historical toryism is something that probably needs to be explained to americans, because it itself will not make sense to american conservatives. that probably has to do with it's founder's role (edmund burke) in the american revolution, which was a confusing mess that got him despised by everybody. but, it's based on this idea of class harmony through obedience to authority. everybody in their right place, and everybody knowing their right place and everybody respecting everybody else's place. god and country and king. over time, this morphed into what americans would more readily identify as nanny-state socialism; first bismarck and then churchill advocated massive government-controlled social systems. in canada, the conservatives' primary defining policy position for the first half of the twentieth century was it's opposition to free trade, in support of the british cartel system (the "crony capitalist" mercantilist system). in the 60s, the canadian tories actually supported single payer health care when it was introduced and wrote the bill of rights that became the core of our very, very liberal constitution in the early 80s. in the 70s, they campaigned on "wage and price controls" that were state restrictions on inflation - total market interference at the most fundamental level. and, they even supported marijuana decriminalization. they were against markets, in favour of individual freedom and yet maintained a mild level of social conservatism regarding the role of tradition and religion.
the social credit movement is something a little different. it was based on some weird economic ideas that were a kind of watered down marxism and argued that what marx called surplus value should be collected by the state in taxes and redistributed to the population as a dividend. not very conservative in american terms, but not that weird in the context of a society where the right is british toryism. but, when the movement got off the ground in western canada, it quickly became a right-wing christian movement and the economic side of it was mostly forgotten. the guy that built this movement was nicknamed "bible bill". that should give you a good idea of what social credit was all about. social credit never came close to forming a government in canada, and never existed in any coalition, but it sometimes elected enough mps to be the third largest party. it could often get over 20% of the vote.
by a fluke of history, social credit got it's one shot at being important in 1979. the liberals won the popular vote, but the conservatives won more seats in the house of commons. it was, however, not enough to govern - it was a handful of seats short. a conservative-ndp or conservative-liberal coalition was out of the question. that meant that the conservatives' only chance of forming a government was to enter into a coalition with social credit, and the conservative leader of the time refused to do so - for good reasons. social credit was also associated strongly with anti-semitism. whatever the consequences, it is hard to criticize joe clark for rejecting them as a coalition partner. instead, he decided to try and govern as though he had a majority. this did not last long, because he did not have a majority, and his attacks on social credit alienated them.
but, this decision killed social credit. their right-wing base began to understand that, by voting social credit, they were electing liberals. at the same time, the thatcher revolution began to have some effect on the tories; they began to adopt some neo-liberal economic positions, although it was never to the scope of the tories in britain or the republicans in the united states. partly on the back of traditional social credit voters, the conservatives won a large majority in 1984 and a smaller one in 1988.
but, those social credit voters were turned off by the tories at almost the same time as they entered office. remember: the tories were not a socially conservative party, and social credit was. by the 1988 election, they had recreated themselves under a new party called "reform" (led by the son of a former social credit leader) that dropped the difficult associations that social credit had and attempted to position itself as a socially conservative, neo-liberal alternative to the socially liberal and only tentatively neo-liberal tories. stephen harper is a creature of this socred/reform movement, rather than a creature of the old tories. and, you can see this in his policies.
the conservatives were destroyed in 1993; they went from a majority in parliament to two seats. yes. two seats. that was it. the reform party won a large number of seats in the western part of the country. this was largely the consequence of western voters feeling that the tories were too liberal. but, the result of that, for many years, was that eastern voters refused to vote for the reform party because they were too conservative. it's a real cultural issue that splits the country less in half and more into rural and urban components. from 1993 to 2003, canada had two conservative parties - the old tories (who were only competitive in the east, and never won more than 20 seats) and the new reform/socred party (who dominated the west of the country).
realizing that they'd never win an election like this, the tories and reform party merged in 2003. at the time, stephen harper was the leader of the socially conservative reform faction, which was seen by most of the country as taking over the right - much to the chagrin of old tories.
but, where harper stood was always sort of a mystery. it really was. the liberals ran ads talking of a "hidden agenda", and they worked because nobody really knew where this guy stood. when he first started off, he was kind of a right-libertarian like ron paul. not exactly. he held some neo-conservative foreign policy views. but he was running a party that was primarily built around the anti-abortion vote, and that probably won power primarily on reaction to the gay marriage ruling. it was never clear if he was going to fold to that pressure or try and hold it off long enough to move his party back into the old tory space. it turns out that he's done neither - he's swung the party towards the republicans in the united states.
which is not to compare him to rick santorum. but, he is clearly not the reform/socred social conservative that people feared - he has ruled out any action on marriage equality, abortion, the death penalty and all the other things that, in truth, continue to drive his voter base. although if you look at his tax policies, they look a little like dividends. he's got a tax credit for anything you could imagine. he mails out billions of dollars in checks every year in subsidies, for everything from child care to volunteering at kiwanis. nor is he the old protectionist, liberal tory. he's tough on crime, even if it's largely a mirage. he's staunchly neo-liberal in economic persuasion.
but, he's very aligned with the american neo-cons on foreign policy. he basically rejects climate change, and, really, a lot of science. he has no attachment to truth; he's very rovian, in that way. he's brought in patriot act type legislation. and, while he hasn't gutted the social services, he's taken steps to slowly claw them back. he wants to starve the beast in increments, not cut the cord immediately. it's lulled a lot of people into a sense of false complacency. it's meant to.
what he's been trying to do is redefine this kind of republicanism-lite as the new canadian right by holding everybody in place and slowly easing people into it. from a distance, it may seem moderate. but, this is a big change from what the canadian right once was. and, it's still not clear whether he's succeeded in this task, or merely set himself up for a crash. the conservatives, as they exist, will forever be teetering on the brink of collapse back into old tory and socred factions. and, in the meantime, the liberals seem to have done a relatively good job in pulling socially liberal tories out and cementing them into their own base. if he loses power, his entire plan is likely done as the stack of cards falls apart.
so, putting him to the left of hillary clinton is pretty wrong. they're not far apart on foreign policy, but she's to his left on pretty much everything else. he's more like a new york republican: a tad right of giuliani. or a slightly less bellicose trump.
putting him a tad to the right of giuliani sounds moderate.
but the previous conservative prime minister, brian mulroney, was somewhere in the spectrum that's more comparable to tony blair.
and, the one before that (john diefenbaker) was truly broadly comparable to bernie sanders.