Was the Reform Party a mistake in hindsight?

[Hodgson]

I know we can't second guess history and all, but I wouldn't mind hearing a few "what if" opinions.....

If the Reform Party set itself up as an advocacy group WITHIN the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, then perhaps it would have allowed a more right-wing alternative then we ended up with. It seems to me that when Reform started in 1988 it simply annoyed the PC's and allowed them to move more to the left in order to react against this upstart party.
(Much the same way the Wildrose ascendacy moved the Alberta PC's to the left)

By the time 1993 rolled around, Mulroney was rightfully wiped out and the PC party essentially died. If Reform hadn't existed, perhaps the re-build could have allowed the PC party to resurrect itself sooner and with a more rightwing faction in charge.

As the landscape stands now, a united Conservative Party seems to have a basement of support at about 30%. Barring a united NDP/Liberal Party, it will be difficult to unseat the Tories without resorting to a coalition. Perhaps this could have been the case in 1997 instead of 2006?

[Julian]

The mistake Reform made was becoming the CRCA party. The PCPC was a sham and it got exactly what it deserved, annihilation. It reaped what it had sowed.

[Charles J. White]

You have history all mixed up for some odd reason - the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was ALWAYS historically to the left or more interventionist then the Liberal Party of Canada - the one exception to the rule was when Mulroney came in, and simply moved it to a centre left party and Trudeau/Pearson moved the Liberals to the far left until Chretien came along.

The Reform Party of Canada created the political circumstances that allowed the Liberals to balance the budget, pay net debt down, introduce cuts to equalization, health and education transfers and the closing of a whole hodge podge of government offices, and introduce NAFTA. It allowed Chretien to move in the direction of his hero Sir Wilfred Laurier.

The PC brought in hand gun regulation, the first long gun control, tried preventing an energy pipeline going North/South, campaigned on Price and Wage controls, 18% gas taxes, the creation of ACCOA and so on.

Canada today would be even more socialist if the Reform party never existed.

[Angleland]

Reform could have grown but Manning and his drones (Anderson, Anderson, Fryers and Todd) made sure it did not.

[Hodgson]

You have history all mixed up for some odd reason - the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was ALWAYS historically to the left or more interventionist then the Liberal Party of Canada - the one exception to the rule was when Mulroney came in, and simply moved it to a centre left party and Trudeau/Pearson moved the Liberals to the far left until Chretien came along.

The Reform Party of Canada created the political circumstances that allowed the Liberals to balance the budget, pay net debt down, introduce cuts to equalization, health and education transfers and the closing of a whole hodge podge of government offices, and introduce NAFTA. It allowed Chretien to move in the direction of his hero Sir Wilfred Laurier.

The PC brought in hand gun regulation, the first long gun control, tried preventing an energy pipeline going North/South, campaigned on Price and Wage controls, 18% gas taxes, the creation of ACCOA and so on.

Canada today would be even more socialist if the Reform party never existed.

I think of modern Conservatism from 1964 onwards. This was the era when the U.S. conservative movement began to unite and form the basis for the relatively rightwing agenda, same with the U.k except a little later.
The Reform types wondered why the PC party wasn't moving in this direction and that's eventually when the split occurred. The true blue conservative types wanted a Reagan-Thatcher government and the PC's in power seemed to be completely oblivious to the very notion.

I just wonder if the right wing should have tried to influence their agenda more instead of bolting and creating Reform. Course the country was so different back then and so many other elements were at play.

[Gerry T. Neal]

You have history all mixed up for some odd reason - the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was ALWAYS historically to the left or more interventionist then the Liberal Party of Canada - the one exception to the rule was when Mulroney came in, and simply moved it to a centre left party and Trudeau/Pearson moved the Liberals to the far left until Chretien came along.

The Reform Party of Canada created the political circumstances that allowed the Liberals to balance the budget, pay net debt down, introduce cuts to equalization, health and education transfers and the closing of a whole hodge podge of government offices, and introduce NAFTA. It allowed Chretien to move in the direction of his hero Sir Wilfred Laurier.

