{"id":64295,"date":"2015-11-06T01:07:27","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T07:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=64295"},"modified":"2015-11-06T01:07:27","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T07:07:27","slug":"harper-has-role-to-play-in-conservative-partys-renewal-ex-pm-mulroney-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/11\/06\/harper-has-role-to-play-in-conservative-partys-renewal-ex-pm-mulroney-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Harper has role to play in Conservative party\u2019s renewal, ex PM Mulroney says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stephen<\/a>
Stephen Harper (Facebook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2013 Former prime minister Stephen Harper has a role to play in helping renew a damaged Conservative party so that it can one day return to government, one of his predecessors said Thursday.<\/p>\n

In a well-received hour-long speech to the Albany Club, Brian Mulroney said the rebuilding will have to include policies that appeal to a wide spectrum of voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada\u2019s vibrant democracy is advanced by the collision of great ideas and the articulation of competing visions for our country,\u201d Mulroney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may surprise some but this actually can be done effectively without the politics of personal destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only if Conservatives band together, he said, will Canadians invite them back into government.<\/p>\n

\u201cChange will one day come, but only when Canadians feel that we are worthy of their trust, that we reflect their values, and that we offer them a vision of Canada that is grand, generous and true,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be no ideological impediments to our welcome, no narrowness of view, or vindictiveness of spirit as we review, renew and rebuild.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mulroney reminded his audience of the Tory party\u2019s long, painful climb back to political respectability after its crushing defeat at the hands of the Liberals in 1993 that followed his two terms as prime minister.<\/p>\n

Liberals then governed for 13 uninterrupted years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will leave in silence tonight the reasons for those victories and the roles of those who split the Conservative vote down the middle,\u201d Mulroney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo more magnificent gift has ever been handed over from one opposing party to another in the long and turbulent political history of Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, he said, people finally came to realize the party had split into two unelectable wings that served only to guarantee successive Liberal victories.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not need to learn this lesson again,\u201d he told the crowd of several hundred, who gave him a prolonged, standing ovation.<\/p>\n

To change that dynamic, he said, unity was needed and he praised both Harper and Progressive Conservative stalwart Peter MacKay, who introduced him as speaker, for ensuring that happened.<\/p>\n

Now as then, the party still needs Harper, who had rendered \u201cimportant service\u201d to Canada, to help in the rebuilding, he said.<\/p>\n

While Harper was frequently criticized for centralizing power and decision-making in his office, Mulroney stressed the importance of a party\u2019s caucus as a \u201cmicrocosm of Canada, replete with challenges and achievements, tensions and dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harmonizing the differences into coherent national policy, he said, exemplified the \u201cvery essence of Parliamentary democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Important public policy, he added, requires powerful debate and stirs necessary dissent.<\/p>\n

He urged the party to take the time to choose a new leader with care \u2013 it chose Rona Ambrose as interim leader Thursday. The party, he said, must articulate a vision and policies with a voice that \u201ceschews harshness\u201d and celebrates the essential goodness of Canadians.<\/p>\n

Mulroney also paid brief tribute to rookie Liberal prime minister, Justin Trudeau, saying there has now been a generational change in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur new prime minister is 43 years old, sparkling with promise and passion,\u201d Mulroney said. \u201cI know that we, and all Canadians, wish him well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 Former prime minister Stephen Harper has a role to play in helping renew a damaged Conservative party so …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":63238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-64295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-original","mauthors-colin-perkel","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}