Vancouver Courier
for April 1, 1998

Uniting the "right" is all the rage both in B.C. and federally.

Locally, the polls seem to vindicate Gordon Campbell's policy of refusing a party name change or proposing marriage with the Reform Party. (It must be observed that marrying the Reform Party of Jack Weisgerber was one thing, bedding down with Wilf Hanni quite another!)

At any rate, the Liberals, riding high, are poised to win the next election - just as they were poised to win the last one. And there's the rub.

There are three possibilities here.

Premier Clark may simply stagger along from issue to issue getting further mired in political goo until he's out of time and must call an election. This was the route of Bill Vander Zalm in 1986 and the Trudeau government after 1980. (A sub possibility is that Clark tries as Bob Rae did in Ontario to make convulsive changes at the 11th hour driving the labour unions from his hearth.)

A second possibility is that Glen Clark finds one or more issues which enable him to force a wedge between right wing voters. Like the unity question, although Campbell & Co seem to have done much to put themselves onside with most voters on that issue.

Perhaps it'll be Fisheries. There doesn't seem to be much between the Libs and the NDP on this one but remember that Mr Campbell criticized Clark's fed bashing last summer. It may be that Mr Campbell was right to condemn the premier's bellicosity but in a crunch, Glen Clark will try to force Campbell into the same corner as David Anderson - not a politically cosy place to be.

The third possibility is that something turns up - as often happens in politics. Perhaps the Asian markets will quickly turn around, though that doesn't seem likely. Maybe Clark can hit upon a W.A.C. Bennett sort of mega project to act as the bread and circus necessary to distract the attention of disgruntled voters. But mega projects, for a lot of reasons, don't have the cachet they once did.

All in all, it seems that Gordon Campbell's "my way or the highway" approach has, however tenuously, united the "right" in B.C.

The federal scene is more complicated. The Conservative Party didn't collapse in the 1993 election but a year earlier when the western half of the country rejected the Charlottetown Accord. While it's true that the Liberals and NDP also supported Charlottetown (Reform was a one member party then) they weren't at the helm and they each had a much sounder base throughout the country. The Liberals were the "natural governing party" to much of the country, especially Ontario, and the NDP were the country's traditional social conscience. The Conservative Party was merely the non socialist alternative whose only distinction was it's role as the party of protest west of the Lakehead.

Then Brian Mulroney staked the future of his party - and perhaps the country - first on Meech Lake, then Charlottetown. He, in his phrase, rolled the bones. They turned up snake-eyes.

The referendum shambles stripped the Progressive Conservative Party of its glittering raiment and there for all to see was the enormous rift between those who want to preserve the status quo and those, especially in Western Canada, who deny the "two founding nations" myth and see Canada through the prism of ten equal provinces. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't do much about that.

Moreover, the Jean Charest Tories - and indeed the Tories going back some decades - have never been especially to the right fiscally. While they bellyached about the profligacy of the Trudeau years they only made matters worse when Mulroney came to power. Fiscal philosophy divides the Tories and Reform in a big way.

The "right" to be united, then, is a shambles. On the one side there is the old party, leaderless and mainly located in the Maritimes. The new kids, Reform, are fiscal conservatives who have taken over as leader of the growing mood of dissension amongst many Canadians.

To put it bluntly, there is no possibility of a union of Reform and the Tories. Preston Manning, on my show made it clear that quite apart from all other problems - which are many - the Tories win's abandon "two founding nations" a notion that wouldn't even be considered by Reform. The chasm is won't.

Mr Manning's approach is the same as taken by Bill Bennett in 1975 - I'm the strongest force on the right so join me if only because I'm sure as heck (that would be Mr Manning's choice of word) not going to join you.

There'll be meetings, private and public and a sprinkling of conferences.

But nothing will change. The federal Tories in Ontario can be had, their strength in the Maritimes comes only came from anger at the Liberals, and they've no strength elsewhere.

Not a prescription for amalgamation - not for Mr Manning at any rate.