When Preston Manning speaks, people listen, that is until they cringe.
The populist evangelical western fear-monger has the kind of voice that ranks right up there with nails on a chalkboard, and it would be a real treat to hear him and American Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. having a conversation. That is, of course, before your teeth started to hurt and your eyes started to bleed.
The son of one of those strange bible-thumping preacher-premiers that only Alberta can produce, Preston seems to have picked up the Social Credit mantra of his father Ernest and carried it forward into the present day.
Many will remember Manning as the leader of the federal Reform Party, which was federal in name only, since it has at its roots the idea that Alberta, in fact the entire Canadian west, should secede from the Canadian confederation and strike off in their own direction, to be eventually swallowed up by their heroes, the Americans. And yet he had the temerity to label the Bloc Québécois as a separatist party and railed against it having presence and votes in the Canadian House of Commons, despite Reform having 52 of its own seats in the same parliament.
Both the Bloc and Reform tore themselves away from the federal Progressive Conservative party after the departure of Brian Mulroney, which gives you a sense of the kind of coalitions that go into forming the Conservative Party, both then and now.
It’s why they can’t win elections.
Fragmented, hostile, in-fighting, back-stabbing and fear-mongering. And that’s just at their family caucus picnics.
Anyways, Preston came out of wherever the hell he’s been these past many years to make his offering and provide the kind of sober advice his fellow Canadians need in these difficult times, with all the optimism and inspiration of a wet burlap sack.
In his view, if Canadians elect another Liberal government, then the west, and not just Alberta, will break away from the Canadian union and go their merry way, ostensibly led by intellectual giants like himself and Alberta premier Danielle Smith. In other words, his message to Central and Eastern Canada is to vote for the Conservatives or spark a full-on national unity crisis.
Apparently, Preston is still chuffed by his loss to Stockwell Day for leadership of the newly amalgamated Conservative/Reform movement that culminated in the Canadian Alliance. And that had to hurt, because the whole thing was his idea, and it was adopted, yet he was swept aside by a guy who had a better voice and looked better in a wet suit. Then both of them were shunted aside by Stephen Harper, who took the newly amalgamated Conservative Party of Canada to power in the early 2000s. That, to Manning, was supposed to be his gig, so you can imagine how a guy who traffics in bitterness, fear, and resentment would absorb a humiliation like that. And despite his declared fondness for “Jesus of Nazareth,” walks a different path when it comes to his rhetoric.
I know Jesus as well as Preston does, and in all of our conversations, he’s never mentioned Manning once, ever.
Manning has always appreciated all the people who thought he was the smartest person in the room, but sadly, that would be mostly himself, since people hit the exits pretty soon after he starts speaking, fearful of the glassware shattering in their hands. Like Pierre Poilievre, he ditched his glasses for contacts, and his dress shirt for a fitted tee, but he just came out the other end looking and sounding like a differently dressed Preston Manning. There’s a tragedy in that, where you can change how you present to the world, maybe form a good first-impression, then absolutely destroy everything by opening your mouth and making a really bad second-impression with that voice.
Preston currently heads a strategic “think tank,” maybe even a couple of those, although the oxymoron of the whole thing is inescapable.
Another Alberta politician advocating the demise of Canada.
That voice articulating those ideas. It’s gotta be tough for him.
Lord knows it’s tough for the rest of us.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 