164 replies to this topic

[Phil McAvity]

The tories won....

You've hit one of my pet peeves in Canadian politics-calling the Conservative Party, the "tories", because they aren't. The tories were actually the old Progressive Conservative party (remember Joe Clark?). The reason the distinction is important is because the Conservative Party if anything is an incarnation of the old Reform Party/Canadian Alliance more than it was the Progressive Conservatives, although many PC's joined as well when the Conservative Party was founded.

[Bernard]

You've hit one of my pet peeves in Canadian politics-calling the Conservative Party, the "tories", because they aren't. The tories were actually the old Progressive Conservative party (remember Joe Clark?). The reason the distinction is important is because the Conservative Party if anything is an incarnation of the old Reform Party/Canadian Alliance more than it was the Progressive Conservatives, although many PC's joined as well when the Conservative Party was founded.

I do agree they are not the Tories, if they were I would not be within a 100 miles of them. That said, while it looked like the merger was a CA/Reform take over, in the end the current Conservative party has more influence from PC people that CA/Reform people. The back room people from the Mulroney era hold a lot of influence as do the Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and Atlantic provincial PC people.

A large core of the Reform party was a fundamental reform of our democracy - electoral reform, triple E Senate, more power for the MPs etc.... This is all gone from the agenda

[Phil McAvity]

I do agree they are not the Tories, if they were I would not be within a 100 miles of them. That said, while it looked like the merger was a CA/Reform take over, in the end the current Conservative party has more influence from PC people that CA/Reform people. The back room people from the Mulroney era hold a lot of influence as do the Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and Atlantic provincial PC people.

A large core of the Reform party was a fundamental reform of our democracy - electoral reform, triple E Senate, more power for the MPs etc.... This is all gone from the agenda

The irony is that Harper was very involved in the founding of the Reform Party, although I guess after he saw how far Preston took the party he saw those principles were getting the party nowhere so he gave up on them.

[concorde]

Not if the Bloc had won 57 seats in Quebec. That would make for an interesting parliment wouldn't it? Gilles moving into Stornaway.

The Bloc was the official opposition from 1993-97

[Bernard]

The Bloc was the official opposition from 1993-97

The Bloc chose not to use Stornaway to avoid the imagery of them being the government in waiting and their leader a potential prime minister. The Bloc never accepted the role of Official Opposition as it normally works within our parliament. They were officially the Official Opposition, but functionally it was the Reform party that the official opposition.