Preston Manning's Populism: Constructing the Common Sense of the Common People STEVE PATTEN ntroduction If there is any consensus in the popular and academic literature on the Reform Party of Canada, it is that Reform is a "populist" party.' Nevertheless, there has seldom been any sustained theoretical discussion of what it means to refer to the Reform Party as a populist party? With no sign that Reform is losing its popularity, having won over one fifth of the voters outside of Quebec in the early 1990s, it is important that we interrogate the character of Reform's populist politics. What is the essence of the Reform Party's populism? What are the ramifications of a growth in popular support for this type of populist politics? This article explores the meaning of populism and examines the character of the Reform Party's populist politics. I will argue that populism is a discursive representation of power and politics that constitutes political subjects in relation to a supposed antagonism between "the people" and "the powerful interests." Importantly, however, I will contend that the content of this antagonism is always contestable. Neither the essence of this antagonism, nor the character of the people and the powerful interests, are objectively given. Thus, populism is essentially an ideological instrument for the construction of political identities and interests. Party leader, Preston Manning, and the Reform Party construct

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the people/powerful interests antagonism as one which pits ordinary working and middle-class taxpayers against the bureaucracy and a range of minority special interest groups which supposedly dominate decision-making processes within the modern welfare state. In this way, Manning's political and ideological struggles to popularize Reform-style populism, engage his party in a powerful form of identity politics that challenges special interests and constructs (while championing) the "common sense of the common people." There is no doubt that the Reform Party's policy agenda constitutes an extension of the New Right agenda of the 1980s. Less clear to many observers are the ways in which the populist character of Reform's ideological and political interventions serve to redefine common sense in a manner that entrenches New Right politics as the Canadian mainstream. Giving content to notions of the common people and common sense is the ideological equivalent of what political strategists call "setting the agenda." Common sense is the accumulated, and often taken-for-granted, set of assumptions and beliefs people use to impose an ideological structure upon the social world.J As Canadians strive to make sense of the turbulent times in which we live, the Reform Party's success depends on calling working and middle class Canadians into politics as "ordinary Canadians," and then constructing their political interests as being fundamentally at odds with the perpetuation of the welfare state and the demands of "special interests," ranging from minority language and cultural groups, to immigrants, gays and lesbians, and welfare recipients. Certainly there is more to Preston Manning's Reform Party than its populist character. Reform's neoliberal populism is further characterized by libertarian and socially conservative ideological commitments. Nevertheless, because populism is about the construction of political identities and the interests of the "common people," Reform's populism plays a unique and important role in the processes that are fundamentally changing Canadian political culture. If we are to understand the long-term significance of the rise of Reform, we

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must appreciate how the party's populism is (re)constructing the common sense of the common people. Defining Populism Political economists and other critical social scientists have tended to view populism as a transitional phenomenon caused by asynchronisms in the modernizing phases of capitalist development.t Whether populism is explained as the product of a social economic situation unique to the period of modernization in dependent capitalist economies outside of Western Europe.> or as the ideological expression of the interests of the agrarian petite bourgeoisie during modernization and industrialization.f populist phenomena are often treated as a transitional pathology, emerging as class forces evolve in the context of capitalist development. The most significant contribution this literature has made to the search for a broadly applicable understanding of populism is the emphasis it has placed on linking populism to crisis and transitional phases of capitalist development. Unfortunately, the somewhat orthodox stagist conception of the development of class forces and capitalism employed in much of this work serves to limit the conceptualization of crisis and, as a result, leads to the conclusion that the era of populism is, for much of the world, now behind us. As Ernesto Laclau points out, this position seems to imply a denial of populist experiences which take place in the socalled developed countries." In the late 1970s Laclau led the way in providing an alternative theorization of populism. His work is theoretically dense, and it has its own weaknesses. Nevertheless, it is highly suggestive and, I believe, serves as the most useful starting point for developing an understanding of populism. Laclau began with the assumption that it is a mistake to assume that classes and empirically observable groups necessarily coincide.f He argued that at both the political and ideological levels, classes have no necessary form of existence.? For this reason, and because of the entirely dissimilar social bases of many historical populist movements, Laclau rejected the notion that populism is simply the expression of a determinate social class (such as the agrarian petite bourgeoisie). 97

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In developing his perspective on populism, Laclau placed considerable emphasis on the role of class forces in political and ideological struggles, as well as recognizing the importance of the subjective dimensions of politics. He argued that while the ideology of a populist movement will have what he calls a "class belonging," some of the central interpellations that constitute it will have a distinctly non-class character. I 0 And the non-class interpellations thatcharacterize populism involve appeals to "the people." In other words, populist discourses call political subjects into politics as "the people"; they construct their political subjects as "the people." Populism, from this perspective, would not include just any rhetorical political appeal to "the people." In Laclau's work, populism would only include political interventions whose non-class interpellations feature two specific characteristics. First, they must consciously appeal to "the people" as one of two poles of the "people/power bloc contradiction." This contradiction is fashioned by "the complex of political and ideological relations of domination constituting a determinate social formation."!' Second, according to Laclau, they must clearly represent a challenge to existing power structures.J? Thus, populism is a challenge to the relations of domination constituted by the people/power bloc contradiction (which I shall hereinafter refer to as the people/powerful interests antagonism 13) and the dominant ideology that reinforces such relations of domination. This is not to suggest that populism is necessarily progressive or revolutionary, or even that "it is necessarily an ideology of the dominated classes. Since the people/powerful interests antagonism exists at the political and ideological level, a populism which accepts capitalist relations of production and whose class belonging is not strictly working class is also possible. According to Laclau, it "is sufficient for a class or class fraction to need a substantial transformation in the power bloc in order to assert its hegemony, for a populist experience to be possible.t'I" While Laclau challenged more reductionist forms of Marxism by arguing that "classes exist at the ideological and political level in a process of articulation and not reduction," 98

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his work on populism remained closely tied to a Marxist class theoretic model.I> It was in this way that he could argue that at the ideological level a populist movement's discourse will have "class belonging," while also insisting that the strictly populist dimension of the movement's discourse lies in the people/powerful interests antagonism articulated into that discourse. In other words, populism involves the interpenetration of class interests and populist appeals within a movement's ideological discourse. There are similarities between this perspective on populism and the approach Stuart Hall has taken in his work on Thatcherism. Hall contends political movements and parties are not direct expressions of a class in the political arena. Political movements and parties may serve as a means of representing a class; but representation "has to be understood as an active and formative relationship.v'> The process of representation organizes the class, constituting it as a political force with a particular character. In the case of populist movements and parties, populist interpellations constitute the class as "the people," while also appealing across classes to link people from a variety of class positions with a political agenda and ideology that actually has its own particular class belonging. One can see here a certain dialectic tension between "the people" and classes that determines the form of the populist movement's ideological discourse. Rounding out Laclau's thinking on populism is the Gramscian notion of hegemony as the political and ideological organization of consent. Like Hall, Laclau argues classes "only exist as hegemonic forces to the extent that they can articulate popular [populist or national-popular] interpellations into their own discourses.t'J? Thus, the social construction of hegemony is best understood in terms of the populist interpellations that serve to construct political subjects with identities and interests. These identities and interests are rooted in a common sense that, while discursively constructed as reflecting the interests of the whole of the people, in fact "belongs" to the dominant classes. Laclau's efforts at theorizing populism suggest a worthwhile strategy for isolating and understanding populist politics, including the populist politics of Preston Manning and 99

