The Reform Party of Canada was founded on Saturday, October 31, 1987 as a federalist response in the West to a lack of Democratic, Political, Parliamentary, Electoral, Economic, Fiscal, Social, Environmental, Constitutional and Judicial Reform and a refusal to ReBalance External and Internal Relations / International and National Unity through ReConfederation by the Brian Mulroney Progressive Conservative Government of Canada (1984-1993), the Bloc Québécois was the seperatist response in Québec to a similar lack in those reforms by the same government on Monday, August 13, 1990, note neither party was right-winged conservative despite some top rank and filers coming from the PC Party of Canada as the majority of the two protest party's grassroot members had never belonged to a political party in their life. In 1989, Reform elected its first MP (Beaver River's Deborah Grey) and its first Senator (Alberta's Stanley Waters). By 1993, Reform had come within two seats of the Official Opposition in Ottawa with 52 seats, including one in Ontario. Led once again by Manning, Reform moved forward to become the Official Opposition in 1997 by gaining 60 seats, but for some strange reason (some believe his plan was to implement 1967's "Political Realignment: A Challenge to
Thoughtful Canadians" of his father Ernest C. Manning's to unite Western and Eastern Conservatives all along), erroniously believed he needed to "unite the right" and turn a bottom-up Reform into a more top-down right-wing party. Between 1998 and 2000, a watering-down process called the United Alternative occurred, where Reform was destroyed and taken over by a new entity called the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance which was created on Monday, March 27, 2000. With it came a new leader to replace Manning in Stockwell Day, who led the Alliance to a 66 seat increase (including two seats in Ontario), yet also started an internal divide that eventually led to a leadership review. In that 2002 leadership review, Stephen Harper ousted Day on the campaign promise to rebuild back towards the Reform Party as "the Canadian Alliance is strong and it is here to stay", yet only a year and a half later, would sell-out the same Reformers, who elected him leader to take us back to the future with Reform, by signing a back-room deal without another promise-breaking leader Peter Mackay, wrote up by fat-cat elites, among who was none other than former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney himself. From that "deal with the devil you know", the Alliance was dismantled and merged into the Conservative Party of Canada on Sunday, December 7, 2003.
Back to the Future
After the merger, the Alliance members left had little choice in keeping even the most watered-down reforms they had in their former party because they had no real grassroots control of their newly-made party's constitution, the key to success to any populist political party. Therefore, the party's front-office, back-room and parliamentary caucus wrote their 2004 federal election platform, with no true input from their full membership at large. By 2005, the party's leadership was so confident the grassroot Alliance side had finally been silenced that they officially removed all Alliance reforms at their Montréal convention except for basic parliamentary free votes for MPs (even they can be restricted by the Chief Whip on certain issues or occasions) with little to no whimper, peep or bang from those supposedly pro-democratic reform members who attended as delegates. The closer these Tories get towards their next election, the more obvious it gets that they have no principles left-over from the Alliance, let alone the Reform days of yesteryear, replaced by and an overriding sense of power and perhaps blinded vision of the patronage it holds (who would be the first Tory Senator selected, not elected by a Prime Minister Harper?). From Mulroney (with Elmer and the Air Bus) to Mulroney (with Peter and the Grounded Planes), who would have believed Reform would have turned into the Alliance only to morph into the Tories in less than 20 years while the Bloc Québécois (remember that Kick the Bloc campaign anyone?) actually kept their principles, policies and its democratic promise to their grassroot members to not merge but try to purge the traditional Liberals, Tories, same old story out of the Canadian Political book forever. Is it possible for us Reformers to go back to the future, keep our own principles and save our own party of the past?
The Real Challenge to Reformers
Yes, we can and will, if you can and will help! A few Reformers left when the Reform Party of Canada off and became the Official Opposition, many more left when the Reform Party merged into the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance and finally the rest have fled as the Canadian Alliance was taken over by the Conservative Party of Canada. The only people left from the Allinace within the Conservatives today were really just those power-hungry Tories who saw the Reform-Alliance movement as bigger than the Progressive Conservatives thus having more chance to gain power and patronage which they need to survive as party strategists/consultants/lobbyists/insiders/hacks in the end. If you look closely at those who left the Reform-Alliance movement, over that span that lasted the last 20 years, you will note one quality they all commonly hold close to their hearts and something we in Canada all need more of: principles. For these people, I say to you, we knew this day would come, and since the Fall of 2003, we have been planning for the current situation to arrive thus now we believe it is time for us to start the First Phase of "Operation Back To The Future". For us to rebuild the Reform Party of Canada, uphold its original principles, policies and platform (will be updates for the interim as of 2005) and try to run Reformers in each of the 308 federal electoral district ridings across Canada in time for the next federal election, we need you and 249 other Reformers like you to help us now. We have shown you, with links previous given here, that we are fully committed to returning the party beck to its previous status without any changes to the original plan. All we ask, in order to reload and make this happen, is for you to commit to us by signing the form below that you will be one of the 250 members who are electors in the upcoming federal election needed to send us your names, addresses and signed declarations for us to create the party and run officially as Reformers in the next federal election. All information collected will be kept strictly private, any additional information given will be only be used to help us get to know you better, especially if you wish to run as a candidate in the upcoming federal election. In order to return, rebuild and reload Reform in 2005, we ask for your support, and if you could, to please pass this website on to any other lost Reformers from past to present you may know who would be interested in a Reform option on the ballot in their electoral district riding in this Federal Election 2005
"Aye, fight and you may die, run and you'll live, at least for a while. And dying in your beds many years from now you would be willing to trade all the days for this day for a chance, just one chance to tell our enemies that they may take away our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!" - William 'Braveheart' Wallace
