How Did It Come to This?

If you are a Canadian conservative, these are good times to be in federal politics. Stephen Harper’s Tories have been in power for six years and three elections, and are now well into the second year of their long-coveted majority government. The Bloc Québécois has been obliterated, thanks to a 101-seat NDP opposition that draws over half its base from Quebec. The NDP’s ascent also decimated the Liberals, Canada’s erstwhile Natural Governing Party, which has been reduced to 35 seats and third-party status, and is looking for its fourth leader in nine years.

For Canadian “progressives,” the loose term that encapsulates anyone who is not a conservative these days, life is not that much fun. The last decade has seen the gradual erosion not only of their power position, but of their dominance in the realm of ideas. The centrist Liberals are grasping for a raison d’être, squeezed by a...