What distinguishes populism from the merely popular, or indeed from outright pandering, is perhaps in the eye of the beholder. But it is very clear in the mind of Preston Manning. The Reform leader's message can sound conservative, to a conservative audience. But there is much in the party platform that strikes an altogether different chord: for example, the party's pledge to increase federal health-care funding by $4-billion. Yet what begin as contradictions are resolved into mere nuances by Manning's populist spin.

The political scientist and former Reform adviser Tom Flanagan, in his now- classic study of the party, Waiting for the Wave, describes in detail Manning's "calculated ambiguity," the pinpoint care with which he chooses his words.

In an interview, Manning remains maddeningly elusive on certain key points of the party platform, even as he is disarmingly frank on others.

Why, for starters, would a fiscally conservative party like Reform promise to increase funding for medicare, even going so far as to blame cuts in federal transfers for provincial hospital closures, when most expert opinion is agreed that Canada is still spending too much on health care? Manning concedes the point, but says simply, "the public is worried about the decline [in federal transfers]". He says he and others in the party tried and failed to swim against the tide of popular belief. "They have the view that some more money would help." And who's going to argue with the public?

Not to mention the other parties. "We've been hammered so badly on this," he says. "We had to do something. We decided to err on the side of reassuring the public that we weren't going to gut the system." Well, all right, health care is the third rail of Canadian politics. But then, Ottawa doesn't specifically transfer money to the provinces for health, or education, or social assistance: as of last year, federal funds have all been lumped together under the Canada Health and Social Transfer. So how does Reform claim to have increased funding for health care $4-billion, while at the same time "eliminating" $3.5-billion in federal transfers for welfare?

Wouldn't it be simpler just to say that it would add $500-million to the CHST? And what is a power-to-the-provinces party like Reform doing dictating provincial spending priorities?

"You can look at it that way," Manning acknowledges. He doesn't think the party's position contradicts its general no-strings-attached approach to federal transfers. Rather, a Reform victory would send a message to the provinces about the people's spending priorities: more on health, less on welfare. In that way, he says, "the strings that are attached are not federal, but electoral." Public opinion seems equally to have been at work on the party's tax-cut plank. Manning agrees the party still has some way to go to convince the public there is a connection between jobs and tax reduction. It has done better, he thinks, in allaying their concerns that a tax cut would be too risky, given Canada's towering debt, chiefly by promising to balance the budget first. But while he says Reform would reduce the debt each and every year, he cannot say what proportion of each year's projected surplus would go towards paying down the debt: only that the "bulk" of it would be used to reduce taxes.

On the "unity" issue, Manning is even harder to pin down. He demands of the Liberals and the Conservatives that they come up with "a plan" to deal with a possible unilateral declaration of independence by Quebec. But what is the Reform plan? If the referendum were based on an ambiguous question, the federal government might hold one of its own. Otherwise, the plan is to sit tight, and wait for the secession bid to collapse. It would be enough, he says, for the federal government to "insist on the rule of law," knowing that "if other people break it, they would have to deal with the consequences.".

As to whether he would negotiate if a majority of voters in Quebec were to vote to secede on a clear question, Manning says he would. Yet at the same time he maintains "we don't accept the divisibility of the country." A contradiction? No -- because the negotiations would be undertaken solely with the intent of dissuading Quebecers from the entire project. The approach, he says, would be "yes, you can go, but...," raising a host of obstacles from the division of the debt to the drawing of boundaries to membership in international trade agreements.

And if, in the end, Quebecers still wish to secede? Once again, populism provides the answer. "How are you going to prevent it," he asks, "if the people democratically decide they want to leave?"