The PC brought in hand gun regulation, the first long gun control, tried preventing an energy pipeline going North/South, campaigned on Price and Wage controls, 18% gas taxes, the creation of ACCOA and so on.

Canada today would be even more socialist if the Reform party never existed.

This is completely wrong. The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada evolved out of the Conservative Party of which Sir. John A. MacDonald was leader during Confederation. At Confederation, and indeed throughout the last decades of the 19th Century and into the early 20th Century, that Conservative Party was clearly to the right of the Liberal Party of Canada.

You come to an absurd conclusion because you start with erroneous premises - that the only issues which count are fiscal/economic issues, and that in fiscal/economic issues right and left are determined solely by the amount of government intervention you support - the more you support intervention the further to the left you go, the more you support the free market the further to the right you go.

Both premises are false. Fiscal/economic issues are the least important of all issues, and right/left on economic/fiscal matters is not determined solely by where you stand on a free market/interventionist scale. Tariff protectionism would be more on the interventionist side and free trade would be more on the free market side, yet tariff protectionism is historically a conservative/right wing position and free trade is a liberal/left wing position (note that in American history, all the big promoters of free trade prior to Reagan were liberal and/or socialist Democrats).

[RedDog]

I don't believe the welfare sheep in the east would ever accept a concept born in the west.

They sure like the money though. You can't drag them off that nipple.

[Gerry T. Neal]

I think of modern Conservatism from 1964 onwards. This was the era when the U.S. conservative movement began to unite and form the basis for the relatively rightwing agenda, same with the U.k except a little later.
The Reform types wondered why the PC party wasn't moving in this direction and that's eventually when the split occurred. The true blue conservative types wanted a Reagan-Thatcher government and the PC's in power seemed to be completely oblivious to the very notion.

I just wonder if the right wing should have tried to influence their agenda more instead of bolting and creating Reform. Course the country was so different back then and so many other elements were at play.

The Reform Party of Canada never really understood what being "right-wing" was all about. When it came to the issues, the Reform Party took admirable right-wing stands on specific social and economic issues, and took more such stands than the PC Party was doing at the time. Yet they missed the point entirely. They tolerated a degree of anti-patriotism in their midst that would never have been acceptable in a genuine right-wing movement. Imagine if Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan spent all their time talking about how terrible a country the United States was, how superior Mexico was to the United States, and how the United States should adopt Mexican traditions and values over American ones. They would not have lasted long in the American conservative movement. Yet this is exactly the way many of the leaders and supporters of the Reform Party behaved here in Canada. Yet, if you were to point this out to them, they would say "What are you talking about? I'm not anti-American!" showing how completely and totally they missed the point. Patriotism, not pro-Americanism, is the conservative value.

What many Reform Party leaders and supporters did, was simply to make the same error as that made by several left-wing media commentators. These commentators are always telling Canadians that to be socialist, to support gun control and welfare and feminism and anti-racism and multiculturalism, is what Canada is all about and that it is these things which define our tradition as a country as distinct from that of the United States. That is a load of malarky. Yet many within the Reform Party seemed to accept this idea and to believe that to take the right-wing position on these matters, they would have to reject the Canadian tradition and propose replacing it with the American tradition.

Yet in almost all of these matters the United States paved the path to the left for Canada. It introduced its progressive income tax and its welfare state before we established ours. It passed its Civil Rights Bill 13 years before we passed the Canadian Human Rights Act. It liberalized its immigration policy two years before we liberalized ours. Countless other examples could be given.

[CrunchyCon]

Keep in mind that when Mulrooney stepped down, the John Tory's stepped up to take control of the party. That's the same John Tory who, whether intentionally or not, attempted to sabotage the election leading up to Harper's minority by attacking social conservatives and gun rights activists. The same John Tory who expelled rural conservative Bill Murdoch.

Nah, had Reform not gone it alone, people like Jason Kenney would still be frozen out of the party, Scott Brison would likely be leader, Joe Clark would be Governor General, separatism would be stronger than ever in Quebec, and probably in Alberta as well.

