Alliance MPs vote 51-1 for Tory union
Harper gets standing ovation for deal, but MPs admit they still have concerns
 
Joe Paraskevas 
The Ottawa Citizen

Monday, October 20, 2003
 
Canadian Alliance Members of Parliament gave party leader Stephen Harper a standing ovation before a special meeting yesterday, then voted strongly in favour of a plan to create a new conservative party out of the Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives.

Fifty-one MPs voted in favour of the merger. Only one opposed it: Darrel Stinson, the member for the B.C. riding of Okanagan-Shuswap.

Mr. Stinson left the meeting quickly, saying he wasn't satisfied with the deal to end a decade of division on the political right, but didn't rule out being swayed in the coming weeks when the membership of the Alliance and the Tories votes to reject or approve the plan.

"What Darrel has said is he doesn't support the agreement, that's not his preferred course of action," Mr. Harper said.

"My experience with Darrel is he will ultimately go along with the majority decision of the grassroots of the party.

"What you saw in caucus today is likely to be reflective of the eventual vote of the party itself," Mr. Harper added.

A trio of MPs, Saskatchewan's Lynne Yelich and David Anderson, as well as B.C. MP Ted White abstained. Nine MPs were absent.

"After 16 years we continue to move forward," Mr. Harper told the MPs at the outset of the meeting, a comment aimed at showing the Alliance, and its predecessor the Reform party, formed in 1987, would be alive and well in the proposed Conservative Party of Canada.

Mr. Harper also joked that the plan for the new party he and Tory leader Peter MacKay signed last week did not violate Alliance MPs' position against same-sex marriage. It was rather "a civil union," he said.

But the remark hinted at a problem: a fear the Alliance's social conservatism won't appeal to moderate Tories -- that could thwart ratification of the merger.

Alberta MP Myron Thompson, one of the Alliance's staunchest social conservatives, voted for the plan, but he also warned that some voters in his riding feared the new entity would abandon the original goals of Reform : to give Western Canada a strong voice and make fundamental changes to the way government operates.

"A lot of them are the old diehard Reformers who are afraid they're going to lose what the intention was like from the very beginning," said Mr. Thompson, who was then asked what place there would be for moderate -- or red -- Tories in the proposed new party.

"It's sounds like to me there's not much of a place for them. And all you have to do is listen to David Orchard," Mr. Thompson said, referring to the Saskatchewan farmer and Tory leadership candidate who signed his own deal with Mr. MacKay last June that forbade a merger with the Alliance.

Mr. Orchard is now one of the most vocal opponents to the plan for the new party, and says Mr. Mackay betrayed him and the Tories' progressive tradition.

Nor could Mr. Harper avoid being confronted with other possible obstacles to his bid to end division on the political right, when reporters asked him about the cool reception the deal has received in Quebec.

"Both parties are admittedly weak in Quebec," Mr. Harper said. "But I understand that Mr. MacKay was very well received by Quebec Tories on the weekend. ... There may be one or two high-profile Quebecers who don't like it," he added, a reference to Tory deputy leader André Bachand, who is vehemently opposed to a merger. "But I'm not sure that that reflects general opinion..

The Alliance and Tories have until Dec. 12 to ratify the deal.