Cape Breton and 1 in Cumberland. However, by the 1925 election, all of the Labour MLAs lost their seats in the Assembly except for Archibald Terris of Cumberland. Terris would manage to keep his seat until 1933, and at various times he styled himself as a “Labour-Conservative”.

In present day Cumberland North, the current Independent MLA is Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin, a former PC MLA and one-time Nova Scotia PC Leadership contender. Funny enough, she made this Facebook post on 8th September, 2025 where she said:

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Today I welcomed Krista Gallagher, the NDP Agriculture Critic, to Cumberland County to see firsthand the challenges facing our wild blueberry industry.

Wild blueberries are Nova Scotia’s largest agricultural export, but farmers are under enormous strain: low prices, rising input costs for fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides, and pollination, and now a devastating drought.

We are grateful to the farmers of this province who take all the risks, yet often see the smallest return when their product is sold. If we want to grow our local food production, we must stand with them—not with more loans, but with meaningful financial support to ensure they can survive and thrive.

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Of note is this LinkedIn post Smith-McCrossin made on ~25th September, 2025, where she shared a news article that reads:

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MLA Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin Hosts Health Critic Dr. Rod Wilson in Cumberland North

Cumberland North, NS — MLA Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin recently hosted Dr. Rod Wilson, practicing physician and Health Critic for the NDP Official Opposition, for a visit to Cumberland North to shine a light on the challenges and opportunities within Nova Scotia’s healthcare system.

“Dr. Wilson and I are committed to ensuring the voices of Nova Scotians are heard and respected,” said Smith-McCrossin. “During his visit, we listened carefully to what is working well in healthcare — and, just as importantly, what is not.”

...

“Thank you to all of those working in healthcare, especially in these challenging conditions,” added Smith-McCrossin. “Dr. Wilson and I will continue to do our best to bring the voices of our healthcare professionals to the Legislature — and to ensure that the truths of what’s happening in our hospitals and long-term care facilities are told, not hidden or ignored.”

With the fall session of the Legislature beginning this week, Smith-McCrossin and Dr. Wilson emphasized the importance of collaboration. “Several ideas and solutions will be tabled and discussed,” said Smith-McCrossin. “It’s my hope that the governing party will work collaboratively with us to bring forward real solutions for Nova Scotians.”

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While Smith-McCrossin has a history of… speaking before she thinks things through, it would be hard to deny that Smith-McCrossin has shown the ability to actually apologize, learn, and do better. After making insensitive comments about Jamaicans in a debate on Marijuana legalization in 2018, she ended up dragging her friend from Jamaica into the public firestorm. However, this quote from Smith-McCrossin in a CBC article describing the aftermath says it all I think, “It’s probably been one of the hardest times of my political career knowing that I hurt her.”

I would personally say Smith-McCrossin has something of that old fashioned “Tory Auroa” in caring about the weak or mistreated in society, especially in her constituency. Perhaps someone like Smith-McCrossin could be a potential ally in rebuilding the party outside of Halifax. She certainly appeals to the rural farmers in Cumberland North to be elected the first Independent MLA since 1988. It’s certainly very interesting that’s she’s choosing to work so closely with the NDP Shadow Cabinet recently.

Also of note is this post Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin made on 22nd Sep. 2025 that included a picture of a Spitfire, a Nova Scotian flag, and a Winston Churchill quote. Smith-McCrossin had this to say in her post:

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Battle of Britain Day

85 years ago, in the summer and fall of 1940, the Royal Air Force stood against the German Luftwaffe in what became the first major air campaign of the Second World War. Britain’s survival and the future of freedom hung in the balance.

Canadians were there. More than 100 Canadian pilots fought in the skies, including men from Nova Scotia. Among them was Flight Lieutenant Hamilton Upton, who flew with RAF No. 43 Squadron during the battle and later made his home in Truro, Nova Scotia.

We remember him, and all “the Few,” whose courage ensured the world’s first great victory over fascism.

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” – Winston Churchill

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Regardless of whether Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin becomes a Red Tory in the literal sense of the word, or remains something of an “Independent Labour-Conservative”, I’m glad to see the Nova Scotia NDP carry on the tradition of pragmatic coalition building. The current leader of the Nova Scotia NDP, Claudia Chender, herself is quite charismatic and an experienced parliamentarian; it will be very interesting to watch the Nova Scotia NDP over the next couple of years under her leadership. A true “Government-in-Waiting” in every meaning of the word.

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Addendum

Part X of this series in parts continues this exploration of "Red Toryism" within the Nova Scotia NDP.

In what I personally find to be an interesting coincidence, the previous leader of the NS NDP, Gary Burrill, is a United Church Minister by trade, and Claudia Chender would eventually serve as his House Leader before becoming leader herself by acclamation when Burrill retired; similarly, J.S. Woodsworth, a Methodist preacher by trade, would be succeed as leader of the CCF by M.J. Coldwell, his Parliamentary leader, who also became leader by acclamation when Woodsworth died.

With that brief bit of context on party continuity, I think these excerpts from Part X makes for a good supplement here to give better insight into some of the philosophies found within the Nova Scotia NDP in particular over the Burrill and Chender years:

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...

While Dexter’s NDP is remembered for being quite moderate in government, under Gary Burrill’s leadership, the 3rd place Nova Scotia NDP went back to its roots as a left-labour party. I think this speech Burrill gave to launch his leadership campaign back in June of 2015 really sums up the “spirit” of the modern NDP that he eventually would rebuild in Nova Scotia:

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Thank you everyone for your presence here this evening, on June 11th, Davis Day. The 90th anniversary of, commemoration of, the celebration of, the taking of the life of William Davis by company police in the great 1925 Coal & Steel Strike in Industrial Cape Breton. For 90 years, Davis Day, the 11th of June, has stood for the integrity and the dignity of the struggle for social justice in Nova Scotia; and so it’s an immeasurable privilege on such a day to be able to announce that I have registered today and have established my candidacy for the position of leader of the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party.

I do so on the basis of one single idea. The idea that the present moment is calling for our party to make a turn in our path. The name of the road on which we are being called to turn is very simple: social, environmental, and economic justice.

The politics behind this one single idea are equally simple. I am an egalitarian -- Gary Ramey in the House of Assembly used to say to me “Gary, don’t use that word so much, I’m looking across the floor and I see that it confuses them.” I am a progressive. I am a socialist. I am a redistributivist. I am an anti-relegationist; I am against anyone ever being relegated over to the side.

And I will say, echoing Kaylee’s comments, that for a number of years I was of the view that the NDP was not necessarily all that relevant for people of these convictions and this persuasion. This changed for me, however, a number of years ago, when for a couple of years in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s I lived in the United States, and I learned in the process of living there what a tremendous difference it makes for us to live and work and engage as we do in this context, this situation, this setting where we live in this country; where the social democratic tradition over three-quarters of a century has carved out a space on the stream of popular life for the idea that people ought to be able to have it better than they do, and that people ought to be more equal.

And so I’m offering for the position of the leader of our party on the basis, simply, of the thought that deepening poverty and widening inequality are these tremendous challenges which stand at the moment before us, and it is the mission, and it is the purpose, of the NDP to do something about it in Nova Scotia.

