Preston Manning - Reform Party

Reform Party

Together with Stan Roberts and Francis Winspear, Manning formed the Reform Party in 1987. Intellectual influences included journalist Peter Brimelow and foreign aid critic Paul Fromm. (Fromm was expelled from the party in 1988). Manning's chief policy adviser was Stephen Harper, a student at the University of Calgary and now the Prime Minister of Canada. Harper designed the Reform Party's 1988 campaign platform. The Reform Party was a combination of fiscal conservatism and populism, though aspects of social conservatism grew, branding the party as "very right-wing." All of the Reform Party's candidates were defeated in the 1988 federal election. However, the first Reform Member of Parliament, Deborah Grey was elected in a federal by-election in 1989 at Beaver River, Alberta. Manning's lack of fluency in French was very nearly a sticking point as attempts were made by the leaders of other parties to block his participation in the Leaders' Debate in 1993, demanding that the leaders should participate fully in both debates. Manning called the move partisan, saying it interfered "with basic freedom of speech." The Reform leader gave an opening and closing statement in the French debate and answered a few (translated) questions. In 1997 Manning also participated in the French Debate with the aid of an earpiece interpreter and answered the questions in English.

Manning was elected to the House of Commons in the 1993 federal election as the MP for Calgary Southwest. Reform had a major breakthrough in this election, winning 52 seats. Of those, 51 were in Western Canada (the other being Simcoe Centre in Ontario), where the party's strong performance was largely because the Progressive Conservatives' support in that region transferred almost en masse. Literally overnight, Manning found himself as the leader of the major right-wing party in Canada.

Despite finishing second in the popular vote, however, Reform came up three seats short of becoming the Official Opposition, largely because the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois' concentration of support in Quebec was slightly larger than Reform's concentration of support in the West. However, the Liberal government under Jean Chrétien characterized Manning and Reform as their main opponent on non-Quebec matters. In 1995 when Bloc leader Lucien Bouchard's position as Opposition Leader granted him a meeting with visiting US President Bill Clinton, Manning was also given a meeting with Clinton in order to diffuse Bouchard's separatist leverage.

In the 1997 election, the party won the second-most seats in the Commons, with Manning becoming the Leader of the Opposition.