Western Standard - Fireside chat： The Right Honourable Stephen J. Harper and the Honourable Preston Manning

00:00:00.000 It's great to be back on a stage with you. I hate to think how long it's been since we've done anything like this.

00:00:06.080 Well, thank you for that very glowing, I think I might run for election again.

00:00:11.960 Well, I think you're ineligible for a Senate appointment, so it's your only hope.

00:00:16.460 Yes, they would dig up some of the things we said about the Senate, yeah.

00:00:22.220 Yeah.

00:00:22.960 Like it sleeps 108.

00:00:24.960 Yeah.

00:00:25.320 Anyway, so, federal election night, 1993, for those who remember, and really unprecedented, I think since Confederation, not even 1921 comes close.

00:00:44.600 Governing parties virtually wiped out.

00:00:47.600 Two of the three traditional parties are no longer official, have official party status.

00:00:52.260 A third of the seats in the parliament, 54 for the bloc, 52 for reform.

00:00:58.360 As Deborah Gray used to say, we got a full deck, they got the jokers.

00:01:05.380 A third of the seats go to brand new or virtually brand new political parties, which had barely existed a few years before.

00:01:13.400 Canada has a political revolution.

00:01:15.300 On the other hand, you know, you and I, we ran in 1988, there was no political revolution.

00:01:20.480 1993 there is.

00:01:21.900 So, tell us about the thoughts on that night and what happened.

00:01:26.880 Well, like you and I have talked about, I think this is close as Canada will come to a revolution.

00:01:33.360 I mean, we're not a revolutionary people.

00:01:34.780 Our revolution wasn't like the French revolution. 0.51

00:01:38.760 We're too polite to chop off heads.

00:01:41.620 Our revolution was not like the American revolution.

00:01:45.660 Environment Canada wouldn't give us a permit to put tea in the Toronto harbour.

00:01:52.280 But the changes that you mentioned are pretty fundamental.

00:01:57.120 The governing party that went from 150-some seats to two, and a third of the seats in that parliament going to parties that virtually hadn't existed five years before.

00:02:06.420 So, I think that's the closest thing to a revolution.

00:02:09.780 One little thing, because I was in at some of the other sessions today, and one of the speakers made a point about somehow how one vote can sometimes change.

00:02:17.900 We lost three seats in Edmonton by a total of 329 votes.

00:02:23.340 That made the difference between whether the official opposition in the Canadian parliament was a federalist party or a separatist party.

00:02:32.140 If Quebec had gone the wrong way on that night when we were here in that referendum, I was going to go back to Edmonton and say there are 400 people here who are, if you had voted the other way, the bloc used that position of official opposition in the parliament to build its case for separation.

00:02:50.540 Very effectively.

00:02:51.440 The absolute importance of voting, you never know how much, and in that election, that was very important.

00:02:59.180 Yeah, it really was.

00:03:00.460 Yeah.

00:03:00.900 It really was.

00:03:02.420 Well, now, like we, I'd say, we got down here as members of parliament in 1993, but of course, our first member was Deborah Gray, elected in 1988 in the Beaver River Riding.

00:03:17.200 And you came down, I think we assigned you to come down with Deborah as her executive assistant, her policy advisor, and her bodyguard, because Deborah had to put up with a lot of abuse. 0.92

00:03:35.100 So what do you remember from those years?

00:03:36.940 Because that was really the first reform presence in Ottawa.

00:03:40.520 Well, look, it was an exciting time.

00:03:45.120 We were new, and it was, you know, new horizons.

00:03:50.320 I'd been, as you know, been before in Ottawa as a political assistant, as a policy legislative assistant.

00:03:57.180 But, yeah, being with the one MP of a new party was a unique and challenging experience.

00:04:03.240 I think, as you remember, Preston, I spent a year plus here and then seemed to promptly go into the hospital for six months afterwards.

00:04:10.120 But, look, here's what I remember, a couple of things.

00:04:17.960 Deborah had a rough ride. 0.99

00:04:20.440 It was not easy.

00:04:22.600 She was here challenging a whole bunch of things that were a consensus, you know, right across the three parties in parliament.

00:04:31.340 And particularly as, you know, when she first got here, it wasn't bad.

00:04:38.000 But as the party was picking up in the polls and threatening people, it got more and more difficult.

00:04:44.180 And she got some, you know, pretty rough treatment from, and we got some pretty rough treatment from a lot of people.

00:04:53.600 But there were exceptions.

00:04:56.920 And I always tell people one of the exceptions, you know, it's funny, these things really stick with you.

00:05:03.140 One of the great exceptions was John Turner.

00:05:07.220 John Turner, I recall when Deborah gave her maiden speech in the House of Commons, John Turner made a point of making himself available,

00:05:15.760 came down, asked her a couple of softball questions afterwards, always treated her with respect and as a real gentleman.

00:05:22.640 And, you know, it ultimately, you know, I kind of really became very close to Mr. Turner for the rest of his life after that.

00:05:31.320 It was quite marked compared to how she got treated with so many others.

00:05:35.180 So that's a good story.

00:05:36.140 But look, I'll tell you, another one was really tough on it, but it tells you about the era.

00:05:39.600 Of course, one of the things she came down was she was opposed to the Meach Lake Accord, you know,

00:05:44.340 a big constitutional set of constitutional amendments signed by not just all the provincial governments,

00:05:52.940 but signed on to by all three federal political parties.

00:05:55.560 But the truth is, by the time she got down here, support for the Accord in the country was no more than 50-50, probably less.

00:06:03.720 And, of course, it ultimately unraveled.