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the Reform Party. Among Canadian scholars, Laycock, Finkel and Richards.lf have all acknowledged Laclau's influence on their own perspectives on populism. To move forward, we too must recognize Laclau's contribution, but then identify its weaknesses and specify an understanding of populism that builds on the strengths of his work. The suggestion that populism is a politics which appeals to "the people" as one pole in the people/powerful interests antagonism, has focused scholars' attention on the way in which "the people," as political subjects, are defined in the discourse, rhetoric and actions of populist movements and parties. This has been very useful. "The people" is, after all, also a discursive figure, a rhetorical device, a mode of address. It is open to constant negotiation, contestation and redefinition. It represents as a "unity" what are in fact a diversity of different positions and interests.I?

But there is more to populist interpellations than an attempt to redefine popular conceptions of "the people." I would contend that to emphasize the people/powerful interests antagonism in a movement or party's strategic political discourse requires more than just appealing across classes to offer a politicized reconceptualization of "the people." It also involves active contestation over our understanding of the individuals, groups or social forces which constitute "the powerful interests." That is to say, populism also involves advancing an understanding of the people/powerful interests antagonism that can be challenged by the populist movement's political and ideological interventions. Laclau is too quick to suggest that this antagonism, and his "power bloc," can be objectively identified; he seems to assume it is only the notion of "the people" that needs to be politically and ideologically constituted through populist politics. Following from this, I dispute Laclau's contention that we should restrict the term populism to a politics that challenges the dominant ideological orientation and requires a substantial transformation in the existing power bloc.20 In fact, it may well be that "the powerful interests," ideologically and politically constructed by a populist discourse, do

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not coincide with the "power bloc" as it would be defined by critical social scientists such as Laclau. Thus, while I sympathize with the contention that populist politics is not status quo politics, I disagree with Laclau's suggestion that populist politics is necessarily, by definition, a counter-hegemonic politics. Populism does not necessarily aim to topple relations of domination. The emergence of populism, as Laclau himself has argued, tends to be "historically linked to a crisis of the dominant ideological discourse which is in turn part of a more general social crisis. "21 While populist politics can be counter-hegemonic politics, the populisms which emerge in moments of crisis, such as the current one, need not be counter-hegemonic in character. At crisis moments, the hegemonic status of the historicallydeveloped sets of practices and meanings that serve to maintain power and the privileges of the powerful are brought into question. A space for political and ideological experimentation is opened, and the resolution of crisis will depend on the politics of experimentation. Whether aspects of that experimentation take the form of populism or not, the more successful forces are likely to be engaged in a politics that aims to establish sets of practices and meanings that serve to re-establish the hegemony of the (altered, but still recognizable) dominant social forces.V Within Laclau's framework, hegemony is examined in terms of the formation of political subjects and the construction of an appropriate common sense. Successful populist political struggles will, by definition, influence popular conceptions of citizenship rights and the definition of the national interest. Populist political struggles also challenge the boundaries of public and private and, by implication, the previously dominant conception of the political. And the potential material implications of this entail consequential changes in the sphere of production relations as well as social relations related to gender, race, sexual orientation and the whole series of relations of power and domination that constitute liberal capitalist society. Thus, while it is correct to emphasize the interpenetration of class interests and populist appeals within the ideological discourse of populist movements, we must recognize that a 101

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politics so specifically involved in the formation of political subjects gives meaning to a variety of conflictual social relations. As a result, it can not be neutral with regard to the identities involved in society's other systems of power and domination. Laclau's work on populism avoids economism by allowing for the autonomy of the political and ideological, but it remains a specifically class theoretic model. It is for this reason that he so strongly emphasizes the class belonging of the ideology of populist movements. However, it is also for this reason that he pays too little attention to, for example, the gendered nature of the populist interpellations which construct their subjects as "the people." If, instead of the fairly narrow class theoretic model, we begin with a conception of society as a mosaic of social relations - or systems of power, privilege and domination - we can see with more clarity the complexity of the potential implications of populist politics.J'' Populist interpellations do not merely appeal to the people across classes, they appeal across a variety of contradictory social relations, related to gender, race and so on. And, if instead of thinking of the dominant ideology primarily in terms of its role in the maintenance of extant production relations, we begin with a conception of the dominant ideology as also maintaining the societal paradigm that serves to make sense of the many social relations beyond the realm of production.I" the implications of the subjective dimensions of populist interpellations become infinitely more complex. The identity politics inherent in populism is far more complex than the question of class versus non-class interpellations. As a discursive representation of power and politics that constitutes political subjects in relation to a particular conception of an antagonism between the people and the powerful interests, populism is an ideological instrument that aims to construct the political identity and interests of the "common people." Populist politics aims to construct a "common sense" that challenges the power relations inherent to its conception of the people/powerful interests antagonism; it aims, essentially, to (re)construct the common sense of the common people.

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Reform's Populism Preston Manning is fond of populiststyle rhetoric which portrays the Reform Party as a political movement of ordinary, common sense Canadians; he is convinced that Reform speaks for the silent majority of ordinary taxpayers. Manning's stated goal is "to restore 'the common sense of the common people' to a more central position in federal politics. "25 He believes his success is assured by the fact that "there is no more potent political force on the face of the earth" than the common people's common sense.I> So long as Reform policies are a reflection of this common sense, Manning is convinced that his populist political party is only an election away from unseating the old-line parties. The established parties have, in his view, lost faith in the wisdom of ordinary Canadians. However, Manning's depiction of the relationship between Reform and the common people is something of a self-serving illusion. As political scientist and one-time Reform Party policy advisor, Tom Flanagan, points out: "'The common sense of the common people' does not have any independent existence; it is an artifact of agenda control. "27 In other words, Reform's political and ideological interventions actually give content to popular conceptions of Manning's "silent majority" by defining the political identity and political interests of the common people. As a powerful form of identity politics, Reform's populism is simultaneously helping to create what Manning claims to reflect. While Manning contends that populism is a process for discovering and articulating the "will of the people,"28 it is in fact an ideological instrument for the construction of the political identities and interests of "the people," in opposition to those of the "powerful interests." The significance of the Reform Party's populism lies in its compatibility with the emerging neoliberal state form and mode of governance. As Reform's influence grows, and as Reform-style populism is emulated by the likes of the Ontario Tories, the compatibility between Reform's populist agenda and the political economic agenda of those who make the multiple judgements and decisions that underpin business confidence is increasingly apparent.J? I will return to this point, but it is first necessary to explore the character of 103

