Within the next three months, Reform party members will be asked in a referendum whether they are willing to fold up their 12-year-old movement in favor of a new, broader-based political party with a better chance to win eastern votes and form a national government.
Feb. 21 at a “united alternative” convention in Ottawa, 55 percent of delegates who voted chose the option “create a new political party.”
If a majority of the 70,000 Reform party members approve, a founding convention could be held as early as next November.
Read Also
Manitoba Parkland research station grapples with dry year
Drought conditions in northwestern Manitoba have forced researchers at the Parkland Crop Diversification Foundation to terminate some projects and reseed others.
There also would be a leadership vote and Reform leader Preston Manning made it clear Feb. 20 he will be running for the leadership of the new party.
He called the convention – boycotted by the leadership of the federal Progressive Conservative party but attended by hundreds of provincial and federal PC members – a historic moment, much like the pre-Confederation conferences in Charlottetown and Quebec City.
“I am here to unite with others like-minded to provide Canadians with some essential things that are missing from our lives and from our country under a Liberal administration,” he told the convention Feb. 20. “I am here to replace the federal Liberals.”
But many at the convention were willing to speculate quietly that Manning may be too tied to Reform and its eastern unpopularity to be an effective leader of the new party.
Several pollsters who told delegates that a new broad conservative party is the answer, also suggested it would need a new leadership face.
And it will need social policies that do not attempt to dictate morals to Canadians, delegates were told.
Alberta premier Ralph Klein made that point as he opened the conference Feb. 19 with the keynote address.
Be fiscally conservative, he said. “But … we cannot declare ourselves to be a party of minimum interference in the everyday lives of everyday Canadians and then propose to interfere in the most personal of all decisions, those decisions that are matters of conscience, those issues that present a moral dilemma, those things of so personal a nature that the decision becomes one between an individual and his or her God.”
Pollster Conrad Winn emphasized the point. Conservative economics are politically popular.
“There is almost an insatiable appetite for lower taxes,” said the president of Compas Inc. “But also, there is a thirst for pluralism.”
While this did not sit well with some family values and Christian delegates, the majority responded by rejecting proposals that immigration rules be tightened and that the supremacy of God – “capital G God, the God of the bible” – be made a centrepiece of party dogma.
At the same time, delegates showed themselves to be strong advocates of a highly decentralized Canada, defeating proposals for national health and education standards and job training because they are provincial jurisdiction.
Predictions positive
As they wrestled with the concept of a new party, delegates were buoyed by pollster predictions.
“Sooner or later, the next government will come from the united alternative,” said Jean-Marc LŽger of Quebec’s LŽger and LŽger Inc. “It is up to you to decide if it will happen sooner or later.”
John Mykytyshyn of Bradgate Research Group, pollster to Ontario Tory premier Mike Harris, was more direct. “If you build it, they will come.”