00:06:06.520 But I will never forget, and I don't think she'll ever forget, partly because I'd wrote the question for her,

00:06:11.700 and I don't think she, at that point, quite understood what a hornet's nest it was.

00:06:15.320 I asked her, I gave her a question that she got up and delivered in the House of Commons,

00:06:20.720 hammered Mulroney on the deficiencies of the Meach Lake Accord.

00:06:24.580 And this was the first time in two years anyone had raised any objection to the Meach Lake Accord

00:06:32.540 on the floor of the House of Commons, despite the fact that over 50% of the public was against it.

00:06:36.580 And the House was just, it was a combination of electric, but also, like, petrified that this kind of debate was happening.

00:06:46.660 And so, yeah, I'll remember some moments like that, but it was an interesting time.

00:06:51.480 Well, speaking of the Meach Lake Accord, one of the things that was a godsend for reform was in 1992, of course,

00:07:01.360 there was the Charlottetown Accord referendum, not a constitutional referendum.

00:07:07.040 And reform participated in that.

00:07:09.760 We were opposed to it, but we had a whole bunch of constitutional positions of our own.

00:07:14.340 And in 1992, we conducted what would be called today an issue campaign, basically an issue campaign.

00:07:20.080 It was not to get elected, but it was to present a certain position.

00:07:23.520 And because it was a referendum, there was actually a vote at the end.

00:07:26.500 And in order to participate in an issue campaign, you have to do all the same things that you have to do in an election campaign.

00:07:32.520 So here's a brand new party.

00:07:34.480 But in 1992, people had to have constituency organizations, they had to have meetings,

00:07:38.540 they had to distribute literature, they had to raise money, they had to get out the vote.

00:07:41.740 And that issue campaign was really what prepared reform to fight the 1993 federal election.

00:07:48.720 And what it brings to my mind today is I think issue campaigns are an excellent training ground for electoral politics.

00:07:55.600 And I kind of wonder what even the Conservative Party of Canada might do in the next year.

00:08:00.040 Is there an issue campaign that would logically fit into what Pierre is advocating that might, again,

00:08:08.600 sort of tool up the machine to do what's going to have to be done in 2024?

00:08:13.720 Well, look, I would say, first of all, obviously with the renewal of inflation

00:08:17.880 and some of the further economic difficulties I expect, you know, there's going to be lots of opportunity to push issues

00:08:26.560 and push issues on a sustained basis.

00:08:28.620 And from, you know, my observations many miles away, I think the leader is doing those things.

00:08:35.000 Now, you're not going to entirely like my answer to this, Preston,

00:08:37.620 which is that, you know, that issue campaign, and it was, I think, the culmination of a series of issue campaigns

00:08:45.460 the party had run, reform had run on constitutional matters.

00:08:49.900 And we'll talk about some of the other issue campaigns the party had run.

00:08:55.320 Those things, I would say, were, like, they were, for all the reasons you explain, not just the training,

00:09:03.000 but they were essential, not just to build up the party, but to put the party on the map.

00:09:09.020 You know, before 1993, we had one MP, and briefly for a time, one senator.

00:09:15.460 We were, you know, there was no guarantee, as you know, even probably early in the 93 election,

00:09:24.720 no guarantee we were going to turn into an official, recognized party.

00:09:29.460 So the party had to do something to just raise its profile.

00:09:33.840 It wasn't in Parliament, and Deborah, they let Deborah get up and ask a question once every two months, 0.97

00:09:39.160 you know, and so how do you stay relevant?

00:09:43.140 How do you get in the news?

00:09:44.560 How do you think?

00:09:45.020 We had to do those kinds of things.

00:09:48.940 The advice I give Conservative opposition leaders these days is quite different.

00:09:54.380 I tell them, I mean, obviously, get on some issue themes, but, you know,

00:10:02.980 the Conservative Party of Canada doesn't have to do anything today to be the major contender for power in the next election.

00:10:09.620 To get recognition.

00:10:10.260 It is.

00:10:10.720 It will be.

00:10:11.860 In fact, with the NDP as a branch plant now of the Liberal Party, you know,

00:10:18.380 jeez, only Jagmeet Singh could walk into a room with Trudeau and come out with a deal where he gets nothing.

00:10:23.700 I mean, you know, seriously.

00:10:28.560 I just, look, I say this, this is out of pure jealousy.

00:10:32.920 I just wish I'd had an opposition leader like that somewhere.

00:10:37.860 You know, support me, and I'll make sure you never have to go back to the voters,

00:10:42.000 or at least for five years.

00:10:43.760 But, you know, the Reform Party, or sorry, the Conservative Party will be the contender for power, period.

00:10:51.920 Yeah, yeah.

00:10:52.500 So I think, I think that it is, I, what I say to Conservative opposition leaders is,

00:11:01.860 your job today, yeah, broadly speaking, indicate a direction you're going to go,

00:11:08.200 but it's not to talk about how you would run the country.

00:11:10.540 It is to hold the government accountable for how it is running the country

00:11:15.160 and making, making it where it's mismanagement and competence and corruption.

00:11:19.920 That's the job.

00:11:21.720 And I really worry, and I know the people say, develop the plans, develop the proposals,

00:11:28.100 but I worry that that's what the Liberal media here wants Pierre Poiliev to do.

00:11:34.580 Make himself the issue, let them hold him accountable,

00:11:39.840 while the government, you know, continues on what I think is, for the most part,

00:11:44.800 a pretty poor course, and they're off the hook.

00:11:47.940 The time to tell people about your alternatives in detail is in an election campaign.