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Reform's populism and the factors underlying its potential for popular political appeal. Perhaps the best route to an understanding of the specific character of Reform's populism begins with an examination of its conception of the powerful interests. This conception, it should be noted, marks a break from Canada's earlier agrarian populist movements. For Canada's agrarian populists, the powerful interests were the railroads, banks and grain elevator companies. Of course there were important differences between the Progressives' emphasis on the way in which eastern business interests dominated the party system, the UFA's notion of a plutocracy of highly organized and exploitative economic interests manipulating party politics, and the early Social Credit's demonization of the financial interests controlling the monetary system. Nonetheless, they all agreed the primary threat to the people was that segment of the capitalist class which most benefited from the monopoly nature of encroaching corporate capitalIsm. The Reform Party's perspective on the powerful interests which threaten ordinary Canadians is quite different; it is new and timely, but its roots can be traced back to the Alberta Social Credit. David Laycock explains how, between 1935 and the late 1940s, Social Credit's notion of the powerful interests shifted from an emphasis on financiers and their minions, to more emphasis on central planners, bureaucrats and state socialists.I? William Aberhart and Ernest Manning opposed the emergence of the welfare state and the widespread embrace of welfare liberalism. In a mid-1940s radio broadcast, Social Credit leader, Ernest Manning declared that Canadians faced "a choice between Christian Democracy ... and the materialistic and pagan doctrine of state socialism.l'U The senior Manning continued to hold these views throughout his career. He fought against the introduction of national social programs such as medicare and, as late as 1969 - by which time Preston Manning was working very closely with his father - claimed he had "no doubt" about the existence of a world-wide Communist conspiracy.32 In 1967 Preston Manning warned, in his characteristically understated manner, that "in defining political 104

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principles and particularly in defining ideals, it is imperative that we avoid the error of those who define their political utopia in collectivistic and socialistic terms."33 Public policy makers, he argued, should give primary consideration to human beings individually (persons) rather than collectively (society); they should strive to maximize opportunities for a free enterprise economy, and avoid a "domineering function" for the state.v' With this in mind, it has been argued that during the 1960s, while Preston Manning was forming many of the political ideas he still holds today, he and his father "very definitely" viewed "the organized left as the enemy."35 They shared the belief that forces behind the growth of the welfare state were emerging as powerful interests, threatening the interests of ordinary Canadians. Since then, Manning has been troubled by the spectre of socialism, including welfare liberal commitments that he felt smacked of socialism. Today he and his party "nurture a long-standing hostility to the idea and purpose of modern government";36 they reject welfare liberalism and embrace the libertarian notion of more freedom through less government. For example, with regard to overcoming personal disadvantages and social inequalities, Manning claims, in classically liberal terms, that "a market economy, open society, and democratic polity are great engines for the destruction of privilege.t'-? Similarly, under the heading "Alternatives to the Welfare State," the Reform Party's primary policy document states that a Reform government "would actively encourage families, communities, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector to reassume their duties and responsibilities in social service areas."38 Of course the full character of the Reform Party's notion of the powerful interests is not inherent in right-wing libertarianism. A thoroughgoing understanding of their conception of the people/powerful interests antagonism can only be fleshed out in the specific context of the evolution of the Canadian state and society in the postwar era. While it would take us beyond the scope of this paper to explore the many social, political and economic developments accompanying the rise of the postwar welfare state, there were 105

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three broad developments that are particularly important to our understanding of Reform's populism: 1) a new consensus on the boundaries between the public and private expanded the role of the state and politicized a number of social relations formerly considered private; 2) the appearance of a variety of new political subjects, often in the form of the new social movements, eventually increased our awareness of the conflict inherent in a larger and larger variety of social relations; and, 3) the emergence of substantive positive liberties helped to transform the dominant common sense and lend legitimacy to the notion of social rights. Guided as they are by right-wing libertarian values, Preston Manning and his supporters are uncomfortable with all of these developments. Reformers believe the accelerated politicization of society and expanded role of the bureaucracy in the context of the modern welfare state places a disturbing amount of power in the hands of bureaucrats. As the conservative author, William Gairdner, said in his address to the 1991 Reform Party Assembly: "In the mere space of a quarter century our beloved country has endured a wrenching economic, political and moral transformation ... [from] a classical liberal society into ... a social welfare state. "39 As they observed the emergence of Canada's welfare state, today's Reform Party supporters were troubled by the wider and wider variety of political subjects relying on the notion of social rights to gain certain entitlements from an increasingly powerful bureaucracy. In fact, the party's 1988 election platform denounced the bureaucracy, political professionals and special interests for using the apparatus of government for their own "self-interest"; according to the party platform, this "growing tendency" is one of the "fundamental threats to the supremacy of society over government, which is the foundation of our freedoms.t's" In Manning's words: "As special interest groups are given more status, privileges, and public funding, they use their bargaining power to exact concessions from governments that are both economically inefficient and politically undemocratic.t'U The social welfare state, in other words, threatens the social order and political values Reformers hold dear.

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Who are the powerful interests in Canada's social welfare state? Reform Party rhetoric suggests the powerful interests include the burgeoning government bureaucracy and, perhaps most importantly, the new political subjects of the postwar era, those minority special interests seeking undue privileges from the welfare state bureaucracy. These are not the groups or social forces usually identified as hegemonic, or as a threat to ordinary working people. In Reform's discursive construction of power and politics, however, welfare state bureaucrats and the vested special interests of the welfare state are portrayed as an increasingly powerful threat to the interests of the common people. One Reform publication declared, the Canadian political system is "driven by party interests, special interests, and self-interest, rather than people interest. "42 Another stated that "In Ottawa, every special interest group counts except one: Canadians.t' What was different 114

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in the way Reform took up the neoliberal restructuring discourse was the effective "populist twist" it gave to the rhetoric and policy proposals. Manning and his party managed to make this restructuring discourse relevant to many of the working people who were experiencing social and economic insecurities. For the most part, this was accomplished through populist interpellations that called these working people into politics as "ordinary Canadians" whose lives would be materially improved if something was done about the size of government and the unaccountable power of the special interests. Within the partisan arena, of course, the Tories had also been championing neoliberal restructuring discourse. What the Reform Party was able to do, however, was critique the failure of the Tories without rejecting the fundamentals of neoliberalism. They did this in two ways.76 First, they raised doubts about the Tory commitment to fiscal responsibility and the free market. Drawing on the same neoliberal rhetoric that Brian Mulroney had embraced, Reformers asked who the true fiscal conservatives were. By attacking the government's inability to control spending or grapple with the deficit, Manning tried to position his party as the "fiscal conscience" of Canada, the true voice of fiscal conservatism and neoliberalism. Reform, he claimed, was the party with the strength of conviction to provide a fiscally responsible and future-oriented plan capable of responding to the ongoing economic crisis.?? Second, and more important to us here, Reformers offered a uniquely populist explanation for this lack of Tory commitment to fiscally conservative neoliberal policies. They claimed that the Tory party, like all traditional political parties, was unable to blaze a new trail of fiscal responsibility because it was too tied to the bureaucratic interests of the welfare state and far too willing to pander to the powerful special interests who always wanted more from government. Manning told voters that government could not respond to the common sense concerns of ordinary Canadians, hurt by tough economic times, because they were preoccupied with responding to minority special interest groups. The Tories were unwilling to follow through on their neoliberal convictions and 115

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defend the economic interests of middle-income taxpayers because their policies were dictated by what Manning has referred to as a "tyranny of minorities. "78 Manning went beyond positioning his party as the country's "fiscal conscience"; he also positioned Reform as the "democratic conscience" of Canada, a party willing to listen and respond to the democratic demands of ordinary Canadians. Only his party, he claimed, had an honest desire "to break the tyranny of modern 'Family Compacts' of bureaucrats, politicians, and special interests that exercise the tyranny of minority over democratic majorities.v/?

