CKNW Editorial
for December 15, 1999

Joe Clark is pathetic. In fact, as I write this I wonder why I even mention his name ... I do so because bad as he is, he may have enough impact in some parts of Canada to have an influence on the next election.

I have been very angry at the Reform Party over the last couple of years ... to the point where I have considered not voting for them. I've changed my mind which is both a woman's and an editorialist's prerogative. I am a hard person to pin down in terms of a political party. I'm a small 'l' liberal I suppose but I also tend to be a bit of a fiscal conservative. Most of all, though, I'm a democrat who wants to see democracy in this country and a person who is passionate about civil rights. I also feel strongly that those of us who do well in life have an obligation to those in our society who do not. Given all that, it would be and indeed is difficult for me to find any political party in which I would be comfortable. Above all, I want the country to stay together, not just teeter along, year after year, hoping for the best. And it is the unity of the country and British

Columbia's rights and obligations in it which guide my political support.

Unless one blindly follows a political party come hell or high water, one has to make choices. Do I support the Federal Liberals because their social policy more accord to mine than does the Reform Party's? Or do I look at my country and my view of my provinces obligations and entitlements in that structure and support Reform? I could continue that q & a game but I think you get my drift. As I say, the most important things to me are democracy and national unity. For if we don't have a democratic united country, the other things I stand for haven't got a chance.

The Liberal Party simply doesn't give a damn for my province. It doesn't because electorally it doesn't have to. It doesn't care because the votes are in Ontario and Quebec and since Trudeau this has meant that the Liberal Party, to which I once belonged is an enemy of what I stand for.

The Reform Party does indeed stand for a country of ten provinces and a federal government and for the federal system ... and it does stand for juridical equality of the provinces.

So why is Joe Clark in all this? Because he can be a factor in a few

constituencies and because he stands so much for old discredited ways. There is a contest in this country between visions. And the contest ought to be fought out. If the country is not strong enough to thrash out it's differences it won't survive anyway.

Joe Clark is a flatulent, fatuous fool who truly believes that if you hide the facts from Quebec and make offers to her, financial and constitutional, that somehow we will muddle our way through. Joe was born 85 years of age, sunk in the past, unable to summon up the least courage when it comes to dealing with the critical and clear differences which divide us ... and he's utterly unable to see the drift of history.

I believe that the general view the Reform Party has of the country will prevail. There is strong evidence of this in the Referendum Legislation tabled by the Liberals. This change in the Liberals is astonishing and can only be explained by pressure from the Reform Party.

The reason I will support Reform is because the changes they propose come from the head and the heart. The Liberals simply react to forces which might keep them out of power.

Only Joe Clark and Alexa McDonough stand for the old line politics that got this country into it's present situation. Every voter who thinks about things should, in the interest of settling our great national debate, reject both the NDP and the Tories.

I have my problems with Reform ... many of them. But when I think of where I want my country to be in the years ahead and years I won't see, their vision is the only one that makes sense.