With the way things are currently going in the Canadian political scene, any hope of a Conservative government in control of the House of Commons is at best a distant dream, and at worst, not a hope at all in either my lifetime or that of my children.
Just over ten years ago, a dissatisfied man by the name of Preston Manning (pictured, right) along with some others who felt as he did, came to the conclusion that the Federal Conservative Party (Tories) was not representing their interests and formed a brand-new political party which they called the Reform Party. Within two elections, they were able to secure status as the Official Opposition Party – in other words, they had the most seats in the House after the majority party in power, that being the Liberals. Preston Manning and the Reform Party had arrived and Manning was leader of the Official Opposition. However, those in the mainstream media crucified and pilloried him at every turn, attacking him because of his background, that being the son of a minister and a deeply religious man in his own right. They either took advantage of or created opportunities to assail Manning’s character every chance they got.
After a number of years, there was a leadership convention and the party renamed themselves the Canadian Alliance (new logo featured, left), and with that, they elected themselves a new leader by the name of Stockwell Day (pictured, right), who was serving as Alberta’s treasurer. However, in order to properly assume his place in leadership, he needed to be elected to the House of Commons, and by-elections (special elections for my American friends) were called in both the Okanagan-Coquihalla riding of British Columbia and the Kings-Hants riding of Nova Scotia. Stockwell Day ran unopposed in the by-election in BC, and former Tory leader and Prime Minister Joe Clark, recently re-elected leader of the Federal Tories ran in Kings-Hants, which he too, also won. Day appeared at a press conference in a wetsuit on a jet ski in an effort to project a “youthful” image for him and his party. He and Clark went to Parliament Hill in Ottawa to lead their parties. In the next federal election a few months later in November 1999, Day was re-elected in the same riding, and Clark, much to his (and everybody else’s) surprise, actually WON in his home riding of Calgary Centre in Alberta.
In the U.S., the practice of running for office in an area where you do not live is called carpetbagging, which is practically unheard of there, but in Canada, it is not all that uncommon. Even Prime Minister Jean Chretien (pictured, left), got in on the act for one of his terms in office as an MP (Member of Parliament) when he represented a riding in New Brunswick, and not his native Quebec.
At first, things went reasonably well, with the Alliance having had a field day on the almost constant scandals of the Liberal Party, most of them centering on favors granted to businesses and very shady and somewhat unethical deals occurring in Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s home riding of Shawinigan, Quebec. Then, all of a sudden, Day became the center of all the negative attention.
For openers, the taxpayers get their pockets picked in settling a lawsuit filed against Day to the tune of the high five figures. Then he starts losing the confidence of many of the most respected members of his own party. So far, he has either suspended or kicked out of caucus 11 members of his own party that have either disagreed with him or who have called on him to resign as party leader.
In an escalation of matters, Day now says the dissenters may be permanently booted out of the party. At ten members, they only need two members to get official party status in the House of Commons, thus creating a THIRD conservative party in Canada. With this kind of division, it will give the Liberals majorities well into this century. The Liberals are now on their third consecutive majority – a first for them. As for the other Canadian parties, the Bloc Quebecois will never be able to form a government as they are avowed separatists that want to go it alone; and the New Democratic Party (NDP) have pretty much exposed themselves as the tax, pillage and plunder party as it pertains to the national finances, and even the most liberal Canadians do not want their pockets that severely.
In order for the Conservatives to retake the reins of Canadian federal government, a few things need to happen – third, the breakaway members of the Alliance need to settle differences with and team up with Joe Clark’s Conservatives; second, there needs to be a leadership by-election to replace Stockwell Day as head of the Alliance, and most of all, Stockwell Day needs to read the writing on the wall and resign not only his leadership position of the Canadian Alliance, but leave Parliament altogether. He has clearly demonstrated that he out of his league at the national level. In the less than two years he has been in Ottawa, he has virtually destroyed and undermined all the positive efforts of Preston Manning and the others who built a new political party from scratch.
Unless Day leaves the party and Ottawa altogether, the hard work and diligence of Preston Manning and others from the West to seek redress from the past negligence of the Tories, will be derailed by a man whose ego has clearly exceeded his ability to govern. Day should take the hint and get the heck out of Dodge – and now!
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Photos of Stockwell Day, Preston Manning and the logo of the Canadian Alliance courtesy of their Official Web Site (http://www.canadianalliance.ca)
Photo of Prime Minister Jean Chretien courtesy of the Liberal Party of Canada (http://www.liberal.ca)
OpinioNet Contributed Commentary - Timothy Rollins <tim@opinionet.com>
Preston Manning
Canadian Alliance
Stockwell Day
Prime Minister Jean Chretien