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Claudia Chender also gave me hope of what “rural outreach” might mean under her leadership. Interestingly, she made this Facebook post celebrating Nova Scotians who had just received the King Charles III Coronation Medal. In her post, she quoted then-Lieutenant Governor Arthur LeBlanc in saying:

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“His Majesty has dedicated his life to the service of people throughout the Commonwealth, championing youth, environmental stewardship, Crown-Indigenous relations and service provided by those in uniform. In this spirit, the Coronation Medal honours those who have demonstrated an unwavering dedication to their professions and the well-being of the province,”

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I ask this question - or rather open this discussion- because only a couple of years ago I saw polling evidence that republicanism was becoming increasingly mainstream in Canada, with large numbers of Canadians turning their backs on the monarchy. This does not match my personal experience; all the Canadians I know in real life are staunch monarchists.

However I was wondering whether republicanism has lost its edge now, following developments South of your border and the underlying threat from the current Administration in Washington, DC. This, and internal events in the US, might perhaps make the idea of a republic far less attractive, and remind many people of the stability conferred by constitutional monarchy and the link with the Crown.

This seems to be happening here in the UK. Anecdotally, friends who have told me in the recent past that they would ‘rather have’ or ‘think it would be better to have’ an ‘elected head of state’ are now backtracking and saying that they approve of the King and believe that he is ‘doing a good job’. Etc. Members of the broadsheet newspaper commentariat who favoured an ‘elected head of state’ have gone strangely quiet on the subject of late. Of course, in the UK republicanism is still very much in the minority, but at 25% or thereabouts, the levels of support would still have surprised previous generations.

Also, where is support for republicanism coming from in Canada? Outside of Quebec, I would imagine that it was strong on sections of the left, but strongest on the populist right of the Conservative Party in its current iteration. Here, it is a populist phenomenon. On the right, many Reform supporters believing that the King is ‘woke’ or that he has ‘become a Muslim’, etc. On the left, many ‘eco-populist’ Green activists are also republicans, despite the King’s long track record of commitment to the environment and conservation. This contrasts with the Canadian Greens, whose most prominent politician is strongly supportive of the monarchy.

Anyway, I am interested to hear from Canadians about whether they think republicanism is petering out.

The Red Tory tradition in Canada appears to be monarchist to its core.

It seems to me that there are a lot of social and environmental benefits to eating locally. However, I've heard it said that the massive interconnection of trade that defines the last century has been hugely instrumental in the decrease in the amount of wars. Do any of you have any thoughts on this?

As this essay series started off as a few posts on the /r/NDP subreddit I did on a whim last fall during the federal NDP leadership election, these first few essays are quite short. As such, this second compilation post for the good folks of /r/Toryism contains Parts II, III, and IV of "Red Tories and the NDP": "Social Justice used to be a Conservative Virtue", "Left-Wing Monarchism and Left-Wing Anti-Communism", and "David Lewis’ views on the Korean War and NATO”.

Here's a link to last week's thread for those interested in the discussion which stemmed from Part I and its Addendum: "Who are the 'Red Tories' of today's NDP?" and "The Anti-Fascism of Charlie Angus"

Next Sunday, Part V!

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“Red Tories” and the NDP Part II: Social Justice used to be a Conservative Virtue

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In the first part of this essay series, I went over the origins of "traditional" Red Toryism within the CCF/NDP. Now I would like to flip that thought exercise upside down, and explore the “radical” history within the old Progressive Conservative Party in an attempt to help better flesh out the philosophy behind “traditional” Orange/Blue swing voters. At the end, I hope to propose a potential way for the NDP to appeal to these largely rural Canadians.

Here are a series of quotes that I’ve found over the years from a variety of sources to help better explain this potentially “Radical Tory” tradition. I have a feeling like many who are inherently suspicious of anything related to “traditionalism” will find much in common with these “traditionalists”

John Diefenbaker reflecting on the political situation of 1956/1957, found on pg. 112 of “Political Parties and Ideologies in Canada: Second Edition” by W. Christian & C. Campbell (1983):

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In emphasizing the question of northern development and northern vision, I advocated a 20th-centurty equivalent to Sir John Macdonald’s national policy, a uniquely Canadian economic dream. The Liberals were coming to believe that what was good for General Motors was not only good for the United States but good for Canada. My advocacy of a northern development policy was not suddenly produced. Indeed, in July of 1956, I spoke in the House of Commons of the need for a national vision to equalize economic opportunities everywhere in Canada.

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John Diefenbaker in discussing the election of 1957, found on pg. 114 of “Political Parties and Ideologies in Canada: Second Edition” by W. Christian & C. Campbell (1983):

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In discussing our 1957 election platform, I have left until last our program of social justice. This was an essential part of my national vision. To me government not only had to of and by the people, but most positively for the people. Unless government concerned itself with the problems of the individual working man and farmer, unless government was cognizant of the problems of the small businessman and not just the corporate giants, unless government acted in the interests of our senior citizens, our veterans, our blind and disabled, unless government sought a basic equality of citizenship, of opportunity, and of well-being of all our peoples, then government has lost sight of its true purpose.

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John Diefenbaker describing his own political philosophy, found on pg. 113 of “Political Parties and Ideologies in Canada: Second Edition” by W. Christian & C. Campbell (1983):

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To those who have labelled me as some kind of Party maverick, and have claimed that I have been untrue to the great principles of the Conservative Party, I can only reply that they have forgotten the traditions of Disraeli and Shaftesbury in Britain and Macdonald in Canada

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Robert Stanfield speaking at a Progressive Conservative policy convention in 1982, found on page 87 of “Political Parties and Ideologies in Canada: Second Edition” by W. Christian & C. Campbell (1983):

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Some Conservatives today assert that the dominant principle of Conservatism is individual freedom in the form of free enterprise. They assert that a free market, with free competition and free enterprise, produces the greatest growth, employment, opportunity, freedom, and stability. To them government enterprise or government regulation is an abomination. These Conservatives wish to identify the Conservative Party with this doctrine. Any deviant is a heretic. I do not believe that makes sense, historically or politically. This exaggerated claim for the marketplace, and this denigration of government, were 19th century Liberalism. They are not in the Conservative tradition we have inherited.

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Excerpts from Dalton Camp's essay “Winnie Was a Red Tory Too” (1995), found on pg. 133-135 of “Whose Country is This Anyway” by Dalton Camp (1995):

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Summer reading includes rereading. Every summer, I reread all or part of Winston Churchill’s second volume of his World War II memoirs, Their Finest Hour. The book is nothing more than the story of the crucial struggle for the survival of Western Civilization, as told by the twentieth century’s greatest political leader.

…

Churchill was a Conservative, after his father, then a Liberal, then again a Conservative. “Anyone can rat once,” he once said, “but I ratted twice.” He was, throughout his political career, a Red Tory.

Before the turn of the century, Churchill was calling himself “a Tory Democrat”. At the end of World War I, as secretary of state for war, he wrote the Prime Minister David Lloyd George: “I hope you will endeavour to gather together all forces of strength and influence in this country and lead them along the paths of science and organisation to the rescue of the weak and the poor. That is the main conception I have of the victory government.”

During the bitterness of the General Strike, Churchill told the coal miners’ leaders, “I sympathise with you in your task.” He supported their demand for a minimum wage, while the owners wanted to reduce their wages. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, however, refused to support his minister, not for the last time.

…

On his twenty-fifth birthday, Churchill wrote an American friend, Bourke Cochran: “Capitalism in the form of trusts has reached a pitch of power which the old economists never contemplated and which excites my most lively terror. Merchant prices are all very well, but if I have anything to say about it, their kingdom should not be of this world. The new century will witness great war for the existence of the individual. Up to a certain point, combination has brought us nothing but good: But we seemed to have reached a period when it threatens nothing but evil.”

