Party Matters

Reviews Party Matters OUT OF THE BLUE: THE FALL OF THE TORY DYNASTY IN ONTARIO. Rosemary Speirs. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1986. SUCCESSION: THE POLITICAL RESHAPING OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. David J. Mitchell. Vancouverff'oronto: Douglas & Mcintyre, 1987. RUMOURS OF GLORY: SASKATCHEWAN & THE THATCHER YEARS. Dale Eisler. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1987. THE PATRIOT GAME: NATIONAL DREAMS & POLITICAL REALITIES. Peter Brimelow. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1986. Parties in Canada are constructed wholly for government, whereas in opposition they are evanescent creatures marked by indecision and without conviction . That at least is the picture painted in four recent books on Canadian politics, three of which look at party developments in individual provinces (Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan ) and a fourth that looks only at national politics. Three of the works are by journalists, while that on British Columbia is by a former academic and public servant, now in private business. Thus, while each author is a keen observer none has participated in the process he or she describes, nor is any of them a scholar of politics. The point is worth making since each volume is heavy on fact but thin on theory, giving the reader more detail than he can or needs to remember. The result is a surfeit of information that is unsatisfying in its bulk and at times tedious in its presentation. Unlike The Patriot Game, the provincial volumes share much in common since they deal with particular parties, leaders and periods, and for this reason 146 the review will examine them first. Both the Speirs and Mitchell books are each concerned with political succession, though from different perspectives: in the former the subject is the replacement of the Tory dynasty by the rejuvenated Liberals; in the latter the apparent entrenchment ofa revitalized Social Credit regime. Both books are similarly organized, providing, first, substantial background material to the political change they want to discuss, then an analysis of the mechanism ofchange (in each instance emotionally charged leadership conventions) and, finally, an evaluation of the personality and policies of the new leaders and the inevitable election that followed in an attempt to confirm the succession. The story in Ontario is more complicated than this summary allows, for there two leadership conventions and an election brought low the four-decade old Tory administration. The Eisler biography on Saskatchewan 's Ross Thatther, Liberal premier from 1964 to 1971 , differs from the Ontario and British Columbia volumes in that it deals with a personality and, maybe, a provincial party that are now history. These years of Liberal government on the prairies (the only single party Liberal government in the region since the defeat of the Saskatchewan Liberals in 1944) represent, in retrospect, less a tale of political succession than ofan interregnum in NDP sway in the province. The conclusive end of the Saskatchewan Grits was underlined by the dramatic rise and sweeping victory in 1982 of the Progressive Conservatives, a party which unfortunately has yet to be studied but which would make a welcome companion piece to this set of political works. Rosemary Speirs, a Queen's Park columnist for nine years, currently writes for the Toronto Star. Her account of the Tory dynasty is at once a mixture of authoritative fact and easy generalization . Access to polling data, knowledge of the legislature and its inhabitants and familiarity with the issues of Ontario politics endow her descriptions with a Revue d'etudes canadiennes Vol. 24. No. 2 (Ete 1989 Summer) verisimilitude that an outsider can only envy. These credentials earn respect for her opinion on the reasons for the PC's longevity and for their defeat. As for the Tories' repeated electoral success, she attributes it to a tradition of cautious reform touched by a progressivism made necessary by the continuing threat of a socialist alternative and to the desire of Ontario voters to see their provincial government as a counterweight to the ruling Liberals nationally. A change of government in Ottawa made change at Queen's Park possible, while dissent within Tory ranks, in the form of a "grass-roots" revolt against an inner circle (the Big Blue Machine) around Bill Davis, made it probable. Small-town Tories, emboldened by the "new [sic] neo...