July 24, 2001
Kamloops Daily News


Stockwell Day's proposal to hold a leadership vote is clever
but not very smart.  It's clever because Day has caught his
opponents off guard.  It's not very smart because he has
permanently driven a wedge between the dissidents and the
Canadian Alliance party. 

It's clever because Day will benefit regardless of when the
leadership vote is held.  If it's held early, Day gets a
head start because his backers are organized.  And if the
election held later, Day has nothing to loose because his
leadership would have been up for review anyway at the
scheduled party convention in April, 2002.

Day's appeal to the "grassroots" is wearing thin and not
very smart.  When you look closely at who he is appealing to,
such as the "grassroots for Day", you find that they are 
just a bunch of people with specific interests. 

The hypocrisy of claiming support of the grassroots while
rejecting "special interest groups" is that they are the
same.   The "grassroots" are simply Alliance special
interest groups.  But the Day can't speak plainly because he
would have to call environmentalists, socialists, feminists,
anti free traders, and every other ideological group
"grassroots". 

It's not very smart that Day still fantasizes that he will
"unite the right wing" by forming an union with the
Conservatives.  The Progressive Conservatives are not a
right wing party -- they are a party of the centre of
Canadian politics.   But everything is relative in politics. 
Compared to the Liberals, they are centre-left.

The federal Liberals are not liberal.  True Liberals favour
"a significant role for the state in matters of economics
and social justice (Canadian Oxford Dictionary)".  The
Trudeau Liberals were liberal in that sense.  But the
Chretien/Martin neo-Liberals favour "justice" for only of
the rich and powerful.  

If you are what you eat, then the Liberals are right-wing. 
They have swallowed Alliance policies whole -- cuts to
public health, education and the CBC, tax breaks for the
rich and cuts to programs to the poor.   Paul Martin has
inflicted some of the worst damage to ordinary Canadians in
recent history.

"The right is more likely to be united by Liberal Paul
Martin, than it is by the Conservatives" quips David
Orchard, runner-up to Joe Clark as leader of the Progressive
Conservatives.   Orchard brought many moderate Canadians
into the Conservative "big tent" by attracting 12,000
members.   In B.C., he was first choice for leader.

When I talked to David Orchard from his organic farm at
Borden, Saskatchewan, he had just finished a tour of western
Canada where he spoke to overflow crowds.  He found that
Canadians are increasingly concerned with the loss of
sovereignty caused free trade and globalization, and loss of
control of their food supply though genetic modification.

"The environmental movement, based upon the impulse to
preserve, is a conservative idea," said Orchard.  The
Alliance party mimics the liberal free-market model,
"slashing national institutions, escalating the clear
cutting of our forests, the genetic manipulation of our
agriculture and food supply, recklessly revolutionizing
without regard for the consequences."

Orchard's study of history shows that parties of the left
are more likely to overthrow out-of-touch federal
governments than parties of the right.  For example,  when
John Diefenbaker swept the Conservatives to power in 1957,
defeating the Liberals,  he was considered left of centre.  
Some called him a "prairie bolshevik".  

The Conservatives are, after all, party that supports public
ownership of Canadian institutions; the party  that brought
us the CBC through the Broadcast Act of 1923 and the
Canadian Wheat Board.  They are the party that traditionally
opposes free trade.

In 1983, Brian Mulroney strongly opposed free trade with the
United States.  Once he was swept to power, he reversed his
views, broke the Conservative Party's historic position and
ushered in the North American free-trade agreement.  In
1993, his party was dealt the most dramatic repudiation in a
western democracy, and was reduced to two seats.

Conservative leader Joe Clarke has been labelled a "red"
Tory for parading in support of gay pride in downtown
Calgary -- an act that won  praise from NDP Svend Robinson.

The Conservatives are not a right-wing party and they have a
better chance of forming government than the Alliance does. 
The PC - Alliance union has about as much chance of happening
as a same sex marriage at the next Alliance convention. 

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