[Faramir]

You have history all mixed up for some odd reason - the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was ALWAYS historically to the left or more interventionist then the Liberal Party of Canada - the one exception to the rule was when Mulroney came in, and simply moved it to a centre left party and Trudeau/Pearson moved the Liberals to the far left until Chretien came along.

The Reform Party of Canada created the political circumstances that allowed the Liberals to balance the budget, pay net debt down, introduce cuts to equalization, health and education transfers and the closing of a whole hodge podge of government offices, and introduce NAFTA. It allowed Chretien to move in the direction of his hero Sir Wilfred Laurier.

The PC brought in hand gun regulation, the first long gun control, tried preventing an energy pipeline going North/South, campaigned on Price and Wage controls, 18% gas taxes, the creation of ACCOA and so on.

Canada today would be even more socialist if the Reform party never existed.

I think of modern Conservatism from 1964 onwards. This was the era when the U.S. conservative movement began to unite and form the basis for the relatively rightwing agenda, same with the U.k except a little later.
The Reform types wondered why the PC party wasn't moving in this direction and that's eventually when the split occurred. The true blue conservative types wanted a Reagan-Thatcher government and the PC's in power seemed to be completely oblivious to the very notion.

I just wonder if the right wing should have tried to influence their agenda more instead of bolting and creating Reform. Course the country was so different back then and so many other elements were at play.

I just think you have cause and effect in the wrong order. Mulroney was the one who never cut one damn dime of spending. The Reform did not move the PC to the left, it was a reaction to it. Just like Wildrose was a reaction to big spending liberals like Klein and even bigger spending commies like Stelmach. I remember in the early 90s meeting the Tory youth club on campus and soon learned Tory youth didn't believe in a damn thing higher in principle than getting elected. That's all that mattered to Tories. They would and did change their platform to try to out liberal the Liberals, and they justified it always as neccessary to get elected.

Something happens when we send politicians to Ottawa. Look at Williamson from the Taxpayer Federation. It turned him from a rabid right wing demagogue to a cheque cutting lapdog of Harper. Reform was a good idea - something just went wrong along the way.

We should never have made a union with Clarke's failing PCs. We should have let them a death of a thousand cuts.

[Faramir]

You have history all mixed up for some odd reason - the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was ALWAYS historically to the left or more interventionist then the Liberal Party of Canada - the one exception to the rule was when Mulroney came in, and simply moved it to a centre left party and Trudeau/Pearson moved the Liberals to the far left until Chretien came along.

The Reform Party of Canada created the political circumstances that allowed the Liberals to balance the budget, pay net debt down, introduce cuts to equalization, health and education transfers and the closing of a whole hodge podge of government offices, and introduce NAFTA. It allowed Chretien to move in the direction of his hero Sir Wilfred Laurier.

The PC brought in hand gun regulation, the first long gun control, tried preventing an energy pipeline going North/South, campaigned on Price and Wage controls, 18% gas taxes, the creation of ACCOA and so on.

Canada today would be even more socialist if the Reform party never existed.

This is completely wrong. The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada evolved out of the Conservative Party of which Sir. John A. MacDonald was leader during Confederation. At Confederation, and indeed throughout the last decades of the 19th Century and into the early 20th Century, that Conservative Party was clearly to the right of the Liberal Party of Canada.

You come to an absurd conclusion because you start with erroneous premises - that the only issues which count are fiscal/economic issues, and that in fiscal/economic issues right and left are determined solely by the amount of government intervention you support - the more you support intervention the further to the left you go, the more you support the free market the further to the right you go.

Both premises are false. Fiscal/economic issues are the least important of all issues, and right/left on economic/fiscal matters is not determined solely by where you stand on a free market/interventionist scale. Tariff protectionism would be more on the interventionist side and free trade would be more on the free market side, yet tariff protectionism is historically a conservative/right wing position and free trade is a liberal/left wing position (note that in American history, all the big promoters of free trade prior to Reagan were liberal and/or socialist Democrats).