00:11:53.880 And, look, what's important, though, is while you're not talking about those details now,

00:11:58.140 you better be developing them in the meantime.

00:12:00.240 And I can tell you from experience, once you get into office,

00:12:04.000 you better have some idea than what you're going to do,

00:12:06.520 because it ain't going to fall into your lap.

00:12:09.920 And, look, unfortunately, when Pierre becomes the next prime minister,

00:12:14.740 and I believe that's going to happen, he's...

00:12:18.240 Look, he's going to face...

00:12:22.240 He's going to face...

00:12:23.020 I was very fortunate, you know.

00:12:24.340 I was one of the rare conservative prime ministers in 100 years

00:12:28.660 who came to office when things were actually pretty good.

00:12:32.360 And I don't think Pierre is going to come in under those kind of circumstances.

00:12:36.700 No, that's true.

00:12:39.540 One of the benefits, or just going back to Charlotte,

00:12:42.540 to any kind of a campaign,

00:12:45.560 and I know there's a lot of younger people here

00:12:47.600 that have been studying campaign techniques,

00:12:50.820 is the importance of...

00:12:53.060 We had a lot of meetings, 200, 300 meetings a year,

00:12:57.960 is to hang around afterwards.

00:12:59.900 And it's not just for glad-handing and smiling at people.

00:13:02.600 Listen hard to what...

00:13:03.920 People will try to say back to you what you were saying to them,

00:13:08.400 but they will say it in language and with analogies

00:13:12.120 that they would use,

00:13:14.620 that they were trying to explain what you were saying to them to somebody else.

00:13:17.660 And one of the ones I remember from the Meech-Late and Charlottetown Accords, 1.00

00:13:21.700 because these were arguments about constitutional things,

00:13:23.700 you could put people to sleep by...

00:13:25.260 We had a big, long thing reciting in all the previous attempts

00:13:28.120 to try to get national unity through constitutional change

00:13:30.760 and how they failed, but it was dull,

00:13:32.140 and you put a crowd like you to sleep.

00:13:34.660 And after one of those meetings,

00:13:36.060 I think it was during the Charlottetown Accord,

00:13:38.160 I was talking to people after,

00:13:40.000 and then this guy says to me,

00:13:40.980 he says, we're like kids in the back of the car, he says.

00:13:45.140 And we're trying to get to this place called national unity,

00:13:48.360 and we're just saying, are we there yet?

00:13:49.960 Are we there yet?

00:13:51.100 Well, I reframed my...

00:13:52.440 We're like kids in the back of the car,

00:13:54.040 and we let Pierre Trudeau drive the car for a while,

00:13:56.240 and he's giving guys a finger out of the...

00:13:57.980 And he says it's over by some lake then,

00:14:01.140 and then we let Joe drive the car,

00:14:02.700 but Joe forgot to put gas into the law very long.

00:14:05.100 And then, now Brian says it's over by some other,

00:14:09.020 this Charlottetown thing, and we're just saying,

00:14:10.820 when Rennie Levesque's in the back saying,

00:14:12.280 he's going to be sick if we don't let him out.

00:14:13.660 And, you know, I carried that whole argument

00:14:19.260 of constitutional attempts to reform,

00:14:22.140 unite the country through constitutional change,

00:14:23.960 and it was based on an analogy like that.

00:14:26.160 And I think it's important in any of this campaign

00:14:29.820 to listen hard to what people are saying back to you,

00:14:32.360 because they will use language and illustrations

00:14:34.220 that can be useful to you in election campaigns,

00:14:37.840 referendum campaigns.

00:14:38.820 But look, I'd also add to all that, Preston,

00:14:41.200 what is forgotten now is it wasn't just the positions

00:14:46.120 that people had on those issues,

00:14:48.880 that those weren't the issues that people actually cared about.

00:14:51.860 Like, we were early 90s, we were entering a recession.

00:14:54.940 Yeah, yeah.

00:14:55.480 And everybody wanted to focus on the economy

00:14:58.220 and budgeting and taxes,

00:15:00.280 and the governments were focused on constitutional debates.

00:15:02.740 Yeah, yeah.

00:15:03.200 And that was devastating.

00:15:04.980 But one of the other issue campaigns you led,

00:15:09.080 I want to say not just constitutional stuff,

00:15:11.360 was, because there's nothing new under the sun,

00:15:15.760 was dealing with a fiscal mess.

00:15:17.380 Yeah, that's right.

00:15:18.120 Budget balance.

00:15:18.920 One of the main issues in 93 that you had prepared us for

00:15:23.240 was the need to balance a federal budget.

00:15:26.080 Reform had developed around the, actually, before the,

00:15:29.960 I think it was really had come together, as I recall,

00:15:32.500 before the actual Charlottetown referendum.

00:15:36.000 We developed the zero and three plan for balancing the budget,

00:15:40.800 which they said couldn't be done.

00:15:43.820 And that was a big part of the campaign in 1993.

00:15:47.680 So maybe we can talk about,

00:15:50.000 since we're back to unbalanced budgets in a fairly spectacular way,

00:15:56.040 you know, what's the same and what's different compared to 30 years ago?

00:16:03.740 Well, I think one of the big differences, and you'll remember that,

00:16:06.240 the liberals, like in there, they had the Red Book in 1993,

00:16:09.940 they had two pages in it on fiscal stuff.

00:16:11.960 They weren't crusading on fiscal matters.

00:16:15.560 But they didn't disagree with the overall objective

00:16:18.900 that you had to balance the budget.