These days, on the breathless heights of Tory cant, Churchill would be (likely is) scorned as a wet “squishy” and a covert socialist. But then, true blue, deep-eyed conservatives never liked him. They preferred a Calvin Coolidge, a Stanley Baldwin or a Preston Manning, along with a few bright young things to speak well of their ordinariness. With the right leaders and the proper promotional entourage, you could either run the world or be run by it, and never know the difference.

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Arthur Meighen, speaking at an Imperial Conference in London in 1918, found on pg. 100 of “Political Parties and Ideologies in Canada: Second Edition” by W. Christian & C. Campbell (1983)

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Dictates of wise policy have suggested that our invaluable water-powers -- an asset of a clearly distinctive character -- should be to the utmost possible extent not only state-owned and controlled, but state-developed and operated. All arguments that go anywhere to support Government monopoly apply with peculiar force to water-power.

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A handwritten note by Robert Stanfield sometime in 1982, written for the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Tory-affiliated Albany Club, found on pg. 67 of “Robert Stanfield’s Canada: Perspectives of the Best Prime Minister We Never Had” by Richard Clippingdale (2008)

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Canada is not a country that lends itself to too much nationalism or any other ideology. The national leaders we venerate were men of vision, but they recognized the diversity of Canada and they were pragmatic in their methods. Men like Sir John A. Macdonald were far from socialists… but Sir John A. involved his government deeply in the building of a national railway; and in his national policy. Borden and Meighen accepted the necessity of the CNR, Bennett of the CBC and the Bank of Canada. If Sir John A. had been a Reaganite conservative, the CPR would not have been built and the Canadian west would have been absorbed by the US. Canada has never been a country suited to rigid ideologies or hard-line positions. [I urge my fellow Conservatives] to be visionary but also make certain they too are worthy of our country and serve our country as a whole, not pit one part against another. And above all let us be wary of ideology and rigid doctrine. Let us pursue our vision pragmatically, and with as much determination as Sir John did. Let us not get trapped in slogans or doctrines.

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Interestingly, before he got involved with the Nova Scotia Tories, Robert Stanfield was a CCF supporter and self-described socialist while he was a university student at Dalhousie. Dalton Camp, later in life, would also campaign or attend fundraisers with Alexa McDounagh of the Nova Scotia NDP/Federal NDP and Elizabeth Weir of the New Brunswick NDP. As far as “classic Red Tories” go, Stanfield and Camp are good examples.

One thing I find most interesting about Diefenbaker’s sense of social justice is just how genuine it was. On page 114 of “Political Parties and Ideologies in Canada: Second Edition”, the authors even mention that, “In [Diefenbaker’s] hostility to the ‘few and powerful’, an aversion which struck even a socialist such as David Lewis as sincere…”.

They cite their source as David Lewis’ memoirs, “The Good Fight” pgs. 482/483, so I decided to look it up in my copy. I found this very interesting perspective from Lewis:

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… what made Diefenbaker’s emergence as Tory leader significant was that he was, in fact, a different voice from the others, including Bracken. He did speak strongly and persuasively for the western farmer and for the “little man” everywhere. He was such an actor and he so often bent facts to suit his role that he put me off, but I believe he was sincere in his attacks on Bay Street and in his defence of the weak in society. Furthermore, he was a terrific campaigner. I don’t think he ever recognized the line between campaigning for votes and running the country, but we was a spellbinder on the platform, mixing indignation, vision, and wit into a powerful brew.

I have no doubt that Diefenbaker was the reason the Conservatives narrowly won a minority government in June 1957 which enabled them to reach for the overwhelming majority which they achieved in March 1958.

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The way I look at it, whenever Pierre Poilievre invokes Diefenbaker’s name, it usually comes across as him invoking Diefenbaker’s reactionary side to excuse his modern social conservatism -- plenty of those on the reactionary right still have fond memories of Diefenbaker fighting against official bilingualism, and even plenty of Red Tories such as myself still prefer the Red Ensign over the current Maple Leaf Flag when push comes to shove.

But we can’t forget that John Diefenbaker was the Prime Minster who granted First Nations the right to vote in 1960, and was the Prime Minister who in 1961 launched the Royal Commission on Health Services to see how feasible it was to implement Saskatchewan’s healthcare plan on a national scale. He’s also the Prime Minster who diplomatically attacked Apartheid South Africa through the Commonwealth of Nations.

Especially with someone like Pierre Poilievre as leader of the modern Conservative Party, whose politics is almost exclusively influenced by the right-liberalism of the likes of Preston Manning, I think the NDP has a great opportunity to make inroads in rural Canada, particularly in the East, if we invoke the more socially progressive aspects of Diefenbaker’s Tory legacy.

If the NDP can find candidates in rural Canada that can articulate and build up the basic message “If you care about traditional Tory policies, modern NDP policies are the closest approximation”, I think the NDP has a real chance to rebuild a modern version of that original CCF “Farmer-Labour-Socialist” coalition. In the very least, the NDP would have a chance to “create a wedge” within the “Progressive” faction and the “Reform/Alliance” faction of the modern Conservative Party.

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“Red Tories” and the NDP Part III: Left-Wing Monarchism and Left-Wing Anti-Communism

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In this part, we’ll be looking at the anti-revolutionary tradition that can influence the politics of even self described socialists. As with the founding of the British Labour Party, I think the old saying “More Methodist than Marxist” holds true for the Canadian Left as well.

It is not my intention to “convert” the reader to monarchism; monarchists of any kind have always been a minority within the NDP, but to the surprise of many, we do exist. However, given the constitutional realities in Canada regarding the monarchy, I believe George Orwell’s essay “The Monarchy” will provide a good example of how the modern NDP could appeal to traditionalist voters inherently wary of republicanism. Similarly, it is not my intention to condemn all communists in this essay; as David Lewis pointed out in his memoirs, leftist-infighting in Germany was one of the many factors that allowed Hitler to be able to come to power, and then to consolidate power. However, “nostalgia for the Soviet Union” is one of the many objections people tend to give (fairly or unfairly) in their opposition to the political left. “The Good Fight” provides good quotes on how to deal with these criticisms of “Soviet nostalgia” for the NDP specifically.

For those unaware of who George Orwell was, he was an English writer best known for his outspoken left-wing political writing, with his most famous novels being “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm”. Ideologically, Orwell was a staunch supporter of Democratic Socialism, a fierce critic of any kind of authoritarian or totalitarianism, along with having quite the strong “Tory” streak in him. At one point in his life, Orwell even called himself a “Tory Anarchist”.

On Page 143 of “Partisan Review 1944 Vol. 11 No. 2” Orwell states that while he doesn’t support the concept of monarchy in “an absolute sense”, he does view the institution of Constitutional Monarchy as having an “inoculating effect” in society against the dangers of fascism. He then writes:

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The function of the King in promoting stability and acting as a sort of keystone in a non-democratic society is, of course, obvious. But he also has, or can have, the function of acting as an escape-valve for dangerous emotions. A French journalist said to me once that the monarchy was one of the things that have saved Britain from Fascism. What he meant was that modern people can’t, apparently, get along without drums, flags and loyalty parades, and that it is better that they should tie their leader-worship onto some figure who has no real power. In a dictatorship the power and the glory belong to the same person. In England the real power belongs to unprepossessing men in bowler hats: the creature who rides in a gilded coach behind soldiers in steel breast-plates is really a waxwork. It is at any rate possible that while this division of function exists a Hitler or a Stalin cannot come to power. On the whole the European countries which have most successfully avoided Fascism have been constitutional monarchies. The conditions seemingly are that the Royal Family shall be long-established and taken for granted, shall understand its own position and shall not produce strong characters with political ambitions. These have been fulfilled in Britain, the Low Countries and Scandinavia, but not in, say, Spain or Rumania. If you point these facts out to the average left-winger he gets very angry, but only because he has not examined the nature of his own feelings towards Stalin.

