The Canadian Alliance's origins were in the Reform Party of Canada, which was founded in 1987 as a populist party supporting Western Canadian interests. However, soon after its formation it was taken over by fiscal and social conservatives and became a right-wing populist party. Initially, the Reform Party was motivated by the perceived need for democratic reforms and by growing Western discontent with the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. Led by its founder Preston Manning, the Reform Party rapidly gained momentum in western Canada and sought to expand its base in the east. Manning, son of longtime Alberta PremierErnest Manning, gained support partly from the same political constituency as his father's old party, the Alberta Social Credit Party. Its platform and policies emphasized, inter alia, the rights and responsibilities of the individual, Senate and other democratic reforms, and smaller more fiscally responsible government.
With the unraveling of Mulroney's fragile coalition of westerners, Red Tories from Ontario and Quebec nationalists, the Reform Party's fortunes rose. It first entered Parliament in 1989 when Deborah Grey won a by-election in an Edmonton-area riding. The party achieved major success in the 1993 federal election. