The Reform Movement Is Officially Dead

By Alan Clark

    There can be no mistaking the fact that Albertans have been betrayed by our elected representatives. Over the past eighty years Albertans have elected a long procession of liars and con men to represent us both here and in Ottawa. At the head of this procession stands the biggest lair of them all, Preston Manning. Never before have Albertans be so thoroughly conned.

    In 1987, two new federal political parties were being formed. As usual in Canadian politics, both had their base in Alberta but both had excellent and growing support across the west. The first party formed in October of that year. It was the Western Independence Party (WIP) and it's leader was Dr. Frederick Marshall of Edmonton. A month later, the Reform Party of Canada was inaugurated with Preston Manning at the helm.

    The founding principles of the Reform Party weren't very different from the WIP. They included the citizen's right to initiate legislation, referenda, recall of elected officials, one official language and a call for an elected, equal and effective senate to counter the power wielded by the Prime Minister and the House of Commons.

    The WIP held all the same principles but believed that the Canadian political system was so fundamentally flawed that such changes within Canada would be impossible to achieve. Therefore, the Western Independence Party wanted to take the west out of Canada while the Reform rallying cry was "The West Wants In!"

    In those early days, many of the supporters of the Reform Party were also members of the WIP and vice-versa. Indeed, some of the executives of both parties were members of both. Consequently, there was a lot of discussion within both organizations with regard to uniting the two. Ultimately, a meeting was set between Dr. Marshall and Mr. Manning to discuss just such a union.

    I attended that meeting with Dr. Marshall. There were only four of us in the room that day. Myself, Fred Marshall, Preston Manning and his executive assistant. A fellow about my own age, named Steven Harper. Our meeting was very short. It took mere minutes for Fred to reach the conclusion that Mr. Manning was not a separatist and would gladly accept defeat and the status quo rather than become one.

    The respective representatives went away with a single message gleaned from each other. They told us that the majority of westerners would support them because they were offering a more palatable route to constitutional change. Our message to them was that constitutional change within Canada would be impossible.

    The rest, as they say, is history. The Reform went on to magnificent electoral success while the Western Independence Party slowly withered and finally died. What seems to have died with the WIP, is the Reform's entire original slate of founding principles. And while the majority of westerners did indeed support them, they have not produced a damn thing. Far from proving his point, that reform was a more palatable means to achieving meaningful change, Preston has in fact, proved ours.

    It would be easy to stand at this distance and say that Preston was in it for the money or the pension. Maybe it was the prestige or the house (Stornaway). One thing that is abundantly certain is that Preston Manning was never in it for us or the principles that we supported. He cast-off those principles as soon as possible after getting elected and then dumped his western support just as soon as "Big Blue" convinced him that Ontario would take him out of Stornaway and into 24 Sussex Drive. Thus begat the Canadian Alliance and the final nailing of western political aspirations into a coffin.

    It's ironic to me, that Steven Harper is the man to sink the final nail. Preston Manning is gone. Fred Marshall died a year ago. And now Steven Harper has handed his western party and all of western Canada's political desires back into the hands of his Ontarian masters. Anyone who would dispute this need only take a look at the Founding Principles of the new Harper/MacKay Conservative Party. Bilingualism, strong federalism, devotion to the institutions of parliament. Even welfare gets a mention. Nothing about citizen's initiative, referenda or recall here though.

    It's over folks. The Reform movement is dead and Steven Harper has buried it. It's as if this has been a 16 year long dream sequence from a bad T.V. movie. We awaken to find that we are right where we were and nothing has changed. We can only hope that there is one more episode where the good guy wins and we all live happily ever after.