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In the Canadian context, this speech by Sir John A. Macdonald prior to Confederation gives good insight into why Monarchists see the Crown as a unifying institution for the nation as a whole:

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No one can look into futurity and say what will be the destiny of this country. Changes come over nations and peoples in the course of ages. But so far as we can legislate we provide that for all time to come the sovereign of Great Britain shall be the sovereign of British North America. By adhering to the monarchical principle we avoid one defect inherent in the Constitution of the United States. By the election of the president by a majority and for a short period, he never is the sovereign and chief of the nation. He is never looked up to by the whole people as the head and front of the nation. He is at best but the successful leader of a party. This defect is all the greater on account of the practise of reelection. During his first term of office he is employed in taking steps to secure his own reelection, and for his party a continuance of power. We avoid this by adhering to the monarchical principle — the sovereign whom you respect and love. I believe that it is of the utmost importance to have that principle recognized so that we shall have a sovereign who is placed above the region of party — to whom all parties look up; who is not elevated by the action of one party nor depressed by the action of another; who is the common head and sovereign of all.

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Tying things back to George Orwell’s essay “The Monarchy”, I think it’s important to explore the line “ If you point these facts out to the average left-winger he gets very angry, but only because he has not examined the nature of his own feelings towards Stalin.” It should be important to note that Orwell’s philosophy was heavily influenced by his personal experience fighting the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Having volunteered to fight in the trenches with the Anarchists in Catalonia, he witnessed first hand the horrors of Soviet brutality even towards their supposed “comrades”. To someone like Orwell, a Communist and a Fascist are two different words for the same thing.

David Lewis, having been born in Poland under Tsarist rule, saw first hand the horrors that echoed the Russian Revolution, along with having to constantly deal with Canadian Communists echoing the Soviet line after he immigrated to Canada. I think these quotes from his memoirs “The Good Fight” sum up his opinions on Communists quite well:

On pages 106/107:

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What is also true is that communists worked hard and, in most cases, successfully, to capture and control Committees to Aid Spanish Democracy. I was myself a member of the Ottawa branch, and in many ways it was one of my most aggravating experiences, despite the worthiness of the cause. Just as the communists in Spain were accused of being more persistent in tracking down and liquidating Trotskyists than they were in fighting Franco’s Falangists, so in this country they wasted valuable time and energy in their fanatical search for Trotskyist “poison”. Working with Stalinists -- and it’s important to remember that all Communist Party leaders and members were Stalinists in the thirties, indeed until Stalin’s death in 1953 -- was always exasperating, for they invariably subjected every issue to the party dogma of the moment.

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On pages 150/151:

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I can record an incident which occurred on August 24, 1939, the day the world learned of the Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact, which gave Germany the green light to march into Poland. I happened to be in Toronto on that day and as I boarded a streetcar I noticed Steward Smith, one of the leaders of the Communist Party of Canada, sitting inside. I walked over to him and asked him to explain how it was possible for the Soviet government to sign a peace treaty with Nazi Germany, knowing the consequences. His answer is etched in my memory; he said, “Personally I don’t know, but we’re having a meeting on Sunday when Tim will explain it to us.” A grown man, holding a top position in his party, had to wait for Tim Buck to provide the answers, no doubt after communicating with the Communist International in Moscow, since Tim himself would not be in a position to explain anything without instructions from on high.

The shifts in the Communist Party stance toward the war against Hitler confirmed its subservience to Stalin and the Soviet aims. Thereafter, until the summer of 1941, the war was an imperialist adventure which had to be opposed. But on June 21 of that year, Hitler attacked the Soviet Union and the war was immediately transformed in to a holy crusade. When the workers of Britain, France, and Canada were in danger, the outcome of the war was immaterial to the communists, but the moment the Soviet Union was threatened, victory against Hitler became urgent for the future of the entire world.

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That’s not to say we should treat Marx or Engels as “the boogeyman” -- far from it. Even the traditionalist Canadian Tory philosopher John Farthing wrote a book called “Freedom Wears a Crown” where he tried to lay the philosophical groundwork for a “middle ground” between Capitalism and Marxism; he argued that the “middle ground” already existed, and it was the traditional British governing system of “King-in-Parliament” found in the Commonwealth realms.

But we should be cognizant of the current geopolitical realities of Russian interference in the internal politics of Western countries. Now that Russia is in a protracted ground war in Eastern Europe to reconquer Ukraine -- a nation which suffered for generations under Russian Tsarist & Soviet colonial rule -- we need to be acutely aware of the potential “death throes” from a slowly dying Empire. In the past, riling up students with Marxist rhetoric has worked for the chaos-agents in Moscow; we can’t forget that the current Tsar in the Kremlin used to be a KGB agent.

In his memoirs, David Lewis often spoke of having a mental “ideological toolbox” in terms of expressing his values. I think that’s a great concept in how to frame making connections “across the political aisle”. Despite having contempt for card carrying communists, one of Lewis’ prized possessions was a copy of The Communist Manifesto given to him by a WWII resistance fighter. Just like Lewis being able to “Speak Communist” helped him in organizing or defending the CCF in the Cold War, I think it would be a good skill for modern New Democrats to be able to “Speak Tory” if we want to be competitive in rural Canada again.

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“Red Tories” and the NDP Part IV: David Lewis’ views on supporting the Korean War and NATO, along with his dislike of “Marxist intolerance”

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This essay will be a little bit different from the other parts in this series, in that I won’t actually be quoting any proper Red Tories. Instead, I will be exclusively exploring the thoughts of David Lewis, mostly regarding the highly contentious CCF policy convention of 1950, and the aftermath. David Lewis’ memoirs “The Good Fight” provides a great perspective on the party’s reaction to the Korean War, both from the leadership and from the membership, during his discussion of the 1950 CCF policy convention. Lewis also provides great insight on how socialist infighting in-particular can be quite needlessly nasty, and is quite-often a hindrance in building a mass working class movement. At the end, I hope to be able to make a comparison with the “contentious” issues facing the NDP of 2025.

David Lewis certainly wasn’t a “Red Tory” in most meanings of the word; he wasn’t a monarchist, nor did he have any great love of Canada’s British traditions. Ideologically, Lewis was most influenced by his experiences with the Jewish Labour Bund in Poland, a reformist Marxist Jewish Parliamentary movement which sought to advocate for Jews in Polish society. As well as Bundism, Lewis was also deeply influenced by the Fabian socialist tradition during his time in both the CCF/NDP and the British Labour Party. Someone like David Lewis is a great example of a pragmatic socialist who cared deeply about dragging pre-existing institutions into the modern era if possible. While he loved both Marxist theory and Parliamentary Democracy, if he had to chose, Lewis would always chose Parliamentary Democracy over Marx. To someone like Lewis, “Social Democracy” and “Democratic Socialism” are the exact same thing.

