It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Reform party members gather in Vancouver the week after next for “Assembly 96,” they will be a battered, defensive bunch looking inward rather than an exuberant, happy band of political warriors itching for a fight they feel they cannot lose against the Liberals.
The nation will be watching to see if they can put their recent crisis of confidence, image and leadership behind them.
They will be under scrutiny as puzzled voters wonder what Reform stands for, and if they will remain standing.
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Every policy pronouncement will be examined for traces of “extremism.”
The halls of the Vancouver convention centre will be scoured for signs of conflict between hard-liners and those who pass as moderates in Reform.
The recent party turmoil has turned the public spotlight from the foibles and failures of the governing Liberals to questions of whether Reform can survive as anything more than a regional, right-wing political rump – a 1990s version of the Social Credit party in which debt reduction has replaced “funny money” as the mantra.
This is not the way the June convention planners expected it would happen.
When planning started, they imagined it as a key triumphant event in the march toward the next election campaign.
The party would show the nation a modern, united, fiscally conservative, socially moderate face that would be appealing to the millions of Ontario voters the party needs if it is to make gains when ballots are next cast.
It would be a contrast, they imagined, to a Liberal government tarred with the controversial decisions of three years of governing and faltering in its Quebec strategy.
It would be a chance to show the nation, through adoption of policies and a strong performance by leader Preston Manning, that Reform is more than a protest flash-in-the-pan. It is the government-in-waiting that parliamentary government needs.
The story of how the plans came off the rails is well known.
Intemperate comments by some MPs during debate on homosexual rights led to splits in the party and an eventual intervention by Manning that made him seem both dictatorial and weak at the same time – a remarkable political feat.
Meanwhile, Liberal deficit-reduction plans have taken much of the wind out of Reform’s fiscal sails, and Reform’s demands that Ottawa play hardball with Quebec still have not given the party a widely heard voice in the unity debate.
For the first time in almost three years, Tory leader Jean Charest has had something to smile about.
The Reform party, of course, may be able to pull out of this crisis, wiser and tougher for the experience. Lord knows, the Liberals could use some effective opposition.
But for the moment, Western Canadians in their millions can be forgiven for wondering if the new political movement they put their faith in just three years ago really has staying power and a vision that can redesign the face of Canada.
