Tom Flanagan's book, Waiting for the Wave: The Reform Party and Preston Manning, was first published in 1995 and quickly attained the status of a classic. Flanagan, who for a time was the Reform party's director of policy, experienced Manning's style of leadership up close during the party's formative years in the early 1990s. The result was a very readable examination that blended personal insight with political theory. The original text provided a clear portrait of the complex ideas and values motivating Manning, in particular his historically grounded notion of populism as a vehicle for political and social change and his leadership style. It also detailed several important policy decisions made by the party, notably, the decision to “go national” after 1991 and the divisive campaign over the Charlottetown referendum in 1992, leading to the party's remarkable success in the 1993 federal election when it won to 52 seats.
The updated second edition is now sub-titled The Reform Party and the Conservative Movement, suggestive of the author's revised emphasis that “one of the main themes of the book is the tension between Preston Manning … and his protégé, Stephen Harper” and that “anyone interested in better understanding Harper and the Conservative Party [today] will learn much by going back over this earlier period in his life, when Manning was the leader and Harper the not-always-happy lieutenant” (x). In short, Flanagan argues that the book be re-read with an eye to foregrounding the relationship between Manning and Harper, one which Flanagan suggests will be viewed by future historians as “a team,” in which Manning will credited “with greater originality and vision, and Harper with greater tactical shrewdness and command of realpolitik” (xiii).
The original text is not changed, but it is sandwiched between a new preface and a concluding update that takes the Reform party through its brief incarnation as the Canadian Alliance party under Stockwell Day and its final resurrection as the Conservative party under Harper and highlights what Flanagan views as Reform's legacy.
Flanagan rightly argues in the new preface that today's Conservative party “is the legitimate heir of Reform,” with its Western Canadian support base, grassroots fund-raising, “philosophical commitment to property rights, open markets, and free trade,” “suspicion of political correctness,” “emphasis on personal responsibility and punishment for lawbreakers,” and overt patriotism,” sans anti-Americanism (x). He is also correct in noting some important differences between the Reformers and the current Conservative iteration, notably the dropping of Reform's populism, with its direct democracy initiatives.
In the broader picture, Reform's legacy as adumbrated by Flanagan presents something of a mixed bag (my words, not Flanagan's). The Reform party certainly led to the emergence of a new type of federal Conservative party, one “a bit more ideologically conservative than the old Progressive Conservatives” (208) but not the populist kind that Manning envisioned. Reform's espoused aim of making Canada's parliamentary system more democratic is also more remote than ever; indeed, some would argue that, under the current Harper Conservative government, power has become even more centred in the executive branch and, in particular, the leader.
On the unity file, Flanagan notes the threat of Quebec separation, about which the Reform party took a firm stand, is greatly diminished, but some might argue that peace has been achieved at a loss of national purpose, with Quebec and every other province now simply going their own way. Moreover, as recent interprovincial conflicts surrounding how to deal with climate change suggest, Flanagan's assertion that the “mood of alienation that sprang up in Western Canada, particularly in Alberta (212),” has been reduced may be premature. Likewise, with regard to social conservatism and family values, Reform's success proved uneven.
Ironically, Reform's greatest legacy until recently was its success in pressuring successive Liberal governments after 1993 to eliminate deficits and tackle Canada's growing debt. Yet, as Flanagan also notes, “After eleven years of balanced budgets, the Harper government was led, partly by the international crisis, to go into deficit in 2009–10” (213). The fact that the revenue crunch was produced in part by the Harper government's lowering of taxes (such as the GST from 7 per cent to 5 per cent)—another Reform policy—adds to the latter's rather ambivalent legacy.
Re-reading Waiting for the Wave makes one realize just how much Canada and Canadian politics have changed, for better or worse, since the late 1980s. The Reform party, which Flanagan's book so ably chronicles, played a major role in the changes.