Despite not being a “Red Tory”, one could argue Lewis was at least “Tory adjacent” due to his pragmatic acceptance of Canada’s constitutional realities, and by the fact that within the CCF he mostly associated himself with Christian Socialists such as J.S. Woodsworth, M.J. Coldwell, Tommy Douglas, Frank Scott, and Eugene Forsey (even after Forsey left the NDP). I think it would be fair to say a socialist like David Lewis has no problem with traditionalism, so long as that tradition doesn’t get in the way of real social progress.

Interestingly, Lewis actually had the old-school Tory Stephen Leacock as a professor at McGill University, and he had this warm recollection of Leacock on page 24 of his memoirs “The Good Fight”:

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Stephen Leacock was still teaching political science and economics at McGill in my day. I cannot honestly say that I learned anything of these subjects from him, except perhaps how to be engagingly irrelevant. He once told me not to write an essay on Edmund Burke which had been assigned to the class, because, he said with a Leacockian grin, his ulcers acted up at the thought of having to read it. Despite the fact that a socialist could not take his ideas seriously, particularly after the 1929 crash, knowing him and listening to his literate and original style of lecturing was an education in itself. There was a period in my political life when thinking kindly of him was difficult; in the early 1940s he was one of the sponsors of a vicious campaign against the CCF. But none the less I remember him with fondness.

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As the actions of CCF leader M.J. Coldwell at the 1950 convention will feature heavily in Lewis' recollection of events, I wanted to again include this excerpt of David Lewis describing the philosophy of Coldwell. From page 89:

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It is interesting to trace Coldwell's political development. As a young student in England he was what we would call today a "red Tory", but, as he explained to me, he was increasingly impressed by the arguments of socialists with whom he often debated. His traditional conservatism melted when he left his middle-class surroundings and confronted the abject poverty in some parts of England. He was a practicing Anglican, deeply influenced by Christian ethics, and, like Woodsworth, he began to question the ethics of capitalism in terms of his religious beliefs. When he settled in western Canada, he was spellbound by the courage and disciplined labours of the homesteaders and their families, felling trees, lugging rocks, clearing land, and mortgaging everything to build their quarter sections into efficient and impressive farms. He shared their worries about the future of farmers so deeply in debt to the banks, mortgage companies, and implement manufacturers. His Canadian experience moved him further away from his earlier acceptance of capitalist morality. It was characteristic of him to develop his socialist position by thoughtful steps rather than by a sudden leap. Thus he joined the Progressives first but could not accept the way in which most of their MPs slid into the more comfortable pews of the Liberal Party. Instead, he associated himself with the farmers and the urban workers. The Great Depression completed his education, and the unprecedented drought which ravaged his province in the same period sharpened his convictions.

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With all of that background, I thought it would be interesting to look at how the CCF viewed the first “proxy war” of the Cold War. I feel this is especially relevant to today, as the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War is increasingly showing the potential to spill over into nearby NATO countries.

After Lewis wrote about the efforts to update and moderate the Regina Manifesto by himself, M.J. Coldwell, and Frank Scott, Lewis writes on pages 382 to 384:

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The argument over the new statement was not the only heated exchange at the 1950 convention. The other concerned Korea. That country had been split into two when the big powers had divided parts of Europe and Asia into spheres of influence. North Korea, north of the thirty-eighth parallel, was to remain under Soviet control, and South Korea, under American. Russian forces were present in the north to “help defend” that young country against adventures from the south and American forces were stationed in the south to “help defend” that young country against the adventures of the north. Moscow and Washington had nothing but the interests of the Korean people at heart, or so the official statements would have the world believe. While Stalin had installed in North Korea his type of communist regime, the government of South Korea under President Park was an unsavoury, corrupt dictatorship of the right. In these situations, social democrats are always in difficulty. The instinctive inclination is to call down a plague on both houses, but in the real world this is often a cop-out rather than a policy.

In 1950 North Korea invaded the South. Taking advantage of the temporary absence of the Soviet Union from the Security Council of the United Nations, the Americans got through the Council a resolution condemning the North and authorizing a UN force to assist the South. In fact, the force was mainly American, with the addition of some small contingents from other countries, including Canada. The CCF National Executive and Council had supported the UN resolution and Canada’s participation; this policy was before the convention for ratification. Despite our misgivings, all of us on the Executive and most on the Council felt that the North Korean attack was indefensible, that it was part of the Soviet expansionist thrust which had imposed Stalinist regimes in every country of Eastern Europe except Yugoslavia, and that our support of the UN required us to get behind every UN action against aggression. We believed that our position was right in the same way as was our support for NATO; we had seen the consequences of isolationism in the thirties and were determined not to permit it to influence CCF policy again. The Council’s resolution was approved by a large majority, but the debate was bitter.

The opposition before the convention was particularly resentful of the fact that at a public meeting before the convention opened, Coldwell had not only declared the Council position to be CCF policy, but had done so vigorously and in tones which excluded the possibility that the convention might change that. The Vancouver press carried full reports of Coldwell’s speech the next day and, since Korea was prominently in the news, gave his remarks on that subject a great deal of space.

The so-called left wing was furious. Coldwell had failed to employ his usually unerring tactical sense and had opened himself to attack by not paying homage in his speech to the final authority of the delegates. The minority made the most of the opportunity; the contribution of the critics was particularly strident and unpleasant. I remember being especially merciless in my response to their attacks; they angered me so by their self-righteous cruelty towards a man in whom decency flowed naturally as blood. One of the characteristics of Marx and Lenin which I always found less than appealing was their tendency to denigrate those in the socialist movement who disagreed with them. I liked it no more when practised by CCF inheritors of Marxist intolerance.

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After detailing a scuffle between Angus MacInnis and Percy Wright for a particular seat on the CCF’s National Council, and reminiscing on good memories from the convention of 1950, Lewis then continues his story on the fallout of the joint “Regina Manifesto moderation attempt & supporting the Korean War” fiascos of the convention on pages 385 to 387:

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In British Columbia, and to a lesser extent in Ontario, the convention decisions on a new statement of principles and on Korea prompted attempts to fashion organized opposition within the party. The organization in Ontario was a genuine effort to express and to disseminate a deeply felt point of view, without disruption or recrimination. It called itself the Ginger Group -- obviously taken from the parliamentary predecessor of the CCF -- and proclaimed that it was “not a splinter group” and that its purpose was to “arouse members to greater activity”. But the new organization on the West Coast was an entirely different matter. Shortly after the convention a group of B.C. people, among them prominent CCF leaders like Colin Cameron, Gretchen Steeves, Wallis Lefeaux, and Rod Young, met and founded a group which later became the Socialist Fellowship, and which quickly took on the behaviour of a party within the party.

