Pro-Family Politics and Fringe Parties in Canada

Elaine Porter is an associate professor of sociology at Laurentian
University.

When is neo-conservatism not just to be viewed as a refusal to accept
social change but to be considered a resurgent social movement with a
positive moral agenda of its own? Simply stated, it is when the author
of this book seeks to legitimize the efforts of a Christian Right
neo-conservative political party (the Family Coalition Party) to forward
its objectives. MacKenzie argues that the traditional nuclear family is
the core value that connects this party to traditional conservative
traditions with links to right-to-life causes, but that the party has no
necessary connection to the fiscal conservatism of the New Right
movement holding such sway in America. Why has the religious right in
Canada not emerged as a power force, as it has south of the border? The
author singles out the social democratic traditions in Canada as the
reason.

The first chapter is based on extensive qualitative research on the
rise and fall of the Family Coalition Party in British Columbia between
1991 and 2000. It is full of minutiae about this party’s formation in
mostly kitchen-table politics (the movement). The author then moves on
to treat the ideological, organizational, and political aspects. The
second chapter seeks to disentangle moral and economic conservatism,
with an emphasis on the moral. The rest of the book is the positioning
of the pro-family activists as part of a social quality-of-life movement
to gain political support on a par with the challenges that face
environmental activists and the Green Party or the CCF–NDP
relationship. His thesis is that the core moral values tend to work
against the compromises required for expanding the base of political
support in any movement.

MacKenzie’s largely sympathetic portrayal of the party activists has
not overlooked some of the ironies of their perception that they are
fighting against a new status quo redesigned by social movements on the
left while the latter are still fighting the status quo ante. The author
is counting on divergent perspectives within the pro-family movement and
on social democratic traditions within Canada to keep the diehard
believers from gaining political power.