WILLIAM F. Buckley, Jr., sometimes dubbed the "patron saint of conservatism," died last week.
In 1995, he gave an interview to Michael Cromartie, then senior fellow and director of the Evangelical Studies Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Christianity Today repeated the interview online this week.
Buckley is best known as the founder of the conservative weekly National Review. And, as Cromartie points out, he was lesser known as a devout and articulate Christian. In this particular interview, he provides some excellent advice to thoughtful Christians who want to articulate their faith in a politically of philosophically conservative setting.
* * *
I came across the Buckley interview while trying to distil the workshop on deep-seated conflict that I attended at St. Paul University two weeks ago.
Without going into any eye-glazing-over detail -- all of which will come out in carefully-apportioned and easy-to-read quantities in due course -- I will just say that I am trying to ponder the implications of mimetic desire, scapegoating and demonization in the understanding and resolving of conflict.
* * *
I was doing all this pondering when, suddenly, the news broke about a soon-to-be-released book. The book, Like a Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story, says that, in late spring of 2005, the then-dying MP from Surrey North was allegedly offered an insurance policy in exchange for casting a deciding vote to defeat the then Liberal government of Paul Martin.
The book is authored by Tom Zytaruk, an experienced reporter from the Surrey Now newspaper and, as it happens, a graduate of Trinity Western University.
Cadman always made the point that, while he was not religious, if he and Dona had a place of worship, it was Johnston Heights Church, on the edge of his working class riding. And Johnston Heights has the same affiliation at Trinity -- the Evangelical Free Church of Canada.
The reason for the Johnston Heights-Cadman connection is Dan Nicholson, the Cadmans' former neighbour, who pastored the church for 20 years before moving to South Abbotsford Church, a Mennonite Brethren mega-congregation.
Nicholson reached out to the Cadmans when their son, Jesse, was shot at a bus stop as a bystander in a gang-related incident. It was their grief that eventually got Cadman into politics, as a Reform MP, to fight for ways to control gang-related crime.
When Chuck died, Nicholson preached his funeral, before 1,500 people, including then prime minister, Paul Martin and then opposition leader, Stephen Harper.
Two things are worth keeping in mind about this issue.
One is that, at the time when Cadman was dying, there was a deep cleavage between the Conservatives and the independent group that supported him when he lost the Conservative nomination for re-election in 2004.
The other is that, after his death, reconciliation occurred and his widow, Dona, is now the Conservative candidate in Surrey North.
There are some interesting dots to connect in this issue, some of which have ethical, political, religious and cultural implications. We lived in the Surrey North riding for seven years in the '90s. Cadman was our MP for part of that time and continued to be after we moved to Ottawa, in effect, because we still have a little condo in the riding.
* * *
The latest development in the issue is that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised to sue the three key people on the Liberal front bench -- Stephane Dion, Michael Ignatieff and Ralph Goodale -- if they do not have some headlines removed from Liberal.ca, which accuse Harper of knowing about a "bribe" offered to a dying Chuck Cadman in the spring of 2005. The alleged reason, according to the website stories accompanying the headlines, was to influence Cadman's vote in a way that would bring down the Paul Martin Liberal government.
Today, I would like to try connecting the dots with respect to the ethical, political, religious and cultural implications of this story. And I do so because I have had a bit of a ringside seat on the Cadman story, but am just far enough outside the loop to be able, hopefully, to maintain some empathetic objectivity.
Let's start with the cultural/religious implications.
Some of Cadman's difficulties started when a large number of people from a particular cultural/ethno group took virtual control of the Surrey North riding association in the run-up to the Conservative nomination for the 2004 election. Some of that influence came from the riding immediately to the south, Newton-North Delta, then held by Conservative Gurmant Grewal. The members of this group -- who, let's not pussyfoot, were of Indo-Canadian extraction -- were good people all, but, like some of their evangelical Christian counterparts, believed that dominance of a particular cultural/religious group trumps all in politics.
Their mistake was in recognizing that winning a nomination did not mean winning a riding. Chuck Cadman had a lot of cachet and integrity. He went on to win the 2004 election, based, correctly, on his intuition that he had broad-based community support.
It was fairly evident that the Conservatives had a long row to hoe, in winning back Cadman, his family and his supporters.