Indeed, the minutes of a left-wing conference held shortly after the national convention recorded the following:

”The question of whether or not this body was in favour of staying in the CCF or leaving was discussed, with Rod Young bringing a resolution to ‘disaffiliate from the CCF’, his principal reason being that it was impossible to put forward Marxian ideas within the Movement”

By March 1951 the president of the British Columbia CCF wrote, “We are faced with a critical situation regarding the Fellowship, inasmuch as it is now organized sabotage of CCF polices and leadership on a widespread scale”. In a lengthy report to the National Council, MacNeil stated that it “had created a situation which had almost paralyzed the efforts of the B.C. movement to continue organized work”. He informed us “that the SF collects it’s own dues, and according to its minutes, requires of its members a ‘higher loyalty’ than their loyalty to the CCF”. In his position as provincial president, he requested a ruling from the National Council. We unanimously adopted a resolution, parts of which read as follows:

”The CCF cannot tolerate within itself another political organization for which its constitution makes no provision and over which it has no control… the establishing of an organization such as the “Socialist Fellowship” is directly contrary to the democratic principles on which the CCF is founded, and can have no other result than to destroy the unity of our movement and paralyze our work. The National Council… expresses the hope that the organization in the province [B.C.] will deal with this matter promptly and effectively”

The committee appointed to draft the resolution was carefully chosen; it consisted of Stanley Knowles, William Irvine, and Fred Dowling. None of them had been prominently involved in the debates at the 1950 convention and all of them had a reputation of fairness. It is also noteworthy that Gretchen Steeves was a member of the Council at this meeting and voted for the resolution which called upon the B.C. party to deal “promptly and effectively” with the Fellowship, which she had originally joined. As so often happens, the more irresponsible people in the disruptive organization took control after the more responsible ones, like Steeves, Cameron, and Lefeaux, abandoned it as undesirable.

Within a few months the B.C. executive dissolved the Fellowship and the attempt by the dissidents to gain control was soundly defeated by the provincial convention later that year. In the meantime, for about a year, organizational and educational work was almost at a standstill; Executive and other meetings were bogged down in intrigue and recrimination. The so-called Fellowship had destroyed the spirit of fellowship so essential to a mass movement dependent on the devotion and activities of the volunteers.

I was reminded of the Socialist Fellowship in the British Columbia CCF by the unpleasant struggle of the NDP against the Waffle in the early seventies. People like my son Stephen, who had not before experienced the poisonous antagonism of internal strife on an organized scale, were outraged by the fratricidal animosities which deformed relationships and crippled the will to constructive thought and work during the Waffle period. For me, the consequences were not new or surprising, but they were none the less painful. It seems impossible to bring historic experience to bear on the attitude of honest and well-meaning socialists who disagree with the leadership on an important matter. Many of them are easy prey to the blandishments of the unscrupulous, or to the courting of the egoists who consider their own branch of socialism so superior that the decisions of the majority are the stuff of ridicule, because they agree with those of leadership -- a mindless reaction since the people concerned would not be among the leaders if they did not reflect in broad outline and general sentiment the wishes of the majority.

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From my own perspective, when I transcribed and re-read those sections where Lewis spoke of “Marxist intolerance”, my first thought was of that tweet by Leah Gazan where she made the accusation that Heather McPherson's “purity test” comment created “a justification for white supremacy”. The way I look at it, Gazan jumping down McPherson’s throat like that on a public forum over the use of one phrase -- without giving McPherson the chance to respond before making public allegations of white supremacy -- is a great example of hurtful left-wing infighting within the modern NDP.

I personally find it quite sad that while McPherson is making a genuine effort to grow the NDP beyond the current base, it appears Gazan wants to spend her time knit-picking the ideology of fellow NDP’ers on public forums. While not organized, is that not a perfect example of what Lewis described as “the poisonous antagonism of internal strife”? Why couldn’t Gazan have expressed her legitimate concerns about potentially downplaying social justice issues to McPherson in private? No good can come from an MP making public comments like that in a leadership race for such a small party. A party which non-members and members alike can agree has had a “branding issue” lately.

It is perfectly possible for the NDP to be a party that supports the all of the diverse and marginalized groups that Gazan mentioned in her tweet, along with also supporting those who already have more inherent privilege in society. I would argue that if the party doesn’t at least pay lip service to those who already have privilege in society, the party itself risks losing the privilege to be able to change government policy in the House of Commons. Once institutions like a political party die, it becomes impossible to recreate the traditions found within that institution; the traditions of the CCF/NDP are too valuable to let die over purity tests over how to "properly express" social progressiveness.

Degrowth is a movement that advocates that society move away from measuring success through endless growth and development and also the reduction of both mass production and consumption in an attempt to not just mitigate ecological crises but also human injustices.

I have found that advocates rang from anarchists, primitivists, and georgists to eco-socialists and marxists. I find it interesting when applied as a critique of our present systems.

A book I am reading right now is from a Japanese Marxist who wrote a manifesto on the subject. Fascinating to read if you are interested in exploring such ideas. It is called Slowdown.

While not an advocate for Degrowth myself, I believe that as a Tory there is some overlap insofar as we believe in a certain amount of fairness, distributionism, and environmental justice. They do offer a fair critique of green-washing and sustainable development. Degrowth is staunchly anti-capitalist as a school of thought, whereas I believe more in Social Enterprise and what we might call Green growth.

I'm curious about what people think of such a concept here.

After a long wait the Green Party has finally announced the two candidates who will be facing off against each other to replace Elizabeth May as party leader; Mike Morrice and Nira Dookeran.

So who are the candidates?

Mike Morrice: He is the former MP for Kitchen Centre, 3rd Green ever elected to Parliament and first ever Green MP elected in Ontario to Parliament. His background before entering politics was in Social Enterprise and Community Organization. He is the co-founder of Green Economy Canada and the founder of Sustainable Waterloo. He's educated in business and electronics. He was also up until recently the Deputy Leader of the GPC. From my cursory read of his campaign website and his reddit post history he is explicitly Progressive and would likely push the Greens further to the Left; abandoning the long-held "Above the political spectrum" ideology Green politics has tried to maintain since it's founding.

Nira Dookeran: She is heavily involved at the grassroots and electoral district level and has been for over 10 years for both the Federal and Ontario Green Parties. She is a Teacher by trade and her campaign from what I was able to read seems to be focused on decentralisation of decision-making (this is a real issue inside the GPC with central office vs edas), diffentiating the Green identity from the other parties, and the usual traditional "Doing things differently" approach that the Green Party has been known for. I cannot really find any policy as of yet. Notably, as of writing this entry Nira's website is not yet functional. We will know more about her later.

My thoughts:

This is going to be a Mike Morrice coronation leadership contest. He's the leader-in-waiting and has been speculated to have been planning to run for some time. Under his leadership, I can see the Green Party of Canada continuing to struggle to compete against and differentiate itself from the New Democratic Party of Canada. The fact that Mike is explicitly Progressive and his website contains rhetoric such as that both the Liberals and Conservatives are conservative parties and right-wing speaks to the direction he wishes to take too. Green politics isn't the emphasis persay, but rather Progressive Politics are. I do not know what the Greens could offer voters that are on the Left that the NDP does not already offer at a much more electorally viable and experienced way. The Greens do best when they are as much an option for environmentally conscious voters on the left and right. Abandoning the traditional position of being beyond the left-right spectrum will forever relegate them as a niche party. They do best electorally when they are an alternative for Progressive Conservatives, Liberals, and Social Democrats alike. Unfortunately, for a Red Tory or Green Tory there is no candidate available in this leadership for you. In the off chance that Nira's platform is a bit more traditional and Red Tory, she'll still likely get a small percentage of the vote. Why vote Green? That is going to be the question we're all going to want to know and so long as the party continues down the path of trying to ape the NDP, the answer will be...uh...?

Sorry for the delay! Summer had me all over the place. Here is this week's essay: No. 6. Happiness not local. Samuel Johnson's Essays

Here is last week's thread: Rambler Reading Group, Week 5: A meditation on the Spring. : r/Toryism

I recently realized that I never actually posted the first 5 parts of this essay series I'm working on to this subreddit in full. As it appears former NDP MP Charlie Angus recently publicly rebuked current NDP leader Avi Lewis' rhetoric against Canadian rearmament, I thought this would be a good time to finally share "Who are the 'Red Tories' of today's NDP?" and "The Anti-Fascism of Charlie Angus" here. Next Sunday I'll post a compilation of parts II & III for the good people here, and then go from there.

