Reform's man in Quebec

>> MP Rahim Jaffer is the last person you'd expect to carry the party's torch

by PHILIP PREVILLE

The problem with Brian Mulroney's government, according to his critics in the Reform party and elsewhere, was that his Progressive Conservatives were an unholy alliance of English-Canadian federalists and Quebec separatists. But the Reform party has an unholy alliance of its own: a marriage between right-wing libertarians, who want to stop the government from meddling in all aspects of people's lives, and Christian fundamentalists, who want to legislate moral standards and bring the state back into the bedrooms of the nation.

Rahim Jaffer, not being Christian himself, considers himself part of the former group. The Reform MP for Edmonton-Strathcona, who met with the Mirror during one of his frequent visits to Montreal last week, says his passion for small business (he owns a successful franchise coffee outlet in Edmonton) is what drew him into politics, and to Reform.

And Reform was happy to welcome him to the fold. Jaffer doesn't fit any aspect of the old-fogey, pasty-white, anti-immigrant, anti-French Reform stereotype. He's a 26-year-old Ismaili Muslim born in Uganda (his family came to Canada to escape the wrath of dictator Idi Amin) and he is the most fluently bilingual member of the Reform caucus (which means he speaks French not quite as well as Joe Clark, but at least he makes the effort). Accordingly, the party made him spokesperson on unity issues in Quebec.

After only 18 months in office, Jaffer says he's heard it all. "I've been called Reform's apologist poster boy," he says. "All I can say is that I ran for Reform because of the personal beliefs that I had that attracted me to the party."

Those beliefs include his free-market boosterism and his disdain for political correctness. "I found that Reform was the only party willing to stand up and say, 'This is the problem with immigration policy' or 'This is the problem with affirmative action.'" Reform was criticized for saying that immigration levels should be based on things like current unemployment levels, skills and financial independence. But, says Jaffer, "all these policies are now in place. And the Liberals have even gone further: they've implemented a head tax, a landed immigrant fee of about $1,500. We totally disagree with that."

When pressed about racist and homophobic currents within his party, Jaffer insists that his party is hard done by in the media. "There were problems with some individual members in the party," he says. "But when I was in university I met some Liberal and Tory senators who said some pretty racist and homophobic things, too. Reform has been held to a higher standard."

The libertarian­Christian split in the party, however, is probably a more accurate description of Reform's internal tensions. The churchgoers want to legislate an end to abortion and to promote traditional (i.e. hetero) family structures. In an effort to placate the party's rival factions, Reform's official policy is to put the abortion issue to a nationwide referendum. But many libertarians, the most prominent being Reform-booster columnist Andrew Coyne, are in favour of same-sex benefits and gay marriage.

When it comes to gay-rights issues, many libertarian Reformers will toe the party line on the record; off the record, however, they say they'd like to put some gay-rights questions to a nationwide referendum, too.

Jaffer, like other libertarian Reformers, said for the record that the party's policy is to strengthen traditional family structures. But he also likes to underline Reform's populist roots: "Reform is all about making democratic populism work, making the house more democratic, allowing more free votes, and encouraging representative democracy."