The West’s favourite party doesn’t exist
Manning has heard no hints such a party is forming, but he understands West’s ire
When the most popular federal political party in Western Canada doesn’t even exist, we seem to be facing either a mass hallucination or a genuine problem.
In a fascinating survey, the Angus Reid Institute asked people in all four western provinces who they’d vote for “if a Western Canada Party were an option.”
Across the West, this spectral party either led or tied the federal Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats.
In Alberta, support for Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives, who actually exist, was 36 per cent. The Western Canada Party clocked 40 per cent amid rumours the first leader will be a sasquatch.
Just to be clear, there’s not even a hint of such a party forming.
Preston Manning says he hasn’t heard a word of such a movement, and he’d know. He was founding leader of the Reform party, one of the most successful western protest movements in a string going back to 1900.
But Manning isn’t surprised at the finding, or the obvious anger behind it.
“This has happened many times before. Separation has never occurred, but what the anger has done is create political energy that has resulted in very significant changes for the West and for Canada, and I would say on balance they are positive changes.”
Manning cites the rise of the United Farmers; Social Credit (which his father led as premier); the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (precursor of the NDP); and eventually Reform, which sprang to life in 1987.
Today, “there’s anger and alienation over the inability to move oil and gas resources to seaboard, both east and west, the bungling of the energy and environment portfolio by the Notley government, the Horgan government and the Trudeau government.”
Manning is always a conservative partisan so you have to expect the slams. But the poll actually seems to show even broader western discontent beyond oil and gas woes.
Manitoba is the most centrist of the western club and the least interested in Alberta’s economic woes.
But even there this Western Canada apparition has 27 per cent support, tied with both the federal Conservatives and Liberals.
Reform helped drive the federal Progressive Conservatives from office in 1993. Manning eventually became Opposition leader.
Veteran PCs in Alberta still rage that he cleared the way for the Liberals to govern for a decade.
Manning counters: “We didn’t destroy conservatism. We reconstructed it on a different basis.”
Old PCs and the heirs of Social Credit will fight that battle into the afterlife, where they will perhaps encounter the Western Canada Party.
But there’s no doubt that a new party built solely on western interests can have a major impact on federal policy.
As Reform began to rise with the cry, “The West Wants In,” PC prime minister Brian Mulroney promised constitutional reform that included a string of Reform demands for the Senate, property rights, provincial control of culture, and much else.
Largely because of Reform pressure, the Charlottetown accord decreed an equal number of senators for each province.
Canadian voters killed that hope in a 1992 referendum, but it would have been handy today, as a Senate dominated by Ontario and Quebec considers amendments to Bill C-69.
Given today’s powerful regional anger, shouldn’t a new party form on the model of Reform? Manning doesn’t think so. “If the federal Conservatives were not sympathetic to western interests, you might make that argument,” he says. “But that’s simply not the case today.”
Before Reform started, he notes, the Mulroney Conservatives stalled for years in fully dismantling the Liberals’ hated National Energy Program.
Mulroney also brushed off offers to discuss western issues with Reform activists, even before they’d decided to form a party. “Today, that’s not the kind of response we get from the federal Conservatives at all,” he says. “They are very sympathetic to various issues, including pipeline access to both the Atlantic and Pacific.”
Manning obviously sees no need for a Reform rerun. He sure doesn’t want a split that would keep the Trudeau Liberals in office.
But the very western history Manning cites — and this remarkable poll — show that a new regional party may be just a fresh grievance away.