Thursday January 20, 2000
Concerns About Ontario Tory Influence On UA
TORONTO, Jan 20 (LSN.ca) – Ontario Premier Mike Harris’ campaign wizard, Tom Long, has bid adieu to the federal Tories in his article in the January 18 National Post. The article is causing concern among social conservatives who fear Long’s involvement in the United Alternative may be to transform it into a clone of the fiscal conservative only Harris regime.
Long was once president of the young Progressive Conservatives of Ontario and was at that time outspokenly pro-life. Since then he has quietly adopted a plan for power which no longer includes social conservatism.
In the National Post article “So long Tories, I hate to go” Long relates his overwhelming pre-occupation with fiscal matters and states that “Much like Mike Harris’ Common Sense Revolution, this is what the United Alternative is all about” and “Mr. Harris’ political successes speak for themselves.” He mentions tax cuts, a flat tax, global competition, wealth creation, work for welfare and reducing the size and cost of government.
Critics note that although most Reformers and UA supporters might agree with much of this fiscal agenda, nowhere in Long’s article is there any mention of also providing a political alternative to the anti-family, anti-life and social left-wing, Liberal, Tory and NDP parties. This reflects the Harris government’s ideology which is fiscal conservative and establishment leftist on social issues. It contradicts the overwhelming social, as well as fiscal conservatism of delegates to last year’s UA convention in Ottawa.
A fair number of Ontario Tory MPPs are known to be consistently conservative on all issues, with a greater depth of purpose that includes serious concern for families, children and the quality of life in the province. Unfortunately, the government’s powerful inner circle has prohibited them from pursuing any meaningful changes to the status quo. They are intimidated to keep quiet about these matters and told that they will “cause division in the party” and jeopardize the success of the god-like fiscal agenda.
Observers conclude there appears to be an unwritten, but ruthlessly maintained agreement that Red Tories will support the government’s fiscal policies as long as controversial social matters are left as set up by the previous Liberal and NDP regimes. Hence, the Ontario PC government has been a huge disappointment to family and life supporting organizations and individuals. The recent rushed passage of a bill granting homosexual partners the same rights as common law spouses was the last straw for many of them.
Under the Tories, despite the welcome tax cuts and other dramatic changes, family life and the general quality of social life in Ontario has not improved and many would argue that it has noticeably declined.
It remains to be seen whether the social conservatives can be lured into supporting a strictly economic agenda as supposedly the only route to power. As the Ontario experience has so far shown, the selling out to precious first principles for that power is of highly questionable long-term value. Many are also convinced that dumping social conservative policies was never necessary in the first place and that the Ontario Tories bought a false line from political manipulators.
The attractiveness of Reform has not been just its fiscal policies but also its many down-to- earth, sincere, social conservative MPs who have been a stunning contrast to the usual political hacks in the other parties. The party’s failures in the East could be at least partly attributable to the fact that most of the eastern candidates in the last two elections were not of the social conservative character that was dominant in the successfully elected Reform candidates.
Many social conservative UA delegates are hoping for a merging of conservative Canadians into a new party and platform that will provide the country with a genuine across the board alternative on all issues and one that will not be afraid to tackle so-called “difficult issues”. They have a trust that Canadians are not so mean-spirited and narrow-minded as to reject a party with excellent and unique policies on a wide range of issues just because some of those issues might not initially be perceived as politically correct. Reform has proved that it can be done in the West and many are convinced that, with the right policies, leadership and organization, the same came be done by the United Alternative across the country.
See Tom Long article at:
https://www.nationalpost.com/commentary.asp?f=000118/179803.h…
See articles on Harris government’s homosexual bill at:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/1999/oct/991028a.html and https://www.lifesitenews.com/clc/national_news/1999/news_1299.htm…
See last provincial election analysis on Ontario government record at https://lifesite.net/interim/1999/march/3onttor.html
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