Fireside chat： The Right Honourable Stephen J. Harper and the Honourable Preston Manning
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Summary
In this episode, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien talks about the 1993 federal election, the break-up of the Conservative Party of Canada, and the birth of his party, the Bloc, with his good friend and former colleague, Preston Manning.
Transcript
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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.
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Well, thank you for that very glowing, I think I might run for election again.
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Well, I think you're ineligible for a Senate appointment, so it's your only hope.
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Yes, they would dig up some of the things we said about the Senate, yeah.
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Anyway, so, federal election night, 1993, for those who remember, and really unprecedented, I think since Confederation, not even 1921 comes close.
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Two of the three traditional parties are no longer official, have official party status.
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A third of the seats in the parliament, 54 for the bloc, 52 for reform.
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As Deborah Gray used to say, we got a full deck, they got the jokers.
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A third of the seats go to brand new or virtually brand new political parties, which had barely existed a few years before.
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On the other hand, you know, you and I, we ran in 1988, there was no political revolution.
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So, tell us about the thoughts on that night and what happened.
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Well, like you and I have talked about, I think this is close as Canada will come to a revolution.
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Our revolution wasn't like the French revolution.
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Our revolution was not like the American revolution.
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Environment Canada wouldn't give us a permit to put tea in the Toronto harbour.
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But the changes that you mentioned are pretty fundamental.
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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.
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So, I think that's the closest thing to a revolution.
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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.
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We lost three seats in Edmonton by a total of 329 votes.
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That made the difference between whether the official opposition in the Canadian parliament was a federalist party or a separatist party.
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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.
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The absolute importance of voting, you never know how much, and in that election, that was very important.
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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.
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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.
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Because that was really the first reform presence in Ottawa.
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We were new, and it was, you know, new horizons.
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I'd been, as you know, been before in Ottawa as a political assistant, as a policy legislative assistant.
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But, yeah, being with the one MP of a new party was a unique and challenging experience.
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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.
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But, look, here's what I remember, a couple of things.
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She was here challenging a whole bunch of things that were a consensus, you know, right across the three parties in parliament.
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And particularly as, you know, when she first got here, it wasn't bad.
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But as the party was picking up in the polls and threatening people, it got more and more difficult.
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And she got some, you know, pretty rough treatment from, and we got some pretty rough treatment from a lot of people.
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And I always tell people one of the exceptions, you know, it's funny, these things really stick with you.
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John Turner, I recall when Deborah gave her maiden speech in the House of Commons, John Turner made a point of making himself available,
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came down, asked her a couple of softball questions afterwards, always treated her with respect and as a real gentleman.
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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.
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It was quite marked compared to how she got treated with so many others.
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But look, I'll tell you, another one was really tough on it, but it tells you about the era.
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Of course, one of the things she came down was she was opposed to the Meach Lake Accord, you know,
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a big constitutional set of constitutional amendments signed by not just all the provincial governments,
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but signed on to by all three federal political parties.
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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.
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But I will never forget, and I don't think she'll ever forget, partly because I'd wrote the question for her,
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and I don't think she, at that point, quite understood what a hornet's nest it was.
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I asked her, I gave her a question that she got up and delivered in the House of Commons,
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hammered Mulroney on the deficiencies of the Meach Lake Accord.
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And this was the first time in two years anyone had raised any objection to the Meach Lake Accord
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on the floor of the House of Commons, despite the fact that over 50% of the public was against it.
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And the House was just, it was a combination of electric, but also, like, petrified that this kind of debate was happening.
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And so, yeah, I'll remember some moments like that, but it was an interesting time.
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Well, speaking of the Meach Lake Accord, one of the things that was a godsend for reform was in 1992, of course,
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there was the Charlottetown Accord referendum, not a constitutional referendum.
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We were opposed to it, but we had a whole bunch of constitutional positions of our own.
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And in 1992, we conducted what would be called today an issue campaign, basically an issue campaign.
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It was not to get elected, but it was to present a certain position.
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And because it was a referendum, there was actually a vote at the end.
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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.
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But in 1992, people had to have constituency organizations, they had to have meetings,
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they had to distribute literature, they had to raise money, they had to get out the vote.
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And that issue campaign was really what prepared reform to fight the 1993 federal election.
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And what it brings to my mind today is I think issue campaigns are an excellent training ground for electoral politics.
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And I kind of wonder what even the Conservative Party of Canada might do in the next year.
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Is there an issue campaign that would logically fit into what Pierre is advocating that might, again,
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sort of tool up the machine to do what's going to have to be done in 2024?
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Well, look, I would say, first of all, obviously with the renewal of inflation
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and some of the further economic difficulties I expect, you know, there's going to be lots of opportunity to push issues
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And from, you know, my observations many miles away, I think the leader is doing those things.
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Now, you're not going to entirely like my answer to this, Preston,
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which is that, you know, that issue campaign, and it was, I think, the culmination of a series of issue campaigns
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the party had run, reform had run on constitutional matters.
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And we'll talk about some of the other issue campaigns the party had run.
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Those things, I would say, were, like, they were, for all the reasons you explain, not just the training,
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but they were essential, not just to build up the party, but to put the party on the map.
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You know, before 1993, we had one MP, and briefly for a time, one senator.
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We were, you know, there was no guarantee, as you know, even probably early in the 93 election,
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no guarantee we were going to turn into an official, recognized party.
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So the party had to do something to just raise its profile.
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It wasn't in Parliament, and Deborah, they let Deborah get up and ask a question once every two months,
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The advice I give Conservative opposition leaders these days is quite different.
