Ernest Preston Manning (born June 10, 1942) is a Canadian politician who founded the Reform Party of Canada. Manning led the Reform Party from 1987 to 2000 and served as the leader of the Official Opposition from 1997 to 2000. Manning was the member of Parliament (MP) for Calgary Southwest from 1993 to 2002, and saw the Reform Party evolve into the Canadian Alliance in 2000, which in turn merged with the Progressive Conservative Party to form the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada in 2003.
Manning is the son of former Social Credit Premier of Alberta Ernest Manning. Earning a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1964, Manning rose to prominence in 1987, when he and an alliance of associates created the Reform Party, an anti-establishment right-wing populist party that won its first seat in 1989 and had a regionalist, Western Canadian base. Shortly after that, the party rapidly gained momentum in the 1993 Canadian federal election, where it won 52 seats. In the 1997 federal election, support increased as the party's number of seats rose to 60 and became the Official Opposition, although Manning struggled to win ridings in Central and Atlantic Canada, which was necessary to form government. In 2000, the Reform Party was succeeded by the Canadian Alliance. Manning lost the leadership election to Stockwell Day but continued to serve as an MP until his retirement in January 2002.
Manning remains active in Conservative Party politics and campaigns. Manning is also seen as the founder of the green conservative movement in Canada. Upon his retirement, he has founded the Manning Foundation for Democratic Education and the Canada Strong and Free Network (previously the Manning Centre for Building Democracy), not-for-profit organizations dedicated to strengthening Canadian democracy in accordance with conservative principles.
Early life and career Manning was born in Edmonton, Alberta. He is the son of Muriel Aileen (née Preston) and Ernest Manning, Social Credit Party Premier of Alberta between 1943 and 1968 and a Canadian Senator from 1970 to 1983. Preston's grandparents were English immigrants.
Manning grew up in the Garneau district of Edmonton, but moved at age twelve with his parents to the family dairy farm east of Edmonton from which he attended a rural school – Horse Hill High School. He enrolled in the honours physics program at the University of Alberta in 1960, but switched after three years to economics and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts in economics. He sought election to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1965 federal election as a candidate of the federal Social Credit Party in Edmonton East, but was defeated.
Upon graduation from university in 1966, Manning briefly worked as a salaried researcher for the National Public Affairs Research Foundation—a small, independent think tank led by David R. Wilson, who had been formerly with the Social Credit as executive director. The New York Times described the focus of the Foundation as fighting "creeping socialism" in Canada. This research enabled Manning to work on quasi political projects of interest to himself and his father. One such project included the preparation of a proposal for re-aligning Alberta provincial politics through a proposed merger of the governing Social Credit Party with the up-and-coming Progressive Conservative Party led by Peter Lougheed. The proposal was ultimately rejected by the leadership of both parties but the statement of conservative principles it contained resurfaced time and time again in Manning's subsequent political ventures – in the statement of principles contained in a book researched by him for Ernest Manning entitled in Political Realignment: A Challenge for Thoughtful Canadians and in the statements of principles of the Reform Party of Canada, the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, and the Conservative Party of Canada.
In 1967, Manning married Sandra (née Beavis). Together they have five children.
Preston Manning has described himself as "a great fan and imperfect follower of Jesus of Nazareth" and has studied and lectured extensively on managing the interface between faith and politics.
Manning and a colleague, Dr. Erick Schmidt, a PhD sociologist and Executive Secretary to the Alberta cabinet in the 1960s, became interested in the General Systems Theory of biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy and its possible application to governmental and business organizations. Together, Manning and Schmidt authored a White Paper on Human Resources Development for the Alberta government applying systems concepts to the reorganization of Alberta's social services. It was presented to the Alberta legislature in 1968 and later formed the basis of Alberta's Human Resources Development Authority and related programs under Premier Harry Strom, Ernest Manning's successor. Manning also contributed to the development of a "socio-economic development model" for TRW Systems of Redondo Beach, California, as the firm was endeavouring to shift its focus from the systems management of military projects to the management of "civil systems".
Over the next twenty years Manning continued to work as a management consultant using his firms – M and M Systems Research Ltd. and Manning Consultants Ltd. – to pursue projects of political relevance. These included the development of strategies to prevent investor owned utilities from being nationalized by their provincial governments, developing a model of federal provincial negotiations which enabled his firm to predict the outcomes of federal provincial conferences, and assisting energy companies to increase their hiring of Indigenous workers and purchases from Indigenous-owned and operated companies. In an effort to stimulate economic growth in the depressed region of north central Alberta, Manning served for almost twenty years as the president and CEO of a duel objective – social and economic – enterprise named Slave Lake Developments Ltd (later renamed Spruceland Properties Ltd). When the company was finally sold in 2016 it distributed over $55 million in dividends to some 300 local shareholders – illustrating Manning's belief that economic development could be more effectively stimulated in a depressed region by "a better distribution of the Tools of Wealth Creation" than by income redistribution schemes.
