Years ago, i had the opportunity to sit down with a senior member of the Mexican diplomatic corps and was very surprised by what he said about politics in Canada. Our meeting was on the eve of the 2000 federal election, and it was painfully apparent that the Liberals, led by Jean Chrétien, would mop the floor with the then new Alliance Party, led by Stockwell Day.

The diplomat was worried that Canada was following his country in shifting to a virtual one-party democracy – something I found very odd, coming from a lifelong member of the PRI, Mexico’s “natural” governing political party. That year was also the first year that Mexico was governed by a non-member of the PRI in 71 years.

PRI stands for Institutional Revolutionary Party, a rather arrogant oxymoron of a title. But “Canada’s natural governing party,” as Liberals describe themselves, might sound arrogant to Mexicans.

The diplomat, who owed his career to the PRI, explained that Mexicans did not consciously choose a one-party democracy. But they have allowed one to happen and, he added, the PRI would soon be back after some time on the Opposition bench.

Canada, he said, had many similarities with Mexico, including an abundance of political parties – with just three of any consequence – as well as a party that has dominated most of the 150 years since Confederation because it has mastered the art of plurality, as the PRI has.

Today, the PRI is running Mexico again and the Liberals have resumed running Canada. And, in both countries, the others are looking like natural opposition parties.

The state of Canada’s Conservative party reminds me of the diplomat’s warning.

The unity brought by the 2003 merger of the Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties is gone. Without the domineering leadership of Stephen Harper, the present-day Conservatives are back to being feuding factions.

Most of the leadership candidates are nihilistic, cafeteria-style conservatives, picking and choosing whatever policies and sound bites they think will gain media attention.

Consider that just before Christmas, the federal Department of Finance released a report that warns that Canada may not see a balanced budget until 2050. This should be red meat to any Conservative.

So, what does Conservative MP Andrew Scheer, a party leadership candidate, go after the Liberals for when business resumes after the holidays? The Trudeau family vacation in the Caribbean. Meantime, leadership rival Kellie Leach was busy talking about making immigrants pay for the “values testing” she wants to impose on them.

As things turned out, both these issues were good for a spot in the news cycle. But neither had anything to do with what the Conservatives should stand for.

Instead of jockeying for a quick hit, Conservative leadership candidates should be laying out a manifesto for the future.

But, unless the leadership race suddenly changes, the Conservatives might as well concede the 2019 election to the Liberals because the Conservatives’ brand and policies will be unclear to voters.

This is a party that has lost its soul, as most Conservative parties have in the industrialized world. This is probably because the conservative movement has lost its momentum, just as it had before 1960 when Barry Goldwater published his book, Conscience of a Conservative.

Goldwater may be remembered as the hawkish presidential candidate responsible for the 1964 rout of the Republicans. But he also is remembered as an architect of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential election, which led to a new conservative agenda, including small government and low taxes – an agenda that was influential around the world for 30 years.

In Canada, the late Dalton Camp did much to articulate a conservative agenda out of the ashes of the Diefenbaker era, which helped set the stage for the nine productive years of Brian Mulroney.

Preston Manning gave conservatism back to ordinary people. But that vision was diluted beyond recognition by a government whose principal focus became staying in power. Even the Liberals should care what happens to the rival party. A good Opposition with aspirational goals is just as important to a healthy democracy as good government. One-party democracies are not healthy. Ask Mexico.

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