Novocastrian

Moderate right of centre parties? You're having me on.

And please provide links to this public record.

jimf

A quick quote from Wiki

With Reform's emergence, however, Manning fragmented the conservative vote into two parts - Reform and the weakened PC Party. Additionally, Reform was seen as too extreme for the liking of many voters east of Manitoba. As it is nearly impossible to form a government without substantial support in both Ontario and Quebec, the result was political domination by the Liberal Party.

Manning knew there was little hope of dislodging the Liberals as long as the right remained divided. He turned his attention to reuniting the two conservative parties under his leadership, and he launched the United Alternative movement to examine ways for the parties to cooperate. The movement resulted in the formation of a new party, the Canadian Alliance, which as its full name (Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance) shows, was intended to supplant both parties. However, the new party was dominated by former Reform members; indeed, the Reform caucus essentially became the Alliance caucus. Most of the Tories refused to cooperate, and critics claimed the new party was little more than an image makeover for the Reform Party.

With the formation of the new party, Manning opened the door for rival leadership bids in the Canadian Alliance leadership election. After a fiercely close campaign, Manning was succeeded as leader by the younger and more flamboyant Stockwell Day in 2000. Manning remained as a Canadian Alliance backbencher until his retirement from politics in January, 2002.

Novocastrian

Exactly. Manning rebranded the Reform party but failed completely to get the acquiescence of the Progressive Conservatives for a takeover.

It was two leaders later (Doris Day then Beelzebub Harper) before the PC was sufficiently demoralized, and had sufficiently weak leadership, to fall prey to the "moderate right of centre" Alliance.

I suppose you're going to tell us next that Harper is a democrat?

ann m

Wow - two pages on Canadian politics ... who knew it was possible?

Novocastrian

JonboyE

Both Liberal and Conservative governments ran deficits through the 60s, 70s and 80s. By the turn of the 90s the Canadian economy was deep in the brown and sticky stuff.

The Liberals won the general election in 1993 from the Conservatives. Jean Chretien, and in particular his finance minister Paul Martin, are credited with turning the economy around. In the late 90s and the 00s the federal government ran consecutive budget surpluses and substantially reduced the federal government debt. It was this sound economic management that allowed the current conservatives to spend like drunken sailors on shore leave.

The current year deficit is forecast at $56 billion. The previous biggest deficit (also under Conservative rule) was $37 billion in 1985.

Bleepedy Bloops

Here's basically all you need to know about Canadian politics:

The Liberals lost Quebec.

dbd33

I don't think Day, Manning, Harper, the CRAP in general, made any attempt at seeming moderate. It was David Orchard who represented the moderate right in that era. Got a bit lied to, he did, a bit stitched up.

Novocastrian

Massively stitched up. Is he still alive? <I could google>.

Edit: He is, and believe or not he's still in parliament...

http://www.davidorchard.com/online/2do-index.html

Who knew?

dbd33

Properly Stronached. Still going as of last December. Broken I imagine, but still going.

Novocastrian

Sorry for the edit/cross post.

Stronached is superb.

jimf

Clearly Manning was unsuccessful but it does appear he started the process.

The reality is the conservatives in Canada are no more extreme right than the liberals are extreme left. Only from a partisan viewpoint could either be described as extreme or far left/right.

Novocastrian

I really don't know why you keep harpering on about Manning being the catalyst who aimed to unite the right, when by your own admission, he was in fact the person most responsible for dividing it in the first place.

The liberals certainly aren't extreme left, in fact I'd characterize them as centrist-right, barely distinguishable from the zone that the Harperists are forced to pretend they occupy because they don't have a majority.

They never will have a majority because most people aren't gullible enough to be fooled into believing that they aren't really extreme right wingers who would be very bad news if they had their own way.

jimf

Of course he ended up dividing the right. Initially he thought the PC would simply loose out at the elections and Reform would win all their seats so the right would still be unified. When it was clear this wouldn't happen he took the pragmatic approach going for a merger.

What are the "far right" things Harper would do if he had the chance?

Souvy

For a guide to Canada in general, I would strongly recommend "Canadian History for Dummies" by Will Ferguson. The introduction provides a very handy summary.

"The three big themes of Canadian history are keeping the Americans out, keeping the French in, and trying to get the Natives to somehow disappear."

It is not quite up to date, as the latest edition came out in 2005, but it's a cracking read nevertheless. I believe that is was the first "Dummies" book ever to make it onto the general bestsellers' list.