Reform's Populist Policy Agenda While populist neoliberalism manifests itself throughout Reform's policy agenda, the specifically populist character of Reform is perhaps clearest in the party's non-economic policies, which respond to the experiences of people who feel their social and cultural security has been threatened by the pace and direction of recent changes in Canadian society.s" If fiscal conservatism and a commitment to the free market distinguish the neoliberal dimension of the Reform Party's ideological commitments, the desire to roll back social change by attacking the perceived power and privileges of minority special interests distinguishes the populist dimension. In fact, the belief that the special interests are responsible for forcing social change upon ordinary Canadians is central to Reform's populism; implicit in the party's discourse is the suggestion that the state and powerful minorities are responsible for much of the social change which threatens the social and cultural security of the common people. This is the reasoning which has directed much of Reform's populist agenda toward undoing a series of policies which, they believe, special interests have forced upon the Canadian people. From Reform's perspective, it was collusion between the traditional political parties, welfare state bureaucrats and the minority special interests which produced, among many other things: I) the illiberal social rights and proactive equity policies which aim to establish a greater degree of substantive equality; and, 2) a series of language, cultural and immigration policies which "officially" valorize diversity and 116

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undermine the identity of Canada's natural political community. Examining Reform's agenda in these two policy areas will complete this exploration of the character of the Reform Party's populism. Anxiety over the spread of illiberal social rights and proactive equity policies is almost palpable amongst Reformers. Currently, while a party task force explores the issue, the Reform Party's central policy document, The Blue Sheet, is silent on the perceived illiberal nature of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Nevertheless, in 1992 only 17.6 percent of delegates to the biennial party assembly were willing to agree that "on the whole, the benefits of the new Canadian Charter of Rights outweigh the disadvantages.t's ' Moreover, in preparation for the 1994 party assembly, a number of constituency associations submitted formal policy resolutions advocating the revocation of the Charter.V At that assembly, the official rationale presented for these resolutions was quite striking in its populist imagery. It stated that "more than any other single document," the Charter "has enabled the not nice and wayward element of our society to twist, corrupt, and turn upside down seemingly every public interest and social advance to their own self-interest and advantage."83 Particularly disturbing to Reformers, is Section 15(2), the equality rights clause, which enshrines the constitutionality of affirmative action programs designed to assist individuals or groups disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. According to party documents, this "obnoxious clause"84 allows governments to implement employment equity programs which are abhorrent to both the libertarian and populist impulses of Reform. For the party's more committed libertarians, such as Stephen Harper, MP for Calgary West, "the fundamental role of government...is first and foremost to treat people identically."85 Affirmative action programs, such as the federal Employment Equity Act, violate this principle by "legislating discrimination, particularly against white males."86 But the Reform Party's critique of such policies does not stop there; the more explicitly populist dimension of the critique highlights the source of such policies. For example, in an article 117

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titled "The Manufacture of Minorities," former Reform policy advisor, Tom Flanagan explains that the expansion of the prohibited grounds of discrimination (from primarily "ethnic group stigmata" to a range of "life cycle" and "life style" criteria) has been caused by bureaucracies "with vested interest in expansion" and "organized pressure groups who feel they can advance their cause if they can get accepted as a human rights issue."87 And Reform MP, Ted White, echoed this populist analysis when he introduced a private member's motion calling for an end to federal employment equity programs: When we take a look at the employee make-up of several prominent groups that promote employment equity, we find some very disturbing situations. The Ontario government's office of employment equity in 1994 had a workforce made up of 90.5 per cent women, 52.9 per cent racial minorities, 5.6 per cent aboriginals, and zero able-bodied white males.88

The implications are clear. Employment equity programs are the work of powerful special interests; and, to make matters worse, Ted White argues that "all available [employment] statistics indicate that young Caucasian men are the ones who are in the disadvantaged group. "89 Reform's policies on immigration and multiculturalism are among the most discussed elements of the party's populist agenda. These policies are a direct response to a series of existing language, cultural and immigration policies which "officially" valorize diversity and, according to Reformers, undermine the natural identity of Canada's national political community. According to one party publication, the current Canadian government policies on language and culture have defined a "government-manufactured culture" which is not rooted in "national characteristics with which every Canadian can identify."90 Moreover, as with employment equity policies, Manning and his supporters contend that these policies represent the government's response to the demands of an elite of powerful special interests. In fact, with regard to immigration policy, the party's 1988 election platform claimed there "is perhaps no area of public

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policy where the views of Canadians have been more systematically ignored. "91 Reform MP, Lee Morrison, has characterized official multiculturalism as a policy which is "divisive ... encourages ghettoization and wastes tax dollars."92 The root problem, according to a widely circulated party policy paper, is the "politicization of ethnicity."93 As Manning explains, once a country "starts down this road of granting special status to one or more groups based on race, language, or culture, it comes under increasing pressure to take the same approach to other groups."94 Thus, Manning believes it was inevitable that two decades of multiculturalism would produce "a hyphenated Canadianism that emphasizes our differences and downplays our common ground.t'''> In other words, the policy of multiculturalism is largely to blame for the lack of a "national culture" based on the common characteristics of "ordinary Canadians." Manning is often cautious in his criticism. He simply argues that "you cannot hold a country together with hyphens."96 From his perspective, it has, therefore, been a mistake to encourage the development of hyphenated identities - such as English-Canadian, French-Canadian, Polish-Canadian, or Turkish-Canadian. But other Reformers, including the outspoken Reform MP, Jan Brown, are much stronger in their condemnation of multiculturalism, its consequences, and the special interests to which the policy supposedly caters: We all want the right to retain our roots, but what we have is Trudeau's enforced multicultural scam and the costs have been excessive. Ethnic group is pitted against ethnic group and the country is fragmented into a thousand consciousnesses. Trudeau's ideas about multiculturalism continue to contribute as a primary factor in the erosion of federalism and Canada's unity. Catering to special interest groups Ii la Trudeau and company smashes the spine of federalism. This destructive outcome is almost inevitable so long as we officially encourage large groups to remain apart from the mainstream.v?

