Newsgroups: can.politics
From: robinson@mdivax1.uucp (Jim Robinson)
Subject: Re: Reform Party 
Reply-To: robinson@mdd.comm.mot.com (Jim Robinson)
Organization: Motorola - Mobile Data Division; Richmond, BC
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]
Date: 23 Nov 92 19:47:55 GMT

John LaRocque (4224_5201@uwovax.uwo.ca) wrote:
>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.

If Manning had, thru actions or words, indicated that he intended to foist
his religious beliefs on the Canadian public if he was given the
opportunity, then I would be worried as well. However, to the best of my
knowledge, he has not demonstrated a desire to do this.

Basically, it seems rather unfair to distrust someone simply because he is
apparently deeply religious. Manning is not attempting to sell his
religion to the electorate, he is trying to sell his ideas. There is a big
difference between the two, and I really don't see how attempting to
denigrate him solely because of his religion makes a worthwhile
contribution.

The Roman Catholic church teaches that homosexuality, pre-martial sex,
abortion, divorce, and contraception are at best wrong, and at worst a sin.
Yet, Canada, having had a RC PM for the last several decades, does not have
laws that reflect these beliefs. And, the thought of yet another RC PM
(Chretien) does not send otherwise sensible running in terror. So, why does
Manning's religion cause concern, whereas Mulroney's does not?

>> 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

The economic policies advocated by the RP are far from socialist.

>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.

But, if the RP's policies on initiatives and greater people power were to
be adopted, then it would *not* be "this group of people" that alone
decided the fate of the nation on various issues. Rather it would be the
"common citizen". You could argue whether that is a good thing or not, but
the fact remains that empowerment of the citizen, as advocated by the RP,
makes it harder for a government to control such things as censorship.

>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.

Presently, power is so entrenched in Parliament that it would be almost
impossible to make major changes from the outside. Thus, I do not see
anything wrong with the RP seeking to make significant electoral gains.
What I would watch for, however, is whether the RP became corrupted by the
system once they got in, as has arguably happened to the 3 mainstream
parties.

>>>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.

What I know of the RP is directly opposed to the above. How could a party
that wails about the [alleged] excessive power of Central Canada be
centralist? How could a party born of Western alienation be Trudeau-esque?

My reading of the RP is that they are indeed decentralist. For example,
Manning has said that language should be the sole responsibility of the
province - Quebec could be unilingually French if it so desired, Manitoba
could be unilingually English if it so desired, and certain federal
institutions (e.g. Parliament) would be bilingual. (Obviously not a policy
designed to endear the RP to anglophones in Quebec or francophones in CHQ,
but that is a different story)

Thus, as I understand it, in a RP world the same rules would apply to all
citizens and provinces, but these rules would be broad enough to allow for
significant variations. This approach, which could be called pure
symmetrical decentralization, has not as yet been offered to Canadians.
The CA had some *limited* aspects of this, but also had liberal doses of
asymmetrical decentralization.

>(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.

Being a firm believer in the power and corruption relationship, I would
have to agree that this is very possible. However, there is a, perhaps
small, chance that the RP would cause to be put in place a number of people
empowering reforms before being co-opted by the system. Such reforms could
rewrite the parliamentary and political equations making the vested
interests almost irrelevant. It's a long shot, but at the moment, it's the
only game in town.
-- 
Jim Robinson
robinson@mdd.comm.mot.com
{ubc-cs!van-bc,uunet}!mdivax1!robinson

Newsgroups: can.politics