Vancouver Province
for April 28, 2000

A chap named Tom Long has proved, if proof were necessary, that non candidates do much better in the media than candidates do. He is, in case you've been on Mars for the last month, the non candidate *and favourite for the Canadian Alliance leadership. This technique of non candidacy is foolproof - and in my memory goes back to the days when then General Eisenhower was for about a year the Republican non candidate for president. There was scarcely a day that he wasn't a front page story as his non candidacy steam-rolled it's way to the 1952 nomination then off to a landslide victory in November. I'm not sure that Ike ever really had to admit he was a Republican before or after his nomination as their leader. Bill Vander Zalm played the same game in 1986 when he kept a panting media at bay for several weeks before he publicly took the decision to seek the Premier’s chair he had so long coveted. Brian Mulroney pulled this one off too, with the twist that he was actually a stalker with a knife under his toga waiting until the party leader, one Joe Clark, turned his back.

Mr Long is being pretty smart about all this. He knows that many difficult questions with possible bad sound bites emanating therefrom await him, especially in the western half of the country. Why be in a hurry?

You see this exercise is more than just an expansion of a Western Canadian political party into the east, in order to grab power - it's also an opportunity for the Progressive Conservative Party to have a home again.

This was clearly demonstrated when Ontario Treasurer Ernie Eves left the federal Tories for the Canadian Alliance but far from burning his bridges, he brought them with him leaving no doubt that if Mr Long, the non candidate, didn't win why old Ern would be back to the federal Tories before you could say Joe Who?

Stockwell Day, who was forced to keep his non candidacy fatally short because he didn't have the Ontario Tory list in his ass pocket, and needed to court memberships, has not had a good time of it. Starting on my show and moving east across the country Mr Day has been bewildered to find that the media, instead of asking for his scripted answers on policy, and all the blah, blah, blahs that would bring, wanted to know just who the devil he was. And we found out - he's largely hype and fairly homophobic hype at that.

When Mr Long comes to town, the questions will have an added dimension. I, for one, will want to know about his policy on Quebec. Does he believe in the "two founding nations" rubbish? Or does he believe, as the constitution makes clear, that we are a country of a federal government and ten provinces equal before the law? What is his view on the fact that we have an unelected Senate where B.C. with 4 million people has 6 Senators while Prince Edward Island with 135,000 people has 4? What are his views on the way Canadians govern themselves? Does he believe that 50%+1 of the House of Commons, elected by less than 40% of the people, mostly in central Canada, is entitled to 100% of the power? What about reforms to the system taking dictatorial powers away from the Prime Minister? Does he have any reforms for our dysfunctional system in mind? If so, what are they and if not, why not?

He will plead that no one in BC cares about those issues ... and he'll be wrong.

If he's like Preston Manning he'll come up with pabulum like "free votes" and electing senators and dodge any suggestions of real reform preferring to talk about a fixed percentage income tax.

If he's like Stockwell Day he'll do much the same.

What British Columbians must fear is that the Reform Party cum Canadian Alliance - their vehicle of protest against the present system where the only connection we have with government is through seven ass kissing Liberal lickspittles - is about to be hijacked, through Tom Long, by Mike Harris' Big Blue Machine which will, in a trice, turn the Alliance into a reborn Progressive Conservative party by another name, dominated by Ontario for the interests of Ontario.

* If Long declares before publication simply change to "until …" and thereafter change to past tense where appropriate.