Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, the so-called grassroots of the Reform Party got a chance to speak their mind on the Anderson plan for the united right. Many of them gave this clearly crass and opportunistic scheme to try to win power a big thumbs down.
Here is what one Reform member said at a town hall meeting held in Edmonton, “To me, UA is a threat to the very cause of what I signed up for”. Here is what another Reformer said in opposition to the UA, “We want to take part in party policy from the ground up. We do not want to be governed; we want to be represented”. From a woman in Calgary, “Political parties”, she said, “are not meant to be merged together. They need to remain distinct and separate in order to be able to distinguish between their beliefs and ideas. Conservative and Reform go together”, she said, “like oil and water”.
If the Reform leader believes in listening to his grassroots, then he had better pull the cotton out of his ears because they are telling him this united alternative just will not fly.