Mr. Speaker, I too attended the so-called united alternative convention in Ottawa and I will share with Canadians a couple of enduring images from that gathering.
The convention was little more than a Reform Party annual meeting. Before it was minutes old up popped David Thomlinson, a Reform Party activist better known as president of the radical National Firearms Association.
If the delegates were trying to remake the image of Reform they failed miserably with the likes of Thomlinson at the microphone. With Reform Party members as the majority of delegates, the new UA is just the same old extremist Reform Party by another name.
The second enduring image left with me was the one of a keynote speaker. A convention supposedly committed to uniting the right invited someone like Rodrigue Biron, a prominent separatist.
The Reform Party will stoop to any level to gain power.
The last time the Conservative Party went to bed with separatists, Canadians ended up with Lucien Bouchard.