Reform's attack on Canada's immigration policies has been no less damning. In 1988, the party's election platform stated that "increasingly" Canadian immigration policy 119

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seems to be "explicitly designed to radically or suddenly alter the ethnic makeup of Canada.t''f This was deemed unacceptable and, in 1990, official party policy argued that it is "the responsibility of the state to promote, preserve, and enhance the national culture"; and, furthermore, immigration and cultural policies "should encourage, ethnic cultures to integrate into the national culture.t'''? Under pressure from critics of the party, Reform has since backed away from using such strong language. In 1991, the Party Policy Committee convinced delegates that a "clearer and more positive statement" was needed to replace the reference to "the national culture." Guided by the Policy Committee, the party adopted a motion declaring that "the Reform party stands for the acceptance and integration of new Canadians into the mainstream of Canadian life."IOO But this has not stopped individual constituency associations from proposing a return to a more blunt, hard line policy. In 1991, Reformers from Calgary North proposed that the Reform Party commit itself to an immigration policy which would "maintain [Canada's] ethnic/cultural balance as of September 1990." 1 0 I And in 1994, the constituency of South West Nova proposed the following: Resolved that the Reform Party support a policy by which all future immigrants entering Canada must agree to embrace and adapt to the Canadian culture rather than expecting the Canadian culture to conform to and accommodate their special cultural, philosophical and religious expectations.102

The attention drawn to these essentially xenophobic policies has concerned the more cautious members of Manning's inner circle. The party's Green Book, which "further explains" policy to constituency association presidents, candidates and other party spokespeople, is absolutely circumspect in its explanation and justification of party policies. It talks of a multiculturalism policy that ensures equal opportunity within the "Canadian mosaic" and an immigration policy based on "economic need."I03 But former party insiders, such as Flanagan, concede "there is fairly wide [party] support for a 'melting pot' concept, in which ethnicity is purely a private concern, and the public sphere is simply 120

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Canadian period." 1 04 Even though a 1992 resolution advocating a multiculturalism policy that promoted the idea of a Canadian mosaic was rejected by party delegates, 1 05 Manning has continued to argue that Reform's multiculturalism policy "does not mean necessarily an abandonment of the mosaic model of Canada." 106 Manning seems to believe that simply by depoliticizing ethnicity, political conflict and clashes of identity will wane until we enter what Richard Gwyn has called a "post-race Canada.t'I"? For many Reformers however, belief in a unitary "national culture" or a single way of living which can be identified as "mainstream Canadian life," is very important. Who are "the people," if they are not the mainstream of Canadian life? What is the nation without reference to the "national culture'? For these Reformers, it is important to protect the Canadian culture and way of life from waves of immigrants and the social engineering policies demanded by minority special interests. Again, unique and centrally important to the success of Reform's political appeal is the way in which it combines a future-oriented solution based on neoliberal restructuring discourse, with a defensive attack on the legitimacy and power of minority special interests. This "populist twist" on neoliberal restructuring discourse involves a discursive representation of power and politics which appeals to the common people as one pole in an antagonism between "the people" and "the powerful special interests." Reform's depiction of "ordinary Canadians" treats the future of the threatened middle strata as if it were dependent on winning a zero-sum struggle against a range of powerful minority interests.U'f This perspective on Reform's success draws on earlier analysis of the rise of the New Right in America. For example, in his discussion of New Right politics following the onset of the crisis of Fordism in America, Mike Davis pointed out how corporate capital could become unified with the middle strata "in a strategy of cost-displacement towards the working and unwaged poor."l09 Arguing that the middle strata's willingness to embrace the neoliberalism of the New Right recalled a pattern of politics from the turn of the century Progressive movements, Davis suggested a revanchist

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middle strata was now engaged third kind."

in a "class

struggle

of a

Faced with genuinely collapsing standards of living in many sectors of the traditional white working class, these groups increasingly visualized themselves ... as locked into a separate zerosum rivalry with equality-seeking minorities and women.IIO

This construction of a specific slice of the threatened middle strata as "ordinary Canadians" and all others as "special interests," is the central feature of Reform's populist politics. Janine Brodie explains how neoliberal restructuring discourse has the capacity to marginalize and deconstruct minority and oppositional movements as unrepresentative and self-interested lobby groups without concern for the "general interest.t'U! As the various political subjects of the new social movements, ranging from feminists to anti-poverty activists to gay and lesbian rights activists, are valorizing differences and pushing for the extension of postwar social citizenship rights, Reform's populist discourse casts these very same political subjects outside the political community around which a new development strategy and mode of social regulation needs to be constructed. Today, Reform is using this discursive representation of power and politics to justify not responding to several dimensions of existing and growing inequality in our society. When packaged effectively, this populist politics is quite attractive to many Canadians experiencing the difficulties of social and economic restructuring. In the past, the New Right's tendency to demonize special interests and blame interest group politics for "demand overload" and spiralling deficits was criticized by the Left as anti-democratic. But by redefining the contours of public and private to favour a limiting of the role of modern government and popularizing an explicitly libertarian and market-based notion of citizenship, the Reform Party's populist politics defines some demands as more legitimate than others. This allows Manning to formulate his party's populist appeal to the middle strata as a call for more democratization, not less. Critics may claim that in practice it would be a narrow democratization, even a hidden privileging of those 122

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voters Reformers call "ordinary Canadians." It clearly does involve emphasizing the political interests of white middle income taxpayers at the expense of more marginalized citizens. But this, in fact, is what makes Reform's populism so powerful. If, like Laclau, we examine hegemony in terms of the formation of political subjects through populist interpellations that serve to construct a new common sense, we can see the extent to which the Reform Party helps further entrench New Right politics as the Canadian mainstream. Further, we can see that Reform, while certainly not the partisan political voice of corporate Canada, is helping to popularize a political agenda which is entirely compatible with the neoliberal state form and mode of governance advocated by business interests. Conclusion I have been arguing throughout that populism is a discursive representation of power and politics which constitutes political subjects in relation to a supposed antagonism between "the people" and "the powerful interests." Further, the content of this antagonism, including the portrayal of the people and the powerful interests, can take many different forms. Preston Manning and the Reform Party construct this antagonism as one that pits ordinary working and middle-class taxpayers against the bureaucracy and the minority special interest groups which they believe dominate decision-making within the modem welfare state. In this way, Reform's populism defines the political interests of "ordinary Canadians" as being fundamentally at odds with the perpetuation of the welfare state and the demands of "special interests" ranging from minority language and cultural groups, to immigrants, gays and lesbians, and welfare recipients. In other words, as political subjects, the common people are constructed as white, male, heterosexual and English-speaking taxpayers from the working and middle classes. And, importantly, Reform's populist message is that, in these turbulent times, it is the only party committed to making Canada a safe place for these common people to live and prosper. But the real significance of Reform's populist political and ideological interventions may go even further. The present is 123

