|
Chretien | 1995
Referendum |
1998 Separation Ruling |
Nunavut | Budget
Surplus |
Reform Party |
Bloc
Although various revenue sharing
agreements had been negotiated by the Liberals and the
Alberta government, the National Energy Policy (NEP) had
left a deep and bitter taste in many westerns mouths.
Even under the Mulroney government many in the west did
not believe that they were getting the representation
they deserved.
By 1986, many of the
alienated people and groups in Alberta and western
Canada began to coalesce around a dynamic speaker who
was the son of a former Premier of Alberta, Preston
Manning. By the autumn of 1987 what had started as a
reform association became a political party with the
founding of the Reform Party of Canada in Winnipeg. The
main objectives of the party were fiscal responsibility
and constitutional reform that would give the west a
greater say in the Canadian Government.
The basic principles were a continuation
of a long prairie traditional of populism which had
manifested itself in the Social Credit, the CCF and even
the Diefenbaker Conservatives. he constitutional reform
which the party aspired to were items such as a tripe E
Senate (Equal, elected and effective), the ability
to recall elected officials, ballot day propositions
directly voted on, reducing the size of the Federal
government and opposition to any special deals for
Quebec. During
the 1988 election passions ran high over the free trade
debate and Reform failed to make any electoral
breakthrough although it did do well as a percentage of
he vote in western Canada. In 1989 in a Federal
by-election Reform managed to win the seat in Alberta
and elected it's first MP Deborah Grey. That same year,
Alberta under pressure from Reform, held and election
for the Senate, although not legally binding, and a
Reform candidate was election and was in fact appointed
by the Conservatives in Ottawa.
Reform opposition to both Meech Lake and
the Charlottetown Accords helped them gain many new
supports in the west and their opposition to the GST
brought in many more fiscal conservatives. By the time a
Federal election was called in 1993 Reform was
capitalizing on the collapse of support for the
Conservatives in the west and a general dislike of the
Liberals which remained from the Trudeau years. Reform
won 22 seats in Alberta, 24 seats in BC, 4 seats in
Saskatchewan and 1 in Manitoba, and 1 in Ontario for a
total of 52 seats. The Bloc Quebecoise won 54 seats in
Quebec and the Conservatives were reduced to just 2
seats.
Manning's claim that
Reform was a national party was obviously not supported
by the election results but they at least now had a
strong voice in Parliament. The party was unable
to make much progress with the public due to it's
extremely conservative stance on social issues such as
women's rights, homosexuality, ethnic groups and social
justice programs. They also effectively eliminated
themselves from contention in Quebec due to their
anti-Quebec rhetoric, resistance to any compromise with
Quebec and general pro-western agenda. This
substantially eliminated them from any opportunities of
becoming a majority governing party.
The other conservative issues which they
focused in on was fiscal responsibility, balancing the
budget and paying down the debt which the Progressive
Conservatives had completely failed to address. The
Liberals under Paul Martin undertook fiscal reform as
their main objective which completely undercut any
criticism which they could have aimed at the Liberals.
The other issue which permeated the party
was the infighting which emerged as the party grew in
status. The basic populist tendencies of the Reform
Party attracted supports who believed in grass roots
politics with recall and direct propositions as
examples. This political philosophy does not generally
translate well into a disciplined, centralized, unified
party which operates as one organic whole. The secondary
result of diffused democracy in a party is the over
emphasis that is placed on disciple in order to maintain
control and a sometimes harsh restriction of membership.
With those issues retarding party
effectiveness the Reform managed to increase their
support in the 1997 election and captured 60 seats but
it lost it's one Ontario seat and remained an
exclusively western party. As the official opposition
the Reform Party started to lose some of the support it
had built up when Preston Manning reneged on his
original refusal to use the Official Opposition leaders
residence and the Reform MP's decided to accept MP perks
which they had previously criticized as a waste of
money. The Progressive Conservatives had also rebounded
and won 20 seats in the election which maintained a
split on the right of the political spectrum.
By 2000 in an attempt to bury its' issues
with Ontario and Quebec the Reform Party decided to hold
a series of meetings and conventions to re-unit the
right. The result was the formation of the Canadian
Alliance Party and the disbanding of the Reform Party. |
