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Tories hijacked - Friday, October 31, 2003 at 13:32

Tories hijacked
By LINK BYFIELD -- Calgary Sun

Members of the Canadian Alliance will soon be asked to vote their party out of existence, and rejoin the national Progressive Conservatives after a bitter 16-year divorce.

It looks like an unconditional surrender by the Alliance -- and an odd one at that.

The Alliance has a big caucus, strong funding, clear principles, democratic structure, effective organization, large membership and a talented leader. Why then is it proposing to leave this all behind and submerge itself in a party with none of them. It's like "submerging" an elephant in a washtub.

On the face of it, it makes no sense. So why does it feel like a good idea?

It comes down to this. The Reform Party (let's call it by its real name) did not work.

It failed to achieve the goals it set when it broke away from the Conservative Party in 1987.

It didn't get Senate reform.

It didn't democratize Parliament.

It didn't downsize and clean up the federal bureaucracy.

It didn't get Ottawa out of provincial areas of responsibility.

It didn't make sense of aboriginal policy, official bilingualism, multiculturalism, or stop judges from legislating new social policy. All these problems are worse -- much worse -- than before.

When the Reform Party descended 50-strong on Ottawa in 1993, their demand was "The West Wants In." But the West did not get in. In fact, the West has lost ground faster by voting Reform/Alliance than it did voting Conservative, because the Liberals have been allowed to rule with a free and abusive hand.

Just like the Trudeau nightmare in the bad old days of the 1970s and '80s.

So, regrettably, our choice still lies between two federal parties that have always been run from Ontario and Quebec for Ontario and Quebec, both of which see the West as a lucrative property -- a federal colony rather than a federal partner.

Well, life is seldom fair. But what should we do?