Making the Best of the Tory "YES" Vote, after Voting "NO"
Richmond Hill, Ontario - Saturday, December 6, 2003 - by: Robert Ede
	I voted No at the Ontario riding of Oak Ridges' Delegate Selection meeting this past Saturday. A "majority" of the room however voted "YES".
	Forgetting about the arithmetic anomalies that allow (as little as) 50% +1 of the participants at the local meeting/s to send 100% of the voting delegates to the decision making meeting on Dec 6th, since that would have worked for my side if we had filled the room with the more NO supporters.
	Disregarding the reasons that many of the Progressive Conservative members voiced in support of the YES position: stopping the vote-splitting; beating the "dreaded and dreadful" Liberal Party; taking over the Reform/Alliance etc. since, I would have let anyone vote NO for ANY reason, illogical, unrealistic or even untrue.
	Irrespective of the position of the sitting Progressive Conservative Members of Parliament who support the merger idea, since they know they have little chance of reelection against the Paul Martin Jr. machine. If they want a shot at their pension they better do whatever is necessary to meet the minimum qualifications (six years, elected twice) since the Maritime voters aren't as disgruntled over Employment Insurance cuts as they were in 2000.
	Equally irrespective of the position, Reform/Alliance Members of Parliament (who know they maxed out their elected numbers last time and who know that they too will fare less well against the Paul Martin Jr. machine) and the Reform/Alliance executive and general membership (who know what their Members of Parliament know and have come to realise that the party will never elect anyone East of Manitoba without a big shift in policy and personnel and that that shift will lose them control of the West tough spot).
	Regardless of the outcome of the David Orchard et al, court case, since the Judge will likely reserve judgement until just after the Dec 6th vote (wisely not wanting to influence this "private matter"), but will still pronounce a decision before any "dismantling" of the Progressive Conservative assets can take place (reading correctly the Progressive Conservative constitutional documents and precedents on non-incorporated associations).
	No matter how disheartening it is for "ordinary members" of the Progressive Conservative to have the Tory Leadership and National Executive and National Council whole heartedly support dissolution of their Party's comradeship, history and tradition simply to reposition it one to three degrees more to the right of where the Progressive Conservatives are now.
	Based on my "grassroots" experience on Saturday - the deal "is done", my only wish is that cooler heads will prevail in the reorganisation of the four components
	YES Progressive Conservatives, YES Alliance, (who both think they triumphed over all others) NO Progressive Conservatives and NO Alliance (most of whom will make the best of it) and New members who wish to support this fresh, national alternative to the Liberal Party.
	If I may make a suggestion on two of the available implementation of this momentous decision options, in light of the recent past and with an eye to the short term future.
	This whole thing was such a rush!
	Haste does makes waste. So even though the "rush" (and rule bending as a necessary function of the short timeframe) did allow the YES to prevail (the YES's have their electoral strength in numbers victory), let's not waste time, material nor personnel in the reorganisation phase and in preparation for the next election.
	The key question and the most important "planning element" from Dec 7th onwards is
	"When will Paul Martin Jr. go to the polls i.e. when will he ask for a dissolution of Parliament?"
	Many people, pundits and party organizers think Paul Jr. will ask for a dissolution to permit a "honeymoon" election soon after April 1/04.
	He'll want an election soon after a glorious "the future is bright" Throne Speech, but before having to deal with:
	Homosexual Marriage; decriminalization of Marijuana; rebuilding diplomatic bridges (i.e. sucking up to) with the USA  (no wonder Manley didn't want to be Ambassador); telling Canadians that "Chretien committed all the future revenue increases to pettily confound me and I really cannot do anything new without chopping funding from some existing programme (he'll be robbing from Peter's subsidy/grant/program to pay for Paul's subsidy/grant/program)" and before deciding to replace the same Sea-King military helicopters, with the same EH-101 model, at darn near the same price, for the same practical military reasons (albeit 15 years and ?? accidents later) that the Liberals campaigned against buying in 1993 and then paid a contract-cancelling penalty to fulfill their election "promise".
	Since dear ole Paul Martin Jr. will likely prefer not to publicly explore these contentious items prior to facing the electorate, Time is short, for the newly minted, united two degrees right of centre party.
	So given this timeline, the new boundaries (effective Apr/04), the new electoral financing rules (effective Jan1/04) and the need to run a Leadership Convention March 21/04, why not make the administrative side of your lives easier.
	Don't disband TWO "perfectly good", registered and ready political parties. Instead just merge them into the existing Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (the Alliance has just overwhelmingly likely 90%+ - voted to dissolve itself for the electoral strength in numbers reasons that are accomplished by the Tory ratification).
	Rename this merged old is new entity the "Canadian Conservative Party" - since "Canadian" means "socially progressive", so the Progressive Conservatives are not giving away too much and at the same time, this name incorporates two of four names in the current official "Alliance" name.
	Just blend the constituency associations (many will need new executives to be elected because of shifts in the electoral boundaries), combine headquarters operations (should save money, unless you are committed to leases and would want an East and a West headquarters for the election) and concentrate on having a humdinger of a "combo-platter" Leadership convention/Policy convention.
	Or alternately, stick with the original, cancel the two old create one new plan, but buy yourself some time to get all the new pieces in place by generating widespread popular support for the Governor General to deny the request of the then Rt. Hon. Paul Martin Jr. for dissolution of a stable, majority Liberal Parliament that was just elected in November 2000.
	You would be relying on the "damn the torpedoes" feistiness of the recently maligned for extravagance, Liberal appointed Vice-Regal (and the wisdom and advice of Ms. Clarkson's well-read Consort, Mr. John Ralston Saul) to stand up for the Constitutional entrenched powers of the Governor General's Office (granted in 1867, proved in 1926 by Lord Byng and reconfirmed in the Letters Patent of 1947).
	Granted, this might be too much to ask of the self-sensible Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson no matter how favourable to all Canadians (save Paul Martin Jr.) the result might be.
	It would be perhaps too contrary to the interests of the Rt.Hon. power behind the scenes of this planned to fail so you'll call me back as Leader for the 2008 election double putsch.
	Robert Ede
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