Quotes from book
The New Canada

Preston Manning

The New Canada is a Canadian political literature book written by Reform Party of Canada founder and leader Preston Manning and published by Macmillan Canada. The book explains the personal, religious, and political life of Preston Manning and explains the roots and beliefs of the Reform Party. At the time of its publishing in 1991, Reform had become a popular populist conservative party in Western Canada after the mainstream Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was collapsing in support and in 1991 decided to expand eastward into Ontario and the Maritime provinces. One year later the PC party collapsed in the 1993 federal election, allowing the Reform Party to make political history in Canada, displacing the PCs as the dominant conservative party in Canada. Reform, later renamed the Canadian Alliance, merged with the PC Party in 2003, to form a united right-wing alternative to the governing Liberal Party of Canada, named the Conservative Party of Canada which has dropped many of the populist themes that the Reform Party had.

“This not to say that the Reform Party appears to be the Canadian equivalent of the Republican Party or that I am trying to pass myself off as a modern-day Lincoln.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Twelve, Expanding the Base, p. 222

“People who been told that the Reform Party consists of well-meaning simpletons mouthing naive solutions to complex problems should study Harper's speeches on behalf of Reform.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Eight, The Founding Assembly, p. 149

“During his long political career, my father was always active in communicating the Christian gospel from the evangelical perspective,…”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Four, The Spiritual Dimension, p. 95

“In fall 1967, I was given leave of absence by the National Public Affairs Research Foundation to move to Redondo Beach, California, to work on a short-term research contract with TRW.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Three, Adventures in the Marketplace, p. 55

“The trouble with "sacrifices as symbolic acts" is that the immediate impact on those for whom the sacrifice is made quickly fades, while the impact on those who actually make the sacrifice can go on and on.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Fourteen, Conflict and Consolidation, p. 255

“The communications challenge faced by reform movements the world over and illustrated by this incident is this: in the modern communications business, particularly in the case of television, negative is more newsworthy than positive; short term is more newsworthy than long term; disagreement is more newsworthy than agreement; emotion-laden critiques are more newsworthy than well reasoned proposals for constructive change; discord, threats to order, and bad government are much more newsworthy than peace, order, and good government.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Seven, The Vancouver Assembly, p. 137

“Nothing disturbs me more than superficiality and mere sloganizing on matters of public policy, and the suspicion that what the speaker is saying represents the full extent of his knowledge on the subject.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Fifteen, A New National Party, p. 281

“The Reform Party does not, however, equate "high profile" with electability.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Eighteen, The Road to a More Democratic Canada, p. 331

“My first official consulting job, therefore, was for a scrap metal dealer (he resented the term "junk dealer") in East Edmonton named Benny Sugarman.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Three, Adventures in the Marketplace, p. 53

“In many respects, my best friends were dogs.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Two, Transitions, p. 33

“New Canada must be workable without Quebec, but it must be open and attractive enough to include a New Quebec.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Author's Preface, viii
The New Canada (1992)

“As a result of listening to Aberhart, my father decided to leave the farm in 1927 to study at Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute, Aberhart's training school.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter One, Prairie Populism, p. 8

“My religious training told me that in times of personal uncertainty one should seek God's direction through personal prayer and study of the Christian scriptures.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Two, Transitions, p. 35

“Albertans are very competitive, and to a large extent are competing against themselves. They do not simply compare their economic and political standing with that of the other provinces, but they compare the Alberta that "is" with the Alberta that "could have been" or "could still be". In other words, part of western alienation stems from frustrated ambitions, unfulfilled expectations, an the tragedy of unrealized potentials-the crop that might have been if the hail had not come, the fortune that might have been made if the well had been drilled three miles farther north. Such sentiments deeply affect how many westerners think about themselves and the country as a whole.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Six, Regional Alienation, p. 122

“Besides my religious commitment, the greatest single factor that has enabled me to pursue my business and political objectives has been the security and freedom of my home.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Five, The Importance of Home, p. 110

“The first lesson, for all Canadians, is that the closed door, top down approaches to constitution making do not provide the public input or debate necessary to achieve a constitutional consensus that will be supported by the people.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Thirteen, The Eventful Summer of 1990, p. 240

“The founders of the CCF were called communists. And Social Credit was frequently portrayed as a dangerous mixture of monetary unorthodoxy, religious fundamentalism, and grassroots fascism. It therefore came as no surprise tha the Reform Party was labelled, particularly in the early stages, as "fringe", "extremely right wing", potentially racist, and seperatist.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Nine, The 1988 Federal Election, p. 158

“There are hundreds of Canadian communities that have given more thought to hiring their rink manager than they have to electing their member of Parliament.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Eighteen, The Road to a More Democratic Canada, p. 329

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