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An ongoing series about conservatism in Canada. Today’s author: Sean Speer.

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As the Conservative party’s leadership race gets started in earnest, there’s already plenty of commentary about how the party needs to eschew pesky social conservatives and their backwards-looking traditionalism if it wishes to win elections in modern Canada.

It’s not just unsolicited advice from the CBC or the Toronto Star either. Various conservatives are making a similar case. Social conservatism has come to be characterized as a “stinking albatross” around the party’s neck.

Big, if true, as the saying goes. But is it?

The short answer is no. A strategy of addition by subtraction for the Conservative party is flawed as a matter of political calculus and as a matter of substance.

A strategy of addition by subtraction for the Conservative party is flawed

Start with the underlying politics. The utilitarian calculus here is that the Conservative voters who are drawn to the party because of social conservatism are outnumbered by prospective Conservative voters who are turned off for the same reason. Swapping one for the other would thus boost the party’s overall electoral prospects. It sounds like a good trade, right?