00:16:20.520 But they criticized, you guys are going too fast,

00:16:22.760 you're doing it wrong.

00:16:23.840 But they didn't disagree with the ultimate objective.

00:16:27.100 And, of course, when Gretchen was elected in 1993, 0.87

00:16:31.420 and his pollsters came in to him after and said, 1.00

00:16:33.400 look, these idiots got two and a half million votes 1.00

00:16:35.520 crusading along this stuff, 1.00

00:16:37.420 including Gretchen being pragmatist. 1.00

00:16:39.760 He said, let's balance the budget.

00:16:42.120 But today, I don't see any acceptance,

00:16:47.760 even of the objective of balancing the budget.

00:16:51.920 And I think that's a deterioration from the situation that we were in.

00:16:56.940 Yeah.

00:16:57.900 Look, just if I bore the audience with some numbers,

00:17:02.680 you know, I think people really don't grasp

00:17:08.240 the kind of scale of fiscal mismanagement.

00:17:12.560 Now, look, global pandemic,

00:17:17.960 in many ways, like the global financial crisis,

00:17:21.740 but a lot worse, governments around the world

00:17:23.860 were faced with very unique and, you know,

00:17:28.620 circumstances nobody had managed in 100 years.

00:17:32.260 But, you know, and every government went into deficit,

00:17:35.540 but some did it a lot more than others.

00:17:40.540 As I tell people, the deficit run in, I think it was 2020, 2021,

00:17:46.480 which is a couple of years ago now,

00:17:48.640 that deficit was larger, about 25% larger,

00:17:56.060 than the entire budget I presented to Parliament in 2015.

00:17:59.680 If I had presented, I see Tony there,

00:18:02.980 and a couple of others, Candace Bergen,

00:18:04.820 if I'd gone into Parliament in 2015,

00:18:06.360 if I told Joe Oliver, reduce the GST to zero,

00:18:10.340 we'd gone 7, 6, 5, make it zero,

00:18:12.640 corporate taxes we'd taken 22 to 15, make them zero,

00:18:16.180 make every level of income tax from the pauper to the billionaire,

00:18:20.960 make it zero, eliminate all customs, excise duties, etc.

00:18:24.040 If we'd gone into Parliament,

00:18:25.580 and I told Joe Oliver to present a zero revenue budget,

00:18:29.600 we would have had a lower deficit than we did two years ago.

00:18:33.220 Okay?

00:18:33.920 I mean, this is...

00:18:36.040 Now, that's the negative side.

00:18:38.680 The positive side is that debt levels are not nearly as bad

00:18:41.680 as they were back then.

00:18:42.900 But, no, look, I...

00:18:45.040 There's, you know, been such dependency created during that time.

00:18:48.620 I worry what's going to be done,

00:18:54.160 because I agree with you, the public's not ready for it.

00:18:57.620 I don't think the public knows how they would adjust.

00:19:01.780 But, look, the history...

00:19:03.380 Here's the history, as you know this, I studied this.

00:19:07.760 The history of deficits is this.

00:19:11.400 And in a way, I think maybe we did the country a disservice.

00:19:14.040 You know, we ran what we thought was a really large deficit in 2009, 2010,

00:19:21.500 that whole period.

00:19:22.840 We thought it was a really large deficit.

00:19:24.200 It was a drop in the bucket compared to what's happened the last three or four years.

00:19:27.580 But we ran that deficit,

00:19:29.300 and then we gradually returned the budget to balance,

00:19:32.480 which is kind of what, you know,

00:19:35.280 the kind of standard economics tells you you're supposed to do.

00:19:37.920 But the truth is that almost never happens.

00:19:40.660 Usually when governments start running a deficit,

00:19:43.140 and especially what happened after 2015,

00:19:45.580 where you ran a deficit for no reason other than you needed more money to spend,

00:19:49.540 what happens is the deficit just tends to get worse and worse

00:19:52.160 until you get a crisis.

00:19:53.800 And, look, I fear that...

00:19:56.140 I fear that the public is not ready,

00:20:01.600 and we will, at some point,

00:20:04.180 we will face a really serious crisis,

00:20:06.240 and the kind of cuts and the kind of reordering,

00:20:12.520 restructuring that would be necessary will be really difficult.

00:20:15.940 As you know, Preston, what we don't...

00:20:17.640 It's never talked about.

00:20:18.560 Yeah, Gretchen and Martin balanced the budget in 1995,

00:20:21.900 after 1995,

00:20:23.280 but they ended up doing zero and two

00:20:25.160 and doing a whole lot of things we never even thought were necessary

00:20:28.360 because they had delayed.

00:20:30.020 So, look, this is what I fear,

00:20:33.500 and so I do hope that Pierre and people around him

00:20:36.600 are, you know, trying to impress upon the country

00:20:39.960 that we've at least got to make progress

00:20:41.480 and got to have some plans.

00:20:43.280 Yeah, and a couple of political things

00:20:44.780 about the campaign against our balancing budget.

00:20:48.060 When reform adopted that zero and three,

00:20:50.560 our pollsters told us,

00:20:52.800 well, you can go crusading on that,

00:20:54.540 but only 20% of the public think it's an issue.

00:20:57.280 And, of course, instead of saying,

00:20:58.960 well, I guess we can't do that because only 20%,

00:21:01.040 no, we're going to change the public's head on that.

00:21:05.440 And, by golly, three, four years after that,

00:21:08.560 the number of people that said that was an issue,

00:21:10.460 by the time we got to the 1993 campaign,

00:21:13.660 that was getting close to 40 to 50%.

