So the Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep.

The predecessor of the Reform party, the Social Credit party, was very much like this. Believing in funny money and control of banking, and a whole bunch of fairly non-conservative economic things.

Let me say a little bit about the Reform party because I want you to be very clear on what the Reform party is and is not... The Reform party is very much a leader-driven party.

The Reform party is much closer to what you would call conservative Republican.

The Reform party is very much a modern manifestation of the Republican movement in Western Canada; the U.S. Republicans started in the western United States.

The Labour Party Marxists guide to motions at the conference suggests that at least some of their supporters are party members.

Our party has a mass character, and hundreds of thousands of members. Owing to the situation in our country the bulk of Party members spring from the petty bourgeoisie. There is nothing surprising in it. In the beginning under the influence of bourgeois ideology the stand of some Party members may lack firmness, their outlook may be confused and their thinking not quite correct, but owing to the fact that they have been tempered in the revolution and the war of resistance, our Party members are by and large good militants, faithful to the Party and the revolution. Those Comrades know that those Party members who commit errors will lead the masses into error; therefore, they stand ready to correct any mistake they may make, and this in a timely way, and do not allow small errors accumulate into big ones. They sincerely practice criticism and self-criticism, which makes it possible for them to progress together.

[The Reform Party is] also the most conservative socially, but it's not a theocon party, to use the term. The Reform party does favour the use of referendums and free votes in Parliament on moral issues and social issues.

[On the Reform Party] They think the obstacle to Conservatism is the Conservative Party. And I kind of get what they're saying. Because in many ways it is, we're not a very conservative party in lots of ways. But I don't agree with them. I think the answer to the Conservative Party's problems is to change the Conservative Party and to make it better, which is what we're trying to do.
But I am sympathetic to their general critique. I don't really believe in them, I don't really like them to be honest. I don't think they stand for genuine conservative ideas, I think they're just a destructive force. I think it will be a tragedy if they did end up replacing us. But their general critique of what's wrong, I think, is mostly valid. And the people who are attracted to them, I understand why and we have to have major respect for them, not insult them.

"We have known for a long time that the petit-bourgeois reformer finds "good" and "bad" sides in everything."

There's also a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities.

I'm on the conservative side, but [Pat] Buchanan is Attila the Hun.

Through Palin, it seemed as if the dark spirits that had long been lurking on the edges of the modern Republican Party — xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, an antipathy toward Black and brown folks — were finding their way to center stage.

In the ranks of a relatively small party, the anarchist, it seemed to me as if proportionately more homosexuals and effeminates are found than in others.