Vancouver Province
for April 14, 2000

The Canadian Alliance, nee the Reform Party of Canada, is on the double horns of a dilemma.

First, it’s seen by many as an evangelical Christian party which, while it will pay lip service to secularism in politics, is full of members just slavering to put their own moral imprint on the people of Canada. This is especially evident when it comes to homosexuality. Just why it is that the Alliance varies all the way from obvious discomfort when the subject is raised, through ignorant pseudo-science ending in plain homophobia is quite beyond me. What on earth is so difficult with a simple "live and let live" philosophy.

Well, I’ll tell you what’s so tough about that. The Canadian Alliance relies upon the fundamentalist Christian community for its core support in Alberta and British Columbia and it is to similarly inclined folk in Ontario they must, as they see it, make their pitch. The awkward bit is by supporting this group they tend to alienate many small "c" conservatives and big "L" Liberals who are looking for an alternative to the Liberal Party. It’s axiomatic in politics that no party, not even in the United States where there are really only two of them, can a party get elected by their adherents alone. It’s the middle-of-the-road that switches from one winner to the next. Somehow the focus of the religious right is now on homosexuals and the litmus test by which that voting segment tests the qualifications of a party is based upon its policy towards gays.

Preston Manning neatly avoids this issue and consistently steers the conversation towards other more friendly issues. Stockwell Day, who otherwise seems an intelligent sort, thinks being homosexual is a matter of choice which had me commenting that he sounded like a thin Jerry Falwall – a remark that showed that the sense of humour of Reformers has not been enhanced by their change of name. We must remember, of course, that a former Reform MP displayed, if not homophobia, a distinct lack of sensitivity when he spoke of gays a few years ago and just this week another Alliance declared that "feminism" was responsibility for what he saw was a large increase in homosexuality. Given its history, the Canadian Alliance can scarcely make the case that they have a laissez-faire attitude towards people they think are breaking God’s laws. It’s interesting to see how this plays as an election issue.

The second horn of the Alliance’s dilemma is even more difficult for them. Reform came to be what it is largely because many people on the prairies and in British Columbia were fed up with two things - being governed exclusively in the interest of Ontario and the predisposition of old line parties to see the country in terms of the Upper Canada/Lower Canada debate with bribery of Quebec being the solution. This led to a very firm position by the Manning led Reform Party that the "two founding nation theory" had no place in our modern politics (which it shouldn’t since it’s historical rubbish) and that all provinces are, in the legal sense, equal.

Now there is a new and very big player in the Canadian Alliance – the Ontario provincial Tories who traditionally have played along with appeasing Quebec in order that Ontario’s role as the country’s industrial engine remain undisturbed.

So how does the next leader of the Canadian Alliance square these two circles? How does he appeal to the moderate, middle-of-the-road Canadian while holding that the nation’s morality ought to be if not enforced, at least seriously influenced by their subjective interpretation of the Bible with particular reference tp homosexuals?

And how does the next Alliance leader convince British Columbians that having the Ontario Tories dealt in, that they won’t swamp the party and, if elected to power, revive the "Meechkins" and continue the ancient Ottawa habit of bribing Quebec?

I have no doubt but that the Canadian Alliance will make serious inroads into Ontario. People there, as elsewhere, park their choices in the polls with the Liberals because they haven’t yet detected an alternative. The Alliance will be that alternative raising the serious question as to whether or not the new party must permit erosion of, if it doesn’t outright abandon its old catechism in order to accomplish that.

For if the Alliance is going to look very new to Ontario it probably will look very new to British Columbia as well.