Reform Party of Canada
From Open Encyclopedia
- For the Reform Party that existed prior to Canadian Confederation, see Reform Party (pre-Confederation)
| Reform Party of Canada | |
|---|---|
| Image:Reform.jpg | |
| Former Federal Party | |
| Founded | October 31 1987 |
| Dissolved | March 25 2000 Merged into the Canadian Alliance |
| Leader | Preston Manning Only leader |
| President | n/a |
| Headquarters | n/a |
| Political ideology | conservative-populist |
| International alignment | None |
| Colours | Green |
| Website | n/a |
The Reform Party of Canada was a Canadian federal political party founded in 1987. It viewed itself as a populist party, but was also conservative. It was folded into the ideologically and fiscally conservative Canadian Alliance in 2000. During its time on the Canadian political scene, Reform only had one leader, Preston Manning.
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Political roots and the party's creation
In 1986, a conference called "Canada's Economic and Political Future" was held in Vancouver, British Columbia. This conference led to the formation of the Reform Party in the following year. The party's founding occurred as the coalition of Western Prairie populists, Quebec nationalists, Ontario business leaders, and Atlantic Red Tories that made up Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative Party began to fracture.
The party was the brainchild of a group of discontented Western interest groups who were upset with the Tory government and the lack of a voice for Western concerns at the national level. They believed the West needed its own party if it was to be heard. Their main complaints against the Mulroney government were its alleged favoritism towards Quebec, lack of fiscal responsibility, and a failure to support a program of institutional reform (for example, of the Senate). The roots of this discontent lay mainly in their belief that a package of proposed constitutional amendments, called the Meech Lake Accord, failed to meet the needs of Westerners and Canadian unity overall.
The Reform Party was founded as a populist party to promote reform of democratic institutions. However, shortly after the 1987 founding convention, social and fiscal conservatives became dominant within the party, and pushed it to the political right. Their political aims were a reduction in government spending on social programs, and reductions in taxation.
The party in the late 1980s
The party had its first assembly in 1987, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Preston Manning, son of former Alberta Social Credit Premier and Senator Ernest Manning, was acclaimed as the new party's leader when former Manitoba Liberal Party MLA Stan Roberts, the only other candidate, withdrew from the race. The party fought in the 1988 federal election, but was never considered more than a fringe element, and failed to elect any of its 72 riding candidates. However, the party ran second to the governing Tories in many Western ridings and earned 2.5% of the total national vote.
In 1989, following the sudden death of John Dahmer, PC MP for Beaver River, Alberta, the Reform Party won its first by-election, when Deborah Grey was elected to Parliament. As the party's first MP, and its highest profile woman, she remained the party's matriarch until she resigned prior to the 2004 election.
Also in 1989, Stanley Waters won Alberta's first senatorial election under the banner of the Reform Party of Alberta. He would eventually become Reform's first (and only) federal Senator, remaining in office until his untimely death. Waters's appointment, following his election victory, has led some to describe him as Canada's first elected Senator.
Controversial links with other groups
In the early 1990s, the party was controversially endorsed by extremist groups such as the Heritage Front and the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada (APEC). This was a significant blow to the party's image in many regions of Canada, and one from which they struggled to recover for many years.
While the Reform Party had similar views to APEC's on official bilingualism and the role of Quebec in the confederation, the reasons for the Heritage Front's endorsement were less direct. In fact, the Heritage Front simply viewed Reform as a vehicle they could infiltrate in order to steer it toward their views, a phenomenon to which many new political parties are somewhat vulnerable. A few individual party candidates did come under fire for having made racist statements; however, the Reform Party itself never proposed or endorsed a racist platform.
Electoral success
In 1992, the Mulroney government made another attempt at amending Canada's constitution. The Charlottetown Accord was even more ambitious than the Meech Lake Accord, but it failed to win support in a nationwide referendum. The Reform Party was one of the only groups to fight against the accord.
The constitutional debacle, unpopular initiatives such as the introduction of a Goods and Services Tax (GST), together with a series of high-profile scandals, all contributed to the implosion of the Progressive Conservative coalition in the 1993 election. While the Atlantic remained Red Tory, the Quebec nationalists moved to the Bloc Québécois, Ontario supported the Liberals, and, looking for a new voice, the people of Alberta and portions of other western provinces moved to support the Reform Party.
In the election, the Reform Party swept most of Alberta, and won strong support in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. While running candidates in almost all ridings outside Quebec, Reform won only one seat in Ontario (Ed Harper in Simcoe Centre), and none in Atlantic Canada. It was still a Western protest party, but it nevertheless won 52 seats, making it the third largest party in Parliament.
Changed fortunes in the 1990s
The arrival of the Reformers in Ottawa followed a long line of western protest parties like the Progressive Party of Canada and Social Credit. Reform ran into the same problems those parties had had, as it wrestled with the tricky task of maintaining a populist ideology. In the 1997 election, Reform captured only eight more seats, bringing the party's total to 60. It became the Official Opposition with its solid Western base, but it failed to make any headway east of Manitoba, even after running in Quebec.
Disillusionment with the traditional political parties in general had been the impetus behind Reform's initial growth, but that growth was now felt to have stalled. The party's executive therefore launched a major rebranding effort: the leader got contact lenses and a new hair style; and, after working with a voice coach, began discussions towards the launch of a new pan-Canadian party. The party would use "United Alternative" ("UA") forums to bring grassroot Reformers together with Tories to create a small-C conservative political alternative that would convince the Ontarians and Atlantic Canadians to vote for them. This initiative was opposed by "Grassroots United Against Reform's Demise" ("GUARD"). Manning was supported by the more right-of-center "Focus Federally For Reform".
The outcome was the creation of a new party, the "Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance" (more commonly known as the Canadian Alliance). It fused about half of the Progressive Conservative policies, and half of the Reform Party's.
Manning stood in the first leadership race for the new party, but lost to the younger, more charismatic Stockwell Day, who was the Alberta Treasurer and Deputy Premier.
Disbandment
In 2000, the Reform Party was disbanded; with no other obvious political home, most of its members joined the Alliance.
The creation of the Canadian Alliance, and its eventual merger in 2003 with the Progressive Conservative Party to form the new Conservative Party of Canada, alienated some of the old Reform populists, leading to the creation of a new "Reform Association of Canada".
A new initiative called "Bring Back Real Reform" has also been created by a very small group of original Reformers from Ontario, with the aim of bringing back a federal Reform Party. Under the tag "Operation Back to the Future", it was launched in the Spring of 2005 as an umbrella for all original Reformers across the nation who felt that they were still without a political home.
Most of these people were also members of GUARD, were anti-UA, and were generally unsupportive of the Canadian Alliance, seeing it as a political vehicle for a Tory takeover.
Provincial wings
The Reform Party of Canada had two official provincial wings, that were registered by the party to be kept in a mostly dormant state.
The Reform Party of Ontario ran only one candidate in each election to maintain registration, whilst the Reform Party of Alberta ran candidates in the first two senatorial elections.
There were also two unaffiliated provincial parties, the Reform Party of British Columbia and the Reform Party of Manitoba. While they had no official connection to the federal party, they shared a similar political outlook. Both provincial parties are now largely inactive.
Federal election results 1988-1997
| Election | # of candidates | # of seats won | # of total votes | % of popular vote | % of Alberta vote |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | 72 | 0 | 275,767 | 2.09% | 15.4% |
| 1993 | 207 | 52 | 2,559,245 | 18.69% | 52.3% |
| 1997 | 227 | 60 | 2,513,080 | 19.35% | 54.6% |