00:21:15.880 Like, just because the polls say your particular idea

00:21:18.800 is not that popular today

00:21:20.740 doesn't mean you abandoned it.

00:21:22.660 Well, look, I love there's a quote of all people, Bob Ray.

00:21:26.540 Bob Ray once said,

00:21:28.680 a poll will never tell you

00:21:30.360 how the next poll will be different.

00:21:33.260 And, look, one of the things

00:21:35.120 that you deserve credit for on that

00:21:37.000 and on so many things is changing public opinion.

00:21:40.580 I mean, our role as elected people,

00:21:44.340 as leaders, is not to just read polls.

00:21:47.060 It's to shape a public opinion.

00:21:49.100 And that's what you did.

00:21:50.000 And why don't we have...

00:21:51.820 We often have trouble with the media,

00:21:58.080 with the mass media.

00:21:59.560 Like, we're crusading on this

00:22:01.380 and they paid very little attention.

00:22:02.660 But I don't know if you remember this

00:22:03.900 in Calgary, Stephen.

00:22:06.940 We put on a very big rally

00:22:09.520 on this whole zero and three thing

00:22:11.640 just after Mazinkowski.

00:22:13.100 We were worried sick

00:22:14.940 in Mazinkowski's budget

00:22:16.080 if maybe in the last moment

00:22:17.740 they were going to start doing something.

00:22:19.400 It was a $50 billion deficit.

00:22:21.480 So we put on this huge rally in Calgary.

00:22:23.700 And I think we had a couple of thousand,

00:22:25.360 3,000 people out in the zero and three.

00:22:27.540 And I think you went through

00:22:28.240 a lot of the economics.

00:22:30.040 The Calgary Herald

00:22:31.260 and the main media

00:22:31.880 didn't cover it at all.

00:22:33.740 Not at all.

00:22:34.640 And we got maddered

00:22:35.640 and boiled owls about that. 0.63

00:22:37.160 And we had enough members in Calgary.

00:22:39.120 So we got our members

00:22:40.120 to cancel their subscriptions

00:22:41.300 to the Calgary Herald.

00:22:42.500 Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.

00:22:44.060 We got small businesses

00:22:45.400 that had ads in the Herald.

00:22:47.240 Just cancel your advertising

00:22:49.020 for a day or two.

00:22:49.920 You can go back the next day. 0.94

00:22:51.220 But just to fire a shot 0.98

00:22:52.260 across their boat.

00:22:53.300 About six hours after all this

00:22:54.780 I get a call from Ken King,

00:22:56.100 the publisher,

00:22:56.800 saying,

00:22:57.100 what the hell is going on?

00:23:00.060 So I went in to see Ken.

00:23:01.620 I said,

00:23:02.420 we put on one of the biggest

00:23:03.400 political meetings in Calgary

00:23:04.680 on a subject that's important

00:23:06.040 and you guys didn't cover it at all.

00:23:07.680 And we can punch back.

00:23:09.740 We can't do it all over the country.

00:23:10.980 But by golly,

00:23:11.680 we can punch in Calgary.

00:23:12.820 And two days later,

00:23:14.460 there was a great big spread

00:23:15.640 in Calgary.

00:23:18.200 I know you can't do that all the time.

00:23:20.140 But there are opportunities.

00:23:22.260 Well, now you have to take away

00:23:24.360 not just the readers

00:23:25.120 but also their government subsidies.

00:23:27.140 Yeah, that's right.

00:23:28.360 That's the difference.

00:23:30.140 Anyway, look, 1993.

00:23:32.320 Back to that.

00:23:32.860 Both us, Reform and Bloc, 0.90

00:23:35.820 ran bottom-up campaigns.

00:23:38.280 And both were,

00:23:39.280 we talked about the economics,

00:23:42.940 us talk about populism,

00:23:44.720 pros and cons.

00:23:45.960 I talked about it.

00:23:46.900 It's still a controversial topic.

00:23:49.260 What can the Conservative Party

00:23:52.620 and opposition today

00:23:54.000 learn from kind of populist experience

00:23:57.760 going into the next election?

00:23:58.820 Well, I guess that's a huge subject.

00:24:00.580 And you touched upon it in your speech.

00:24:03.200 One thing, I think,

00:24:04.200 for federal politicians,

00:24:05.320 no matter what party they are,

00:24:06.940 is to understand

00:24:08.980 what's the distinguishing characteristics

00:24:11.500 of the politics

00:24:12.560 in the different parts of this country.

00:24:15.000 Because they're different.

00:24:17.260 This is a sidebar.

00:24:18.520 But remember,

00:24:19.000 at one of our many conferences,

00:24:21.120 we had a panel of conservatives

00:24:23.420 where we asked them,

00:24:24.340 what's the distinguishing characteristic

00:24:26.080 of conservatism

00:24:27.280 in your part of the country?

00:24:28.540 So the fellow from Atlantic Canada

00:24:30.700 said tradition.

00:24:32.100 The fellow from Quebec said nationalism.

00:24:34.440 The fellow from Toronto said business.

00:24:37.300 The prairie guy,

00:24:38.180 which was linked by a field,

00:24:39.200 said revolution.

00:24:41.780 And the BC guy said polarization

00:24:44.060 of being at the right end of the pole.

00:24:45.840 These are all conservatives

00:24:47.320 whose perception or conception

00:24:49.900 of conservatism ran from tradition

00:24:51.980 to revolution.

00:24:53.660 But in trying to understand

00:24:55.380 the underlying politics

00:24:56.860 of the different parts of the country,

00:24:58.060 one of the fundamental ones

00:24:59.400 which you touch on

00:25:00.180 is that nationalism is in Quebec.