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a moment of turbulence, of political and economic restructuring, and the Reform Party is playing an important role in the processes which are fundamentally changing Canadian political culture. As Brodie explains, periods of crisis and restructuring are "a prolonged and conflict-ridden political process during which old assumptions and shared understandings are put under stress and eventually rejected while social forces struggle to achieve a new consensus.t'Ll- The Reform Party represents an important political and ideological intervention in this process of trying to define a future. In fact, the neoliberal populist discourse of Reform may telegraph the mode of social and economic regulation which will stabilize an emerging new accumulation regime. The contours of the state form that will characterize the postFordist political economy are still taking their shape. To the extent that Reform mobilizes working and middle-class Canadians with its populist politics, popular support will exist for the exclusionary practices of a neoliberal mode of governance. The party system is always a potentially important mediating institution in the processes which establish consensus, construct identities, and formulate a common sense capable of making sense of the material conditions of peoples' lives. It is true that Canadian parties did not provide the primary site of constitutive struggle during the consolidation of the postwar Fordist accumulation regime. Nonetheless, even then, they were an important mechanism for forging consensus. I 13 While party systems are always influenced by the changing political economy, the parties of this system also have a significant impact on the capacity of an accumulation regime to remain "in regulation." For most of the postwar era, a pattern of brokerage politics - in which fundamentally similar parties direct appeals at many interests to create electoral coalitions 114 - helped to stabilize Canada's Fordist model of development. But brokerage politics is an activity of parties most compatible with periods of consensus, when there is a shared common sense based on a hegemonic mode of social regulation. Over the past two decades of restructuring, the potential for an end to brokerage politics was opened. J 15 Today, however, I would argue that 124

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the success of Reform's populism is one factor that may be serving to re-establish brokerage politics around a new neoliberal consensus. Through its construction of "the common sense of the common people," the Reform Party's populism is entrenching New Right politics within the mainstream of the Canadian party system.

Notes A number of people have commented on this paper and/or shared with me their views on the emergence of the Reform Party of Canada: Janine Brodie, Ed Comor, Chris Gabriel, Lise Gotell, Jane Jenson, Fred Judson, David Laycock, Eleanor Macdonald, Bob Marshall, Marcia Nelson, Tim Sinclair, Graham Todd, and Reg Whitaker. [ am grateful to them all. I.

2.

3. 4.

See for example: Therese Arseneau, "The Reform Party of Canada: The Secret of its 'Success" (Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Kingston, Ontario, June 1991); Murray Dobbin, Preston Manning and the Reform Party (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 1991); Thomas Flanagan and Martha Lee, "The Roots of Reform" (Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Charlottetown, P.E.I., June 1992, 3 & 15-19); Preston Manning, The New Canada (Toronto: Macmillan Canada, 1992), chapter I; Peter McCormick, 'The Reform Party of Canada: New Beginning or Dead End?" in Hugh G. Thorburn (ed.), Party Politics in Canada, 6th ed., (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall Canada, 1991), pp. 342-352; and, Sydney Sharpe and Don Braid, Storming Babylon: Preston Manning and the Rise of the Reform Party, (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1992). There are now two exceptions to this. The most recent exception is Trevor Harrison's recently published Of Passionate Intensity: RightWing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995). To a considerable degree, I agree with Harrison's characterization of Reform's populism. The other exception is Flanagan and Lee's investigation of Reform's populism utilizing a descriptive typology of populisms borrowed from Margaret Canovan. See: Flanagan and Lee, "The Roots of Reform." I have elsewhere discussed the inadequacies of this particular exploration of the Reform Party's populist politics. See: Steve Patten, "Populist Politics? A Critical Re-Examination of 'Populism' and the Character of the Reform Party's Populist Politics" (Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Ottawa, Ontario, June, 1993). This definition of common sense borrows very directly from Robert Miles, Racism (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 70. Mainstream liberal social scientists, on the other hand, have tended to treat populism more as a style of politics. Margaret Canavan, for instance, suggests that populism is an anti-elitist politics which involves "some

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5.

6.

7.

8. 9. 10.

126

kind of exaltation of and appeal to 'the people.' ... In her well-known work. Canovan develops an extensive seven-fold descriptive typology of populisms, three of which she labels "agrarian populism" (farmers' radicalism. peasant movements. and intellectual agrarian socialism) and four of which she labels "political populism" (populist dictatorships. populist democracy. reactionary populism. and politicians' populism). The unfortunate weakness of Canovan's very useful overview of populist politics. is its failure to theorize the essence of populism. Her work is very descriptive and. in the end. she claims that the various different populisms "are not reducible to a single core," See: Margaret Canovan, Populism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1981). Students of the primarily urban populism of Latin America argue that in situations of dependent development with rapid. but severely limited. industrialization there occurs a "premature emergence of mass society" and an increased awareness of material deprivation and peripheralization in relation to the centres of power. Moreover. urbanization in the context of modem communications brings people into contact with the forces and ideas of higher levels of development. This fuels the values of consumer society and a "revolution of rising expectations," But with too few jobs and too little wealth being created by the processes of dependent development. material deprivation continues. leaving wants and expectations unsatisfied. In this situation. nationalist populist movements mobilize by drawing on the imagery of "the people" as honest folk whose relative material deprivation is the result of conspiracies perpetrated by political and economic interests at the centres of power. See. as an example: Alistair Hennessy. "Latin America," and Angus Stewart, "The Social Roots," in Ghita lonescu and Ernest Gellner (eds.), Populism: Its Meaning and National Characteristics (London: The Macmillan Company. 1969). Theorists of populism in North America have insisted that populism is the ideological expression of the interests of the agrarian petite bourgeoisie during the modernizing phase of capitalist development. John Conway explains that while populism is the political expression of the petite bourgeoisie. it presents itself as a general ideology. as a defence of "small rural people" threatened by encroaching industrial and financial capitalism. See, for example: John F. Conway. "The Nature of Populism: A Clarification," Studies in Political Economy 13 (Spring 1984); John F. Conway. "Populism in the United States. Russia. and Canada: Explaining the Roots of Canada's Third Parties," Canadian Journal of Political Science XIII (March. 1978); and. Sinclair. "Class Structure and Populist Protest: The Case of Western Canada," in George Melnyk (ed.), Riel to Reform: A History of Protest in Western Canada (Saskatoon: Fifth House Publishers. 1992). Ernesto Laclau, "Towards a Theory of Populism," in Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (London: Verso. 1977). p. 153. Ibid .• p. 163. Ibid .• pp. 158-159. Laclau makes use of Louis Althusser's notion of interpellation (hailing) to suggest the process through which political and ideological

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II. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

20. 21. 22.

23.

