Decline
Many blamed Reform for splitting the right wing vote and helping the New Democratic Party of British Columbia under Glen Clark get re-elected. The leader, Jack Weisgerber decided to step down as leader. At the August 30, 1997 leadership convention in Surrey, Wilf Hanni was elected leader over John Motiuk and Adrian Wade. Hanni, an oil industry worker, alienated both of the MLAs and drove them out of the party. Richard Neufeld crossed to the BC Liberals, and became a provincial cabinet minister before being appointed to the Canadian Senate on the recommendation of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2008. Jack Weisgerber is now a director for BC Hydro, the power utility owned by the provincial government. The loss of the two MLAs was the effective end of the party.
Read more about this topic: Reform Party Of British Columbia
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“The chief misery of the decline of the faculties, and a main cause of the irritability that often goes with it, is evidently the isolation, the lack of customary appreciation and influence, which only the rarest tact and thoughtfulness on the part of others can alleviate.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)