Mr. Speaker, governments are spending millions of dollars trying to fix the so-called millennium bug. This is the glitch whereby computers have a two digit date code that cannot recognize the year 2000. Unless their microchips are reprogrammed the machines and the systems they serve will come to a crashing halt at the end of 1999.
The Reform Party has a similar millennium bug. Its constitution is like a microchip in that it contains the party's entire philosophy in a very small space and, like a microchip, also has a self-destruct clause that requires the party to dissolve itself in the year 2000.
Unless Reformers reprogram their constitution at their convention this weekend the party will soon be no more. If I may suggest it to the members opposite, don't do it. They should encourage their delegates to do nothing. Let the millennium bug bite. If they really want to unite the right, then they should let the party and especially its leader simply go “poof”.