my conclusions were clear, strong, and well supported. He eagerly read everything I sent him. Kurt Rufelds is both my friend and teacher. Whatever I know about writing, and how much work it can be, I learned from Kurt. His contribution to this book was enormous.
When I first spoke with my agent, Rick Broadhead, I told him I had two conditions only. The first was his enthusiasm. The second was getting the book into the marketplace in the fall of 2006. He delivered in spades, and we laughed our way through almost every hurdle.
Clare McKeon edited the book for publication. I have no doubt that she has, from every author, a 99 per cent acceptance rate on her suggested changes. If my mother reads this book and concludes that my writing has improved, it is because of the nature and extent of Clare’s work. She was a joy to work with.
This is my second major book. Both have coincided with my wife’s pregnancies and the first three months of our children’s lives. I did not plan it that way, and need forgiveness for vanishing on occasion when the crunch was on. I could not have written this book without Marian’s love and understanding. I have a wonderful life with Marian, Nathaniel, Charlotte, Megan, and Michael. I hope my children will draw some inspiration from what hard work and dedication can produce, especially when the television is turned off. And, kids, in case I haven’t mentioned it lately, say no to drugs, keep your mind and bodies healthy, and your hearts open.
Readers may contact the author at: [email protected]
CHAPTER 1
POINT OF NO RETURN
It was early in the morning of a crisp October day. Peter MacKay, Member of Parliament for Pictou–Antigonish– Guysborough, was alone in his modest New Glasgow constituency office. His staff had yet to arrive for the day’s work of helping constituents with the bureaucratic problems they had encountered with their government. This should have been a moment when the thirty- eight-year-old newly elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada could put his feet up on the desk, reflect on his success over the past year, and feel satisfied. But in the quiet of this early autumn morning what he felt most was the burden of history.
The years of work that had brought him to the position of party leader could never have prepared him for the decision he was about to make. This decision would determine not only his future, but also the fate of his party and perhaps the country.
Some five months earlier, in May 2003, when Peter MacKay won the leadership of his party, he had imagined going head-to-head in the leaders’ debates with Liberal prime minister Paul Martin and Alliance leader Stephen Harper. Confident that the voters would reject a tired and corrupt Liberal government, and hopeful that the regionally based Canadian Alliance party would falter, MacKay wanted to offer voters his vision for Canada.
The dilemma conservative voters had faced over the previous decade and more was that they had two parties from which to choose: the Progressive Conservative party, known from the earliest days of the country as “the Tories,” or the Reform–turned– Alliance party. The two were of the same mind on many issues and consequently split the conservative vote. The other federal political parties were of course delighted that conservatives were fighting among themselves. Conservative division allowed the Liberals to win three successive majority governments “without breaking a sweat.” Unless and until conservatives put an end to vote splitting, Liberal hegemony could continue indefinitely. For three elections, democracy had not functioned well. Not only did voters not have a meaningful choice in parties, but also the Opposition was weak and ineffective. This was not how Canada’s parliamentary system was supposed to work. With another election expected in the next six months, conservatives were dreading yet another futile trip to the voting booth.
Despite the conservative civil war, however, many members in the PC and Alliance caucuses liked one another. They had worked together constructively on various parliamentary committees and they shared many of the same views on public policy. There was some divergence in the area of social policy, but no more than might be expected in a broadly inclusive political party. The tougher obstacle was emotional. Many Tories remained bitter that Preston Manning and the Reform party had split the conservative family in 1993. There was, they felt, a price to be paid for their humiliating defeat in 1993 when the PC party had been reduced to just 2 seats from the 169 it had won in 1988—the worst drubbing for the Tories since Confederation.
For a time after the 2000 election, the prospect of a single conservative party seemed possible. While the Alliance party had received a record number of votes and seats in the House of Commons in 2000, a dozen of its most influential and articulate MPs later left to form the Independent Alliance Caucus. Five members soon returned to the Alliance party, but seven stayed out to form the Democratic Representative Caucus (DRC). The DRC soon joined with the PC caucus to form an entity that the Speaker of the House of Commons officially recognized as the PC-DRC. The Tories were hoping that the Alliance party was about to implode, leaving the PC party, or the PC-DRC, as the only political option for Canadian conservatives. But following the breakdown of merger talks between the PC and Alliance leaderships in 2002; most DRC members left the Tories and returned to the Alliance fold. The battle for supremacy and survival in Canadian conservative politics would wage on.
When the Alliance party was falling apart in 2002, Stephen Harper returned to partisan politics to lead and reinvigorate the party. Harper had begun his political career working for a PC member of parliament in 1985. Initially inspired to help a small-c conservative government implement sweeping economic and political reforms, Harper left Ottawa a year later, frustrated by what he saw as the brokerage politics that dominated decision making in Ottawa. A short time later Harper joined with Preston Manning to become a key figure in the creation of the Reform Party. While Harper was the policy brains behind Reform, and had been elected to Parliament in 1993, he left the world of partisan politics in 1996. The move to a right-wing advocacy group allowed Harper to articulate more freely his conservative vision for Canada. When Harper returned to partisan politics and won the Alliance leadership in 2002, he was intent on immediately seeking a merger with the PC party. However, the only thing PC leader Joe Clark then wanted was for the Alliance party to submit to his leadership.
The polls looked bleak for every party except the Liberals in 2003. Nevertheless, to virtually every political observer a merger between the PC and Alliance parties before the next election was inconceivable, for three key reasons.
First, in the summer of 2003 both the PC and Alliance parties had new leaders who had never been tested in a national campaign. It was natural for MacKay, thirty-eight, and Harper, forty-two, to want at least one opportunity to take their respective parties into a general election. For a merger to happen, one or both would have to surrender leadership, not something most politicians do willingly.
Second, in May 2003 MacKay signed a written agreement with fellow leadership candidate David Orchard. While Orchard came to the leadership convention with the support of only 25 per cent of the delegates, that was enough to determine who would win the contest. Their written agreement precluded the possibility of a merger with the Alliance party. MacKay saw the no-merger provision of the Orchard deal as innocuous, not only because it was party policy at the time, but because it was inconceivable to him that a merger with the Alliance in the near term was even a remote possibility. MacKay thought that each party would try to build national support in the coming election, and then try to starve out the other party until one died on the vine. In his mind, MacKay was in a fight to the death with Alliance. To settle this issue, an election was necessary.
Third, the election was expected in the spring of 2004. In the summer and fall of 2003 it was unimaginable that the emotional, organizational, and policy gulfs that remained between the two parties could be bridged before the next election. While MacKay and Harper knew that a single mainstream national conservative party would emerge from the divided quagmire that had become the conservative movement, nothing hinted that a merger was possible in the foreseeable future. Beyond the intentions and actions of the party leaders, for a merger to happen an agreement would have to be ratified by the membership of both parties. In the case of the PC party, approval was required by two-thirds of the membership. MacKay knew that the 25 per cent of the party members