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I tell them, I mean, obviously, get on some issue themes, but, you know,
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the Conservative Party of Canada doesn't have to do anything today to be the major contender for power in the next election.
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In fact, with the NDP as a branch plant now of the Liberal Party, you know,
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jeez, only Jagmeet Singh could walk into a room with Trudeau and come out with a deal where he gets nothing.
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I just, look, I say this, this is out of pure jealousy.
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I just wish I'd had an opposition leader like that somewhere.
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You know, support me, and I'll make sure you never have to go back to the voters,
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But, you know, the Reform Party, or sorry, the Conservative Party will be the contender for power, period.
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So I think, I think that it is, I, what I say to Conservative opposition leaders is,
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your job today, yeah, broadly speaking, indicate a direction you're going to go,
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but it's not to talk about how you would run the country.
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It is to hold the government accountable for how it is running the country
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and making, making it where it's mismanagement and competence and corruption.
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And I really worry, and I know the people say, develop the plans, develop the proposals,
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but I worry that that's what the Liberal media here wants Pierre Poiliev to do.
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Make himself the issue, let them hold him accountable,
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while the government, you know, continues on what I think is, for the most part,
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a pretty poor course, and they're off the hook.
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The time to tell people about your alternatives in detail is in an election campaign.
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And, look, what's important, though, is while you're not talking about those details now,
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And I can tell you from experience, once you get into office,
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you better have some idea than what you're going to do,
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And, look, unfortunately, when Pierre becomes the next prime minister,
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I was one of the rare conservative prime ministers in 100 years
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who came to office when things were actually pretty good.
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And I don't think Pierre is going to come in under those kind of circumstances.
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One of the benefits, or just going back to Charlotte,
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and I know there's a lot of younger people here
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We had a lot of meetings, 200, 300 meetings a year,
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And it's not just for glad-handing and smiling at people.
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People will try to say back to you what you were saying to them,
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but they will say it in language and with analogies
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that they were trying to explain what you were saying to them to somebody else.
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And one of the ones I remember from the Meech-Late and Charlottetown Accords,
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because these were arguments about constitutional things,
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We had a big, long thing reciting in all the previous attempts
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to try to get national unity through constitutional change
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I think it was during the Charlottetown Accord,
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he says, we're like kids in the back of the car, he says.
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And we're trying to get to this place called national unity,
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and we let Pierre Trudeau drive the car for a while,
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but Joe forgot to put gas into the law very long.
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And then, now Brian says it's over by some other,
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this Charlottetown thing, and we're just saying,
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unite the country through constitutional change,
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And I think it's important in any of this campaign
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to listen hard to what people are saying back to you,
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because they will use language and illustrations
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that can be useful to you in election campaigns,
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what is forgotten now is it wasn't just the positions
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that those weren't the issues that people actually cared about.
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Like, we were early 90s, we were entering a recession.
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and the governments were focused on constitutional debates.
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was, because there's nothing new under the sun,
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One of the main issues in 93 that you had prepared us for
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Reform had developed around the, actually, before the,
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I think it was really had come together, as I recall,
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We developed the zero and three plan for balancing the budget,
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And that was a big part of the campaign in 1993.
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since we're back to unbalanced budgets in a fairly spectacular way,
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you know, what's the same and what's different compared to 30 years ago?
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Well, I think one of the big differences, and you'll remember that,
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the liberals, like in there, they had the Red Book in 1993,
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But they didn't disagree with the overall objective
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But they criticized, you guys are going too fast,
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But they didn't disagree with the ultimate objective.
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And, of course, when Gretchen was elected in 1993,
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and his pollsters came in to him after and said,
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look, these idiots got two and a half million votes
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And I think that's a deterioration from the situation that we were in.
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Look, just if I bore the audience with some numbers,
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in many ways, like the global financial crisis,
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But, you know, and every government went into deficit,
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As I tell people, the deficit run in, I think it was 2020, 2021,
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than the entire budget I presented to Parliament in 2015.
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corporate taxes we'd taken 22 to 15, make them zero,
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make every level of income tax from the pauper to the billionaire,
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make it zero, eliminate all customs, excise duties, etc.
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and I told Joe Oliver to present a zero revenue budget,
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we would have had a lower deficit than we did two years ago.
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The positive side is that debt levels are not nearly as bad
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There's, you know, been such dependency created during that time.
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because I agree with you, the public's not ready for it.
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I don't think the public knows how they would adjust.
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Here's the history, as you know this, I studied this.
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And in a way, I think maybe we did the country a disservice.
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You know, we ran what we thought was a really large deficit in 2009, 2010,
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It was a drop in the bucket compared to what's happened the last three or four years.
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and then we gradually returned the budget to balance,
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the kind of standard economics tells you you're supposed to do.
00:19:40.660
Usually when governments start running a deficit,
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where you ran a deficit for no reason other than you needed more money to spend,
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what happens is the deficit just tends to get worse and worse
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and the kind of cuts and the kind of reordering,
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restructuring that would be necessary will be really difficult.
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Yeah, Gretchen and Martin balanced the budget in 1995,
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and doing a whole lot of things we never even thought were necessary
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and so I do hope that Pierre and people around him
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are, you know, trying to impress upon the country
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about the campaign against our balancing budget.
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but only 20% of the public think it's an issue.
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well, I guess we can't do that because only 20%,
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no, we're going to change the public's head on that.
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the number of people that said that was an issue,
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Like, just because the polls say your particular idea
00:21:22.660
Well, look, I love there's a quote of all people, Bob Ray.
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and on so many things is changing public opinion.