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Preston Manning and the Politics of Postmodernism in Canada*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Richard Sigurdson
Richard Sigurdson
Affiliation:
University College of the Cariboo
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Abstract

Since his rise to national importance in Canada, commentators have been trying to make sense of Preston Manning and his Reform party. For the most part, however, such commentary has refused to see his political thinking as new at all, but instead regards it as a throwback to previous examples of western-based political protest movements. Yet Manning should be regarded as a postmodern conservative. His politics are a response to the process of postmodernization that has characterized Canada in recent years. This article traces the rise of postmodern politics in the Western world; examines the specifically Canadian manifestation of this process; discusses the Reform party in the context of the cultural tension driving Canada's recent political debates; and concludes with a commentary on Manning's contribution to the fragmentation of Canada's traditional party system.

Résumé

Depuis que le Reform Party a fait son entré sur la scène politique canadienne, les commentateurs politiques essaient de comprendre aussi bien Preston Manning que son parti. Dans une très large mesure, toutefois, ces commentateurs ont refusé de considérer sa pensée politique comme étant nouvelle, en insistant plus sur le fait qu'elle constituait un nouvel exemple de l'émergence de mouvements de protestations politiques ayant émané de l'Ouest canadien. Cependant, on devrait voir en Manning un conservateur post-moderne dont les idées tentent de répondre au processus post-moderne qui a caractérisé le Canada au cours des dernières années. Cet article retrace l'émergence de la pensée post-moderne dans le monde occidental et se penche sur les manifestations spécifiques de ce phénomène au Canada. L'article situe les positions du Reform Party dans le contexte général de tension culturelle qui marque le débat politique au Canada. Enfin, en guise de conclusion, nous commentons la façon dont Manning à contribué à la fragmentation des partis politiques traditionnels au Canada.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 249 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1994

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References

1 McCormick, Peter, “The Reform Party of Canada: New Beginning or Dead End,” in Thorburn, Hugh G., ed., Party Politics in Canada (6th ed.; Scarborough: Pren tice Hall, 1991), 342–352Google Scholar.

2 Dobbin, Murray, Preston Manning and the Reform Party (Toronto: Lorimer, 1991)Google Scholar; and Sharpe, Sydney and Braid, Don, Storming Babylon: Preston Manningand the Rise of the Reform Party (Toronto: Key Porter, 1992)Google Scholar. See also Flanagan, Tom and Lee, Martha, “From Social Credit to Social Conservatism,” PrairieForum 16 (1991), 219–220Google Scholar.

3 Tom Flanagan and Martha Lee, “The Roots of Reform,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Charlottetown, 1992.

4 For example, Walsh, David, After Ideology: Rediscovering the Spiritual Foundations of Freedom (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1989).Google Scholar

5 Preston Manning, “Leader's Foreword” to the Reform Party of Canada: Principles and Priorities(The ”Blue Book”), 1990, 1–2.

6 Manning, Preston, The New Canada (Toronto: Macmillan, 1992), viii.Google Scholar

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31 For some data on just how disaffected and cynical Canadians have become, and how this relates to the rise of the Reform party, see Act of Faith: The Illustrated Chronicle of the Fastest Growing Political Movement in Canadian History: The Reform Party of Canada, intro. by Ted Byfield (Vancouver: B.C. Report Magazine, 1991), 117.

32 Manning, Blue Book, 2.

33 See “Where Perot and Manning Diverge,” The Globe and Mail(Toronto), November 10,1993.

34 Indeed, Sharpe and Braid (Storming Babylon, 7) contend that most of the ideas espoused by the Reform party today are identical to those developed by Manning and his father (former Social Credit Premier Ernest Manning) in the 1960s. Com pare Manning, Ernest C., Political Realignment (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967)Google Scholar, which the young Preston helped write.

35 Manning himself makes these connections clear (see The New Canada, 2).

36 McCormick, “New Beginning or Dead End?,” 347.

37 ”Reform Party's Many Faces,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), October 14,1993.

38 See Gibbins, “Another New West,” 108–11.

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41 For a discussion of these areas, see Dobbin, Manning and the Reform Party, 166–70; Sharpe and Braid, Storming Babylon, 125–37; and Act of Faith, 159–60.

42 The relevant passage in the Blue Book reads: “The Reform Party supports the preservation of the distinctive heritage and tradition of the RCMP by retaining the uniformity of dress code. Changes should not be made for religious or ethnic rea sons” (24).

43 Manning is committed to a personal belief system that regards homosexuality as a sin. See Dobbin, Manning and the Reform Party, 11.

44 See Sharpe and Braid, Storming Babylon, 137–47.

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48 Ibid., 97–98.

49 The term comes from David Ehrenfeld, The Arrogance of Humanism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).Google Scholar

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51 Ibid., 107.

52 Ibid., 103.

53 Ibid., 276.

54 Ibid., 54.

55 Ibid., 3.

56 Ibid., 345.

57 Ibid., 344.

58 Hunter, Culture Wars, 272.

59 Ibid., 273.