Hence the Republican Party was WRONG to be pro-tariff. Hence all protectionsits, mercantalists, ect... are anti-liberty and therefore anti-conservative(which Adam Smith taught us). Fiscal issues are the most important of all because they are the issues that government should primarily care about. All else is mostly none of their business. Hence Wilfred Laurier was the greatest freedom lover Canada had, a Liberal. And Teddy Roosevelt, an interventionist, was one of America's most anti-liberty Presidents.

Which is why Herbert Spencer calls modern liberalism the New Toryism. Toryism and new liberalism are about promoting the state vs natural liberty.

[Faramir]

I think of modern Conservatism from 1964 onwards. This was the era when the U.S. conservative movement began to unite and form the basis for the relatively rightwing agenda, same with the U.k except a little later.
The Reform types wondered why the PC party wasn't moving in this direction and that's eventually when the split occurred. The true blue conservative types wanted a Reagan-Thatcher government and the PC's in power seemed to be completely oblivious to the very notion.

I just wonder if the right wing should have tried to influence their agenda more instead of bolting and creating Reform. Course the country was so different back then and so many other elements were at play.

The Reform Party of Canada never really understood what being "right-wing" was all about. When it came to the issues, the Reform Party took admirable right-wing stands on specific social and economic issues, and took more such stands than the PC Party was doing at the time. Yet they missed the point entirely. They tolerated a degree of anti-patriotism in their midst that would never have been acceptable in a genuine right-wing movement. Imagine if Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan spent all their time talking about how terrible a country the United States was, how superior Mexico was to the United States, and how the United States should adopt Mexican traditions and values over American ones. They would not have lasted long in the American conservative movement. Yet this is exactly the way many of the leaders and supporters of the Reform Party behaved here in Canada. Yet, if you were to point this out to them, they would say "What are you talking about? I'm not anti-American!" showing how completely and totally they missed the point. Patriotism, not pro-Americanism, is the conservative value.

What many Reform Party leaders and supporters did, was simply to make the same error as that made by several left-wing media commentators. These commentators are always telling Canadians that to be socialist, to support gun control and welfare and feminism and anti-racism and multiculturalism, is what Canada is all about and that it is these things which define our tradition as a country as distinct from that of the United States. That is a load of malarky. Yet many within the Reform Party seemed to accept this idea and to believe that to take the right-wing position on these matters, they would have to reject the Canadian tradition and propose replacing it with the American tradition.

Yet in almost all of these matters the United States paved the path to the left for Canada. It introduced its progressive income tax and its welfare state before we established ours. It passed its Civil Rights Bill 13 years before we passed the Canadian Human Rights Act. It liberalized its immigration policy two years before we liberalized ours. Countless other examples could be given.

Which is why I loved the Reform Party. There is a huge difference between the United States and Mexico. The United States was built on the excellent ideals of the Enlightenment, while Canada got the scraps of that movement.

[Gerry T. Neal]

Hence the Republican Party was WRONG to be pro-tariff. Hence all protectionsits, mercantalists, ect... are anti-liberty and therefore anti-conservative(which Adam Smith taught us). Fiscal issues are the most important of all because they are the issues that government should primarily care about. All else is mostly none of their business. Hence Wilfred Laurier was the greatest freedom lover Canada had, a Liberal. And Teddy Roosevelt, an interventionist, was one of America's most anti-liberty Presidents.

Which is why Herbert Spencer calls modern liberalism the New Toryism. Toryism and new liberalism are about promoting the state vs natural liberty.

The idea that tariffs and protectionism are "anti-liberty" is foolish. The huge, bloated, modern state which threatens the liberty of its citizens is fed by income tax, which is a far more repressive form of taxation than tariffs. The older, tariff supported governments, were much smaller and much more consistent with personal liberty.

Moreover, whether tariffs and protectionism are "anti-liberty" or not, they are certainly not anti-conservative, regardless of what Adam Smith or Herbert Spencer, both of whom were liberals not conservatives, might have had to say.

