60 Replies to “Election 2011: Look What Preston Started”

  1. There has been no one I admired, and still admire, more in Canadian politics than Mr. Manning. When I was among the first few in Ontario to join the Reform party, his was the voice I heard.
    Perhaps because he never held power, he seems to have remained pure and honest and above all of the pettiness to which pretty much everyone else has succumbed.

  2. Two points:
    1. How can the CBC stand letting Murphy make such an anti-Liberal statement? Must of really hurt.
    2. Hear! Hear! Great piece.

  4. old lori….we are both ‘old’ Ontario Reformers!
    What an honour fro Preston Manning to be recognised on election night by PM Harper!
    It has been a long , sometimes tedious wait.

  5. Preston Manning was the BEST Prime Minister this country never had. But he is still very much in the shadows and because of him this country will be great again!!
    Rise up stephen harper
    Rise up Preston manning
    And rise up CANADA
    The best people are in charge now!
    I hope when the CBC goes in the tank Rex will come to the sun channel.

  6. It is a real shame that Harper won…
    Otherwise we would be BLESSED
    With a Visionary.
    That could change the Climate.

  7. I’m thinking that one way Harper could start to reform CBC News would be appointing Rex Murphy as its President, along with a 2nd in Command that everyone knows is strictly there to report back to the government and fire anyone whose bias is so thick that they’re beyond reform.
    Today I got to wondering what it’ll take for the Liberals to reinvent themselves. Their problems are numerous but at their heart is this one: The majority of the party is constituted by hateful, arrogant bigots that we politely call “The Urban Left”. “Bigot” very much is the correct term to use because these folks paint all of the following in the most negative of terms:
    – Western Canadians
    – Rural Canadians
    – Conservative Canadians
    If you fall into one or more of these categories then a Member of the Urban Left views you:
    – As a racist
    – With a sub-par IQ
    – Unworthy of holding high office
    – Suspect in your “Canadianess”
    With such deep seated beliefs in the heart, mind, & soul of modern day Liberals, how on earth do they expect to ever convince a sufficient number of voters to support them? I don’t think it’s possible.

  8. everything starts small.
    i remember seeing Preston on a street in Okotoks, yes on a soapbox, (plastic milk crate) back in the early nineties.
    how far have ye come!

  10. How before Mr. Murphy makes like John Stossel by switching to the Sun? I’m sure they would love to have him.

  11. I remember seeing Preston in Calgary around the same time when he changed his approach. He had a campaign slogan made up from huge styrofoam blocks.
    the slogam was: THINK BIG.

  12. Does anybody else remember how the legacy media mocked Preston Manning of the Reeeform Party?
    Goofy ideas…goofy glasses…goofy haircut…just plain goofy.
    In recent days I’ve seen the very same legacy media call for liberals to emulate Preston’s iceberg theory of political underpinning, including a call for a liberal equivalent to the Manning Institute.
    Quite the about face.

  13. We also, old lori and blue tech:
    My wife and I joined the Reform Party in 1989 before it had voted to come east of the Manitoba/Ontario border. We were the 5th and 6th members in the Guelph riding and although we never won in this far-left city, we scared the pants off the big 3 in the first “all Canada” Reform election. This was particularly true when our candidate Gerry Organ (of Ottawa Roughrider fame) was endorsed by the local Guelph Mercury.
    We met Preston Manning six times. These meetings were the highlights of our lives at that time. We became sold-out Reformers as a result of those rallys.
    Manning was truly a man of vision (veesion as he would say). A humble man who was villified by the MSM, he always turned the other cheek.
    He has lived to see that vision come to be. I am only sorry that he never had the title “Prime Minister Preston Manning”.

  14. Robert W. (Vancouver),
    That back room guys got it wrong … I’m thinking 3 times now (4 if you count cretin). It’s a changing world … but the term “an honest buck” has never been associated with the liberals or the left.

  15. Chretien used to mock Preston by calling him “the leader of the third party” when the PQ were the official opposition. I can’t wait to hear PM Harper refer to the Libs that way.

  16. Back in the formative days of the Reform Party, I read the Party Platform and felt like I had been asleep for many years. It was a wake up call that I still feel. The head of the party then was Preston Manning and the Party Platform was written by a young man by the name of Stephen Harper. Happy Days are here again!!!

  17. The more I listen to Rex Murphy the more I respect him.
    What is he doing at CBC?

  18. Nice to see Preston Manning finally get the credit he deserves from a member of the MSM,even if it is a member of the “sane fringe” of that group,Rex Murphy.
    I’m a long time Reformer,still saddens me the hatchet job the eastern Media did on Manning,the best PM we never had(as someone said earlier).

