If I were a member of the Conservative Party of Canada (I belong to no party, federal or provincial), I would vote for Maxime Bernier for leader later this month.

The man calls himself “an Albertan from Quebec.” What’s not to like about that?

More specifically, Bernier is a libertarian. He believes in “more decentralized federalism, a smaller government less involved in Canadians' day-to-day lives, as well as more personal freedoms.”

For instance, take Bernier’s pledge to leave even more decisions up to provincial governments on issues such as health care innovation and educational choice.

According to Canada’s constitution, health, education and welfare are exclusively provincial jurisdictions. The feds should have no say.

However, for the 30 years until Stephen Harper came along in 2006, the prevailing attitude in Ottawa was that the Fathers of Confederation had made a mistake. In 1867, they should really have given the federal government final say about how health care is delivered, who sets school curriculum and how much welfare should be paid out and to whom.

Successive federal administrations, both Liberal and Conservative, used what is called the “federal spending power” to get their way on matters of provincial authority. If provinces wanted to keep receiving the billions Ottawa ships their way every year to pay for social programs, they would have to bring their policies in line with federal demands.

Federal spending power is another way of saying policy blackmail.

Lots of “progressives” were, therefore, aghast when Harper stopped trying to impose federal policy on far-flung provincial capitals. How could he not see the wisdom of using billions of tax dollars to impose their will on every government in the country?

If anything, Bernier would decentralize even more than Harper.

But one huge benefit of Harper’s (and Bernier’s) approach is that it has given Canada a decade of constitutional peace. Throughout the spending-power period, intergovernmental relations were testy more often the not.

Decentralization has helped blunt Quebec nationalism and calmed Western alienation.

Bernier, who served in several cabinet posts in the Harper government, would also choke off growth in government by reducing taxes – money being the lifeblood of government expansion.

He is also in favour of ending corporate welfare to companies such as Bombardier, reducing barriers to competition and phasing out supply managed agriculture so consumers have more choice and lower prices.

He wants to reduce or eliminate equalization payments to have-not provinces, stop the federal carbon “price” before it is implemented and privatize such federal operations as Canada Post and major airports.

He also believes in balanced budgets.

On top of all that, I believe the MP from the Quebec constituency of Beauce, a middle-class riding south of Quebec City, is the most electable of all the candidates in the race to replace Stephen Harper.

He is an engaging speaker who is one of the few Conservatives in the country who can take on Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – not just two elections from now, but in the next vote in 2019.

And he has a very solid record as a libertarian on social issues. The Liberals and NDP, plus their hangers-on in the media, will try to tag him with the “hidden agenda” label on hot-button topics such as abortion and same-sex marriage. However, as a libertarian, Bernier has a very live-and-let-live attitude about moral questions. He would not, for instance, prevent same-sex marriage, but neither would he compel churches that see it as a sin to perform same-sex ceremonies.

Since I think Canadians are more fiscally conservative than the Liberals and more socially liberal than the Conservatives, Bernier is the right blend.