The Written Word
for August 15, 2001

Stephen Harper, former Reform Party MP and about to be resigned president of the Canadian Citizens’ Coalition, will, it seems certain, seek the leadership of the Canadian Alliance when its leadership conference is held next Spring. What with the goings on for the past year and a half with this party and its predecessor, it’s time a very important fact is brought out of the closet, dusted off and considered. No "right winger" in Western Canada wants to hear this, but the principal province of Reform cum Alliance support is British Columbia and this is not a right wing province.

I had a chance recently to discuss this with a senior B.C. Reform MP and he couldn’t help but agree that the song being sung as the official Alliance anthem about "uniting the right" had very little resonance on the west coast.

There are, of course, rabid right wingers in B.C. and they all belong to the Alliance and they helped Preston Manning found Reform. But that relatively small group did not send Reform and Alliance MPs to Ottawa. In fact I would argue that the Reform/Alliance success in my province has been in spite of the right wing rather than because of it.

The confusion is easy to understand. Like Canadians from coast to coast, British Columbians were taken in by Pierre Trudeau in 1968 and like many Canadians were disillusioned with him by 1972. In that year and until 1993 B.C. consistently voted Progressive Conservative. Some might think that’s because, in those days at any rate, Joe Clark was a "westerner" but British Columbians don’t see anyone east of Golden as one of them. No, Tory was the flavour for one reason and one reason only – they weren’t Liberals.

In 1993, the year of the great Tory collapse, Lotuslanders voted Reform not because there had been a massive lurch to the right but because they were not the by now hated Mulroney Tories, and they sure as hell weren’t Liberals. But it wasn’t all negative either. British Columbians saw in Preston Manning a man who seemed to stand for real reform of the system. That’s a political commodity that sells very well west of the Rockies. Remember, this is the province that voted nearly 70% against the Joe Clark/Brian Mulroney Charlottetown Accord.

What’s all this leading to?

Well, the entire notion of "uniting the right" has received mixed reviews at best on the west coast. If that means tossing the Liberals out, well and good, but don’t make too much noise about this "right wing" thing. Moreover, it’s well to remember that there have always been mixed feelings at best about the Reform/Alliance making love to Ontario. B.C. is the province which, almost to a person, was delighted to see Toronto lose its bid for the Olympics. Ontario is the political enemy. People ask how an Alliance government dominated by Ontario can be any improvement over a Liberal party that owes its constant victories to catering only, it seems, to central Canada.

As it presently stands British Columbia will continue to support the Alliance (forget the polls, they always have the Liberals at 45% in B.C. when there’s no election on) but that support is pretty soft. And the thought of the Alliance getting into bed with Joe Clark, who after all is an appeaser of Quebec who would give extra powers to that province, isn’t a particularly pleasant one.

Stephen Harper, darling of the "right", may well win the leadership but that might not do the Alliance any good. They may pick some support in Ontario and for that very reason see British Columbia swing back towards the hitherto detested Liberals on the grounds that if they have to endure an Ontario dominated government, better it be one whose economic philosophy they can stomach, even though they hate the rest.

B.C. is not a right wing province and perhaps Mr Harper ought to understand that before he goes any further.