No, I mean that as a compliment. The draft manifesto, or "Declaration of Policy," that a committee of Reform and Conservative policy wonks will put before the United Alternative convention this month is notable not only for its headline-making acknowledgement that "Canada is a bilingual country," but for what it does not mention: special status for Quebec.

The combination of the two -- embracing the French fact, not as something peculiar to Quebec, requiring special powers to defend, but as part of the definition of Canada -- is the essence of Tru-deauism. Reformers, such as Cliff Breitkreuz, who reject official bilingualism as part of "the whole notion of the two founding nations," can relax.

Bilingualism is the idea that Canada is one nation with two languages: the philosophy, not only of Mr. Trudeau, but of the Fathers of Confederation. It is the very antithesis of the historically inaccurate and politically divisive deux nations heresy.

That the committee's Reform members could be induced to accept bilingualism is significant: a necessity if they are ever to make a breakthrough in Ontario. But no more so than the willingness of the Conservatives to abandon their historic insistence on special status. They have compromised by drawing on the best of each party's traditions - - the Tories' sympathy with linguistic minorities, Reform's insistence on the equality of the provinces -- rather than the worst. The pattern is happily repeated elsewhere in the document.

It was not always so. Last year's founding convention of the United Alternative movement, in its efforts to squeeze just about every conceivable group opposed to the Liberals into the same tent -- Red Tories, Blue Tories, social conservatives, economic conservatives, Western populists, Quebec nationalists -- aimed squarely for the lowest common denominator: emasculating the federal government, eviscerating the Charter of Rights and so on.

But much has happened since then. Reform's social conservative wing has grown increasingly suspicious of, if not hostile to, the United Alternative project. At the same time, the federal Conservative party's decision, at Joe Clark's urging, to reject all forms of co-operation removed any lingering need to accommodate the Red Tories. Lastly, the Liberals' coup d'eclat with the Clarity Act, which Reform was obliged, after some hesitation, to endorse, ended any hope of an alliance with Quebec nationalists -- confirmed this week by the resignation of Rodrigue Biron, the former Parti Quebecois cabinet minister, from the UA's steering committee.

If the tent is somewhat smaller now, it is the sturdier for it: a coalition, in essence, of moderate Reformers and right-wing Conservatives, the kind now found mainly in provincial politics. Which brings us back to the draft manifesto. Broadly speaking, the compromise they have struck is this: Reform agrees to water down its social conservatism, in exchange for Tory acceptance of Reform's proposals for democratizing government. If the result looks a lot like the Ontario and Alberta Conservative parties, that is probably no coincidence.

Indeed, in many respects the manifesto positions the UA, or whatever emerges from it, quite close to the Liberals -- if only because today's Grits have moved so far to the right.

Never mind bilingualism. On immigration, on the social safety net, even on crime, little distinguishes the two parties any more, in substance if not in rhetoric. Likewise, on fiscal policy, the document's advocacy of balanced budget legislation would do no more than codify in law what the Liberals have done in practice.

If the UA can no longer fairly be tarred as anti-immigrant, anti-French or anti-gay (marriage is the union of a man and a woman? That's Jean Chretien's position, too), this only throws into higher relief those areas in which the document would clearly differentiate the party from the Liberals. Foremost among these is democratic reform.

The manifesto would commit the UA to making nearly every vote in Parliament a free vote; to referendums and citizens initiatives; to Senate reform. Whatever other of Reform's clothes the Liberals might steal, this is one they will not touch.

Second, the manifesto takes a markedly different line on the increasingly contentious issue of aboriginal rights, defining self-government in terms of municipal-level powers, and insisting that natives should so far as possible enjoy the same status in law as other Canadians. This is squarely in line with Reform's traditional emphasis on the "equality of citizens and provinces." And, again, it is turf on which the Grits will not tread.

There are the usual nods in the direction of "respecting provincial jurisdiction" and "affirming the legitimacy" of the notwithstanding clause. But they strike me as oddly muted. Which is just as well. Democracy and equality make a fine platform all on their own.