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• "Red Tories" and the NDP Part I: "Red Tories" were part of the CCF's founding, and "Red Tories" helped build the NDP -- Who are the "Red Tories" of today's NDP? [October 2025]

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I’m one of those people who’s been a card carrying NDP’er my whole life, even though my overall philosophy has as much to do with old school English Tories such as Benjamin Disraeli & Lord Ashley as it does with Canadian Socialists like J.S. Woodsworth & Tommy Douglas. The “Red” in “Red Tory” is supposed to refer to socialism, after all.

For those unaware of this tradition, “Tory” in this context doesn’t mean the right-wing liberal policies of the modern Conservative Party. Instead, “Tory” refers to the philosophy that emphasizes the commonalities between all individuals in society and emphasizes that the needs of the individual must be balanced with the needs of society as a whole. An inherently conservative philosophy, “Toryism” is also a class-conscience philosophy that seeks to push traditional institutions into helping the poor, the discriminated against, and the the unprivileged. “Tories” recognize the privileges they do have in life and use that privilege to fight for those without privilege.

Toryism as a philosophy has its origins in the Anglo-Catholic/Anglican theology of Richard Hooker, and grew out of the rejection of the Cromwellian republicanism that accompanied the collapse of the rule of law during the English Civil War. Similarly to its origins in the English Civil War in England, Toryism made its way to Canada in the aftermath of the American Revolution when the United Empire Loyalists were expelled to Nova Scotia and Quebec. The “Red” part of Toryism first became a concept in 1966 when the political scientist Gad Horowitz wrote a paper called “Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism in Canada: An Interpretation”, in which he argued that the Conservative philosopher George Grant’s world view was so intertwined with traditional British conservatism and Canadian socialism that it would be impossible to separate one from the other.

I’ve found these quotes from over the years that help explain this Tory tradition in Canadian socialism:

Roy Romanow (NDP Premier of Saskatchewan 1991-2001) in the foreword to “Eugene Forsey: Canada’s Maverick Sage” by Helen Forsey (2012):

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From a conservative background, Forsey became one of the founders of social democracy in Canada and a proponent of social reforms, joining the League for Social Reconstruction. This apparent tension also reflects his Newfoundland beginnings.

Many of the values and principles of that place concerning constitutions, government, and public policy reflected those that prevailed in England at the time. The ethos of England was still shaped by the competing views of Disraeli and Gladstone. The latter reflected classic liberalism, faith in the unseen hand of markets, and letting enterprise dictate public policy. Disraeli, on the other hand, urged an alliance between the landed aristocracy and the working class against the increasing power of the merchants and the new industrialists. He promoted the view that landed interests should use their power and privilege to protect the poor from exploitation by the market.

Conditions in Canada were very different from those in England, but Atlantic Tories still had a strong sense that it was the duty of the powerful to protect the poor from exploitation. Eugene Forsey was raised in this environment. The idea of acting for the benefit of the dispossessed has continued to prevail, extending its influences to much of Canada through his voice and the voices of Maritimers such as Robert Stanfield, Allan Blakeney, and Dalton Camp.

Clearly, Eugene Forsey was shaped by these currents of opinion, and continued to uphold them. He became a strong believer in British parliamentary government and its capacity to develop responses to human need and social deprivation. He rejected the idea that the economics of the market should be granted a free hand in determining public policy or limiting the scope of public government.

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Allen Mills (who has a Ph.D. in Canadian socialism) describing the political philosophy of CCF’er & historian Kenneth McNaught in the introduction to the 2001 reprint of “A Prophet in Politics: A Biography of J.S. Woodsworth” by Kenneth McNaught pg. xiii (1959/2001):

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McNaught saw [Woodsworth] mainly as the embodiment of British traditions present in Canada from the late eighteenth century on: precedent, custom, moderation, and parliamentarianism. McNaught always had a tory strain in his outlook, along with his vaunted socialism. Perhaps he was the proverbial red tory. In The Pelican History of Canada (Toronto, 1969), he reserved his highest praise for Sir John A. Macdonald and his strongest condemnation for the Liberals, especially W.L. Mackenzie King. Woodsworth was to him a sort of radical version of the great nineteenth-century Conservative prime minister. The hidden tory in McNaught suggests that Donald Creighton’s influence helped shape his intellectual development as well.

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Ed Broadbent (Leader of the federal NDP 1975-1989) from “The Red Tory Tradition” pg. 1 by Ron Dart (1999):

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There is, for conservatives of tradition, the importance of continuity and community and nation, of a sense of values based on a shared common past. According to this view, other values, like those of the market economy, are seen to be subordinate to the primacy of the historical common good of all society. This view has been the kind of conservatism invoked by Disraeli in the 19th century when he made a critique of the ravages of industrialism. It was the conservatism of Sir John A. Macdonald who used government power to build a separate Canadian economy because he had a different vision of the future of this part of North America from what existed to the south of us. It is the conservatism that at one time supported the CBC and Air Canada. It was the conservatism of John Diefenbaker who brought in a national hospitalization program in this country because he knew if left to individual action in the market-place we would never have had such a plan.

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David Lewis (Leader of the federal NDP 1971-1975) describing the early political philosophy of M.J. Coldwell (Leader of the federal CCF 1942-1960) in his political memoirs “The Good Fight” pg. 89 (1981):

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It is interesting to trace Coldwell’s political development. As a young student in England he was what we would call today a “red Tory”, but, as he explained to me, he was increasingly impressed by the arguments of socialists with whom he often debated. His traditional conservatism melted when he left his middle-class surroundings and confronted the abject poverty in some parts of England. He was a practicing Anglican, deeply influenced by Christian ethics, and, like Woodsworth, he began to question the ethics of capitalism in terms of his religious beliefs. When he settled in western Canada, he was spellbound by the courage and disciplined labours of the homesteaders and their families, felling trees, lugging rocks, clearing land, and mortgaging everything to build their quarter sections into efficient and impressive farms. He shared their worries about the future of farmers so deeply in debt to the banks, mortgage companies, and implement manufacturers. His Canadian experience moved him further away from his earlier acceptance of capitalist morality. It was characteristic of him to develop his socialist position by thoughtful steps rather than by a sudden leap. Thus he joined the Progressives first but could not accept the way in which most of their MPs slid into the more comfortable pews of the Liberal Party. Instead, he associated himself with the farmers and the urban workers. The Great Depression completed his education, and the unprecedented drought which ravaged his province in the same period sharpened his convictions.

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Ed Broadbent in his first House of Commons speech, Sep. 1968; republished in “The Jacobin”, Jan. 2024:

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Having indicated substantial agreement with the prime minister on the nature of the welfare state I want now to proceed to suggest why we New Democrats, unlike the prime minister and the Liberal Party, cannot accept it as being an adequate kind of society. Perhaps the major objection to the welfare state is that for all its advantages, it rests on a grossly inadequate understanding of democracy. In Canada today, children are taught in schools throughout the land that our country is democratic primarily because there is more than one political party and because citizens have both the right to criticize and the right to change their rulers every few years.