This brings us to the ethics question.
From where I sit, the idea of a "bribe" is a crock. And here is why.
The Conservatives were well aware that they had an ethical responsibility to Cadman for the choices that their Surrey North riding association made in causing the break-up of an integrity-based and successful political team.
I submit that no offer designed to change Cadman's vote was made. Knowing both men who were identified as those who met with Cadman shortly before the vote, I would suggest that they knew exactly what they could or could not do legally to try to get Cadman back on side.
But the more difficult and delicate task -- which in fact had no legal implications -- was to continue to build the relationship between Cadman and the Tories. And it would appear that whatever happened in that meeting, it apparently "pissed off" Cadman and failed to advance the cause of eventually getting him back into the Tory fold.
But the Conservatives did not give up.
They offered a good but relatively young candidate and kept in touch with Chuck's widow, Dona, with respect to rebuilding the relationship. The candidate was Dave Matta, a Trinity Western psychology grad described by some insiders as an "Egyptian evangelical" -- with both ethnic and moderate social conservative appeal.
But it is generally conceded around Tory circles, that they were not totally unhappy about Dona's good friend, former provincial NDP cabinet minister Penny Priddy, winning the riding in 2006, and Matta running a distant second, ahead of the Liberals.
What about the political implications?
It was fairly well known in the riding that the Liberals wanted Surrey North. Then prime minister Paul Martin turned up in a well-publicized appearance at Chuck Cadman's funeral, at the Johnston Heights Evangelical Free Church, in July 2005.
And, as it turns out, the same Paul Martin wrote the foreword in Zytaruk's new book. The book is not due for release until this Thursday, so I have no way, at this point, to know if Martin tries to use the book to advance the Liberal cause.
And keep in mind that the approach to politics coming out of both the Liberal and Conservative parties in Newton-North Delta is relevant to an understanding of the role of ethnic and community-based political action.
* * *
I would like to wrap this piece with a comment on Harper's quote in Zytaruk's book, taped on the driveway to Dona Cadman's home, when he visited her after Chuck's death.
Two points are worth noting in juxtaposition.
Firstly, Harper asked if his quote was for publication. Zytaruk replied that it would be a quote for the book, not for the Surrey newspaper for which he worked as a reporter. That meant Harper was willing to trust the journalist that the quote would not appear in print when there was still a conciliation process taking place between the Tories and Cadman supporters.
Then Harper said, among other things, that the two representatives did discuss "financial considerations", details of which he was not conversant.
And, at the absolute core of this issue, in my modest view, was this Harper quote:
Chuck had made up his mind he was going to vote with the Liberals. I knew why, and I respected the decision.
Why is this at the core of the issue?
I draw on the fact that Cadman spoke to a number of individuals, off the record, including Mike Duffy of CTV's Mike Duffy Live, of his intention to vote Liberal so that they would stay in power and he could, hopefully, still be in office when he died. If that scenario unfolded -- which it did -- Cadman's widow would receive about $250,000 more of pension-related insurance than if the government had been defeated and he was no longer an MP, at the time of his death.
Duffy only made that quote public a few days ago, honouring, when it was essential, the words of a dying man.
And then there is Dona Cadman's latest statement, when she says she put the issue behind her a few years ago, as an "overzealous indiscretion" of a couple of Tory operatives.
She noted that she believed -- and still believes -- Harper, when he says he knew nothing of what he is alleged to have known. She says Harper looked her straight in the eye, and she knew from that that he was telling the truth.
Harper, simply speaking, stated his respect for Cadman, for both his decision to vote with the Liberals and the reason behind it. Further, the now prime minister was clear, when he asked Zytaruk about publication, that he was intent on not making this an issue immediately before and after Cadman's death. That leaves me with the sense that it was right for the party to work through the reconciliation process with the Cadmans.
Further, I believe Cadman's integrity is intact, because he was quite blunt, off the record, as to why he was voting for the Liberals. It was to see than Dona was properly taken care of, through a sensible consideration of a legitimately-obtained pension insurance benefit.
Thanks for bearing with me on this. I hope that it is helpful to the process of Christian leaders understanding the ethical, cultural, religious and political implications of the body politic a little better.
* * *
Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and the author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
March 5/2008
