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Date Posted: 16:59:46 04/02/00 Sun
Author: Chris
Subject: Joe Clark and the Canadian Alliance

He just doesn't give up does he?

Clark vows to fight forced sharing of Conservative label
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written By: REG CURREN
Source:
Posted 2000-04-2 At 18:45:39 EDT

CALGARY (CP) - Tory Leader Joe Clark vowed Sunday to fight an Elections Canada ruling forcing him to share the Conservative label with his bitter right-wing rivals. Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley ruled in favour of the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance in Calgary on Sunday.
Kingsley said the proposed name of the new unite-the-right party formerly known as Reform was not likely to confuse voters.
"I have concluded that the proposed name Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance does not so nearly resemble the name of any of the parties in our registry so as to likely be confused with any of those parties," he said in a news conference held in Reform's ancestral home.

After the ruling, Clark told reporters in Victoria that he was "astonished" by the decision.

"That name - Conservative - has been our name historically. It's our name," he told reporters in Victoria.

"It is the name by which we have been known for more than a century, the name under which (Sir John A.) Macdonald formed the country and formed the party. We have fought and won elections across the country under that name for all of that time."

The Conservative leader said he will mount a challenge to the agency's decision in the Federal Court of Canada later this month.

"What was at issue here, what was not considered in my hearing of the judgment of Mr. Kinglsey, was the clear intention to mislead, the clear intention to confuse on the part of the Reform party, and we intend, on that basis, to appeal."

Kingsley acknowledged his decision was open to a legal challenge.

"There are possibilities of judicial review as there are with any judgment made by the chief electoral officer," he said.

"A previous judgment of mine concerning the National Party of Canada was taken to the Federal Court and my judgment was upheld by the court."

Kingsley said he came to Calgary to make his announcement because it was the headquarters of the party making the request to change its name.

"I would rather live with the criticism of coming here instead of the criticism for staying in Ottawa," he said.

Supporters of the Alliance hailed Kingsley's announcement and chided the former Conservative prime minister for his legal threat.

"I hope their arguments in court are better than they were here today," said Rod Love, an Alliance national council member.

"Because their arguments here were that Canadians are dumb. They were saying Canadians aren't smart enough to determine what is a real conservative movement and what isn't.

"The (Tories) want to spend a lot of time and money fighting us in the court instead of fighting Liberals on the hustings. I mean, what planet are they on?"

Love said the decision puts an end to the confusion argument being advanced by other federal political parties.

"People in this country, who consider themselves small-c conservatives are looking at the policies of the PC party and saying: 'You're not conservative any more,' " said Love.

"The (Tories) do not have a lock on the philosophical word that describes a small-c conservative movement."

Federal Tories had asked Kingsley to block the move, maintaining the Alliance is attempting to pass itself off to voters as a union between Reformers and Conservatives when no such merger exists.

Clark has repeatedly rejected unite-the right overtures. The Alliance, however, trumpets the fact that some high-profile individual Tories are backing the movement.

Any court case would also be based in part on a claim of trade mark infringement, Clark said.

"We have been consulting legal experts in the field of intellectual property, particularly with respect to copyright law," he said. "We'll be considering seeking an injunction against the use of that name based upon copyright law."

The challenge by the federal Conservatives is the most important but not the only one to the Alliance.

The Canadian Action Party, which took 0.1 per cent of the vote in the 1997 election, and the fledgling New Green Alliance also claimed the Canadian Alliance comes too close to their names and would confuse voters.


Confuse voters? Huh? How stupid does Joe think Canadians are? I'm quite insulted that he doesn't think I'm intelligent enough to tell the difference between the CA and the PC Party! Here's>a clip of what Joe's complaining sounded like.

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