From: 4224_5201@uwovax.uwo.ca (John LaRocque)
Subject: Re: Reform Party 
Organization: University of Western Ont, London
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 02:44:10 GMT

In article <1992Nov23.005655.8997@ee.ubc.ca>, jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison) writes:

> These are excellent principles.
> 
> So why does it feel so icky to support the Reform Party?
> 
> I want much clearer evidence that the Reform Party is not dragging in
> a lot of relgious, moralistic, sel-righteous dogma in with its policies.
> 
> I am not totally convinced that the Reform Party stands for seperating
> religious and moral issues from the economic and democratic issues.

Presto! Manning and his father are VERY religious types. Wouldn't trust 
them if my life depended on it.

> Ideally, I want the Reform Party to be somewhat libertarian:
> economically conservative, let market forces rule. But socially
> liberal, in that the State has no business declaring actions
> or lifestyleas immoral or illegal, if those actions affect no-one else
> but that individual.

Unfortunately that will never be the case. Like all socialist movements,the
Reform movement is profoundly populist, which is why unpopular causes like
eliminating censorship or "lifestyle" issues (gay bashing) will never be raised
by this group of people. Deep down, the Reformers are Tory-wanabees. Reformers
trust the system that Preston has willingly participated in. If they truly
wanted to change things, they wouldn't be an organization whose sole interest
is gaining as many MP's as possible in the next election. In effect they have
all sold their souls to the devil, Uncle Preston and the whole system that
Canada operates under.

(Reform Hack)
>>I am committed to the Reform Party because I believe 
>>the Conservatives have *no commitment* to these ideals.
>>They may talk around about them, and they may even
>>adopt some of our policies, but I think they feel they 
>>can tinker with the policies our governments have 
>>applied for the past ~30 years to create this mess 
>>when a radically new approach is necessary.

Here is a very good example of the party hack. In this case the disillusioned
Tory who still loves the party system (and Preston).

(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.

(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.

> __________________________________________________________________________
>  John Paul Morrison                     |  
>  University of British Columbia, Canada |  
>  Electrical Engineering                 |   .sig file without a cause
>  jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  
> ________________________________________|_________________________________
-- 

John P. LaRocque
vader@uwo.ca
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario


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