Robin Skies: Conservative purity testing is a race to the bottom

In Canada, the conservative movement is mired in a crippling problem: the destructive, on-again, off-again habit of purity testing, whether ideological or otherwise.

The phenomenon is hardly new in politics. There have always been people who see politics as a vehicle for asserting tribal status rather than pursuing civic service. That impulse is now beginning to animate parts of the Conservative Party’s base to a damaging degree.

“Secret Liberal” is a term thrown around more often than I care to count, used as an insult against those who are not part of this or that club within the party and the broader movement. Whatever the club, its members insist that they are the only true, ideologically pure Conservatives and the only arbiters of the change needed to get Canada back on track toward a better future.

These same supposedly ideologically pure Conservatives justify their civil wars against internal rivals by cooking up grand conspiracies that are somehow always aimed at them in their beleaguered struggle.

If any of this sounds familiar, it is probably because this resembles the ideologically captured language that has historically animated leftist revolutionary movements since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto.

Normally, this would not be concerning, as all political movements struggle at times to overcome their most self-immolating instincts. Unfortunately for the Conservative Party of Canada, federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has decided to dabble in the world of purity testing himself.

During an appearance at the Calgary Stampede, Poilievre congratulated his friend and former colleague Kerry-Lynne Findlay, saying she was “fresh off a big win against Liberal lobbyists from out east.”

This, of course, is a reference to her narrow victory over Caroline Elliott in the recent B.C. Conservative Party leadership race.

In part, Poilievre was likely referring to Caroline Elliott’s campaign manager, Kory Teneycke, a political rival who has criticized him. Herein lies the problem: by purity testing his political rivals, Poilievre made the Conservative tent a little smaller.

He did so not only by casting suspicion on a senior Ontario Progressive Conservative campaign operative, but also by attacking, whether intentionally or not, Caroline Elliott and her supporters, including several of his own former staff members.

Among Poilievre’s former staff involved with Elliott’s campaign were Katy Merrifield, who had served as his director of communications, and Anthony Koch, who was his national campaign spokesperson during the 2022 leadership race. Elliott’s team also included Jeff Ballingall, the founder of Canada Proud.

To top it all off, he did all of this while legitimizing the worst instincts of the Conservative base.

None of this will help the movement push its ideas forward, nor will it help the Conservative Party of Canada form government.

Ultimately, purity testing does nothing but push people out of the movement and into the arms of opponents who are willing to invite them in.

At its core, purity testing is irrational, because nobody is truly pure in their beliefs or perfectly consistent in their identity; people are inherently complex and often contradictory.

Moreover, “conservatism” in Canada is not exactly well-defined. To be a “true conservative” means very little without more context. This is why the movement in Canada has broadly been about building coalitions around shared principles.

These shared principles include support for free-market economics, respect for social conservatism, free speech, smaller government, nationalism and more.

The Conservative Party exists because the old Reformers in the West and the Progressive Conservatives of the East understood that, to take on the Liberal machine, they needed to put their differences aside and work together.

When the leader of the official opposition decides to take petty potshots at political rivals who are also important pillars within the big blue tent, he risks unraveling the entire movement.

The Conservative movement gains nothing by constantly purity testing everyone it perceives as an enemy.

Why? Because, while we keep scrutinizing members of our own camp and searching for flaws in their ideological positions, Mark Carney keeps inviting MPs, influencers, organizers and members of the general public into his coalition.

We must not abandon our principles. On the contrary, we should redouble our commitment to what we believe in, but we should do it in a way that keeps people in the tent instead of shoving them out.

It is normal to be critical of a person’s leadership when warranted; that calls for open debate and the challenging of ideas. However, for the love of all that is holy, people who disagree only marginally within the movement cannot keep smearing each other as covert “Liberals.”

This is toxic not only because it is dismissive at a basic level and meant to shut down an opponent, but also because it suggests that many people no longer know what the word “liberal” means.

How many stories have you heard from people who joined the movement because their left-leaning friends pushed them out of social circles? In 2016, that dynamic became a major political trend during one of the first peaks of “wokeness,” and today some people inside or adjacent to the Conservative Party are driven by the same spirit.

Purity testing is a death spiral for political movements. If we’re not careful, we will be hearing stories about how people did not leave the right; the right left them.

National Post