What the American Right Can Learn from Canada's

As Canadian conservatives have moved toward inclusion and policy seriousness, American conservatives are following a very different path.

Five years of Conservative government in Ottawa. It's a great achievement, and not Stephen Harper's achievement alone. It's an achievement for which thousands of active Conservatives across Canada share credit.

A decade ago, Canadian Conservatives were bitterly divided: by region, by ideology and -- frankly -- often by personal animosity.

In the federal elections of 2000, the Canadian Alliance party under Stockwell Day and the Progressive Conservatives under Joe Clark together won 37% of the vote, underperforming the two parties' previous combined total and delivering a third consecutive majority for Jean Chretien.

The vote in 2000 painfully disappointed all Canadian conservatives, especially those of us who admire Stockwell Day, a gallant and principled man defeated by inhospitable political geography. Yet that disappointment also inspired a new burst of creativity and cooperation.

Across the country, Canadian conservatives collectively decided that they must put aside old quarrels. It was inspiring to see. Since 1993, the logic of Reform-Conservative co-operation had been obvious to almost all party leaders, Preston Manning very much included. Between 1993 and 2000, however, disagreements among party members--and the stubborn resistance of PC leader Joe Clark -- precluded effective co-ordination.

In 1996, Ezra Levant and I organized with help from many others, including Kory Teneycke, a national conference in Calgary to try to settle differences.

The experience delivered a powerful lesson: What needs to happen will happen, but on its own timetable. The conditions may have been ready, but the mood was not. Ripeness is all, as the poet said.

Over the next half-decade, more and more conservatives came to see that what divided them was less important than what united them. As Canada achieved budget balance, they realized it was crucial that the emerging surplus be used to reduce taxes rather than to increase spending. In international affairs, Canada's unreliability as an ally offended them. Costly boondoggles like the Shawinigan canoe museum and the long-gun registry goaded them.

Constituency by constituency, you could observe a conviction gathering force across the country: We must put behind us obsolete animosities and learn to see the people who most agree with us as our natural partners.

This benign evolution of feeling among conservatives was very personal, often very individual -- and for that reason, all the more real. The leadership of Stephen Harper, the self-abnegation of Peter MacKay and Stockwell Day, the tireless work of party organizers all contributed. Nothing would have been possible, however, without that first prior commitment by the members and supporters out of whom political parties are built. They were generous, they were patient, they were pragmatic. They understood where to compromise and where to hold firm on principle.

And the results are visible around us: two consecutive Conservative governments, likely a third soon to follow, founded on a secure-if-still-not-quite-large-enough voting coalition.

Those governments have delivered economic success for all Canadians: For the first time since the 1970s, Canada has been hit less hard by an economic crisis than the United States.

Viewing this history from my vantage point in Washington is especially poignant. As Canadian conservatives have moved toward inclusion, coalition-widening, policy seriousness--and thereby to political success for themselves and economic security for the Canadian people -- American conservatives are following a very different path. Can't American conservatives learn from the long wilderness sojourns -- and more recent triumphs -- of conservatives in Britain and Canada? Can't they be mindful of the advice of Warren Buffett: "It's good to learn from experience, but it's better to learn from other people's experience"?

There are times when it gloomily feels that the answer is no. There are times when the work ahead in the United States seems too overwhelming, and one's own ability to make a positive difference too puny. Then I think back to that Calgary conference and I remember: What looks like failure is sometimes only success that has not happened yet.

Originally published in the National Post.