F.H. Buckley: Canadian conservatives should stop looking to the United States for right-wing inspira

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/06/05/f-h-buckley-canadian-conservatives-should-stop-looking-to-the-united-states-for-right-wing-inspiration/



Like many Canadian conservatives, F.H. Buckley grew up in awe of the United States. Now he argues that it’s American conservatives who should be in awe of us

F.H. Buckley: Canadian conservatives should stop looking to the United States for right-wing inspiration
F.H. Buckley, National Post | June 5, 2014 12:01 AM ET

When I was young, Canadian conservatives had John Diefenbaker and Robert Stanfield. But when we looked south, we saw Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley. It wasn’t much of a contest.

Canadians saw their American cousins as more worldly, more thoughtful, more free. By comparison, Canadian traditions seemed more parochial, less reasoned, less free. Canadians envied American sophistication, learning and liberty, even their pathologies. If only we had had their legacy of slavery, then we too might have had a proper civil-rights revolution. If only we had fought in Vietnam, then we might also have had a proper anti-war movement.

Canada’s protests were derivative of America’s, and Canada’s anti-American Left was never more American than when it aped their causes. Canadian political activists lived in the shadowlands, in the images cast up by the more authentic and exciting political life to the south.

And yet, now that I have spent several decades living and learning on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, I can attest that there is a distinctly Canadian conservatism, different from the American brand and superior to it as well.