(The following article is from the October 1-15, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Wayne Madden

When the Reform Party was formed in the mid-1980s, people dismissed it as a protest party even after Deborah Grey was elected in a 1989 by-election. What happened after that? As people became more upset with Mulroney's "Progressive" Conservatives, they turned to the Reform Party, which became the Official Opposition after 1997. Reform morphed into the Canadian Alliance and then swallowed the old Tories to become the very right-wing Conservative Party that govern Canada today.

     One wonders if Stephen Harper would be Prime Minister today if other parties had taken the Reform Party more seriously.

     On Sept. 14, the Wildrose Alliance Party (WAP) was elected in a provincial by-election in Calgary-Glenmore. Many commentators dismiss this as a mere protest vote against "Progressive" Conservative Premier Ed Stelmach - a serious mistake.

     Alberta's Tory government has been in power for 38 years now. It is tired and out of touch with popular opinion. Recent economic problems only show the cracks in the party armour as it struggles to deal with health care issues, royalties charged to energy companies and the first provincial deficit in many years. The Liberal Official Opposition has been largely ineffective. The NDP is more effective, but the NDP record in other provinces, and the power of the energy industry have made it almost impossible for the party to strike a chord with most Albertans.

     On the other hand, the WAP, formed in 2008 from a merger of the Alberta Alliance Party (AAP) and the Wildrose Party is attracting attention. In 2004, the AAP won one rural riding, electing Paul Hinman, who narrowly lost his seat in 2008. Now, Hinman returns to the legislature from an urban constituency, a month before a vote to elect his successor as party leader.

     The WAP proudly stands to the right of the Tories, but how far? There are some clues. Most of its extensive policy statements are vague, open to different interpretations, for example: "build a unified, universal and cost effective health services information network that will improve and reduce long term costs."

     The WAP would accelerate privatization of government services and erosion of workers' rights. They promise to "allow individual workers the choice to determine their membership in labour organizations", knowing full well that this option undermines the ability of workers to negotiate effective collective agreements. The party would also "allow competition to the Workers' Compensation Board", compromising the quality of protection for injured workers.

     Other policies include withdrawing from the Canada Pension Plan (setting up an Alberta Pension Plan), denying teachers the right to strike, full funding for private schools, and a rather threatening statement to "defend Alberta against intrusion by the federal government by protecting the property,legal, constitutional and democratic rights of Albertans."

     Most ominous is a policy to "defend free speech" by striking Section 3 (banning use of hate speech and hate literature to cause discrimination or contempt against persons or groups) from the Alberta Human Rights and Multiculturalism Act.

     Three candidates are seeking the WAP leadership on Oct. 17: Danielle Smith, Mark Dyrholm and Jeff Willerton. Most pundits believe the race is between Smith and Dyrholm, but if the race is close, Willerton could influence the policies of the winner.

     Smith is considered the "libertarian" candidate, giving business a free hand, but also leaving people free to choose on social issues such as reproductive rights and same-sex marriage. Dyrholm favours "social conservative" policies and government run by business owners. Mike Havery, his campaign chair, notes his membership in right-wing groups such as Focus on the Family, Canada Family Action Coalition, the Citizen's Centre for Freedom and Democracy, the Progressive Group for Independent Business and the National Citizen's Coalition.

     Perhaps Willerton gives the best indication of the WAP's real goals. He introduces himself on his website as "a writer, a businessman, an advocate of free speech, one who has not drunk from the Kyoto Kool-Aid and gives short shrift to those who peddle junk science in the name of increasing your tax burden (i.e.: through carbon taxes)."

     He promises to protect free speech by censuring "the Alberta Human Rights Commission for its history of abuses", opposes higher energy resource royalties "to restore Alberta's "international reputation as a safe place to do business", and promises referendums on separation "each and every time a Liberal Government is elected or reelected in Ottawa." He engages in red-baiting, calling Liberal leader David Swann a "socialist" and referring to Brian Mason's former membership in the Communist Party. One curious statement reads, "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the results. What I'm offering you is simply the armour to prevent the wolves from taking over again."

     The "Willerton A-Z" alphabet extends this red-baiting, calling socialism and liberalism the "defective offspring" of Communism. Then he attacks labour unions, noting that Dave Werlin headed the Alberta Federation of Labour during the Gainers' strike of 1986. Praising the anti-labour actions of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, he states: "I'll just not soon be blackmailed by their (nurses, teachers, union members) collectives."

     While saying he is "not anti-Gay", Willerton ties same-sex marriage with polygamy, and writes, "Why is this (same-sex marriage) destructive? Because gay marriage is a huge step toward the complete normalization or mainstreaming of homosexuality... a lifestyle that almost invariably leads to their premature, childless demise, robbing society of both themselves and their progeny?" No wonder he opposes provisions in human rights laws against hate speech!

     These things cannot be ignored. While we must defend true free speech in a democracy, doing so does not include defending irresponsible hate speech aimed at causing harm to others. Using "free speech", Hitler advocated hate and fear against minorities and opponents. He was regarded as a buffoon, but soon sections of the German corporate ruling elite decided he was the leader who could block the left from achieving power and switched their support from "conservative" and "centrist" parties to him. Once achieving power, true free speech was quickly criminalized, but hate speech continued against Jews, socialists and communists, LGBT people and even many Christians.

     Even if the supposed "moderate", Danielle Smith is elected leader, the power of the right wing of the WAP will certainly assert itself in policies and candidates. Progressive thinking Albertans must not ignore the rise of the Wildrose Alliance Party.