preston manning

Is Chuck Strahl's dual role on the Manning Centre and SIRC appropriate?

| April 22, 2013

Should Chuck Strahl be able to serve simultaneously on the board of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, a partisan political organization tied to the ruling Conservative Party of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other provincial conservative parties, and on the apolitical Security Intelligence Review Committee?

The SIRC is supposed to be, in the words of its website, "an independent, external review body which reports to the Parliament of Canada on the operations of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service."

The Annals of Digital Recording: 'Preston is out of the country and cannot comment'

David J. Climenhaga

| April 20, 2013

Is somebody going around trying to pull a Mitt Romney on Preston Manning and the boys.

Romney, alert readers will recall, was the U.S. Republican presidential candidate who not so long ago was captured in a digital recording telling a bunch of well-wishers that, oh, about 47 per cent of the American population is made up of lazy bums so dependent on government handouts they're willing to do anything -- even vote for Barack Obama -- to stay that way!

If you enjoy playing Clue, you'll appreciate the irony that it was the Bartender, in the Dining Room, with a Cellphone, who did in Romney.

Are Alberta's Tories taking the right message from the Wildrose Party's fund-raising success?

David J. Climenhaga

| April 5, 2013

As Alberta prepares to bid a final farewell to Ralph Klein this afternoon, more evidence has emerged the province's politically active right has given up on the party the market-fundamentalist avatar led for 14 years.

Mainstream media reported this week fund-raising by the farther-right Wildrose Party is outstripping that of the governing Progressive Conservatives, strongly suggesting efforts by such PC leaders as former premier Ed Stelmach and Premier Alison Redford to ease their party back toward the centre after the radicalism of the Klein Era are encountering stiff resistance.

This creates potential challenges for Redford's party -- but is not necessarily a disaster, as the horserace-addicted media seems to be working itself up to claiming.

Tory rebel gets it right about privilege in our increasingly undemocratic Parliament

David J. Climenhaga

| March 28, 2013

The Harper Government has already been found to be in contempt of Parliament, so why would it surprise us it's also in contempt of parliamentarians -- even those, or perhaps especially those, from its own party?

I speak, of course, of the brouhaha sparked by Mark Warawa, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Langley, B.C., who has asked House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer to rule that his Parliamentary privilege has been breached by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's suppression of his ability to speak to his private member's motion condemning sex-selection abortions.

Manning Conference III: The right's strategies for dominating cities and wrecking medicare

David J. Climenhaga

| March 22, 2013

Preston Manning and his self-titled hothouse for conservative scheming March 7-9 in Ottawa didn't really help the credibility of Canadian conservatism by scheduling speakers from the fringiest fringes of their movement.

But then, why worry? After all, the mainstream media that attended the conference in large packs treated everything that went on -- seminars on how to sell a kidney and all -- with the utmost seriousness and respect.

Manning Conference II: Cons' pipeline sales pitch sure to feature 'Green Conservatism'

David J. Climenhaga

| March 20, 2013

When they weren't imaging the end of the world in a fiscal holocaust brought on by Keynesianism or worrying about the political end of the world caused by Liberal Dauphin Justin Trudeau's political talents or banished neoconservative hero Tom Flanagan's embarrassing shenanigans, conservative "big thinkers" at the Manning Centre's conference March 7-9 in Ottawa were demonstrating a remarkable tolerance for cognitive dissonance.

Leastways, the obvious differences between the current policies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government and the prevailing "libertarian" views of the majority of conference participants seemed remarkably un-troubling to the conservatives in conclave.

Apocalypse Soon: Preston Manning, Ron Paul and the Angry God of the Market

David J. Climenhaga

| March 17, 2013

Last weekend, the priests and priestesses of the Canadian branch of the international market fundamentalist religion gathered in Ottawa and called, as they always do, for more human sacrifice.

I speak, of course, of the annual networking conference of the inaptly labelled Manning Centre for Building Democracy, named for Preston Manning, founder of the Reform Party that now governs in Ottawa and Canadian pontifex maximus of the cult of market fundamentalism.

Columnists

Building the charlatan movement

Ron Paul and Preston Manning. Photo: Mark Blevis/Flickr

Whoever decided to invite retired U.S. congressman and perpetual presidential candidate Ron Paul to the annual Manning Centre networking event must be perplexed. The Manning Centre has as its official goal: Building the Conservative Movement. Paul admitted others call him a conservative, but he did not want to wear the label.

Paul told the conference attendees: Like you I believe in liberty. As reported by Aaron Wherry, Paul opposes "interventionism," his own word.

Tags:

Manning Centre Conservative Party of Canada Conservatives Harper government Jason Kenney preston manning Ron Paul

Is the Manning Centre plotting 'Manchurian Municipal Candidates'?

David J. Climenhaga

| March 12, 2013

OTTAWA -- You can't take an organization too seriously that hires Ron Paul to deliver the keynote address at its annual Big Conservative Ideas blowout, features speeches on "U.K. independence" and presenters who compare medicare to barbed wire and machine guns, and has breakout rooms where they'll teach you how to sell a kidney.

All these things and more happened at the Manning Centre for (sic) Building Democracy conference last weekend in the nation's capital.

Former Aussie PM's unintended message to Canadian progressives: Democratic coalitions work!

David J. Climenhaga

| March 11, 2013

OTTAWA - Was former Australian PM John Howard sending Canadian conservatives a coded message about their future Saturday, or was his research just not up to snuff now that he's no longer a prime minister?

Howard is a Liberal, which in Australia means he's a conservative, which almost anywhere else would mean he’d be termed a neoliberal, which here in North America requires him to be called a neoconservative, which of course was the reason he was invited to be part of the closing act at Preston Manning's "Big Ideas for Conservatives" bunfest in Ottawa Saturday afternoon.

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