  19. @ lori, syncrodox, bluetech, and Frank Q. Yet another old Reformer here. I remember when reform meetings were held in church basements, elementary schools, and people’s basements. Lots of good libertarian ideas and vision for a new type of government from senate reform to electoral reform, citizen initiated referendum and recall. Constitutional spending caps anyone?
    I remember how the MSM mocked Preston Manning, as if his ideas were completely bizarre, forget that many were institutionally mainstream in old school European countries and US states. Or that for a while the Reform Party had the best tax option for poor Canadians with its 15% flat tax.
    If we get 10% of the changes the Reform party stood for Canada would be better off. We’ll see, Harper seems to have become more old school PC than Reformer.

  20. Rex must find it uncomfortable at CBCpravda. I suspect he will get to stay on when they sell it to FOX.
    sell it to FOX for a buck , save 1.3 billion a year. priceless. priceless

  21. Rex Murphy, thanks for thanking Preston Manning and acknowledging PMSH’s achievements.
    I’m at times chagrined that the CBC funding hasn’t been tossed by now. Maybe where I see the CBC being part of what’s wrong with Canada, Harper sees it as a symptom of what’s wrong. Or maybe he sees a direct assault would enrage the left and result in losing the progress achieved to date. For now I’d be content to see the LGR gone and free speech protected.

  22. I to have a reform membership card tucked away. I think I got mine about the third time I heard Manning speak.. It was a joy listening to him field questions. He was the first politician I ever heard answer any and all questions straight up, and I was thrilled to see Mr. Harper approach him in Calgary on OUR winning night.

  23. The cbc has a ‘right winger’ for the same reason the G&M has Wente and the Edmonton Journal has Gunter. Newspapers sell to their audience and so does the cbc. Tossing in a right winger only brodens that audience without pissing off the base.

  25. Wow, I just gained a whole ton of respect for Rex Murphy from that video. He hit the nail on the head, especially with that comment that the grievances of the Western provinces were a dangerous fault line in our country. That was the main weakness of the Liberal party; they didn’t pay any attention to the concerns out here and instead focused their resources on Central Canada. Unfortunately for them if another party (ie the Conservatives) came up the ranks with a platform ordinary Canadians could relate to, which happened a week ago, the Liberals would get decimated and they certainly did. The Liberal party has nobody to blame but themselves.

  26. trucman,
    Here here, good post.
    Comment more please.
    My wife and I joined the Reform Party in 1989 before it had voted to come east of the Manitoba/Ontario border.
    ~Frank Q
    My wife and I did too.
    I remember when we went to the Jube in Calgary and joined Reform on the spot.
    We still have our Reform Party Cards and the original Reform Party Blue Book.
    I hope everything in that Blue book is implemented, it’s well on it’s way.
    (many of the conditions are set up waiting to be realized)
    Recalling when we first met Preston Manning in person:(wife and I do everything together and are rarely apart, she doesn’t like blogging but shes in the next room right now)
    We met Mr. Manning at a townhall meeting in Calgary NW(Dalhousie Elementary School) and we were immediately impressed because everybody rose to sing ‘Oh, Canada’ and the meeting was closed with ‘God Save the Queen’.
    (those were dark days, it seemed like the Liberal east was eating Albertans alive even though Mulroney’s Quebec pandering PCs were still in power and the Soviet Union still cast a shadow over Eastern Europe and other parts of the world)
    Everybody at the townhall meeting were outraged at Quebec for contorting Canadian politics and warping all our hopes and dreams to their selfish anti-Canadian will.
    We signed up to work for the party that night and started stuffing envelopes and going door-to-door with handbills.
    Every home we went to in Calgary NW was happy to see us and we didn’t have any negative receptions in those days.
    Mulroney’s Progressives were already finished in Alberta, they were just so busy kissing Quebec’s ass with lips coated with Alberta’s stolen oil revenues that they didn’t know it.
    PETROCAN was created by Trudeau on the recommendation of the NDP to buy Quebec votes and nationalize the Canadian oil industry(contrary to the Constitution) and now it’s come full circle.
    Quebec owns the NDP and neither Quebec nor the NDP are going to be pandered to by the CPC./ rant off

  27. Several years ago (2000?) I was in a very successful insurance broker’s office in a tower in downtown edmonton where the conversation turned to our mutual membership in the reform party (he was very high up in the party at the time)and preston Manning. He said with conviction thta Manning was Canada’s Abraham Lincoln. It struck me as a bit over the top at the time. It does less so now.
    Manning’s efforts may yet be the foundation of what ultimately unifies this country – what ultimately defeats both the angst that drives western separatist sentiment and quebecois hopes of a nationalist solution.
    If Manning is Canada’s Abraham Lincoln, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper is General Ulysses S Grant leading the CPC into the ontario bastion of the LPC and Jason Kenney is William Tecumseh Sherman going into the LPC’s Atlanta – Toronto and the 905.
    Kudos to Rex for recognizing PM’s importance and potential future significance.