This view of democracy, Mr. Speaker, is a distinctly modern phenomenon, and is in marked contrast with the understanding of democracy of both the early Greeks and nineteenth-century Europeans. Prior to our century democracy was seen by its defenders and critics alike as a kind of society in which all adults played an active, participatory role not only in the formal institutions of government but also in all the institutions which crucially affected their daily lives. Similarly, a democratic society had been seen previously as one in which all its members had an equal opportunity to develop their capacities and talents; it was not seen as one in which citizens had an equal opportunity to earn more money or advance up the class ladder.

It is this old view of democracy that we must once again take up. We must use its standards and apply them to Canadian society. We must once again talk about equality. We must see justice and equality as going together.

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Eugene Forsey in a letter to his good friend Arthur Meighen in 1951 from “Eugene Forsey: Canada’s Maverick Sage” pg, 390 by Helen Forsey (2012):

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My tragedy, if that’s not too strong a word, is that I’m too radical to be a good Conservative and too conservative to be a good radical. I am also too academic to be a good trade unionist, and too good a trade unionist to be a good academic man; too partisan to be independent, and too independent to be a good party man.

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With all of that context, the only “high profile” NDP-associated person I can personally think of who might fit this description would be Charlie Angus, although I’m sure he wouldn’t personally identify as a Red Tory. One thing that stood out to me was a post he made on his Resistance Facebook Page shortly after Donald Trump threatened Canadian sovereignty. On March 4th of 2025 he posted a picture of a Canadian Merchant Marine sailor with this caption:

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While America was conceding Europe to the Nazis, 17 and 18-year-old Canadians were keeping the Atlantic free and fighting in spitfires. Their spirit is with us now.

This isn’t a trade war. It is an attempt to wear us down and see if we will break from one another. Trump can insult and try to provoke, but he has no clue who he is messing with.

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Not many NDP’ers would invoke that period in time when Canada and the British Empire stood alone against Nazi Tyranny; that period in time when not only Britons stood alone against the Nazis, but millions of collective Canadian, Australian, Indian, and African volunteers stood alone against Nazi Tyranny. I personally think that shared WWII experience of our grandparents fighting WWII alone while the world watched makes the modern Commonwealth of Nations a great institution for Canada to develop ties with developing nations in Africa and Asia.

So other than perhaps Charlie Angus, which other modern NDP’ers could be said to be associated with Red Toryism, if even tangentially?

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• Addendum to Part I: The Anti-Fascism of Charlie Angus [April 2026]

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To further explore the potential "Tory touch" in the thinking of Charlie Angus, I thought these excerpts would be interesting to explore.

Around the time that the ICE protests in Minneapolis were starting to heat up, Charlie Angus posted a picture of two Canadians scrambling to their Spitfires during the Battle of Britain on January 4th with this caption:

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This photo is Canadians fighting the Nazis in the Battle of Britain. We were a poor country of 11 million people. We built the 4th largest air force and navy in the world.

Our young people fought everywhere from the defence of Hong Kong to the sea lanes in the North Atlantic, from Sicily, Italy, Normandy to the air war over the Ruhr. When the Brits were being evacuated at Dunkirk Canadians were already in place defending her shores. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Message to fascists and tyrants: FAFO

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The next day on January 5th, Angus posted a picture of his uncle in a Bren Gun Carrier with this caption:

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My uncle Albert MacNeil - certified ANTIFA. Fought the fascists in Sicily, broke the Hitler line in Italy and helped the liberation of the Netherlands.

Many of my uncles served but died very young from the trauma. Albert was a Cape Breton miner. He told young recruits their most valuable weapon was a shovel. Dig deep and find safe ground or you won't last.

A practical man.

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After the ICE murder of Renée Good on January 7th, but the day before the ICE murder of Alex Pretti on January 24th, Angus posted this picture on January 23rd which had no caption, but was simply a picture of armed Nazi thugs rounding up terrified Jews, presumably to their deaths. The comparison of ICE thugs to Gestapo thugs is not a far leap in logic to make; even King George VI privately made such remarks about the enforcers of Apartheid South Africa being no better than the Gestapo.

As Toryism itself is an inherently monarchical way of thinking, I would like to concede that Charlie Angus is indeed an ideological republican; but surely there must have been some ideological Parliamentarians who fought for King Charles I against Cromwell's tyranny for pragmatic reasons if nothing else. Mr. Angus' family did indeed fight for King & Country against Nazism and Fascism in their own time.

One thing to consider about Angus’ socialism is that it is strongly influenced by his Catholic-social-justice beliefs which were strong enough to drive him to run a soup kitchen/shelter for the homeless of Toronto -- while the social gospel was a Protestant movement, the Tory tradition through Richard Hooker can be described as both Protestant and Catholic at the same time. As far as his ideology goes, it would certainly be hard to describe Angus' socialism as being "doctrinaire": one recent example from March of 2026 is this piece he wrote on a local hero from the Spanish Civil War -- Niilo Makela -- who was born in Finland and immigrated to Timmins, Ontario, before dying holding the line against the Fascists in Spain. This excerpt from Angus is quite interesting to consider:

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Most of the Canadians were assigned to the Lincoln Battalion, which was made up of volunteers from the United States. Many of the international volunteers had come for ideological reasons. Many were young communists. A number had come out of the universities.

But the Canadians were different. They were dock workers. Farmhands. Miners like Makela. They knew how to use a gun.

The commissars noted that the Canadians made "poor communists." The Canadians didn’t go to Spain to argue ideology. They weren’t good at discipline and following rules. They went to fight and kill fascists. And they were good at it. Very good.

They soon gained a reputation as the "fighting Canucks." And they wanted to form a distinctly Canadian unit. On Dominion (Canada) Day 1937, the Mackenzie-Papineau brigade (named after the founders of the 1838 rebellion) was officially formed."

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One key tenant of Toryism is the rejection of doctrinaire ideology in favour of pragmatic current-day methods to solving problems -- while still strongly holding true to your guiding beliefs. While still socialistic and republican in nature, I dare say there is at least a "tory touch" in how Angus described the Canadian volunteers who sailed to Spain to save Spanish Democracy.

Equally relevant I think is Charlie Angus' support for Ukraine in the Russo-Ukraine War, and in this earlier piece from February of 2025 where he compares the defence realities of Ukraine to Russia vis-a-vis Canada to the United States. This part in particular could be described as mostly Tory I think:

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If Ukraine falls, western European democracy falls.

The Europeans are scrambling. They thought they could count on the United States. They now know otherwise.

And Canadians now have a very dangerous, anti-democratic gangster regime on our border. And nobody is coming to save us.

Trump continues to taunt us and belittle our nation in the same way that Putin ridiculed Ukraine prior to the invasion.

Canadians are like Ukrainians in many ways. When pushed to the wall, we have spines of steel. When forced to choose between Vimy or Vichy, I know where ordinary Canadians will be.

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For a while now G. K. Chesterton has been listed on the sidebar as a notable thinker. The entire list needs a bit of work but lets start with Chesterton.

He was a liberal. In fact he famously called himself 'the last liberal'. His main intellectual counterpart was a Liberal MP. I've found no one that calls him a tory. His inclusion stems from his thoughts on tradition which are useful;

• “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

• “The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.”

• “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

• “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.”

Now, there is a possibility he was a tory in thought and he simply never used the term (completely possible). Its also possible that like Bagehot he has attained the status of 'every tory's favourite liberal'.

So what are people's thoughts? Under an objective standard would he be considered a tory (even if he objected to the description in life) or is he like Bagehot - a thinker who is useful for understanding toryism but not a tory himself?