Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 3

CALGARY HERALD Sunday, March 26. 2000 A3 Top News FromAI Born: Bid for Ontario voters '1 "This Canadian Alliance is bigger than any one person," Day said. "I'm committed to the Alliance in the long term, and that includes running in the next federal election." Frank Klees, Ontario's Conservative government whip, also kept to the high road, calling it "Preston Manning's day," but added he will-bring something to the race his two chief rivals could not an Ontario perspective. Klees said he has the backing of 15 members of premier Mike Harris's cabinet, and expects to garner the support of 75 per cent of the Ontario caucus. He said volunteers are flocking to the cause in Ontario.

"They see this as an opportunity to become involved at the ground floor with a political party that represents hope, and real change," Klees said. Klees said he will make a formal announcement by April 4. Klees may be seen by some founding Reform members as an "Ontario outsider." He has never been a Reform member, and is not a Canadian Alliance member yet, though he promises to be one of the first. The Alliance has about 3,000 members. Ray Speaker is shedding no tears over the lowering of the Reform banner.

He doesn't get too attached to labels. Speaker founded the Representative party in Alberta in 1982, then later served as Reform house leader for Manning in Ottawa after the 1993 election. He has seen Prairie populist fires rage and subside since he first met Manning at the University of Alberta in i960. He and Manning became friends and political cohorts, as they gauged the political winds in Alberta during two decades. At times, he said, Manning would joke about waiting for the wave.

"Preston used to say, By the time the next wave of populism comes, I'll be in a nursing Speaker said. Speaker said timing is the key to launching new political movements. "If people who do not normally get involved in politics all of a sudden rise up and react to some issues, then you've got political momentum and energy," Speaker said. For the Alliance to spread past the Manitoba border, he said Ontarians need a hot issue. Speaker said the current grants and loans scandal in Ottawa doesn't have the political force to induce Ontarians to take a risk on the new party.

He said Finance Minister Paul Martin has built up enough political capital that most Canadians will believe he will clean up the mess. If the next election is a stable, quiet one, he says, where politicians try to win over the minds of the electorate, it will be a tough struggle for Manning or whoever ends up leading the charge. "Preston has always believed that the ideas will lead the people to a better Canada. "He stakes his whole future on that premise. He believes as long as he can describe an idea to people, they will follow and they've done that," Speaker said.

"I've never seen a stronger leader in terms of ideas." I IJmi, 1 ---'liViiiiiiiar MtiMin-rr- Lorraine Hialte, Calgary Herald Preston Manning signs the official papers Saturday in Calgary that will dissolve the Reform party, while his executive assistant Ian Todd, centre, watches. Reform party changed political map of Canada Canadian Alliance raises many questions MICHAEL LAU Calgary Herald The Reform party is dead. Long live Canadian Alliance. Those words may still be echoing in the Metropolitan Conference Centre today after Reformers voted Saturday to join the newly-formed Canadian Alliance. The historic bid to unite the right in Canada raises many organizational, legal and political questions.

What happens now with Reform party property? Will Reform MPs remain Reformers in the House of Commons for the short-term? And what lies ahead for the Canadian Alliance? Will the leadership race bring unity or fragmentation? What are the battle plans to defeat the Liberal government? i gun legislation. And he's offside on both of those issues." Tom Flanagan, a former policy advisor to Reform leader Preston Manning, said the best Alliance can hope for in the next election is to form a minority government. "Even that seems to me to be really a reach, although I can't rule it out," said Flanagan, a political science professor at University of Calgary. While the party may win a seat or two in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, its network remains weak in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, he said. "The French voters in Quebec haven't voted for a party that wasn't led by a Quebecer since 1965, when Lester Pearson was Liberal leader, and the English vote in Quebec is just fanatically loyal to the Liberals," he said.

"This would mean if you could win your 60 to 70 seats in the west for a majority government, you'd have to win more than 80 seats in Ontario. To go from zero to more than 80 out of 103, it just doesn't seem likely to me." However, significant gains in the next election could bode well in the long term, he said. "Nobody governs forever. There are a lot of voters in Quebec and the Maritimes who are willing to back a winner. If the Alliance becomes clearly a contender for power and they have a leader that looks like an acceptable prime minister, I think they would suddenly start to develop strength.

If the Alliance makes significant progress in the next election, I think it would position itself to have a bash at government further down the road." On the flip side, dismal results would suggest Progressive Conservatives are holding their ground. "If it doesn't make significant progress, then it's going to seem as though the whole Alliance experiment was just frustrated. If the Alliance makes no progress, that means the PCs are still in the game. Then you're back into the unite-the-right scenario again. The vote splitting is still taking place." Of the candidates vying to head the Alliance, fellow contenders Frank Klees and Day have yet to prove themselves, said Flanagan.