  28. Shook Preston Manning’s hand at the Star of the Sea Hall in White Rock (forgot the year) and I would be just as happy to shake Stephen Harper’s, or for that matter, Rex Murphy’s, though I thought his recent column on the royals was quite petty and well, disloyal not to mention childish. Can’t think of any others I would feel comfortable shaking, though Gordon Campbell grabbed my hand and shook it at Vanoc; like him or not, he is a true politician, not unlike Vander Zalm.

  29. Several years ago (2000?) I was in a very successful insurance broker’s office in a tower in downtown edmonton where the conversation turned to our mutual membership in the reform party (he was very high up in the party at the time)and preston Manning. He said with conviction thta Manning was Canada’s Abraham Lincoln. It struck me as a bit over the top at the time. It does less so now.
    Manning’s efforts may yet be the foundation of what ultimately unifies this country – what ultimately defeats both the angst that drives western separatist sentiment and quebecois hopes of a nationalist solution.
    If Manning is Canada’s Abraham Lincoln, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper is General Ulysses S Grant leading the CPC into the ontario bastion of the LPC and Jason Kenney is William Tecumseh Sherman going into the LPC’s Atlanta – Toronto and the 905.
    Kudos to Rex for recognizing PM’s importance and potential future significance.

  30. I was there at Heritage Park in Calgary in 1986 when Manning gave a speech announcing the creation of the Reform party. All the hopes he outlined then have now, finally, been fulfilled.

  32. Have not watched the video. Sitting watching the Canucks/Predators game (on PVR) and cruising my Iphone, when I came across this thread.
    First thing I will say is its great to see so many remembering the early Reform days.
    I started a business in 1990 that saw me spend about 100 hrs a week on the road. Lots of time to think and lots of time to have real life punch me in the face.
    When I first heard Preston speaking basic honest truths, it was an absolute political awakening for me.
    He was articulating my own thoughts and ideas (that I had long held but were being cut to a razors edge by being self employed), and it was so uplifting. I was not alone or marginalized, which is precisely how the MSM had me feeling.
    As I said early in the post I have not yet watched the video, but my first instinct is to say to Mr. Murphy, where were you 20 years ago?
    Or where were any of the other MSM 20 years ago.
    All of them (I can only think of a handful of semi freindlys – and they were ever only semi, too afraid to realy come out swinging)including Mr. Murphy were disdainful of this movement out of the West.
    At the time, as a small start up I was doing my own importation and brokerage at the border. It was about in 1992 or 1993, and I remember seeing “Eracism” posters being plastered around at the border (govt office).
    My thought at the time was that Canada was not a racist country, what the heck was this all about.
    Well it became apparent to me a year later. Canada was apparently an incredibly racist country and all of the racists were in the Reform Party.
    The Liberals had set the Reform Racist agenda early (and often) and the Canadian media pimped that as hard as they could. And Murphy was one of the pimpers.
    It’s where my awakening to the MSM agenda began as well as my contempt for them.
    Preston did start something but in my opinion its Harper that has really done the deed.
    Anyway, back to the game – but its really great to see so many recount so vividly what hearing a true conservative message meant to them, because it re-establishes the feeling I had when I too first heard that message. There were lots of others out there that thought/think and feel the same way I do (thats how marginalized common sense and conservatism had become)and its great to see them reflect here.

  33. I supported Manning from day one. The Reform Party was exactly what Canada needed, but we were deprived because a few journalists feared for their jobs. The media, mainly the CBC, demonized Manning. From the moment he unveiled his platform, Manning had a bullseye on his back. When I heard him announce the platform, I could hardly believe my ears. It could have steered this country in the right direction, at a time when we had a chance to right things. The truly ironic thing was, Chretien ended up implementing a number of Manning’s ideas.

