The Limits of Participation: Members and Leaders in Canada's Reform Party (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Limits of Participation: Members and Leaders in Canada's Reform Party Trevor Harrison The Limits of Participation: Members and Leaders in Canada's Reform Party. Faron Ellis. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005. Pp. 248, $39.95 Western Canada historically has spawned numerous 'populist' or 'third' parties. These parties, in turn, have given rise to a host of books about them, often long after the parties themselves have ceased to exist. The Limits of Participation adds to the already large list of books about one of Western Canada's most recent offspring, the Reform Party (1987–2000). The book is written by Faron Ellis, a political scientist at Lethbridge Community College, and comes out of his doctoral 1997 dissertation. While the book ostensibly covers the entire period of Reform's existence, the core of the analysis is based upon Ellis's in-depth member surveys conducted during the party's assemblies of 1989 and 1992, supplemented by two Reform Party Membership Studies, 1991 and 1993, the first also conducted by Ellis. Elections Canada material is also included. The survey results are specifically discussed in chapters 3 and 5. Prior to either of these chapters is an introduction dealing with party politics and [End Page 709] party systems, while chapter 2 examines the founding of Reform and its first foray into electoral politics in 1988. Chapter 4 deals with the very important 1991 assembly held in Saskatoon where the party voted to break out of its western base to become (its leader, Preston Manning, hoped) a truly 'national' party. The final two chapters examine the party's successful 1993 and 1997 election campaigns and the 'decommissioning' of the party, leading to its transformation into the Alliance Party in 2000. Ellis summarizes the book's approach and central thesis: While a great deal of scholarly attention has been paid to Manning's oligarchic tendencies, the focus here is on examining the memberships' opinion structure as a means to understanding its role in the reciprocal but unequal power relationship. In the final analysis, it will be argued that the membership's successes were contributing factors to Manning's decision to abandon Reform in favour of a more traditional, brokerage style party where he would be less fettered by membership opinion in attempting to build an electoral coalition capable of winning government. xxi–xxii In short, Ellis presents the internal history of Reform as constituting a contest between party members and the leadership over control of the nature and future direction of the party. Reading Limits is a kind of walk down memory lane. One is reminded just how much Canada and the world have changed since the late 1980s. Such things as Meech Lake and language policy seem a long way from the war on terrorism. Scholars or informed lay readers who followed Reform's travails will not find much new in this synopsis of the party's career. Indeed, even much of the empirical data have previously been published by Ellis in academic journals and book chapters or otherwise reported. Addition- ally, there is a hurried quality to the book's final chapters dealing with Reform's electoral successes in 1993 and 1997 and its subsequent transformation into the Alliance, followed in turn by that party's collapse, giving birth to the 'new' Conservative party led by Stephen Harper. That being said, it is useful to have the data on Reform's membership assembled in one place and in a readable fashion. Likewise, Ellis provides a useful corrective to previous views of Reform's membership as merely passive adherents of their leader's pronouncements. And, examining the data, one is sometimes surprised. For example, while believing in a decentralized federation, Reformers were not as desirous of dismantling the federal government as perhaps the current Harper government (Reform's offspring) appears to be. [End Page 710] The Reform party was historically important in altering the nature of conservative politics in Canada, breaking once and for all with Toryism and instituting in its stead a robust form of American republicanism. While Ellis's book will likely not be the last dealing with Reform, it nonetheless completes part of the picture. Trevor...