The Alberta wing of the Conservative Party appears ready to elect a leader from Quebec, which tells you something about how Canada has changed over the past 30 years.

Beauce, Que., MP Maxime Bernier, who likes to call himself "an Albertan from Quebec," leads in fundraising in Alberta, as well as in Manitoba and British Columbia. Only in Saskatchewan is he running No. 2, to Regina-Qu'Appelle MP Andrew Scheer.

Most observers believe Mr. Bernier is on his way to winning the Conservative leadership in part because of strong support from Western Canada, as well as from Ontario and Quebec.

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His popularity speaks both to his ideology and to how Canada has matured, politically, over the past generation.

Thirty years ago this month, disgruntled conservatives met in a hotel ballroom in Vancouver, beneath a sign proclaiming: "The West Wants In." There, Preston Manning, Stephen Harper and other supporters laid the groundwork for the Reform Party, which six years later would capture most of the Western seats in a Parliament riven by regional animosity.

Reform was the West's reaction to Central Canada's obsession with placating Quebec's grievances and interests, which had only succeeded in producing the Bloc Québécois and a mountain of federal debt. The West had grievances too, Leader Preston Manning declared, and would not be ignored.

Reform under Mr. Manning became the Canadian Alliance under Stockwell Day and then Stephen Harper, Albertans all (in the case of Mr. Day and Mr. Harper, by adoption). After the Alliance merged with the Progressive Conservative Party, Mr. Harper led the new Conservative Party of Canada for more than 11 years.

Now, barring an upset, that party will be led by a Quebecker, and yet there is scarcely a peep of protest. Why?

Part of the reason is that Canada has grown up. The regional protests of the 1980s and '90s have abated, in the wake of the 1995 referendum, the Clarity Act and 10 years of Conservative government led by a prime minister from the West.

Throughout this leadership race, it has been clear that Western Canada would be fine with a leader from Central Canada, provided that leader holds to Western conservative values: low taxes, balanced budgets and minimal interference.

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Mr. Bernier embraces these views with a vengeance. He promises to balance the budget within two years of becoming prime minister. He's a flat-taxer: There would be only two tiers of income tax: one of 15 per cent and one of 25 per cent. He would abolish the capital-gains tax, reduce corporate taxes and eliminate all carbon taxes.

Less regulation? How about privatizing the post office, banishing the CRTC from regulating telecommunications, eliminating subsidies for the dairy and poultry industry, and eliminating all barriers to interprovincial trade? You want more? Trust me, he's got more.

Western conservatives abhorred the Liberals' long-gun registry, which the Harper government abolished. A Bernier government would go farther, repealing restrictions on magazine sizes, lengthening the length of licences before they need to be renewed, and imposing limits on the ability to reclassify firearms.

Western conservatives chafe at interference in provincial jurisdictions from Ottawa. Not only Mr. Bernier would "fix" the "unfair" equalization system, he would abolish any federal role in health care, transferring Ottawa's taxing powers in that field to the provinces. For provinces with strong tax bases, which the Western provinces enjoy, this would be manna from heaven.

Stephen Harper's critics warned that he had a hidden, far-right-wing agenda. This is that agenda, and there is nothing hidden about it.

Of course, Mr. Harper failed to act on his more radical inclinations because he believed it would be political suicide to try to implement anything like what Mr. Bernier is proposing. Will the MP from Beauce condemn the Conservatives to defeat if he becomes leader?

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Western Conservatives don't think so. They think it's high time the Conservative Party was led by an honest-to-God conservative. And they don't care where he's from.