  34. Canada did not need a man who could quell the rising oceans, nor dissipate unwanted cloud formations, nor did we need the man who could control the El Ninos and La Ninas of the south pacific, banish CO2 from our atmosphere … and even control the output of the sun itself … no my friends …. America elected that man …
    Canada simply wanted a man who was sane, steady and reliable in order to maintain a solid growing economy and prevent the horrid jerk-and-twitch of pulsating recessions that accompany the machinations of the God President in Washington DC.
    Will the real God please stand up and five Prime Minister Harper a hand.

  36. If Rex was against the Reform party in the 1980s and 1990s, two things changed Mr. Murphy’s thinking on the West since 2000.
    He spent a week with a Redvers, SK farmer and visited Calgary and Fort McMurray for himself (especially taking the time to listen to expatriate Newfoundlanders).

  37. Manning started a flawed but real movement away from big government which was later hijacked and corrupted into the statist monster now in power. Manning himself went to the Green Side of The Force.

  38. PMSH did not surprise me when he mentioned Preston because Stephen Harper is not a ‘show boat’, he is a good, decent man who won this past election fair and square. PMSH gives credit where credit is due, he is true blue and he is brilliant. Intelligent people are not reluctant with praise for people who have earned praise. Preston Manning deserves credit; he got it. Rex Murphy, not so much.
    We are very fortunate to have this fine man as our Prime Minister, IMO.

  39. Many of the above postings are my story as well. Ward @ 1:04 our background is so very similar it is uncanny. Thanks to Mr & Mrs. Manning and to Mr. & Mrs. Harper for bringing substance to this great country.
    I met the Mannings at a book signing in Port Colborne, and met the salt of the earth. Let’s remember they turned down a Parliament pension, worth at least million, as a matter of principle.
    I attended a Harper rally in St. Catharines and I deliberately did not seek to shake his hand. I had shaken Joe Clark’s hand in Fort Erie prior to his election win. Superstition? yes! but I did not want to do anything to limit the success of this intelligent man of integrity Stephen Harper.
    I also attended a Rex Murphy book signing in Port Colborne and during the question period after the presentation asked Mr. Murphy the following; “will Paul Martin have feet of clay similar to John Turner?”.
    Rex Murphy’s answer and I paraphrase “not a chance, Paul Martin is very much part of the Liberal Party culture and will be a typical Liberal Prime Minister”. Maybe Rex Murphy was more prophetic than he knew. Cheers;

  40. More useless factoids from me:
    Preston Manning didn’t want to be known by his first and last name – Ernest Manning II, ie. his fathers’ son. He wanted to be his own man, puns on his mom’s maiden name be damned.

  41. Frank Q: 11:25
    “We became sold-out Reformers…”
    Some unintended truth in that comment. Manning sold out all the old Reformers who worked so hard and “did of their copper bestow”. The early days in church basements and community halls were exciting times when we set out to bring some sanity back to Ottawa and all believed that the sun shone out of Preston’s derriere. He had sound ideas but his massive ego got the better of his sense of duty. If you think that’s a harsh judgement, you should have heard some of the things that Harper used to say about him during his NCC days!
    One of our early objectives was the destruction of the Progressive Conservative Party, and we came so close… As MP Dick Harris said, “We had the party on its back with our foot on its throat, and then we let it up” because Preston made a conscious decision to turn our guns towards the Liberals instead. Reformers punished him for that but, with the momentum lost, the PCs rose again and now contol the “shiny new” CPC.
    I don’t know what to say about the election. On one hand, I’m pleased that the CPC got its majority. It was a single issue election for me, with both the Libs and the NDP threatening to implement a CO2 cap and trade regime. Great for predatory pseudo capitalists with their lips locked firmly on the public teat but a potential disaster for our still “tender” economy. You’d think that with the object lesson of cap and trade in the EU our politicians would have enough common sense to run full speed away from it but, I suppose that the opposition parties expected that”green” voters would support them in droves.
    Apart from cap and trade and the hostility of the opposition parties to the West (i.e.to the energy industry) I don’t see any major ideological differences remaining among the lot of them. Harper et al. have jetisoned all of the small government, economic discipline, accountability and public service idealism of the original Reformers and reverted to pure Mulroneyism, so I’ll be a disinterested observer for the next four years. They’ll probably make some cosmetic changes to the gun control regime and the Senate in order to make the old Reform base think that it still matters. Bah! Humbug!

  42. ” That’s really impressive”!
    Yes it is.
    Canadians across the country needed a change, not just the west. No more Slick Willy’s and Hollywood Obamba style entertainers for Canadians who can see the writing on the wall after following the Liberal track.
    We didn’t need another entertainer, or used car salesman slipping bills in his pocket (sorry Libs) we needed a conservative economist who takes his job and country seriously. That’s why Harper sit’s where he does today!

