Political Inheritance

What, it seems reason-able to ask, is really conservative about the present incarnation of the Conservatives? Given their near-religious commitment to laissez-faire economics, their fondness for massively expensive military projects and their Thatcher-esque sense that publicly sponsored collective action is indefensibly coercive, shouldn’t they find another name? Aren’t they really, in essence, right-wing liberals?

I realize this is something of a caricature. Nevertheless, it gives some sense of the degree to which terms like “liberal” and “conservative” have become desperately confused in recent years. The simultaneous appearance of two very different books on Quebec history brings this to the fore. Jean-Marc Piotte and Jean-Pierre Couture’s Les Nouveaux Visages du nationalisme conservateur au Québec is a fairly short counter-attack against a group of Quebec historians and sociologists who have been publishing work that is sharply critical of the legacy of...