nothing but conservative policies,” said Weissenberger. “It seemed to Stephen and myself that this was an untenable position. That left us open to the accusation that we had a hidden agenda.”
It is hard to imagine a more ideologically driven party or leader than Preston Manning and Reform. The party’s 1989 convention survey found that on a 7-point scale defining left–right ideology (left =1, right =7), Reformers placed themselves at 5.08; the Canadian electorate at 3.74; the federal Conservatives at 3.5, the Liberals at 2.63, and the NDP at 1.85.
While Reform party members viewed themselves far to the right of the PC party, most western conservatives saw Reform as more innovative than extreme. John Weissenberger thought an average member of the PC party was not much different from an average member of the Reform party. What was different was the apparatus and the leader- ship. Reform party members could see their conservatism represented in the Reform party. What they saw in the PC party was decision making and leadership dominated by centrist Red Tories. Reform party members by and large represented a view of Canada that was strongly anti-government, anti–social welfare, and anti-Quebec (as in opposed to official bilingualism in the federal government, distinct society status, or vetoes for Quebec in the constitution).
Manning did not agree with Harper, Flanagan, Weissenberger, and others who said his populism lacked a philosophical ideology to sustain his political beliefs. In 2006, he looked back at the Reform movement:
I always felt there was an ideological commitment [to Reform]... [beginning with] a principled commitment to small-c conservative economics. We had people who were social conservatives, in the current meaning of that phrase, who had principled commitment to those positions. We had Reform-oriented federalists who had a principled conception of federalism and were trying to implement it federally. We had all of those elements that were principled and value-driven. We had an equally strong commitment, at least I did, to democracy. I think of democracy itself as an ideology and so we had a commitment to that.
It was astonishing to hear Manning say in 2006 that small-c conservative economics were fundamental to Reform, because almost everything he said before 1997 suggested his was not a party of conservative persuasion.
In 2006, Manning also defended his populist notions, suggesting they were integral to democracy:
I used to argue we were a coalition and the way you make coalitions work is you have to reconcile these other principled positions if they are reconcilable, which I argued they were. And the way you reconcile them is using democratic processes. You get everybody in a room; you have a representative assembly; you let everybody have their say, nobody gets shouted down and told you can’t talk about that here. But at the end of the day we have a vote and that’s the position we have until it’s changed. My commitment to democracy was ideological, partly, but also a process commitment as the way you reconcile these other views, which are not incompatible, but still need some reconciling.
Manning felt he was leading a party where democratic mechanisms were used to establish policy within a philosophical orientation towards conservative economic and social issues, such as family values. Also intrinsic to his views was a position of federalism that was fundamentally egalitarian.
Other senior Reform activists for example, Harper and Flanagan, were uncomfortable that party members could choose policies and positions that were inconsistent with conservative philosophy. Manning, however, was entirely comfortable with that outcome. “I think the people who objected to populism, and would have described themselves as ideological, were mainly hard-line fiscal conservatives. That was the kind of party they wanted to create. I agued there was certainly a place for that and we were committed to that. We were the guys who crusaded on budget balancing when the pollsters said you couldn’t get votes that way. But there were other dimensions to our ideology: the social ones, the constitutional ones, and democracy itself.”
Generally, Reform and Manning would have anything but a warm welcome from federalists in Quebec. Manning rejected the notion that Canada is a product of two founding peoples—English and French—arguing instead for a single nation of equal provinces. He offered Quebec equal status with other provinces. In Manning’s words, “Reformers believe that going down the special status road [for Quebec] has led to the creation of two full-blown separatist movements in Quebec . . . and this road leads to an unbalanced federation of racial and ethnic groups distinguished by constitutional wrangling and deadlock, regional imbalance, and a fixation with unworkable linguistic and cultural policies, to the neglect of weightier matters such as the environment, economy, and international competitiveness.”
On a practical level, Manning’s view gave little regard to how Quebec might embrace Canada. As far as Manning was concerned, if Quebec was not prepared to accept equality with other provinces, then another arrangement should be negotiated:
Either all Canadians, including the people of Quebec, make a clear commitment to Canada as one nation, or Quebec and the rest of Canada should explore whether there exists a better and more separate relationship between the two .... If, however, we continue to make unacceptable constitutional, economic and linguistic concessions to Quebec at the expense of the rest of Canada, it is those concessions themselves which will tear the country apart and poison French–English relations beyond remedy. If the house cannot be reunited [on the basis of equality] then Quebec and the rest of Canada should openly examine the feasibility of establishing a better but more separate relationship between them, on equitable and mutually acceptable terms.
One could easily imagine a very short and largely agreeable debate in which Manning would be pitted against former separatist leader Lucien Bouchard or Jacques Parizeau. Based on questions asked and answered, all parties might come to one conclusion: Quebec must leave Canada. At least Manning was prepared to call their bluff, if bluff it was.
Preston Manning opposed the 1987 Meech Lake Constitutional Accord for a number of reasons, the most important of which was the difficulty it would pose for the establishment of a Triple-E Senate. Manning thought it unlikely that Quebec would agree to accept a formula that gave equality to every province in a new legitimate Senate, and that gave Quebec only 10 per cent of the representatives. Manning was unimpressed that the Meech Lake Accord required the prime minister and provincial premiers to place Senate reform on the agenda of upcoming conferences.
The statism inherent in allowing Quebec to promote and defend itself as a distinct society with special powers was also of concern to Reform. Manning made no specific argument about the difference acknowledging Quebec as a distinct society would make to the daily lives of western Canadians. What did Albertans care if the courts of the land interpreted the constitution to recognize the inherent obligation of the Quebec government to protect its language and culture? Even without the distinct society clause, Quebec, and other provinces, could impose whatever language laws they wanted under Trudeau’s constitution by simply invoking the notwithstanding clause. Ultimately, Manning and the Reform movement grew tired of having progress on important national issues thwarted because central Canadian elites needed to deal with the Quebec question.
For decades, federal Liberal governments had been intruding into areas of provincial jurisdiction by using federal spending powers. This was a huge frustration to many provinces, including Quebec. Manning wanted to scuttle the federal intrusions and return the responsibility and taxation room to the provinces. It is unfortunate that Manning was never able to articulate his views in French. If Manning had a legitimate ally on respecting the Canadian constitution and the allocation of powers between the federal and provincial governments, it should have been Quebec nationalists such as Lucien Bouchard. Manning recalled: “We always felt that if we could ever have communicated that in Quebec, or found an ally who could have communicated it, there was a very interesting commonality between western Canada and Quebec on that issue. Of course I was crippled there by not being bilingual.”
Manning and Harper were prepared to take their vision of Canada into Quebec. “We called our view a new federalism: not the status-quo federalism of Chrétien and the Liberals; not the kick at the pieces approach of the Bloc; but a reformed federalism. We talked about rebalancing the powers where you respected the provincial governments in their area of jurisdiction. You got the federal government out