Day, Stockwell

▪ 2001

      On March 28, 2000, Albertan politician Stockwell Day announced that he would enter the race to head the newly formed Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance (CRCA). The group succeeded the Reform Party, founded by Preston Manning in 1987 and headed by him, and most observers presumed that Manning would assume the leadership of the new party. The younger and more charismatic Day captured the imagination of the membership, however, and in a runoff election on July 8 took 63% of the votes. He quickly moved to close ranks with Manning supporters, and on September 11 won a seat in Parliament from a riding in British Columbia, thus becoming leader of the opposition to the Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

      Day was born on Aug. 16, 1950, in Barrie, Ont. He grew up in Montreal and in Ottawa, where he attended high school. He then lived in a number of other provinces and held various jobs, including work as a deckhand on a trawler and as an administrator of a religious school. He briefly attended the University of Victoria, B.C., and became a lay minister in a Pentecostal church. Beginning in 1986, he represented the town of Red Deer in the Alberta legislature, and he held a number of cabinet positions in the Progressive Conservative provincial government. During this time he helped enact a number of policy shifts, including a reduction in government expenditures, a single-rate income tax, and welfare reform.

      In his campaign for the leadership of the CRCA, Day advocated a program of traditional conservatism combined with the stance of the religious right. He proposed a reduction in the role of the federal government, limiting it to national defense, foreign affairs, monetary policy, and the regulation of financial institutions, trade, and criminal law. He advocated a looser federation of provinces, an arrangement that he believed could accommodate Quebec separatists. Day proposed a flat-rate income tax along with an increase in spending on defense and on health care, although he said that some health services should be privatized, and he favoured government support for religious schools. He advocated dropping the government's gun registry while being tougher on convicted criminals and illegal immigrants. Day supported capital punishment and opposed abortion and the expansion of homosexual rights, although he said that the electorate should decide such matters.

      Joe Clark, leader of the Progressive Conservatives, the other principal party on the right, remained adamantly opposed to reconciliation with Day, and it was the Liberals and not the CRCA that picked up most of the support from Progressive Conservative defectors. Although the CRCA was Canada's largest party in terms of membership, polls indicated continuing widespread support for the Liberals.

Robert Rauch

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