He also believes it's unlikely Manning will make inroads in Ontario. "With Preston, there are no real surprises anymore we know what he is. But we really don't know what Stock will do and how he will look when he's in that goldfish bowl." Day may be used to the hot seat as Alberta treasurer, but he will face broader questioning as a party leader, said Flanagan. "How will Stock respond when he's up there on the podium and people are saying you're the leader, you've got to have a position on medicare, you've got to have a position on aboriginal rights and gay rights? You can't just voice for the small 'c' conservative agenda, he said. "There's a bunch of us, myself, other federal conservatives, federal Reformers, provincial conservatives.

We just feel the Liberal government's out of touch. They don't get it anymore. And unless there's one credible alternative to take them on, we're just going to be stuck with them for years and that's unacceptable." Love said the party hopes to attract tens of thousands of new members for its leadership race, to be based on a one-person, one-vote system. "It's simplifying it, it takes all the corruption and backroom deals out of it and it allows way more Canadians to participate. We look to be election-ready on Labour Day 2000, so (preparations are) going to be pretty rapid." Reform Party spokesman Tony Gronow insists the transition from Reform to Alliance will be smooth.

"The question was put to the membership in such a way that it would allow for not only a change of the name, but adopting the new policies, the new constitution of the Canadian Alliance, and allowing all of the assets of the Reform party to be transferred over," said Gronow. "The 'yes' vote allows us in essence to pick the whole organization up, move it a few feet over, put it down and put the new label on it, and that's it." The main assets of the Reform Party are equipment in about 300 constituency offices across the country, membership fees and campaign funds, he said. Jim Armour, spokesman for the leader of the official Opposition, said Reform MPs must hold their own vote on joining Alliance. "The caucus would decide whether they want to sit as Alliance MPs and anybody that didn't want to sit would have to sit as an independent," said Armour. "You would only have two choices, to sit as an Alliance MP or as an independent." Although the logistics of turning the Reform party into the Canadian Alliance appear simple, the political task of earning voters will be more difficult.

Donn Lovett, seeking the Liberal nomination in Calgary Centre, said the Canadian Alliance offers nothing new. "There's nothing dramatic to make anybody suggest that there's a big change coming," said Lovett. "There isn't anything essentially different. A change in leadership won't help the conservative cause, Lovett said of Stockwell Day, the Alberta treasurer and Alliance leadership candidate. "I don't believe his extreme views on the religious right are going to play well in Canada," Lovett said.

Day is offside on issues such as gun control and human rights legislation, Lovett added. "Canadians and a majority of Albertans supported the Delwin Vriend decision on human rights, and they supported the fl fib .1 Lorraine Hjalte, Calgary Herald Stockwell Day, Frank Klees and Preston Manning. How Party Voted The Canadian Press A look at how Reformers voted in an internal referendum on whether to create the Canadian Alliance: The result: 91.9 per cent said Yes to Alliance. The question: "Shall the Reform party of Canada adopt the new constitution and the party policy declaration of the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance." Yes or No. Who voted: Reform party members.

How many voted: 48,838 voted of 73,437 ballots mailed out. Return rate of 66.5 per cent. How they voted: A majority in 10 provinces and one combined northern region voted Yes. Reform's name: Continued to be registered with Elections Canada and owned by Alliance federally and in all provinces and territories except British Columbia. Reform's assets: Assets move automatically to Alliance.

Alliance win: Reform immediately becomes Canadian Alliance; Reform caucus must vote to accept name change to Canadian Alliance and then inform House of Commons Speaker of switch. According to senior strategists with the Alliance and the Reform party, Saturday's vote effectively marked the end of Reform. Its MPs will have to decide whether they want to become Canadian Alliance representatives or sit as independents. But with the new party comes the huge task of forging ahead and convincing voters the change is worth noting. Rod Love, national council member for the Canadian Alliance, was characteristically to the point.

"What does the future hold? Government!" said Love. "The ideal future is that enough people join the cause, that we can take out a pretty arrogant, out-of-control federal government." The major challenges facing the party are winning the minds of voters and, of course, beating the Grits, said Love, a steering committee member for the United Alternative, a precursor to the Alliance. Ultimately, the Alliance wants to be the say that's somebody else's assignment. Nonetheless, Flanagan said he's hopeful that with a new leader the Alliance will accomplish more than the Reform party. I.