Smart people don't always make smart decisions. Preston Manning is smart, yet he gave up the best chance Western Canada ever had of changing the balance of power within Confederation. That's the core tragedy of his political career.
Mr. Manning's driving public purpose was never excessive deficits and debt -- the vulgar plumbing issues of public policy that no advanced industrial nation should allow to rise to the prominence they did in Canada. Modern Alberta never wasted its time on such banalities, nor did Ottawa -- until the latter 1970s and later. Mr. Manning didn't throw himself into national politics to tame federal deficits; that was just an issue in the name of a cause. Nor was he an angry agent of God against the sins of lassitude, empathy or homosexuality (that is not his orientation).
Mr. Manning threw himself into federal politics to change the system -- to reform the political process by correcting the power imbalances that give Canadian democracy such a bad name, and that infect Canadian society with such chronic alienation.
"The West wants in!" was Mr. Manning's wonderful rallying cry in 1987, when he presided over the birth of the Reform Party. The goal then wasn't tepid reform of the House of Commons to allow more free votes or encourage more private member's bills. It was meaningful redistribution of power within Confederation among the regions, and between the Prime Minister's Office and the people of Canada themselves.
The tragedy in Mr. Manning's excellent crusade was his opposition to its first real success in the Meech Lake accord. It was Mr. Manning's issue but Brian Mulroney's achievement, and Mr. Manning was too far down his own track to acknowledge someone else's success.
But this is too kind to Mr. Mulroney: Former Alberta premier Don Getty deserves most of the credit. Mr. Getty presided over the Edmonton Declaration of 1986, issued when he was chairman of the premier's conference. The Edmonton Declaration expressed the support of all 10 provinces for negotiations to bring Quebec willingly into the 1982 Constitution Act by addressing five basic issues of importance to Quebec. That was the disciplined ground for the Meech Lake accord -- until Mr. Getty inserted the wild card of Senate reform.
Mr. Getty insisted on two things about the Senate: that a profound change be made in its method of appointment through Meech Lake; and that an even more fundamental reform of the Senate lead the next round of constitutional talks within two years.
It was a rude intrusion of Western Canada's historic cause into Quebec's agenda at a sensitive moment in history -- and a masterful political stroke. In April of 1987, the nine other provincial premiers and the prime minister accepted it as a price of national reconciliation, as did leaders of the federal Liberal and New Democratic parties. The West was on its way in.
Preston Manning was caught in a bind. The founding convention of his own party was just two months away in Winnipeg. And, suddenly, the four Western provinces had agreed with the first Progressive Conservative majority federal government in 21 years to reform the Senate. Mr. Manning could either get on the train or attempt to derail it -- and sadly for the West, he chose the latter.
The current Senate is constitutionally equal in power to the House of Commons in most respects. It has a veto over all Commons legislation except constitutional amendments. It can introduce any legislation into Parliament except for money bills. It is enormously powerful save for one flaw: It is appointed in a society that generally rejects the exercise of such power by unelected people over elected representatives.
Meech Lake would have required the prime minister to appoint senators from lists compiled by the relevant provinces. On Meech Lake's passage by Parliament in 1987, Alberta announced that its own nominees would be elected by Albertans, giving Alberta senators democratic grounds to exercise their power in Ottawa. Indeed, Mr. Mulroney soon appointed Alberta's first elected nominee, Stan Waters. Other smaller provinces were bound to follow suit, and much more would flow from that. A sea change was unfolding in the balance of federal power, which would have led to much more regional leverage in Ottawa.
Mr. Manning was instrumental in stopping it, along with hard-core centralists such as Pierre Trudeau and his Toronto and Newfoundland acolytes. Then Mr. Manning stepped forward in 1992 to help defeat another promising version of Senate reform in the Charlottetown accord.
Preston Manning failed the West, not by failing to destroy the Conservatives, but by failing to be among them when they had a hand on the handle of reform. The moment has passed, and Mr. Manning with it. William Thorsell is president and CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum.