The dismissal of Mark Steyn by the National Post is not good news for the right in Canada, as it is yet another, and maybe a final, installment in the destruction of what once was a good center-right newspaper that provided much needed counterweight to the left-of-center Canadian newspapers such as the Globe and Mail. The National Post was founded by Conrad Black, now Lord Black, who renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001 and sold the National Post to the Asper family who are solid supporters of the governing, left-leaning Liberal government under Jean Chretien. The Mark Steyn episode brought back the memory of Lord Black and I remember a speech he had given at the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based conservative think tank in 2001. If you want to have an understanding of the decline of Canada as an economic force this is mandatory reading. Interestingly the speech contained some comments on the slide of the Canadian dollar that I discussed earlier today. Here’s what Lord Black had to say about it:

From the Diefenbaker regime on, Canada has generally accorded higher social benefits to virtually all categories of employees than did the United States. Our productivity levels steadily lagged those of the U.S., the wage and security components of our industrial cost structure were higher than the American and the result was that in the last 45 years Canadians maintained their ability to export to the United States, upon which 87% of Canada's foreign trade and 43% of its Gross National Product now depend, by reducing the comparative value of the Canadian dollar by over 40%. Thus Canada's standard of living, compared to that of the United States, factoring in tax reductions and productivity increases in the U.S., has declined by almost 40%.

Black set out to give a platform for his views in the press by founding the National Post:

Then, and particularly with the founding of the National Post in 1998, we set out to achieve commercial success while drastically raising the quality of the country's written press. We would offer the country an alternative to the soft-left path on what had become, with the fragmentation of the old federal Progressive Conservative Party, a one-party federal state.

and

I am proud to say that we shattered that oppressive little world in the Toronto media, which had resisted the publication or airing of any views not in lock-step conformity with the official version of Canada as a humane paradise superior in all respects except size to its neighbour.

When I arrived in Canada four years ago I quickly realized that although the Globe and Mail is a great newspaper, it lacks the objectivity to criticize the state of affairs in Canada. The National Post was a welcome diversion from what Black calls the lock-step conformity propagated by the majority of Canadian media. Dark clouds set upon the sky when Black sold the newspaper in 2001 and many were alarmed when a few weeks ago some drastic changes were made to the Post's editorial board. With Mark Steyn’s exit we can start writing our obituaries for the National Post. The demise of the newspaper and Steyn’s exit have even hit US headlines. It is another nail in the coffin of the Canadian right and that is a very sad conclusion. More than ever, Canadians will have to look south for alternative news sources. But then, they can always turn to the blogosphere.