00:25:04.120 All those third parties

00:25:05.300 had a national history.

00:25:06.400 Everything from the Bloc Quebecois

00:25:08.220 to the Bloc Populaire,

00:25:10.180 the Union Nationale,

00:25:11.460 the PQ, the Creditiste,

00:25:13.340 all had that.

00:25:14.460 And in Western Canada,

00:25:15.680 that populism,

00:25:16.640 populism is to the political culture,

00:25:18.820 the West,

00:25:19.400 what nationalism,

00:25:20.300 soft nationalism is to Quebec.

00:25:21.600 And, you know,

00:25:24.180 in North America,

00:25:25.380 you could argue

00:25:26.020 that no part of the country

00:25:27.980 in the 20th century

00:25:28.960 had had more experience

00:25:30.360 with populist movements,

00:25:32.100 populist governments,

00:25:33.620 than Western Canada.

00:25:35.560 Now, the thing that you touched on,

00:25:37.560 Stephen,

00:25:37.800 like populism does have its wild

00:25:39.440 and woolly side,

00:25:41.700 but the Canadian,

00:25:44.800 Western Canadian populism

00:25:45.920 has had some enormous

00:25:47.100 positive contributions.

00:25:49.140 The first woman

00:25:49.900 that got elected

00:25:50.520 to this parliament over here,

00:25:51.680 how did she get there?

00:25:52.700 She didn't get there 0.93

00:25:53.480 through the traditional parties.

00:25:55.220 She got there

00:25:55.880 through the old

00:25:56.400 progressive farmers' parties,

00:25:57.760 Agnes Campbell McPhail.

00:25:59.480 That's when Deborah

00:26:00.540 went in the house.

00:26:01.260 There's a little statue

00:26:02.100 of Agnes Campbell McPhail.

00:26:03.920 Deborah would always

00:26:04.440 pat her on the head 0.97

00:26:05.120 going in there.

00:26:06.820 The famous five

00:26:09.560 that got women 0.99

00:26:10.380 recognized as persons

00:26:12.320 in Canadian law,

00:26:14.040 four of those five

00:26:15.140 were members

00:26:15.780 of populist movements.

00:26:16.900 The first one

00:26:17.500 to get elected

00:26:18.060 in Alberta in 1918

00:26:19.840 didn't even belong

00:26:20.660 to a political party.

00:26:21.660 She belonged

00:26:21.980 to the so-called

00:26:22.580 non-partisan league,

00:26:23.920 which was one of these

00:26:24.580 populist bottom-up things.

00:26:26.460 Whether you agree

00:26:27.140 with Medicare or not,

00:26:28.900 the concept

00:26:29.560 of universal access

00:26:30.760 to health care

00:26:31.460 was pioneered

00:26:32.580 by the CCF

00:26:33.600 in Saskatchewan.

00:26:34.360 This is a populist movement.

00:26:35.800 The biggest

00:26:36.300 constitutional amendment

00:26:39.000 that the West

00:26:40.380 ever got,

00:26:41.080 the godsend

00:26:42.120 to the West

00:26:42.580 in terms of

00:26:43.220 getting its control

00:26:44.780 over natural resources,

00:26:45.940 the 1930 Constitutional Amendment

00:26:47.580 was achieved

00:26:48.280 by the United Farmers

00:26:49.780 of Alberta

00:26:50.200 populist party

00:26:51.220 aligning with

00:26:52.240 populist members

00:26:53.160 in the House of Commons.

00:26:54.800 So the West's experience,

00:26:57.640 populism can have

00:26:58.620 its wild and woolly side,

00:26:59.640 but that populist energy

00:27:01.360 can be harnessed

00:27:02.440 some very positive

00:27:03.700 and constructive objectives.

00:27:05.560 And if one is

00:27:06.860 a populist

00:27:07.560 and a populist leader,

00:27:09.560 that's one of the challenges,

00:27:12.340 is to make sure

00:27:13.060 that it's channeled

00:27:14.820 in that positive direction.

00:27:17.900 And we used to use

00:27:18.640 analogies from the oil patch.

00:27:20.600 Like an oil patch

00:27:21.300 is such a thing

00:27:21.880 as a wildcat well

00:27:23.160 that's drilled

00:27:24.400 into a formation

00:27:25.160 where you don't know

00:27:25.700 what's down below.

00:27:27.380 And then there's

00:27:28.300 a rogue well

00:27:29.060 where you've got

00:27:30.040 a wildcat well

00:27:30.920 that catches on fire

00:27:32.340 and it can be dangerous

00:27:33.800 as the Dickens.

00:27:36.080 There's some classic cases

00:27:37.540 in the Leduc oil patch,

00:27:39.660 Atlantic No. 3.

00:27:41.340 But the way you tame

00:27:43.540 a rogue well

00:27:45.040 is you drill in

00:27:46.600 from the side.

00:27:48.260 And the angle

00:27:49.120 has got to be right.

00:27:49.780 If it's too shallow,

00:27:50.560 it won't take off

00:27:51.180 enough pressure.

00:27:52.000 If it's too deep,

00:27:52.660 it can turn into a rogue well.

00:27:53.920 But if it's just right,

00:27:55.220 it takes off

00:27:55.900 enough pressure

00:27:56.520 so that the valves

00:27:57.300 can be installed

00:27:57.960 and now that energy,

00:27:59.140 that enormous energy

00:28:00.000 can be harnessed

00:28:00.940 to something good.