24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

Populism

appeals construct ideological or political subjects. Populist interpellations, from this perspective, construct their subjects as "the people." Laclau, 'Towards a Theory of Populism," p. 166. Laclau explains that populism "involves the presentation of populardemocratic [populist] interpellations as a synthetic-antagonistic complex with respect to the dominant ideology." See ibid., pp. 172-173. The notion of power bloc suggests the way in which fractions of the dominant class are reunified to ensure their capacity to control the state and remain hegemonic. Since 1 will be suggesting that different populisms construct their own understanding of the powerful interests that threaten the people, the history of the term power bloc imbues it with too much suggestive imagery for my purposes. Laclau, "Towards a Theory of Populism," p. 173. Ibid., p. 161. Stuart Hall, "The Great Moving Right Show," in Stuart Hall and Martin Jacques (cds.). The Politics of Thatcherism (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1983), p. 26. Laclau, "Towards a Theory of Populism," p. 196. See D. Laycock, Populism and Democratic Thought in the Canadian Prairies, 1910 to 1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990); Alvin Finkel, "Populism and the Proletariat," Studies in Political Economy 13 (Spring 1984); and, John Richards, "Populism: A Qualified Defence," Studies in Political Economy 5 (Spring 1981). Stuart Hall and David Held, "Citizens and Citizenship," in Stuart Hall and Martin Jacques (eds.), New Times: The Changing Face of Politics in the 1990s (London: Verso, 1990), p. 183. Laclau, "Towards a Theory of Populism," p. 173. Ibid., p. 175. This formulation draws on Jane Jenson, "Representations in Crisis: The Roots of Canada's Permeable Fordism," Canadian Journal of Political Science XXIII/4 (December 1990), pp. 662-666. For a discussion of society as a mosaic of systems of power and domination see Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Democracy and Capitalism: Property, Community. and the Contradictions of Modern Social Theory (New York: Basic Books, 1986), chapter 4. For a discussion of the notion of societal paradigm see Jane Jenson, "All the World's a Stage: ldeas, Spaces and Times in Canadian Political Economy," Studies in Political Economy 36 (Fall 1991), p. 56. Manning, The New Canada, p. 26. Ibid., p. 25. Thomas Flanagan, Waiting for the Wave: the Reform Party and Preston Manning (Toronto: Stoddart, 1995), p. 27. Ibid., pp. 2-3. The importance of this point cannot be overstated. The Reform Party has not developed and maintained the type of tight and cosy relationship with big business that traditional conservative parties have. But clearly this is not necessary for political success. Capitalist social forces occupy a privileged social position with its own unique logic of collective action and techniques of political influence-the power of vaguely articulated expressions of business confidence (or lack there of) is such that direct instrumental involvement in party affairs

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30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42.

43.

44. 45.

46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

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by business interests is not necessary to ensure business interests are, in effect, well-represented. So long as a party's policy agenda avoids undermining that elusive state of mind known as business confidence, the party can escape being thwarted by the political manoeuvring of capitalist social forces. Laycock, Populism and Democratic Thought, chapter 5. Sharpe and Braid, Storming Babylon, p. 76. Dobbin, Preston Manning and the Reform Party, p. 18. E. C. Manning, Political Realignment: A Challenge to Thoughtful Canadians (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1967). Although published under his father's name, Preston Manning openly admits his participation in writing this short book, and observers generally agree that he was the primary author. Alberta, A White Paper on Human Resources Development (Edmonton: Government of Alberta, 1967), p. 17. This Alberta government document was co-authored by Preston Manning and Erick Schmidt, then Executive Assistant to the Alberta Cabinet. Sharpe and Braid, Storming Babylon, p. 66. Dobbin, Preston Manning and the Reform Party, p. 178. Manning, The New Canada, p. 314. Reform Party of Canada, The Blue Book: Principles and Policies (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1991), p. '28 Cited in Dobbin, Preston Manning and the Reform Party, p. 147. Reform Party of Canada, '''The West Wants in!' Election Platform of the Reform Party of Canada" (Edmonton, 1988). Unfortunately, the photocopy obtained from the Reform Party archives was without page numbers. Manning, The New Canada, p. 320. Reform Party of Canada, "Why did 2.5 Million Canadians Vote Reform in the 1993 Federal Election," (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1994). Emphasis in original. Cited in David Laycock, "Reforming Canadian Democracy? Institutions and Ideology in the Reform Party Project," Canadian Journal of Political Science XXVIII2 (June 1994), p. 219. Colyne Gibbons cited in Jonathan Ferguson, "Manning on defensive over racism charges," Toronto Star 16 October 1993, p. A 19. Excerpted from a speech given by Stephen Harper at the founding convention of the Reform Party and reprinted, in part, in Terry O'Neill (ed.), Act of Faith (Vancouver: British Columbia Report Books, 1991), pp. 44-46. Canada, Parliament, House of Commons, Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, "Reform Party Dissenting Opinion for the Standing Committee On Human Resources Development," (Ottawa, 1994), p. 294. Emphasis added. Ibid., pp. 294-295. Ibid., p. 295. Emphasis added. Reform Party of Canada, '''The West Wants In! ", Reform Party of Canada, "Look at the national debt hole Canada is in," (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1993), p. 2. This Bill was introduced during the First Session of the Thirty-fifth Parliament by Ted White, Reform MP for North Vancouver. See: Canada, House of Commons, Bill C-338 An Act to amend the Income

Patten/Manning's

52.

53. 54. 55.

56.

57. 58. 59.

60. 61.

62.

63. 64. 65. 66.

67.

Populism

Tax Act (political activities by charities receiving public funds), (Ottawa, June 21, 1995). Herb Grubel, cited in The Globe and Mail I April 1995, p. D I. Other Reformers have used much stronger language. One Reform Candidate, John Tillman, wrote, in a letter to his Tory opponent in the 1993 election, that women's groups and other "minority groups" are "parasites of society." See The Globe and Mail 29 October 1993, p. A9. Mario Toneguzzi, "Reform accuses women's groups of discrimination," Calgary Herald 15 June 1994, p. A I. Manning, The New Canada, pp. 320-321. A 1993 Reform Party pamphlet said "Let's ensure that women are treated equally by removing barriers to advancement, but not by labelling women as a special-interest minority group." See: Reform Party of Canada, "Who are the Reformers" (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1993). The Reform Party's Blue Sheet "rejects the view that labour and management must constitute warring camps." While they support "the right of workers of organize democratically," they clearly reject the labour movement's conception of this right. See: Reform Party of Canada, Blue Sheet: Principles, Policies & Election Platform (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1993), p. 4. Interview with Wayne Karlem, President, Calgary South East Reform Association President, November 28, 1994. Tu Thanh Ha, "Manning spoiling for a fight on unity," The Globe and Mail 17 October 1994, p. A I. See Flanagan, Waiting for the Wave, pp. 2-3; and, Laycock, "Reforming Canadian Democracy? Institutions and Ideology in the Reform Party Project," p. 230. Preston Manning, "The Road to New Canada" (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1991), p. 15. Rex Welbour, former Executive Vice-President of the Peterborough Reform Party constituency association, cited in Jonathan Ferguson, "Manning on defensive over racism charges," Toronto Star 16 October 1993, p. A19. John Beck, Reform's 1993 Candidate in York Centre, cited in Hugh Winsor, "Reform Candidate Quits," The Globe and Mail 14 October 1993, p. A6. Laycock, "Reforming Canadian Democracy?," p. 216. Hall and Held, "Citizens and Citizenship," p. 183. Ernesto Lac1au and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (London: Verso, 1985), p. 170. Laclau, "Towards a Theory of Populism," p. 175, It is interesting to note that while Britain and the United States experienced a variety of populist phenomenon from the late 1960s through to the 1980s - including the reactionary populism of Britain's Enoch Powell and America's George Wallace, the conservative populism behind such tax revolts as California's Proposition 13, and the authoritarian populism of Thatcherism - the major political forces behind Canada's initial turn to the right lacked a populist character. Jenson, "All the World's a Stage," p. 57.

