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Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Chris MacKenzie, Pro-Family Politics and Fringe Parties in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press 2005)

IN PRO-FAMILY Politics and Fringe Parties in Canada, Chris MacKenzie draws on the experiences of the Family Coalition Party of British Columbia to explore the tensions created by the adoption of a political party form for the pursuit of social movement objectives. Although the book does consider some of the ideological dimensions of the "pro-family" movement, its primary focus is a more abstract consideration of the role of minor parties within Canada's system of responsible government.

The book has three objectives: to recount the history of the Family Coalition Party of British Columbia; to trace the ideological roots and beliefs of the pro-family movement; and to understand the Family Coalition Party's dual character as a party/movement. (8–9) The analysis mobilizes theoretical contributions from Inglehart's "post-materialist" values perspective, theorizations of new social movements derived from the resource mobilization school, as well as radical democracy and political process models and mainstream analyses of Canadian political parties.

MacKenzie's argument is multi-faceted. At his most abstract, Mackenzie asserts that the existence of minor parties with post-materialist values at their core (values such as the environment, feminism, identity, the traditional family, the non-traditional family, etc.) indicates the failure of Canada's major parties to incorporate the growing array of voter concerns within their platforms and the inadequacy of Canada's system of political representation. Drawing more directly from the experiences of the Family Coalition Party, he further argues that the adoption of a political party form as a means to advance the objectives of a social movement necessarily creates tensions in the objectives and tactics of the organization. While a party must concern itself with gaining office, thus requiring a winnable platform, the ideals of the social movement are more ideologically pure, narrow, and necessarily antithetical to the aggregation of interests. Most concretely, Mac-Kenzie asserts that the Family Coalition Party of British Columbia was doomed to languish in the political wilderness because its specific analysis of social reality (with its post-materialist, 'lifestyle' focus) was unpersuasive to sufficient numbers of voters, and voters operating within the context of a first past the post electoral system are unwilling to waste their ballots on protest parties. Nonetheless, the Family Coalition Party (and minor parties generally) offer "hope for democratic representation and participation in Canada." (198) That is, despite the fact that the major parties can no longer incorporate the range of Canadian interests, thus indicating the weakness of Canada's electoral system, the existence of minor parties suggests that Canadians still believe that the political process does offer an opportunity to advance alternatives to current governing practices.

Perhaps the greatest strength of Mac-Kenzie's analysis is the even-handedness with which he treats the members of the Family Coalition Party of British Columbia. While observing their lack of political expertise and experience, he also notes the passionate commitment of the handful of people at the core of the party. MacKenzie's capacity to reserve judgement on the policies of the pro-family movement, and the Family Coalition party more specifically, is enabled by his focus on the party/movement relationship. It is not the particularities or the implications of the pro-family movement that are under investigation in this study, but rather the obstacles and opportunities that arise for a social movement that chooses to adopt a party form in order to influence the political process. As other analyses of social movements have demonstrated, much of Canada's democratic vibrancy is the product of a small group of passionate and committed individuals, labouring with few resources but with a (mostly) unwavering commitment to a set of principles. MacKenzie's study provides further evidence of this observation.

For readers who are interested in political parties and in British Columbia politics, MacKenzie's book should prove a stimulating read. Since the rise of the Family Coalition Party was intimately associated with the demise of the British Columbia Social Credit Party, MacKenzie's analysis provides important insights into a profound alteration of British Columbia's political landscape. His discussion of the politics surrounding the transition from Premier Vander Zalm's leadership to that of Grace McCarthy provides an instructive demonstration of the impact a small party can have in shifting the political tide. MacKenzie observes that McCarthy's declaration of the Social Credit Party as pro-choice immediately led to the formation of the Pro-Family Coalition around a strong pro-life position. In a subsequent by-election, the Pro-Family Coalition ran a candidate against McCarthy. As McCarthy only lost the by-election by 70 votes and the Pro-Family Coalition garnered 275 votes, McCarthy's defeat, and ultimately the demise of Social Credit, was counted as a victory by the Family Coalition Party. Still, the capacity of the Family Coalition Party to garner electoral support was extremely limited. At its height, it only acquired 2.3 per cent of the popular vote. (65) But again, MacKenzie finds cause for optimism. By agreeing to subsume the FCP under the banner of the Unity Party (a coalition of right-wing parties formed in 2000) while holding the new coalition to a pro-life stance, MacKenzie argues that the Family Coalition Party was able to accommodate the competing demands of the organization's split party/movement personality and, potentially to find a broader constituency to support its political program.

The greatest portion of MacKenzie's analysis however is given over to rehearsals of the various theoretical texts with which he is engaged. If these are theories with which one is sympathetic, their elaboration in the context of the Family Coalition Party will undoubtedly prove illuminating. For this reader, however, the insistence on using the lens of post-materialist values to explain the context and shortcomings of the Family Coalition Party was singularly unpersuasive. MacKenzie asserts that the politics of the pro-family movement, whether in its American or Canadian variant, is primarily concerned with issues of lifestyle rather than basic issues of economic well-being and survival. This claim is asserted rather than proven and I would argue that it is unsustainable. Anxiety surrounding the future of the family is strongly linked to the collapse of the family wage system and to increasing economic tensions within families. Certainly pro-family advocates often insist that greed, feminist-inspired demands for women's autonomy, and rampant consumerism are to blame for this crisis, but even these explanations invoke materialist causes. Moreover, if the pro-family movement was to succeed in placing its policies on the political agenda, the results would undoubtedly have materialist consequences. How else would we describe a policy that would provide financial incentives for women to abandon paid work in the service of their children, wilfully embracing a state of economic dependency in the process? And given that most families rely on two incomes in order to sustain them, the assumption of a second job and the abandonment of all leisure for dad would certainly have material consequences for men, their families, and society generally. So, rather than explaining the lack of support for the Pro-Family movement as a result of the fact that Canadians reject these particular post-materialist values, or prefer to vote for parties that concern themselves with economic issues (note the contradiction — are we materialist or post-materialist?), it would make more sense to argue that the solutions offered by the Pro-Family Coalition to this particular set of social and economic circumstances are not viewed as credible.

Another concern I have with this analysis is the claim that this book is a study of pro-family politics in Canada. The primary location for the research is British Columbia, with some general discussion of Canadian parliamentary traditions and neoconservatism in Ontario. Alberta, a province that even has a statutory holiday in honour of the family, gets very little attention. But the most notable omission is the lack of any discussion of the province of Quebec. The fact that much of the legislation and social practices against which the pro-family movement is reacting have their origins in Quebec (the home of Henry Morgentaler, the province most proud of its progressive rights regimes surrounding same-sex couples, the highest rate of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock pregnancies in Canada) surely merits some consideration.

In the context of the terms it sets for itself, MacKenzie's study of pro-family politics has considerable merits. People with an interest in political parties, social movements, and British Columbia politics will be especially satisfied.


Lois Harder University of Alberta

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