00:28:02.280 And we kind of thought

00:28:03.340 of the Reform Party.

00:28:05.180 There was a lot

00:28:05.680 of Western alienation.

00:28:06.600 There was a separatist

00:28:07.340 elected to the Alberta legislature.

00:28:10.360 We thought of it

00:28:11.180 as drilling in

00:28:12.360 that relief well

00:28:14.100 to the rogue well

00:28:15.300 of Western alienation

00:28:16.380 and harnessing that energy

00:28:18.020 to something constructive.

00:28:19.660 So there's my...

00:28:20.360 And look,

00:28:21.440 and I think

00:28:21.860 that probably describes

00:28:23.260 the challenge

00:28:23.860 the Conservative Party

00:28:24.640 will have

00:28:25.180 in the next election.

00:28:25.940 I suspect

00:28:26.480 we're going to have

00:28:27.280 we're having

00:28:28.280 difficult times now.

00:28:29.320 They're going to get

00:28:29.680 more difficult

00:28:30.260 and there's going

00:28:31.140 to be a lot of anger

00:28:32.960 and a lot of bad ideas

00:28:34.520 out there.

00:28:35.140 We see it throughout

00:28:35.800 the world

00:28:36.280 and the party's job

00:28:39.380 will be to channel

00:28:40.500 that into something

00:28:41.400 positive and workable.

00:28:45.140 One other topic,

00:28:46.700 maybe,

00:28:47.180 along those lines,

00:28:49.680 it's not a secret

00:28:51.200 in this country

00:28:51.880 throughout the Western world.

00:28:53.820 People say,

00:28:55.160 they say in polling

00:28:56.020 and elsewhere,

00:28:56.500 losing faith

00:28:57.400 in democracies

00:28:58.940 and democratic institutions.

00:29:01.780 What's there

00:29:02.460 from the...

00:29:03.340 And that was not

00:29:04.180 unlike the time

00:29:05.080 we were in.

00:29:06.880 What's there

00:29:07.600 from our experience

00:29:08.520 that we can use

00:29:11.080 to restore faith

00:29:12.060 in that today?

00:29:13.000 Yeah, I mean,

00:29:13.480 we've been...

00:29:14.280 I've been a critic

00:29:15.580 of the way

00:29:17.260 democracy is practiced

00:29:18.300 in Canada,

00:29:20.120 but having said that,

00:29:22.800 the reform story

00:29:24.060 is that five people

00:29:26.040 met in a boardroom

00:29:27.600 in Calgary

00:29:28.280 in 1987.

00:29:31.760 Jim Gray,

00:29:34.680 Bob Muir,

00:29:35.600 Bob Muir,

00:29:36.800 yourself.

00:29:38.560 or Ted Byfield.

00:29:40.960 There's five.

00:29:42.080 And said,

00:29:42.620 we're not happy

00:29:43.860 with the way

00:29:44.480 things are going.

00:29:45.220 And so,

00:29:47.120 why don't we

00:29:49.420 take the tools

00:29:50.380 that democracy

00:29:51.280 gives to everybody,

00:29:52.780 the freedom of speech,

00:29:54.320 freedom of assembly,

00:29:55.520 freedom to try

00:29:56.460 to persuade people

00:29:57.300 to vote this way

00:29:58.140 and that way,

00:29:58.780 and try to change this.

00:30:00.440 And even in that little group,

00:30:01.680 we couldn't agree

00:30:02.260 on what the first step was.

00:30:04.220 I was in favor

00:30:05.200 of reviving

00:30:06.100 the third-party tradition.

00:30:07.360 Other people said,

00:30:08.140 well, maybe you create

00:30:08.640 a new, bigger,

00:30:09.740 better pressure group.

00:30:11.180 Jim Gray was,

00:30:12.600 we cannot work

00:30:13.540 through the Conservative Party

00:30:14.460 one more time.

00:30:15.540 We couldn't agree on that,

00:30:16.440 so we'll say,

00:30:16.820 we'll have a conference,

00:30:17.820 but we'll have

00:30:18.260 a democratic conference

00:30:19.220 and we'll have a decision

00:30:20.180 and that's how it goes.

00:30:21.340 But what I'm saying

00:30:22.180 is that five people,

00:30:23.680 starting with five people,

00:30:24.840 took the tools

00:30:25.540 that democracy

00:30:26.260 gives to us all

00:30:27.160 and used that

00:30:28.300 to build one party

00:30:29.220 and then we,

00:30:30.260 the Canadian alliance,

00:30:31.460 we got,

00:30:32.740 managed to rope in

00:30:33.780 Ralph Klein,

00:30:35.100 Philman,

00:30:35.980 and of course,

00:30:36.760 Mike Harris

00:30:37.220 was an enormous boost

00:30:38.120 to that.

00:30:38.620 And then you and Peter

00:30:39.420 took that the next step

00:30:40.600 and you created

00:30:41.080 a minority government party

00:30:42.800 and a majority government party.

00:30:44.020 Something that started

00:30:44.760 with five people

00:30:45.800 using the tools

00:30:46.700 that democracy gives

00:30:47.540 to every one of you

00:30:48.380 and everybody in the country.

00:30:50.260 And there are not

00:30:51.460 many countries

00:30:52.160 in the world

00:30:52.960 where you could do that today.

00:30:54.200 You could not do that

00:30:55.100 in the United States.

00:30:56.140 We had no money.

00:30:57.120 We had no money.

