Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
Agree to disagree, I guess. I see a very clear line from the failure of Meech Lake to the failure of Charlottetown to the destruction of progressive conservatism as a whole in this country. It led to the resurgence of Quebec nationalism—which admittedly has simmered since the '90s—and rise of the social-conservative-populism-nigh-fascism we have today from the CPC.
I commend the effort to take the problems of the patriation of the constitution head-on, but the failure to fix anything arguably made it worse than if it had never been tried at all.
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Totally fair, it’s certainly a valid point. I just felt that the issues Quebec had were going to come to the surface with or without meech but maybe not. As for the failure of progressive conservatism I do lay that at Charlottetown in a big way and the subsequent leader convention where Kim Campbell was selected.
I was a delegate at that convention so remember that leadership race very well. She was almost anointed at the start of the race, Clarke tried to be queen maker there. Even with a huge lead she still almost lost to Charest who was a vastly better candidate and is who I backed after Jim Edward’s bowed out. Jim was never going to win, but was a good western guy and so I parked there until he dropped out. He went to Campbell and there was lots of pressure on us to line up behind Campbell. Only about half of Edward’s delegates followed him to Campbell. The thinking was charest was too much like Mulroney, and we needed someone different. Unfortunately she was terrible, had no business being there. Could a better candidate have saved the party? I think about that a lot, I think the party could’ve avoided being decimated but the Reform momentum may have just been too strong by that point in time.