Is Rick Hillier declaring himself a Conservative tonight?

The former chief of defence staff and Canada's Most Popular General (TM) gives a speech tonight at a fundraising dinner for the Manning Centre for Democracy.

The speech kicks off a three-day conference the Manning Centre is organizing with an A-list crowd of Canadian conservatives in attendance.

So, is Hillier's speech his first-ever declaration he's rooting for the blue team (actually, he does root for a blue team — The Toronto Maple Leafs)?

He has in the past been courted by both federal Conservatives and Liberals to join their teams but has steadfastly avoided any public identification or endorsement of either party.

Since leaving the military, Hillier has joined a law firm and one of Canada’s big banks where he speaks about leadership issues.

The conference Hillier is headlining has sessions such as “A conservative response to the economic downturn”, “Ideological dimensions of Canadian conservatism”, and “Building a conservative movement”. Several Conservative MPs are participants, speakers, and panelists. Several individuals, such as Tom Flanagan and Ken Boessenkool, who are or were among Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s closest advisors are also part of the conference. There are no speakers or panellists who are closely identified with the Liberals, New Democrats, or Bloc Quebecois involved.

Hillier, in fact, is the only speaker on the conference agenda that is not officially associated with any particular party’s policy platform.

But is he a Tory? He was, after all, named Chief of Defence Staff by Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. And when he had high praise for then defence minister Bill Graham, some Conservatives privately wondered if Hillier was a closet Liberal. It was Graham who convinced Martin to begin to spend billions to revamp the armed forces. Harper took office on a platform to continue that expansion and while while the Conservatives did indeed do that, Hillier’s straight-talking style of communications sometime seemed to be working against the communications strategy then in place within Harper’s office. Several sources within the defence community and within Conservative circles said there was frequent friction between Hillier and Harper’s first defence minister Gordon O’Connor, a former general himself who had once commanded Hillier.