He is quoted as saying, “Let us get rid of those phoneys in Ottawa”. Exactly. He mentioned that time and again, those phoney politicians in Ottawa. He railed against anyone who was a “professional politician”.
We notice that he does not rail against these professional politicians anymore. Why? Because he is a professional politician. He is the consummate politician. He is the politician who came to Ottawa. This was an intellectual flip-flop but I am not sure that he will pull this one off. Remember the slogan was that the west wants in, “We want a voice from western Canada that will go there and set the tone for the rest of the nation”. That is what they wanted.
The west wants in was his slogan. It got him here in 1993, among other things which I have already mentioned. He came to Ottawa but suddenly realized that his so-called right-wing agenda, if one wants to call it that because I hate mixing up left and right, would not make him Prime Minister of Canada.
Talk about this makeover; this was a complete flip-flop. We can change our hairstyle, dye our hair, cap our teeth, put in contact lenses or whatever we have to do, even lose weight if we have to. The major flip-flop is he said, “I cannot get elected on this right-wing agenda so I am going to have to put a little water in my wine to temper down my policies. We are going to do a number of things”. This was the leader of the Reform Party speaking at the time.
First, he said the party would change its name.