By Lloyd Mackey

LAST WEEK, I spoke of the National Post's Holy Post blog. I referred to the possibility that one of my columns might 'make the cut' for posting on the blog.

As it turned out, it did not get posted. And the fact that it did not has given me some points of reference for getting something on in the future.

Meanwhile, the contents of what I had proposed will become the remainder of this week's OttawaWatch. I would enjoy feedback, either directly to my email, listed at the bottom; or in the comments section of OttawaWatch, as it appears on canadianchristianity.com. So, here goes . . .

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Just over one year ago, former British Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith was the keynote speaker at a conference staged in Ottawa by the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada (IMFC).

Little did his audience suspect that the speaker was someone who would play a role in Britain's new centre-right coalition government.

Duncan Smith told his Canadian audience about the Centre for Social Justice, which he had developed after leaving the Tory leadership, as a means to marry the social concerns often raised by left-leaners to conservative-style policies.

The centre was working within the framework that British Conservatives had developed, laying emphasis on the effectiveness of a 'big society' over that of the left's traditional weighting toward a 'big state.'

As an Ottawa-based journalist mainly covering the interaction between religion and politics, I was intrigued by two factors relating to Duncan Smith's appearance in Ottawa.

The first was that IMFC is essentially a faith-based think tank, established with considerable help and very light supervision from Focus on the Family, a socially conservative advocacy group.

The second was that Duncan Smith laid heavy emphasis on the involvement of non-profit groups, including those with faith motivation, in the quest for effective social action and justice not dependent on heavy state involvement. He noted that faith-based groups have the expertise, competence and motivation necessary to deal effectively with poverty and human rights issues.

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In Canada, since 2006, the Conservative minority has worked in fits and starts. That it has lasted for approaching five years is a tribute to periodic roughshod collaboration between the Conservatives and one, two or three of the opposition parties at a time. The most recent example was the passage of the massive omnibus budget bill on July 12 by the Senate.

If present polling trend lines continue, an election within the next year may again produce a Conservative minority.

I would submit that the British situation could model a solid centre-right post-election Canadian coalition, based on the simple principle that 'big society' is better than 'big state.'

That principle was the basis on which Duncan Smith's social justice spadework was done. And it is important to note that the success of the 'big society' concept, as enunciated through the Centre for Social Justice, is that non-profit, non-state activity includes the significant involvement of faith-motivated groups.

Centrists -- like the Lib Dems, and, in our country, the blue Liberals -- are especially attracted to policies that recognize social justice issues identified by the left. But -- and this is the clincher -- such centrists would avoid 'big state' heavy-control policies.

It is to be hoped that both Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff, in their separate conversations -- respectively, with David Cameron and his Lib Dem deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg -- have been able to individually divine the benefits of preparing for the eventuality of a centre right coalition. And they should get their researchers to follow up by checking out Duncan Smith's social justice work, and find out how its faith-based aspect helped pave the way for significant parts of the Conservative/Lib Dem working agreement.

One last note: When it comes to the faith side of the faith-political interface, the leaders themselves need not be flaming apostles. Interestingly, on the faith continuum, the British and Canadian centre-right leaders are quite similar.

Cameron and Harper are both 'cerebral' Christians with well-developed curiosity for the way faith and politics interplay. Ignatieff and Clegg, for their parts, are more in the skeptic mode, nevertheless holding authentic people of faith and their values in considerable respect.

* * * Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

July 14/2010