Do coincidences come in threes?
    Last week Peter Lougheed, one of the last of the Red Tory Progressive Conservative Premiers, died.
    This week, a rancorous, divided, hyper-partisan Parliament reconvened.
    And a few days ago a friend sent me an essay by pollster-slash-pundit Allan Gregg, warning that our very democracy is under threat by those who put ideology ahead of reason.
There is a slender string which ties the three events together.
    It has to do with the idea of the small p progressive conservative.
    Peter Lougheed, for example, always fought for his province whether over oil prices or the Constitution, using reasoned argument and common sense.
    He may have been wrong from time to time, but he never let slip the dogs of ideology.
    William Davis of Ontario was another so-called Red Tory.
    He was certainly Conservative, but his administration was marked by the Progressive part in the title of his party.
    Federally, Brian Mulroney came to power in 1984  as a free trader and staunch  conservative, but his government increased program spending and made protection of the environment a priority by getting rid of acid rain.
    His Cabinet was salted with pragmatic Tories who tended to tilt to the left side of the party.
    They acted on the basis of fact and reason, not dogma.
    In his jeremiad, Mr. Gregg bemoans the disappearance of reality-based pragmatism.
    He writes: "It seems as though our government's use of evidence and facts as the basis of policy is declining and in their place, dogma, whim and political expediency are  on the rise. And even more troubling, Canadians seems to be buying it."
    This is from a former political operative who did a lot of work on behalf of the old  Progressive Conservative Party.
    Mr. Gregg builds his arguments by citing a litany of cuts and cutbacks made by the current Conservative Government, many of which he insists were done out of ideology not reality, the long gun registry, the census forms, cuts to the national parks budget.
    "This was no random act of downsizing, but a deliberate attempt to obliterate certain activities that were previously viewed as a legitimate  part of government decision making."
     He points to excessive partisanship as an enabler for the downsizing.
    "Once the population starts to segment itself into us versus them, anyone with a vested interest  in exacerbating the rift, can easily till that soil. And that is clearly what is happening  in the political process today."
    He argues that while ideology  has poisoned the political mechanics of the day, "Canadians by and large still believe in tolerance, compromise, egalitarianism. We tend to see ourselves as each other's keeper with a responsibility for those who are less fortunate."
    What Mr. Gregg does not point out in his essay is that the current iteration of the Conservative Party is as far from the old Progressive Conservative Party as the current NDP is from the CCF.
    But there are still a number of Old Tories, Red Tories around and sometimes, they speak out.
    Tom Siddon was fisheries minister under Brian Mulroney. On his watch was authored the current Fisheries Act, which Mr. Harper's government wants to change.
    Last May, Mr. Siddon came riding out of the west to condemn the proposed changes in heated language.
    "This is a covert attempt to gut the Fisheries Act, and it's appalling that they should be attempting  to do this under the radar."
    There is little forensic evidence that anybody in the government paid any attention to Mr. Siddon or his complaint.
    But there are many more Red Tories out there, veterans of the old Progressive Conservative traditions.
    Wouldn't it be interesting if more of them followed Mr. Siddon's example and said what was really on their minds?