More John A. and a little less Charest: Why conservatives should reclaim the Red Tory banner

If the phrase Red Tory comes up in a word association game, Canadian political junkies will likely feel the same neurons lighting up their brains.

Joe Clark. Jean Charest. Maybe Peter MacKay. An Albertan might look to recent history and conjure up Clark’s disciple, the former Premier Alison Redford.

Charest’s recent flirtation with a run for the leadership of the Conservative party was itself proof that a Red Tory has become “a catch-all phrase for those Progressive Conservatives who call themselves social liberals, but fiscal conservatives,” as Maclean’s magazine described the term in 1997.