00:30:58.380 And so I say to people

00:31:00.600 that you can lose faith

00:31:01.780 in democracy,

00:31:03.260 but I think we still

00:31:04.200 have those tools

00:31:05.000 and I think they can be used

00:31:06.660 and they can be employed

00:31:07.900 to improve the position

00:31:09.140 of large numbers of people.

00:31:10.600 So I gather

00:31:19.100 you have some recollections

00:31:20.520 you want to share with me,

00:31:21.900 personal ones.

00:31:22.700 Yes, I have one more

00:31:23.840 recollection here.

00:31:25.080 You see,

00:31:25.680 like when reform started,

00:31:27.140 we had no money

00:31:27.940 and we needed a policy chief.

00:31:29.440 So I'm trying to think

00:31:30.300 where can we get a policy guy

00:31:31.600 if we have got no money?

00:31:32.540 Graduate students.

00:31:33.560 Some of them are starving

00:31:35.200 so they don't take much money.

00:31:38.060 So I asked Robert Mansell.

00:31:42.060 You remember Bob Mansell?

00:31:42.960 Oh, yeah.

00:31:43.280 He was an economist

00:31:44.660 at the University of Calgary.

00:31:45.840 I was in the consulting business.

00:31:47.160 I knew Bob from something else.

00:31:48.860 And I said,

00:31:49.320 who is your brightest graduate student,

00:31:51.480 economics student,

00:31:52.880 that might be interested

00:31:55.080 in a political adventure?

00:31:56.660 And he gave me one name.

00:31:58.560 And it was the name

00:31:59.480 of Stephen Harper.

00:32:01.440 And he said,

00:32:02.300 you know,

00:32:02.580 Stephen,

00:32:03.040 he's living with,

00:32:04.200 I think it's your brother,

00:32:05.420 and John Weisenberger.

00:32:07.200 And he said,

00:32:08.080 I think if you buy them pizza,

00:32:09.620 you could get

00:32:10.040 their intellectual capital

00:32:11.320 for at least for a weekend.

00:32:14.980 So that's what we did.

00:32:17.980 And that's how Stephen

00:32:18.940 became the initial policy chief

00:32:21.700 of the reform party.

00:32:23.060 And I'm tempted to say

00:32:23.800 you got what you paid for.

00:32:26.940 But Stephen was still a student

00:32:29.280 and he eventually produced

00:32:31.220 his master's thesis.

00:32:34.080 Eventually.

00:32:35.140 Yes.

00:32:36.460 And it's on the exotic subject

00:32:39.460 of the relationship

00:32:40.520 between fiscal cycles

00:32:41.920 and electoral cycles.

00:32:44.980 I think the idea was

00:32:46.320 do governments end up

00:32:48.820 spending and greasing

00:32:49.900 the wheels

00:32:50.340 during an election year

00:32:51.560 or not.

00:32:53.000 It's quite a profound tome,

00:32:54.840 actually.

00:32:55.580 And I have one

00:32:56.700 of the only copies.

00:32:58.420 And it is a signed copy.

00:33:02.040 And it also ends,

00:33:04.420 like it ends

00:33:05.540 with this sentence.

00:33:06.720 This is typical

00:33:07.400 of an economist.

00:33:10.680 Let me just find it here.

00:33:12.300 Since there is no reason

00:33:15.420 to believe

00:33:16.060 that these matters

00:33:17.040 are entirely deterministic,

00:33:19.720 not sure what that means.

00:33:21.580 But these are

00:33:22.020 the last nine words

00:33:24.720 of this thesis.

00:33:25.500 There may be room

00:33:26.740 for political action

00:33:28.320 as well.

00:33:30.020 So it's a prophetic document.

00:33:32.440 That was pre-populist language.

00:33:37.780 So I think

00:33:38.840 this is a highly

00:33:39.480 valuable document.

00:33:40.540 And I think

00:33:41.240 we should auction

00:33:41.980 this off here, Stephen.

00:33:43.020 I think we could

00:33:44.500 raise some money

00:33:45.080 for Pierre with this.

00:33:46.000 I think it's worth,

00:33:47.260 I would start

00:33:48.460 at $150,000.

00:33:50.720 Well, look,

00:33:53.240 for what was

00:33:55.500 little more

00:33:56.180 than a pamphlet,

00:33:57.100 the government

00:33:57.360 was going to pay

00:33:57.960 the Kielberger

00:33:58.520 is $900 million.

00:34:00.680 So, you know,

00:34:02.840 I think maybe

00:34:03.960 we could go

00:34:04.380 to $250,000.

00:34:05.280 $250,000.

00:34:06.900 So if there's

00:34:07.740 anyone out there

00:34:08.500 afterwards

00:34:08.980 that would be

00:34:09.580 willing to put up

00:34:10.220 $250,000,

00:34:11.580 just come and see me

00:34:12.880 after and I'll be

00:34:13.540 happy to deal with you.

00:34:14.780 So thank you all

00:34:15.780 very much.

00:34:16.860 President Manning,

00:34:17.680 everybody.

00:34:18.160 Thank you very much.

00:34:18.980 Thank you.

00:34:23.320 Thank you.

00:34:23.480 Thank you.

00:34:23.880 Thank you.

00:34:24.460 Thank you.

00:34:25.020 Thank you.

00:34:25.460 Thank you.

00:34:25.940 Thank you.

00:34:26.020 Thank you.

00:34:26.040 Thank you.

00:34:26.120 Thank you.

00:34:26.620 Thank you.

00:34:27.960 Thank you.

Western Standard - March 23, 2023

Fireside chat： The Right Honourable Stephen J. Harper and the Honourable Preston Manning

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