By Barry Stagg
June 1996
REFORMING THE CONSERVATIVES
There is a Liberal blitzkrieg waiting to come down on the Conservative and Reform parties in federal election land. This has been obvious to all political observers for some time now but it became transparently obvious when the Liberals took five of six by-elections recently. It was the box score of these Liberal victories that told the tale. In the Liberal victories in Ontario and in Newfoundland the Reformers and the Tories split the opposition vote and rendered it painfully obvious that this trend will continue in cannibalistic fashion during the coming general election.
The simple fact is that the Liberals are a strong government party well versed in re-election techniques. Reformers and the Conservatives cannot formulate a viable and focused opposition unless they come to terms with each other.
In raw political terms this will result in strong but futile showings by both these parties against the Liberals at voting time. A typical result will see a Liberal M.P. re-elected in Ontario or Alberta or Newfoundland with forty per cent of the popular vote with a Reformer picking up thirty per cent, the Conservatives twenty per cent and ten per cent going to the lamentable N.D.P. The end result after much conservative teeth grinding will be a parliament chock full of Liberals.
There are movements among the chattering classes to bring about a merger of the Reformers and the Conservatives. Unfortunately these efforts are largely the work of political outsiders such as silver-spooned columnist David Frum. The effort will produce plenty of publicity, a lot of visibility for the public proponents and very little in the way of results.
A more realistic proposal is to bring about a tacit peace treaty between the parties. The parties really cannot unite or merge before the next election. However they can place their respective organizations side by side to make a parallel run at the Liberal juggernaut. The technique is deceptively simple and potentially very effective.
Conservatives and Reform must agree to hold joint nominating meetings in every federal riding in the country. Both parties will independently receive nominations for candidacy. The key to success is the holding of one single nominating meeting. At that meeting all candidates for both parties will be presented for election by all those present who are qualified to vote. The usual format will prevail with nominating speeches by the candidates and the process of balloting until one candidate has more than fifty per cent of the votes cast.
There will be no need to amend the constitutional rules for either party. It will be quite adequate for nominating purposes for both parties to come with voters who have only the authority to vote for candidates nominated by their own party.
Suppose a nominating meeting were held in the Newfoundland riding of Burin-St. George's with three Reform candidates and four Conservative candidates. The voters qualified to vote for the Conservative candidate would cast ballots for Conservative candidates only and the Reform candidates would receive votes only from those qualified to vote in the Reform party. If five hundred Reform voters show up and four hundred Conservative voters, the voting will commence with the low candidate being knocked off at each ballot. The balloting will go on until the winning candidate exceeds fifty per cent of the votes cast.
Even if voters for one party leave the nominating meeting in disgust after their candidates are eliminated nevertheless the rule that the winning candidate must obtain more than fifty per cent of the votes cast will still maintain. Even if only the Reform party candidates remain on the final ballot there will obviously be one candidate who will obtain better than fifty per cent of the votes cast on the final ballot. This avoids any possibility of deadlock in the nominating process.
Once candidates have been nominated all across Canada then the Reform party will campaign for its candidates unencumbered by a parallel Conservative candidate in the ridings where Reform has been successful at the nominating meeting. Likewise the Conservatives will proceed to campaign nationally with a stable of candidates coming out of the joint nominating process.
In this way both parties can maintain their national platforms. They are simply not in conflict. While the Liberals will cry foul, they would still be faced with contesting ridings against united opposition and the electorate would be left to decide on an either/or basis when the ballot polling booths open.
That grass roots coalition of the two opposition parties would be topped-off by an agreement between the leaders that a coalition government would be formed if the parties were able to garner more seats combined then the Liberals with the leader of the coalition party obtaining the most seats becoming Prime Minister.
These are relatively simple techniques and they require sensible grass roots cooperation coupled with a survivalist attitude by national leaders Preston Manning and Jean Charest.
That Machiavellian manoeuvre would do for Reform and the Conservatives what the Common Sense Revolution did for Mike Harris in Ontario. It got Mike Harris elected. Joint nominations and an alliance of conservative forces can produce the same revival for fiscal frugality and sanity in this debt ridden nanny state.