Finally, liberalism, even the classical liberalism you love, the liberalism of free markets and individual rights, was always a statist movement. In the same period in which liberal ideas were spreading, and capitalism was growing, the liberal, democratic state was become more centralized, more bureaucratic, and larger and more powerful than it had ever been in the past.

[Gerry T. Neal]

Which is why I loved the Reform Party. There is a huge difference between the United States and Mexico. The United States was built on the excellent ideals of the Enlightenment, while Canada got the scraps of that movement.

The so-called "Enlightenment" was an anti-God, anti-Christianity movement, devoted to secularism and the abolition of traditional Christian ideas and morals. It is the left and liberalism, which look to the "Enlightenment" for their inspiration, not the right and conservatism. This is true even in the United States, where American conservatives have traditionally downplayed the preamble to the Declaration of Independence and stressed instead, the Constitution.

You have missed the point however. The reason it would be unthinkable for major American conservative leaders to praise Mexico at America's expense, and insist that the USA become more like Mexico, has nothing to do with which of the countries is objectively better than the other. It is because patriotism is a conservative virtue, American conservatives are patriots, and in the United States being patriotic means preferring the United States over other countries. Or, as Pat Buchanan would put it, putting "America first".

It is only in the United States, where patriotism means this however. In Canada, placing America and her traditions over Canada and her traditions is not patriotism, but treason.

[Hodgson]

I think of modern Conservatism from 1964 onwards. This was the era when the U.S. conservative movement began to unite and form the basis for the relatively rightwing agenda, same with the U.k except a little later.
The Reform types wondered why the PC party wasn't moving in this direction and that's eventually when the split occurred. The true blue conservative types wanted a Reagan-Thatcher government and the PC's in power seemed to be completely oblivious to the very notion.

I just wonder if the right wing should have tried to influence their agenda more instead of bolting and creating Reform. Course the country was so different back then and so many other elements were at play.

The Reform Party of Canada never really understood what being "right-wing" was all about. When it came to the issues, the Reform Party took admirable right-wing stands on specific social and economic issues, and took more such stands than the PC Party was doing at the time. Yet they missed the point entirely. They tolerated a degree of anti-patriotism in their midst that would never have been acceptable in a genuine right-wing movement. Imagine if Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan spent all their time talking about how terrible a country the United States was, how superior Mexico was to the United States, and how the United States should adopt Mexican traditions and values over American ones. They would not have lasted long in the American conservative movement. Yet this is exactly the way many of the leaders and supporters of the Reform Party behaved here in Canada. Yet, if you were to point this out to them, they would say "What are you talking about? I'm not anti-American!" showing how completely and totally they missed the point. Patriotism, not pro-Americanism, is the conservative value.

What many Reform Party leaders and supporters did, was simply to make the same error as that made by several left-wing media commentators. These commentators are always telling Canadians that to be socialist, to support gun control and welfare and feminism and anti-racism and multiculturalism, is what Canada is all about and that it is these things which define our tradition as a country as distinct from that of the United States. That is a load of malarky. Yet many within the Reform Party seemed to accept this idea and to believe that to take the right-wing position on these matters, they would have to reject the Canadian tradition and propose replacing it with the American tradition.

Yet in almost all of these matters the United States paved the path to the left for Canada. It introduced its progressive income tax and its welfare state before we established ours. It passed its Civil Rights Bill 13 years before we passed the Canadian Human Rights Act. It liberalized its immigration policy two years before we liberalized ours. Countless other examples could be given.

That's an excellent point. I remember being in Saskatchewan in the 90's and 'Canada' was associated with Liberal eastern left wing government. People hated Canada. They hated what it had become. Not wanting to sing the national anthem. Not caring about Canada. Talking about how much better it would be if we could just join the U.S.
That was the prevalent attitude all the time.
You can hear it in Harper's speeches in the late 90's.

The book Rescuing Canada's Right paved the way for waking people up to this problem. Patriotism should be a Conservative and conservative...virtue.