John G. Diefenbaker former Prime Minister of Canada - On Being Conservative

The Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker
former Prime Minister of Canada

Excerpts from
One Canada – Memoirs of the RH John G. Diefenbaker [1962-67]

From the Foreword by John A. Monro

On being a conservative

“The Right Honourable John Diefenbaker, like Britain's former Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Arthur Balfour, is a conservative because he is “absolutely certain that no community in this world has ever flourished, or could ever flourish, if it was faithless to its own past.” - p. xi

On perpetuating the democratic principles, values, practices, methods, processes and institutions...

“Mr. Diefenbaker, throughout his three volumes, shows concern with what Canadians have built, and how further to build upon this. Indeed his second volume ends with [Edmund] Burke's admonition that 'it is with infinite caution that any man [sic] ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice, which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society.' ” - p. xi

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Fellow Canadians,

Mr. Harper has called himself a 'conservative'. I take exception to that because as a conservative myself I see him destroying the legacies, institutions and proven methods of Canadian democracy.

He's offended by and opposes The Senate, the Parliament and our parliamentary legislative processes, the Supreme Court of Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

He's also offended by and opposed to Canadian values of peace, goodwill, tolerance, inclusiveness and by so much of what we understand to be Canada and Canadian. Mr. Harper hates what I love - Canada and Canadians. This is not 'conservativism'.

Rather this is the opposite of conservatism and is called 'neo-conservatism'. It is in no way related to the traditional political philosophy of Edmund Burke, George Washington, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, John A. MacDonald, John G. Diefenbaker, Sir Winston Churchill, Joe Clark, and others.

This is a kind of betrayal of Canadian conservatism and a misappropriation of a well established political brand name. I intend to strip him of that name and claim it for myself and for The Liberal Party of Canada.

Peace begins with you.

Happy New Year!
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