  43. Right on!
    I remember, back in the 1990s, at a charity trivia event in Ottawa, it was announced that Preston Manning was there; there was a groundswell of murmuring and booing. I think that’s when I finally decided to get involved. I stood up and cheered and applauded; my colleagues at my table were astonished. But others did too.

  45. Robert W.: “The majority of the party is constituted by hateful, arrogant bigots that we politely call “The Urban Left.”
    If you’ve got an hour, take a look at the video from TVO’s The Agenda, “Liberals at the Crossroads” with Carolyn Bennett, John Duffy, Martha Hall Findlay, Jeffrey Simpson, and Brooke Jeffrey (prof at Concordia U.). It’s very revealing — and they’re eating humble pie right now.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPnCrJT–bE
    Surprise! Surprise! When talking about how they need to rebuild the party — and realizing it won’t take months but years — they never cite Preston Manning and Stephen Harper’s amazing feat, nor the blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention the opprobrium both took from the chattering class, it took to rebuild the Conservatives after Mulroney gutted them. I guess they’d have to be too magnanimous to acknowledge the Alliance/Reform/CPC miracle — never a trait for which the Liberal$ have been known.

  46. AS an original “Reformer” in Woodstock and Oxford County Ontario I wwill be advocating these changes to my MP Dave MacKenzie very shortly, not necessarily in the order as presented here…….
    Retain the Senate with 8 year terms limit and chosen from elected members by the provinces.
    Defang HRC’s from current models
    Abolish Long Gun Registry and license the “Hunters” instead
    Defund the CBC or privatize them….. no more tax billions for CBC
    Enshrine “property rights” into our flawed constitution even as it now exists
    Shrink the Unionized “civil service”
    Enable “right to work” legislation legislation where or if applicable
    I urge the Harper government to make these changes very, very early in their mandate, do not make the same mistake Mike Harris did in Ontario by waiting too long to make the necessary changes in laws.
    Oh yeah, Taliban Jack Layton is still a closet communist with a healthy…… ?…. following!

  47. I had the opportunity years back to share a gondola ride with Preston. I had about 45 minutes of his undivided attention. I cannot adequately express how impressive and personable this man is. I will never forget how the Ottawa media treated him and what might have been if Eastern Canada gave him a chance.

  48. Joe Molnar at 8:01 AM, I’d be interested in knowing what order or ranking you would give each of the items on your list (good list, btw). Personally, I’d put defunding the CBC at the top of the list. I can’t imagine any of their competitors, who aren’t propped up with taxpayer money, making much of a deal about it in their evening news broadcasts. Well, maybe Sun TV would, but in a good way.

  49. Zog @ 4:41:
    I agree with you on a lot of your comment. As a founding Reform director in Kootenay Columbia I talked with Preston a lot. Always a consultant, right? He often talked about retiring to our area and fished with his son on holidays.
    Reform was about empowering the people to right the country from the special interests who controlled it. Responsibility for decisions reside with the citizen and thusly recall and initatives. Orgainizers from Calgary came out and helped organize and lead discussions. My beef with Preston was his drive to the East while many of my compatriots and I wanted to go ‘provincial’and force our way to the national table thru provincial Reform governments. A demonstrated change in the way government was conducted would ultimately fostered change in the East. The hybrid CPC party of today is once again top down and subject to the same special interests that existed with previous eastern governmemts. Harper enjoys a residual goodwill in the old Reform because we all feel he knows the problems. I guess we’ll find that out.
    Reflect on the leeftards who have labelled Manning, Day and Harper as ultra rightwing. There hastened been a leader yet of this party who haasn’t been condemned. Before you make Rex Murphy the CEO of the CBC you had better listen to more of his banter.
    The vested interests within our society who reside at the trough of government spending are all re-jigging their message to ensure that they can survive over the next 4 years. I can almost gurantee there are no closet Conservatives at the CBC! I know you all want to be loved but it ain’t happening! Get your long gun 22 out and shot that festering cesspool of a pig. 🙂

  50. Without Preston’s Reforrrmm party we would not be where we are today as Conservatives. It was decent and fitting the PM should recognize Preston Manning,he created the tool to unite the Right after the federal PC’s got hammered to the ground.
    The Liberals would still be carrying on in their arrogant ivory tower approach to the dweebs who blindly voted for them,a process of brain free voting, especially in the immigrant rich voting blocks of Toronto where they lied to scare the voters into voting for them. It was vote for us or you’ll get deported or your granny won’t be allowed in.

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