Conservative think-tank accused of ‘intimidation,’ shunning some candidates

Two civic politicians are accusing Preston Manning’s home-builder-funded campaign program of training only its preferred conservative candidates, after they say they were deemed unworthy.

The Manning Centre has come under intense scrutiny and criticism this week after home builders revealed they’ve given the centre $1.1 million to help train candidates who can block Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s agenda to better control the pace of suburban expansion.

Preston Manning's talk fest hits Ottawa

Ron Paul is a Texan who has made three marginal runs for the American presidency and who is also considered by many to be a godfather of the Tea Party movement that has driven the Republican Party to the far right. The Huffington Post reports that Paul’s campaign in the Republican primaries in 2012 foundered “when newsletters published under his name back in the 1980s and '90s were found to contain anti-gay and racially-charged statements.” Paul says that he did not write those comments even though he acknowledges they appeared in his literature. Paul is a headline speaker at the March 7-9 conference of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy in Ottawa. Paul has already held forth in a series of Canadian interviews in which he says he opposes public health care and all gun registries but wants to see the Keystone XL Pipeline built as soon as possible to deliver Alberta oil to Texas refineries.

The Conservatives Party

"I caution Conservatives, don't ever call yourself the natural governing party of Canada," says Preston Manning. We're speaking over the din of a thousand excited delegates, packed into a ballroom in Ottawa for the opening-night mixer. "This is a conference of self-examination," says Manning. "Every party has strengths, every party has weaknesses."

Lately, one could argue, it's the strengths that have been more in evidence. Certainly the crowd feels buoyant.