Bob Plamondon

Full Circle: Death and Resurrection In Canadian Conservative Politics


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Justice in Confederation,” was the best of the convention. He credited Harper with “. . . shatter[ing] all the stereotypes (reactionary, backward looking, narrow, simplistic, extreme) that are often applied to a new political party struggling for legitimacy from a western base.” Harper demonstrated the extent to which the West gave far more than it received within Confederation. Whether it was transfer payments, regional economic development, unemployment insurance, government employment, or tariff protection, the West was consistently on the short end of the stick. Power, Harper suggested, was concentrated in the hands of eastern elites who sought to perpetuate the welfare state and seek appeasement from Quebec. Those agitated because the CF-18 maintenance con- tract was given to Quebec-based Canadair, whose bid was higher and whose technology was inferior, instead of to western Canada’s Bristol Aerospace, had a cogent and articulate framework in which to situate their anGST. No longer, Harper argued, should the country “…be built on the economic exploitation and political disenfranchisement of western Canada.”

      With the theme “The West Wants In,” Manning believed he was laying the groundwork for a national political party. He recalled, “When Reform started, one of the first discussions we had at the founding convention in Winnipeg was, are we creating a regional party or creating a national party? I argued we were creating a national party. We might have to start in one region because that’s where we had our roots and our energy, and we had only very limited resources.”

      The party was founded on principles of openness and inclusiveness, but the process to elect a leader was anything but. Manning faced Stan Roberts, the former president of the Canada West Foundation and Canadian Chamber of Commerce, for the leader- ship. Delegates were to be registered by Saturday, but the registration was closed early. Trevor Harrison, in Passionate Intensity, described the scene:

      As the crucial vote neared, tensions between the two camps increased. Fearing that the Roberts camp was about to bus in a number of “instant delegates,” Manning supporters closed dele- gate registration on the Friday evening. [Frances] Winspear, who was supporting Roberts, stood up before the delegates and denounced the decision to suspend registration. This incident was followed by further accusations from Roberts that association moneys were unaccounted for . . . Roberts made a brief emotional statement to the delegates, announcing that he was withdrawing from the race. “It is with deep regret,” he said, “that I have taken this step…This party was founded on the principles of honesty and integrity—those principles appear to have been compromised during this convention.” Declaring Manning’s supporters “fanatical Albertans” and “small-minded evangelical cranks,” Roberts then stormed out of the convention.

      Of the fracas that ensued, Manning remarked, “[The] delegates seemed pleased with the results. That was all that really mattered.” This statement seems inconsistent with Manning’s approach to other issues. When asked to explain his objection to the Meech Lake Accord, Manning pointed to the objectionable process under which the agreement had been reached.

      University of Calgary professor Tom Flanagan was an adviser to Manning and has described Manning’s inner thoughts and strategies. In his book Waiting for the Wave: The Reform Party and Preston Manning, Flanagan provides a somewhat surprising assessment of Manning’s controlling leadership style. He argues that Manning led the nomination process for the party’s executive, dealt with staff “one-on-one” to diminish their ability to override the leader by sheer numbers, and controlled the formulation of policy. It was an anomaly that a populist party, designed first and foremost to represent its members, was tightly controlled by one individual. Said Flanagan, “To a remarkable degree, the Reform Party is the personal project of Preston Manning.”

      Preston manning believed that the Reform party crossed all political lines and appealed to masses of Canadians who were disillusioned with the traditional political parties. Manning’s Reform party would, in theory, draw support from the mainstream parties in roughly the same proportions as these individuals would other- wise have voted. But was Reform a populist party, as Manning claimed, or was it intrinsically conservative and in direct competition with the Progressive Conservative party?

      Manning did not want to accept that Reform was really another Conservative party, because he did not want to debate an inherent and obvious strategic flaw: that the Reform party was splitting votes with the Tories and thereby electing Liberals and NDP members of parliament. Manning also did not want to be accused of cannibalizing the vote on the right. Manning may have hoped the votes had not been split, but the results are indisputable. Stated differently, how could a populist political party rooted in Alberta be anything but conservative?

      But what is populism really? Trevor Harrison answers the question in his book on right-wing populism and the Reform party: “In short, populism constitutes an attempt to create a mass political movement, mobilized around symbols and traditions congruent with the popular culture, which expresses a group’s sense of threat, arising from presumably powerful ‘outside’ elements and directed at its perceived ‘peoplehood.’... Populist unrest results from the delegitimization crises and the resultant de-composition of previous political alliances. The type of populism that emerges (right- or left- wing) is a product of social, political, and ideological elements set adrift by this process and the consequent reconfiguration of alliances designed to resolve the crisis.”

      The crisis that gave rise to Reform began with a long string of western Canadian grievances, which were inflamed when the supposed saviour, the Progressive Conservative party, failed to meet hopes and expectations.

      Leading Reform strategist Tom Flanagan, who knows Manning well, agrees that Manning was first and foremost a populist agent of reconciliation and change. “At the deepest level his political career is motivated by a unique personal sense of mission: not, as is often thought, to impose a right-wing fundamentalist agenda on Canadian politics, but to act as a mediator, to bring together the warring factions into which Canadian society has become divided.” Flanagan describes Manning as a “human barometer of political dissatisfaction lying beneath the surface.”

      Flanagan’s impression of Manning is consistent with Manning’s view of himself. “I came to the conclusion that if I was ever to be personally involved in politics, I wanted to be involved in a genuine populist movement rather than a traditional political party.

      Manning wrote that populism is the “common sense of the common people [that would] allow the public to have more say in the devolvement of public policy through direct consultation, constitutional conventions, constituent assemblies, national referenda and citizens’ initiatives.”

      Yet he acknowledged to Flanagan that both populism and conservatism were intrinsic to Reform. He also recognized that populism is inherently short-lived. Flanagan remarked: “Manning has always emphasized that his populist project, by its very nature, must be accomplished quickly... the populist impulse will disintegrate and the party will be left with the conservatism of its members.”

      The stark reality is that populist movements are inherently transient. The Reform party’s original constitution includes this remarkably bold and unprecedented clause: “This constitution shall become null and void, and the Party shall cease to exist, on November 1st, 2000 ad, unless this Constitution is re-enacted in its present or amended form by a two-thirds majority of delegates to a Party assembly held before that date.” The Reform party was populist in the way Social Credit was populist when Manning’s father was premier. “Manning thinks in terms of a new party sweeping to power on a tidal wave of popular discontent, as Social Credit did in 1935 in the depths of the Depression.”

      There are two popular conceptions about Manning’s political views: that his political philosophy is grounded in his Christian beliefs, and that he is an extreme right-wing conservative. Flanagan counters both. Manning does have deeply held religious beliefs, but

      he believes that important moral issues should be decided by referendum and not be based on the moral conscience of a political party, its leader, or an individual member. This suggests that Preston Manning would support initiatives to increase access to abortion, obviously anathema to his Christian beliefs, should it be the majority position of his electors.

      There is clear contradiction between being populist and