From: cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Reform Party 
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Ottawa
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 04:15:08 GMT

In article <1992Nov22.224410.1@uwovax.uwo.ca> 4224_5201@uwovax.uwo.ca (John LaRocque) writes:
>
>Presto! Manning and his father are VERY religious types. Wouldn't trust 
>them if my life depended on it.

Trust them with what?  :-).

>(Reform Hack)
>>>A clear example of the Conservative's philosophy was
>>>shown in the constitution amendments and the referendum.
>>>The Charlottetown Accord attempted to define Canada
>>>on a concept of founding nations and as a
>>>collection of collectives.  Even after the people
>>>had finally put that notion to death, the Prime
>>>Minister was on television spouting the same rhetoric.
>>>
>>>The Reform Party campaigned on the *principle* that
>>>all Canadians are equal and that our constitution
>>>should reflect that.
>
>This is the whole problem with the Reform movement. They say they are
>for certain kinds of regionalism but when push come to shove they are
>no better than your typical Ontario centralizer, your typical
>anti-French bigot or your typical "patriot" who views Canada as one
>nation and wants nothing better to ignore separatism and make the
>same mistakes that Trudeau and Mulroney did. 

Yup.  The current system of democratic federalism gives "Central
Canadians" control of the entire federal government by virtue of
Central Canada holding a majority of the population.

Ontarians and Quebecois are, on whole, reasonably happy about this,
because it means that they have "control of their destinies" at both
federal and provincial levels.

Westerners aren't too happy, in that the only level of control that
they have is at the provincial level.

The Reform Party, in seeking ways of "balancing" the Central Canada
majority, is trying to sell reforms which are NOT democratic when
considered at the Federal level, but which seem "pretty good" in that
they would (at least in theory) give power to people that have been
traditionally under-represented.

Unfortunately, the proposals are neither democratic nor "federal," EEE
being a good case in point.

In trying to reform the central government so that IT will reflect
THEIR interests, they ignore the fact that provinces already exist,
and are designed to look out for regional interests.  Why kludge the
Feds into doing something that provinces were DESIGNED for?  It WOULD
be a kludge, and a pretty ugly one at that.

>(Reform Hack)
>>>In summary, the Reform Party represents the opportunity
>>>for ordinary Canadians to make fundamental changes
>>>in their government.  The Conservatives (and the Liberals 
>>>and the NDP) represent certain groups with vested 
>>>interests in perpetuating their views of Canada.
>
>Like I said, they are no different from the NDP, which began as a populist
>socialist crusade but is now just a group of power-seeking left-wing
>compromisers. In 30 years you will be singing a different tune about Reform,
>or will be just like all the cynical NDP-cronies who love the system and 
>have sucked on it for the 40 years.

Ontario is in the process of finding out just how incorruptible the
NDP is :-(.  The one saving grace of it is that this exercise will
probably help to prevent the NDP from garnering much support in the
next federal election.

It's funny how every new kid on the block claims that they are
"different" from the rest.  The "Big Three" certainly represent vested
interests; it's as if the Reform Party DOESN'T represent anyone's
interests?  Since they haven't held the "vest" of power :-), the
interests aren't yet "vested," but if they attain any significant
power, that will quickly come.

-- 
Christopher Browne                |     PGP 2.0 key available
cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca           |===================================
University of Ottawa              |  The Personal Computer:  Colt 45
Master of System Science Program  |  of the Information Frontier
Newsgroups: can.politics