Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Stephen Harper Did Not Bring Alberta and Ontario Together. Do Your Homework.
On March 27, 2000, the Canadian Alliance Party was formed. Many mistakenly believe that it was just a reinvention of the Reform Party, but they couldn't be more wrong.
The concept was to bring together all of the neoconservatives in the country, to oust the Liberals, and turn Canada sharply to the right.
This concerted effort helped to unite Mike Harris's government in Ontario, Ralph Klein's in Alberta and of course the Reform Party, primarily from the Western provinces.
Candidates for leader of the new Alliance Party would be selected from the three groups. It was thought that Tony Clement would be a front runner, but he declined, so it eventually came down to three men: Tom Long from Ontario, Stockwell Day from Alberta and Preston Manning from the Reform Party.
Stockwell Day of course won, but failed to lead, so was forced to resign. It was only then that Stephen Harper joined the fray.
So the suggestion after this election victory, that he united Ontario and Alberta is giving credit where none is due. This began more than a decade ago, and the work done by others in the movement.
In 2003, Harper bought out the assets of the Progressive Conservative Party, that folded in December of that year, putting an end to a 150-year-old tradition.
This election was a continuation of work began by others, and part of the broader neoconservative movement. Has anyone else noticed how many new Ontario MPs and candidates were friends of Jim Flaherty's? Even his first cousin.
So if we plan to build a Progressive movement, we need to understand fully, just what we're up against. The Conservative Party of Canada is not merely a political party, but the head of a broader movement that includes not only Canada's neocons, but more alarmingly the U.S. Republicans, the Tea Party, and the Religious Right.
We are really on the cusp here.
Danielle Smith's Wildrose party, created by old Reform Party activists, like Link Byfield, Barry Cooper and Tom Flanagan, has a good chance of ousting Ed Stelmach's progressive Conservatives in Alberta.
Tim Hudak, former caucus member of Mike Harris, and husband of one of his chief operatives, Deb Hutton, is expected to win Ontario. Neocon Rob Ford is already running Toronto.
With a majority Harper will push through his bill to add 30 new ridings that he feels he can win, so unless we start now building a progressive movement, we could be looking at a Neoconservative dynasty.
And the first step is to demand that the media stops calling Harper's party 'Tories'. He himself, claims to hate the term. Canadian conservatism became a battle between [Red] Tories and Republicans. Republicans won, let's move on.
I'm currently working at putting all of my research on the Neoconservative Alliance, into a book and will make it available in PDF format. (I just have to figure out how) I'm at about 100 pages now, and that's just on the 'Alliance'.
Before we can wage a progressive war, we have to know our enemy. Not the contrived notion of a centre right party, but a hard right revolution.
When I'm done I'll post a link on this blog. We must all become Davids to the Neocon Goliath. What's that they say? The bigger they are the harder they fall.
Our task is enormous, but not impossible. Are you in?
I'm in, Em!
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