CKNW Editorial
for October 13, 1999

I have a suggestion for Preston Manning – come back and tend the home fires before you lose what you have.

Your effort to unite the so-called right was commendable but perhaps, with the advantage of 20-20 hindsight, doomed from the start. I suppose if it had succeeded, the dissidents would have fallen into line but as of now you not only have a non starter on your hands, you have some serious problems in your home turf.

People like to call the Reform Party a western party but it isn’t. It’s three parties. Firstly, it’s a British Columbia Party. Though an Alberta idea it started here and has had it’s best showing here and by that I mean that by and large, this is where your best MPs have come from. This is because your MPs represent the protest vote which from 1972 until 1993 was represented in Parliament by the Tories. It’s this fact that makes it so important that you come home and mend some fences. You’ve forgotten that your support in British Columbia has by no means come just from the far and religious right, despite what Ted Byfield tells you … it came from middle of the roaders who couldn’t stomach the Liberals. The actions of a couple of your MPs in recent weeks have virtually begged middle of the roaders to go back to the Liberals. I think, with respect Mr Manning, that you have mistaken the braying of the bottom feeders (assuming that’s what bottom feeders do) for popular support. You don’t have to worry about the far right – your cares ought to be for the center. If, as Ted Byfield constantly bleats, you believe in political purity and that your purity is on the far right then you’d better resign yourself to some heavy tidings come the next election.

The second Reform Party is in Alberta where, by and large, the Reformer and his MP are very different than those from BC. The Flag Debate nonsense demonstrated that. While it’s true that one or two of your BC MPs made horses’ asses of themselves, that was a good ol’ boy Alberta prank and demonstrates the marriage of fundamentalism and rural conservatism that has been part of Alberta forever … though now, added to it, is the oilman’s swagger and drawl. I don’t know what, if anything you need to do in Alberta, Preston – that’s not my bailiwick. I can only tell you that Lou Sekora now sits for the Liberals in the House of Commons because for the most part British Columbians are not rednecks and they were revolted by Reform’s antics in the flag stupidity.

The third Reform Party is that which you present in Ontario and I have to tell you that you’re not going anywhere there.

Again, with respect, I don’t think you understand. When British Columbians decide how to vote most of them don’t take several hours out to tote up the things they like and the things they don’t. The computer inside their head tells their tummy how to vote. The Conservatives are going to be the only non Liberal force in Ontario and you can’t beat them. All you can do is spoil as happened in 1997. They will make a dent in Ontario because people there don’t feel as strongly about constitutional matters as people in British Columbia do. And if you don’t think that constitutional issues are very important in BC you’re sadly out of touch. The reason that the Tories will do well in Ontario is the very reason they won’t get a sniff in BC unless you virtually hand it to them. British Columbians believe passionately in equality of provinces and that’s what separates your party from the Conservatives. The more you try to modify that position by clever words, cute phrases and pabulum proposals to the Tories through the United Alternative route, the more your core support in BC is eroded. If we wanted Joe Clark and his Quebec appeasers, the Meechkins, in Diane Francis’ apt phrase, we’d support him and there would have been a big enthusiastic delegation to the recent Tory convention. But British Columbians show no inclination to support the Tories because they’re no longer the party of protest.

Your big enemy in the next election is the same that beat you in Port Moody- Coquitlam – apathy. If you don’t get your party cleaned up so that it’s respectable again in middle British Columbia’s living-room, people will simply stay home.

Given the kind of stuff that’s been coming out of your senior Justice Critic in British Columbia, you’ve lost me which admittedly is no loss and may even be a plus. What you had better worry about, though, and worry about soon are all those voters who have never supported you for fiscal reasons but because you spoke for a vision of Canada they believed in. Unless you can convince them that the hard edge and meanspiritedness your party has shown over the past year is not the real Reform party, your problem is not winning seats in Ontario but winning them in British Columbia.