"Proud" Preston Manning Will Address Reform Party (er .. I mean) Conservative Party Convention On Friday

"He's the undisputed godfather of Canada's new Conservative majority, and Preston Manning admits to taking some personal pride, a full quarter-century after crafting his 1986 manifesto for a Western Reform Movement, from last week's formal installation of a distinctly Alberta-anchored, Reform-rooted national government under his one-time acolyte and policy chief, Stephen Harper.

"I want to be careful about taking credit," said Manning, who will turn 69 on Friday, the day he will address the triumphant Conservative party's national convention in Ottawa on the state of conservatism in Canada.

"There's been a lot of people involved," added the Reform party founder, now head of a Calgary-based think-tank called the Manning Centre for Building Democracy. "But I take some satisfaction."

The historic Conservative election victory on May 2 prompts natural reflection about Manning's legacy in Canadian politics, now thoroughly transformed by the Reform movement that first decimated the post-Mulroney Progressive Conservatives before giving rise, after years of struggle and Manning's own exit from electoral politics in 2002, to the reunited, centre-right party that Harper has steered, at last, to majority power."
Vancouver Sun

-Congratulations, Preston Manning - It's your country now: The Tyee