Rise of the Reform Party (1987–1993) In the mid-1980s, Manning and his associates were becoming increasingly aware of a growing political discontent in Western Canada and growing disillusionment with the traditional federal political parties. Interest in western separatism was growing as well. On October 16, 1986, Manning convened a small meeting in Calgary of 5 people – himself, Dr. David Elton (a pollster and President of the Canada West Foundation), James Gray (a prominent Progressive Conservative and Calgary business man), and two oil sector lawyers, Bob Muir and Doug Hilland – to discuss the West's political options. The group could not agree on a specific course of action but decided there would be merit in holding a conference in the spring of 1987 to develop a Western Political Agenda and to sponsor a debate on various means of advancing it.
A conference organizing and promotional group was assembled which now included several prominent but disillusioned Liberals, Stan Roberts a former Liberal MLA from Manitoba and Francis Winspear, a prominent Edmonton businessman who offered to help finance the conference. Ted Byfield, the publisher and editor of The Western Report, also became heavily involved in shaping the Western Agenda and in promoting what was now named The Western Assembly on Canada's Economic & Political Future.
In May 1987, the Western Assembly was held in Vancouver. It adopted a short Western Political Agenda which included such proposals as balancing the federal budget, electing the Canadian Senate, entrenching economic rights, more vigorously pursuing free trade, and allowing more free votes in the House of Commons. The Assembly was also presented with three major options for advancing the Agenda – working through an existing federal party, forming a new western based interest or pressure group, or forming a new western based, federal political party – following in the footsteps of previous western based federal parties, the Progressive Party of Canada, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the federal Social Credit party. Manning presented the case for the new party, the attendees voted 77 percent in favour of that option, and a resolution was passed to hold the Founding Convention for the new party in Winnipeg in the fall.
The proposed Founding Assembly was subsequently held in Winnipeg on October 30 to November 1, 1987. It resolved unanimously to create a new federal party based in the west, adopted a draft constitution and a platform embodying the Western Agenda, and chose to name itself, at Manning's suggestion, the Reform Party of Canada. One highlight of the Assembly was an address by Stephen Harper on the application of a "regional fairness criterion" to national decision making. Knowing that any new party would need a Policy Chief, Manning had approached Harper, then a graduate student in economics at the University of Calgary, and invited him to make a major presentation at the Winnipeg Assembly. Harper became the Reform Party's Policy Chief and would later become Prime Minister of Canada. The Founding Assembly concluded with the election of Diane Ablonczy, a Calgary lawyer, as Chair of the new party's governing Council and Manning as Leader – after the only other candidate, Stan Roberts, dropped out of the leadership contest citing voting irregularities.
In the 1988 Canadian federal election, both Harper and Manning were Reform Party candidates – Manning running in the federal riding of Yellowhead against former Prime Minister Joe Clark. In total, Reform ran 72 candidates, all of whom were defeated, although 15, including Manning and Harper, finished in second place. In 1989, however, Reform scored its first electoral victory when a by-election was held on March 13 in the federal riding of Beaver River and the Reform candidate, Deborah Grey was elected. Stephen Harper joined Ms. Grey in Ottawa as her Policy Advisor and Executive Assistant, while Manning continued to travel the country building the party.
These building efforts were relatively successful in Ontario, and more-so in the West, but Manning's efforts to plant the party in Quebec and points east were especially hampered by his inability to speak French and to present Reform as more than a regional party.
Between the 1988 and 1993 federal elections, two significant events helped to boost public awareness of Manning, the Reform Party, and the party's organizational capabilities. The first was a province wide election in Alberta to choose a candidate to be recommended to the Governor General by the federal government for appointment to the Canadian Senate. Reform put forward Stan Waters, a prominent Calgary businessman, war hero, and former Lieutenant-General and Commander of the Canadian Armed Forces. He and Manning campaigned vigorously across the province and on election day, October 16, 1989, Waters received slightly more than 620,000 votes (41.7 percent of the total) – the largest electoral mandate ever received by a single candidate for a Canadian parliamentary office. On June 11, 1990, Waters was reluctantly recommended for appointment to the Senate by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney where he (Waters) continued to campaign vigorously for Reform's "Triple-E Senate" – Elected, Equal, and Effective.
1993 federal election