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68.

69. 70. 71.

72.

73.

74.

75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80.

130

Reform Party of Canada, "This Election Don't Just Buy The Packaging. Look at what's inside" (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1993), p. 2. Manning, The New Canada, p. 358. Laycock, "Reforming Canadian Democracy? Institutions and Ideology in the Reform Party Project," p. 219. Very broadly, this neoliberal agenda recommends the enhancement of the structural competitiveness of Canada's small, open economy through the conscious contraction of that which we consider political; in particular, it demands the depoliticization of the economic and the subordination of social pol icy to the requirements of labour market flexibility and international competitiveness. To be fully consistent with such a political agenda requires a "paradigm shift" away from postwar governing practices, state forms and political identities. The state must shift away from redistributive concerns towards a concern for cost-savings and the promotion of structural competitiveness. Our notions of citizenship must move from social rights toward more market-oriented values. We must dramatically restrict our notion of the appropriate role of the government in society. This discussion of neoliberal restructuring discourse borrows very directly from Janine Brodie, "Politics in a Globalized World: New State Forms, New Political Spaces" (Paper presented to the Mexican Association of Canadian Studies, Mexico City, April 26, 1994); and Bob Jessop, "Toward a Schumpeterian Workfare State? Preliminary Remarks on PostFordist Political Economy," Studies in Political Economy 40 (Spring 1993). Juergen Haeusler and Joachim Hirsch, "Political Regulation: The Crisis of Fordism and the Transformations of the Party System in West Germany," in M. Gottdiener and Nicos Komninos (eds.), Capitalist Development and Crisis Theory: Accumulation. Regulation and Spatial Restructuring (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), p. 311. This argument is further developed with statistical support in Steve Patten, "A Political Economy of Reform: Understanding Middle Class Support for Manning's Right-libertarian Populism" (Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Calgary, Alberta, June, 1994). Brodie uses the term "restructuring discourse" to suggest a historically specific set of ideas and practices that, during a crisis period, seems to be in the process of defining an emerging hegemonic paradigm. See Brodie, "Politics in a Globalized World." See, for example: Reform Party of Canada, Blue Sheet: pp. 4-5. This basic argument is also presented in Steve Patten and Reg Whitaker. "Learning From Mr. Right: Taking Preston Manning and the Reform Party Seriously," The Canadian Forum LXXIV/841 (July/August 1995). See for example: Manning, The New Canada, pp. 336-351; or, Reform Party of Canada, "Look at the national debt hole Canada is in." Manning, The New Canada, p. 320. Ibid., p. 321. As one observer said of the most recent Reform Party Assembly: "The overriding theme of the policy proposals was that Reformers feel left out by recent social changes and wanted to roll them back."

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81.

82. 83. 84. 85.

86. 87.

88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107.

Populism

See Tu Thanh Ha, "Manning spoiling for a fight on unity," The Globe and Mail 17 October 1994, p. A I. Faron Ellis, "Constituency Representation Issues in the Reform party of Canada" (Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Calgary, Alberta, June, 1994). Reform Party of Canada, "Part III: Reform Party Proposed Policy Resolutions" (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1994), pp. 5-6. Reform Party of Canada, "Part I: Reform Party Policy Resolutions for Debate" (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1994), p. 17. Ibid. Della Kirkham, "The Reform Party of Canada: A Discourse on Race" (Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, Calgary, Alberta, June, 1994, p. II). Reform Party of Canada, "Part I: Reform Party Policy Resolutions for Debate," p. 16. Thomas Flanagan, "The Manufacture of Minorities," in Neil Nevitte and Allan Kornberg (eds.), Minorities and the Canadian State (Oakville: Mosaic Press, 1985) , pp. 119-120. Canada, Parliament, House of Commons, Debates, April 6, 1995, p. J 1638. Ibid. Reform Party of Canada, an untitled pamphlet, (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1991). Reform Party of Canada, '''The West Wants In!" Emphasis added. Cited in Della Kirkham, "The Reform Party of Canada: A Discourse on Race," p. 7. Thomas Flanagan and Dimitri Pantazopoulos, "The Reform Party's Multiculturalism Policy" (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1992), p. 3. Manning, The New Canada, p. 304. Ibid., p. 304-305. Cited in Della Kirkham, "The Reform Party of Canada: A Discourse on Race," p. 7. Canada, Parliament, House of Commons, Debates, April 5, J 995, p. 11559. Reform Party of Canada, '''The West Wants In!" Reform Party of Canada, The Blue Book: Principles and Policies, p.23. Reform Party of Canada, "Exposure Draft" (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1991), p. 140. Ibid., p. 114. Reform Party of Canada, "Part III: Reform Party Proposed Policy Resolutions," p. 29. Reform Party of Canada, The Green Book: Issues and Answers (Calgary: Reform Party of Canada, 1992), Issue Statements #9 and #25. Cited in Della Kirkham, "The Reform Party of Canada: A Discourse on Race," p. 9. See Flanagan's discussion of this event in Ibid., fn 39. Manning, New Canada, p. 317. Richard Gwyn, "Ethnic engineering has no place in non-racist society," Toronto Star 14 January 1996, p. F3.

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108.

109.

lID. III.

Betz makes a similar argument about the emergence of right-wing populist parties in Western Europe. He argues that their success depends on two factors: "their ability to mobilize resentment and protest and their capacity to offer a future-oriented program that confronts the challenge posed by the economic, social, and cultural transformation of advanced West European democracies." See Hans-George Betz, "The New Politics of Resentment: Radical Right-wing Populist Parties in Western Europe," Comparative Politics 25 (July 1993), p. 415. Mike Davis, "The Political Economy of Late-Imperial America," New Left Review 123 (1984), p. 28. Ibid., p. 35. Brodie, "Politics in a Globalized World," pp. 21-23.

112. Ibid. 113.

114.

115.

132

Jenson, '" Different' but not 'exceptional': Canada's permeable Fordism," Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 26 (1989). Harold D. Clarke et al., Absent Mandate: Interpreting change in Canadian Elections, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Gage Educational Publishing Company, 1991), pp. 8-14; and Janine Brodie and Jane Jenson, "Piercing the Smokescreen: Brokerage Parties and Class Politics," in Alain G. Gagnon and A. Brian Tanguay (eds.), Canadian Parties in Transition: Discourse. Organization, and Representation (Scarborough: Nelson Canada, 1989), pp. 29-33. Janine Brodie, "Tensions from Within: Regionalism & Party Policy in Canada," in Hugh G. Thorburn (ed.), Party Politics in Canada, 5th ed. (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall Canada Inc., 1985).