{{Unreferenced, date=November 2008
The Manitoba Reform Party was a right-wing political party in
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
, Canada in the early 1990s. It was known as the Manitoba Confederation of Regions Party (CoR) in the provincial elections of
1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
,
1988
File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...
and
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
.
Confederation of Regions
The Manitoba Confederation of Regions Party was the provincial branch of the
Confederation of Regions Party of Canada
The Confederation of Regions Party (CoR) was a right-wing politics, right-wing federal list of political parties in Canada, political party in Canada founded in 1984 by Elmer Knutson. It was founded as a successor to the Western Canada Federation ...
, a right-wing organization which sought greater autonomy for
Western Canada
Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada†...
. Unlike the
Western Canada Concept
The Western Canada Concept was a Western Canada, Western Canadian federal political party founded in 1980 to promote the separation of the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories ...
and the
Western Independence Party
The Western Independence Party (WIP) was a Canadian political party that advocated the separation of Western Canada from Canada to form a new country from the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and the Yukon and N ...
, the CoR did not advocate full independence for the western provinces. The national party leader was
Elmer Knutson
Elmer Stanley Knutson (October 30, 1914 – August 9, 2001) was a Canadian businessman, activist and fringe politician. Knutson was a strong supporter of creating an independent western Canada, in which the west would become sovereign from Cana ...
; its original provincial leader was Douglas Edmondson.
The Manitoba CoR was founded in 1984, as a result of public controversy over
Premier
Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier.
A premier will normally be a head of governm ...
Howard Pawley
Howard Russell Pawley (November 21, 1934 – December 30, 2015) was a Canadian politician and professor who was the 18th premier of Manitoba from 1981 to 1988. Prior to his premiership, Pawley served in various ministerial positions after his t ...
's attempts to entrench francophone services in the province. The CoR opposed any expansion of French language rights.
The national CoR Party polled surprisingly well in the 1984 federal election in Manitoba, placing second to the Progressive Conservatives in three rural anglophone ridings. The party, as such, hoped to elect candidates to the
in the general election of 1986.
The party ran 15 candidates in 1986, and managed to place second in four rural ridings (Arthur, Gladstone, Pembina and Rhineland). None of the CoR's candidates came close to victory;
Dennis Heeney
Dennis Heeney was a Manitoba politician. In the provincial elections of 1986 and 1988, he was the leader of the province's Confederation of Regions Party, a group that opposed the extension of French-language rights and sought greater autonomy for ...
, who had replaced Edmondson as leader, placed third in Minnedosa.
The CoR ran 14 candidates in 1988. Despite a high-profile endorsement of the party from former Premier Douglas Campbell, no candidate placed higher than a distant third. Dennis Heeney appears to have stepped down as party leader following the election.
In 1990, only five candidates ran under the CoR banner. Irene Armishaw was the party's president. Armishaw received the largest number of votes of any of the party's candidates—486 votes in the rural riding of Lakeside.
In April 1991, the Manitoba CoR changed its name to the ''Manitoba Reform Party'' after a mail-in referendum among party members conducted in March and April, in which 67% of the respondents were said to have favoured the change. (The Manitoba CoR had 65-70 members by this time.)
The new name brought about a lawsuit from the
, which had no formal connection to the Manitoba group. National CoR leader Elmer Knutson was also opposed to the change. Manitoba Reformers argued that as no other group had applied to use the name on a provincial level. The Court of Appeals in Manitoba determined in 1991 that party's use of the word "Reform" at the provincial level was legal.
In September 1992, the Manitoba Reform Party contested two provincial by-elections. Ken Carver received 97 votes in
Crescentwood
Crescentwood is a former electoral division in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It was created in 1969, abolished in 1979, re-established in 1989, and abolished again in 1999.
The Crescentwood riding was located in Winnipeg's south-central re ...
, and anti-bilingualism activist Fred Debrecen received 388 votes in
Portage la Prairie
Portage la Prairie () is a small city in the Central Plains Region of Manitoba, Canada. As of 2016, the population was 13,304 and the land area of the city was .
Portage la Prairie is approximately west of Winnipeg, along the Trans-Canada Hig ...
.
The party was registered with Elections Manitoba for the 1995 provincial election, but did not run any candidates. Its subsequent history is unclear.
See also
*
Canadian political parties
This article lists political parties in Canada.
Federal parties
In contrast with the political party systems of many nations, Canadian parties at the federal level are often only loosely connected with parties at the provincial level, despite ha ...