THE rise of the Reform Party of Canada in 1993 from the ashes of the Progressive Conservative Party was a breathtaking political event.
In little more than half a decade, the latest Prairie populist creation had totally replaced the 125-year-old Tory party west of Ontario.
Eight years later, Canadians are being treated to another breathtaking political spectacle – the collapse of the Reform dream that a party of populist ideals and uncorrupted conservative virtue would displace the compromised Tories as the party for Canadian conservatives.
Make no mistake. “Collapse” is not too strong a word.
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It is true the Canadian Alliance remains the second party in the House of Commons and the theoretical “government in waiting.” Its MPs continue to do their best to hold the Liberals accountable and to advance what they see as the interests of their constituents, farmers among them.
But the chance that this disparate group of demoralized and divided MPs is really a government-in-waiting, just biding its time until it can move across the House of Commons aisle to the government benches, is laughable.
If anything, it is a group hanging on in hopes it can someday save itself by forming a union with the once-despised Tories.
Consider the evidence:
- Party public support is less than half of what it was a year ago at election time. At 11 percent, according to a mid-October Environics poll, they are tied with the NDP, well behind the Tories at 19 percent and not even in the same race as the Liberals (47 percent).
- Party membership has plummeted and financial contributions have dropped like a stone.
- The party has called a leadership vote for next March and so far, nobody has said they want the job.
- The CA caucus has split, with a few of the best and brightest sitting in a coalition led by the once-ridiculed Joe Clark.
- Last week, the party announced that 58 percent of 13,000 Alliance members who responded to a survey favour co-operating with the Conservatives in the next election. Fifty-one percent favoured merging with the Tories into a new party.
It is the last item that carries the most devastating news for the beleaguered party. It tells us that the so-called “grassroots” party members have given up on the dream of burying the Tories.
They have decided the Tories, once reduced to two seats and near oblivion, have the momentum.
They have decided that if the Liberal lock on government is ever to end, it will be through co-operation with the Tories.
There will be much political manoeuvering, deal-making and compromise before the final unite-the-right landscape takes shape.
But it seems almost certain the promise and dream of those Reformers who swept into Ottawa in 1993 vowing to clean the place up and turn the country rightside up is over.
Like its ancestor Progressive Party, populism and uncompromising idealism got bent out of shape by bashing against the hard realities of Canadian complexity, political egos and that 130-year tradition of Canadian voters who prefer walking down the centre of the road.
