Stories

So-cons and libertarians: The odd couple?

Joseph Quesnel
May 20, 2011
C2C Journal's Joseph Quesnel interviews Danielle Smith on the social conservative v. libertarian divide in the conservative movement.
Stories

So-cons and libertarians: The odd couple?

Joseph Quesnel
May 20, 2011
C2C Journal's Joseph Quesnel interviews Danielle Smith on the social conservative v. libertarian divide in the conservative movement.
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter

C2C Journal’s Joseph Quesnel interviews Danielle Smith on the social conservative v. libertarian divide in the conservative movement.

Love C2C Journal? Here's how you can help us grow.

More for you

Sign on the Dotted Line: How B.C.’s Latest Indigenous Outrage Threatens Freedom of Contract Across Canada

As if the mayhem created by the 2025 Cowichan decision regarding property rights wasn’t enough, the B.C. court system has now declared its readiness to undermine legal contracts as well. As Peter Best reveals, a January 2026 decision to allow a contentious Indigenous lawsuit to proceed threatens to upend centuries of contract law. At issue is a small B.C. First Nation’s claim it has an aboriginal title right to export propane on an industrial scale, one that should overrule a signed, legal contract between the port of Prince Rupert and a billion-dollar energy project that itself is providing major aboriginal benefits. Acceding to such an outrageous demand, Best warns, will plunge relations between natives and the rest of Canada further into chaos and mistrust.

The Other Right to Choose: Reversing the Trudeau Immigration Fiasco

Canada’s immigration system was once the envy of the world. Based on the notion that those who get into the country are those who determine its future, the system chose people best able to contribute. Then the Trudeau Liberals blew it up, opening the gates to just about anyone – including literal terrorists – wreaking economic havoc and breaking Canadians’ faith in the value of citizenship. John Weissenberger, who served as chief of staff to the federal immigration minister in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, has watched it happen with growing dismay, and argues for a return to sanity – centred on the sensible “points” system that served Canada so well for decades.

Suffer the Little Children: The Liberals’ $10-a-Day Childcare Disaster

Waiting lists stretching years. Plummeting quality. Outraged parents. Providers slowly strangled by red tape. The federal Liberals’ vaunted $10-a-day childcare program has proved an expensive disaster. Five years in, Matthew Lau digs into the many problems and inequities this landmark social policy has delivered. Lau finds B.C., which had a three-year head start on the rest of the country and an enthusiastic NDP government leading the way, in the worst straits of all. With an irretrievably flawed system clearly failing Canadian families, Lau argues that Prime Minister Mark Carney should pivot to a fairer, cheaper and more effective alternative.

More from this author

Re-Thinking Aboriginal Policy

Mass murder in La Loche, mass suicide in Attawapiskat, mass unemployment, dependency, and hopelessness in aboriginal communities from coast to coast to coast. This is the legacy of Canadian aboriginal policy, most of which was authored by Liberal governments. It’s time for a new approach, writes Joseph Quesnel, a philosophically conservative approach that respects First Nations culture and diversity, supports local political and economic autonomy, and moves slowly and incrementally towards a new and better relationship between Canadians and Indigenous peoples.

Canadian mystery novel provides truth about Aboriginal life

Novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote that the truth can be found in fiction. This is evident in Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul, a 2011 novel by Canadian writer David Adams Richards. While ostensibly a murder mystery involving a New Brunswick First Nations reserve, Incidents uncovers truth about human nature and our preference for easy answers. Joseph Quesnel reviews this novel and also discusses how it elucidates Native-newcomer misunderstandings.