Bloc's 38. Canadian Alliance The Canadian Alliance (the common short form name of Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance) was a new political party in the election, having been created only months earlier as the successor to the Reform Party of Canada, a party founded as a Western Canada protest party which sought to become a national party in the 1990s. Reform Party leader Preston Manning was deeply disappointed with the Reform Party's failure to spread eastward in the 1997 election, as the Reform Party lost its only seat in Ontario in that election. Reform identified vote-splitting with its rival conservative movement, the Progressive Conservative Party as the cause for the Liberals' 1997 election victory, and Manning proposed the solution of a merger of the Reform and Progressive Conservative parties. This agenda by the Reform Party to unite the two parties was called the United Alternative which began in 1998, and ultimately resulted in the Alliance. The new party subsequently elected Stockwell Day as leader over Manning. The Alliance had hoped to use the 2000 election to eclipse the PC party in Ontario and Eastern Canada. The Alliance dedicated its campaign to demonstrating that the party was a national party and not as western-based as its predecessor had been perceived as. Day's more media friendly and "easy going" persona was expected to appeal to more Ontario voters than Manning's reputation as a policy wonk, and after the United Alternative project had integrated the successful Provincial PCs in the party, the Canadian Alliance was hoping for major improvements. The Alliance campaigned on: cutting taxes by reducing the Federal taxation rate to two lower tax brackets, an end to the federal gun registration program, and importance of family values. The campaign was dogged by accusations: introducing a two-tier health care—the party would allow private health care to exist alongside the public medicare system; and for threatening the protection of gay rights and abortion rights. The latter accusations tended to focus on the party's residual direct democracy provisions in their platform. The accusations against his party platform, along with Day's relative inexperience compared to decades-experienced fixtures like Clark and Chrétien, led to the party fading from contention. While they did not force the Liberals into minority government or finally eclipse the PC party, they did retain their official opposition status, and increased their numbers in the House of Commons by six seats, from 60 to