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The old PCs included environmentalists like former Ontario premier William Davis. Mr. Manning was right when he said that core “conservative” values include “conservation.” For instance, Ducks Unlimited is hardly Marxist, though it does want to protect clean water for everyone: if a duck can’t drink it without hazard, neither should you. Mr. Harper, on the contrary, has removed federal protection for navigation on all but 159 of Canada’s waterways, which means that navigation obstructions, such as pipelines, dams, and mine tailings, can be placed across 98 per cent of them — effectively removing environmental protection as well. Help yourselves, polluters.

The old PCs of the 70s and 80s were also strong nationalists rather than continentalists, valued our history, and understood the issue of Canadian culture better than anyone else at that time. Marcel Masse, who served under Brian Mulroney, was the best minister we culture folks ever encountered. When Joe Clark headed External Affairs, also under Mulroney, he was extremely helpful on foreign-country writer-persecution issues PEN Canada was involved in.

But those policies have been discarded by the present Conservative party; those individuals have been scorned or their counsel ignored, those core values derided.

Back to Preston Manning. Whatever you may have thought of Mr. Manning in his Reform/Alliance days, no one has ever accused him of being a cynic who couldn’t care less about what ordinary people say. He stresses the value of honesty, especially in fiscal matters, and nobody brays with disbelieving laughter when he says the word “honesty.”