CKNW Editorial
for July 19, 2001

Usually political parties have enough trouble with the minefields they accidentally come across without planting time bombs within their own organizations. The Reform/Alliance is a noteworthy exception.

It started back in the late eighties when, starting as a Western Canadian, grassroots party they allowed, indeed encouraged every half witted bigot available to climb aboard. It was not long before these bombs began to explode starting with arch bigot Doug Collins who was actually nominated in North Vancouver and had his nomination nixed by Preston Manning. But all this did was send the other bigots slightly underground and made them more careful what they said and where. Make the subject immigration, refugees or homosexuality and, like gophers, they stick their necks out. The other bomb planted early, of course, could be called western disaffection. This was the underlying reason for the party in the first place. This bomb went off the moment the Reform Party thought it could appeal to voters in Ontario. In fact when this bomb exploded, the Phoenix called the Canadian Alliance emerged and it turned bomb planting into an art form.

They staked their manhood on winning Ontario, itself a time bomb, and then selected Stockwell Day, a walking multi stage bombshell as leader.

The parallel between what Mr Day has done to his party and what Bill Vander Zalm did to his are amazing. Both managed to destroy their parties and both because they were loners who thought they were their party’s messiah.

When Mr Day first came into my studio I could not believe his unpreparedness. He simply was not ready for any question that wasn’t pleasant and deferential. I know why, now. He had never been in real politics before having served in a one party province and having held the Finance Portfolio with an ever brimming treasury and the Premier making the tough decisions.

Mr Day’s first bombshell came in the election last Fall. He was hopeless and failed spectacularly to do when he was selected to do – win in Ontario.

This ignited the second bombshell which was the defection from his caucus of 13 members … with the big bang coming when the den mother, Deborah Grey quit.

Now he has planted within his party a third and perhaps fourth bombshell due to explode, with finality, within the next year.

Stockwell Day hasn’t quit or anything close to it. He has promised to resign just in time to seek the leadership again. That’s quite a different thing. In fact, the messiah complex is still there as he defends his leadership by citing the examples of Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. He hasn’t quit – he has beaten a strategic retreat so that he can run again. You might wonder how he could win until you think about it. The Alliance, by the time the next leadership contest is held, will have less than half of its members left … BUT … they will mostly be Stockwell Day supporters. You hear it every day … I get it by email from members tearing up their membership card or not renewing. These are the old Manning supporters, nearly half the old party and nearly all of those not renewing. By the time the vote is taken the party will consist of right wing, fundamentalist Christians only. Mr Day’s self ignited time bomb will explode sometime just after Christmas when he is re-reselected leader.

If that happens, the last explosion will really be an implosion – the party will vanish.

Is there any way this can all be avoided and the party revivified?

Not likely. Even of Mr Day were to decide not to run for his old job it’s not likely that anyone else we know now could get the party back on track. Stephen Harper – perhaps but pretty right wing and an Alberta nationalist. Deborah Grey? Probably made too many enemies by deserting Day. Others have similar political shortcomings including the inability to speak French … not perhaps a drawback in this part of the country but probably enough of a downer to keep Ontarians from taking you seriously as a candidate for the Prime Minister’s office.

Does this mean the end of the Alliance?

Probably in the sense of it being a party with national objectives.

It could mean a return to the Reform Party as a protest party for Western Canadians and while my first reaction would be against that, the Liberals have shown us no reason to think they give a damn about our province.

What this does mean is if the Liberals not only selected Paul Martin as leader but made a genuine and permanent effort to treat BC as part of the country they could go back to where they were before 1968 and Trudeau. Goodness knows that with the effective disappearance of the Alliance there will be a vacuum to fill with no one but them really able to fill it.

What about the Conservatives? It could happen if Joe Clark went as did his policy of appeasing Quebec.

A great deal depends, of course, on what the BC Alliance caucus does. The Alliance MPs in this province are for the most part good ones and well liked. If they decide to stay together, they could perhaps survive for awhile as a BC Party.

What ever happens it will now take a first class miracle to save the Reform/Alliance itself from lighting the last fuse to oblivion.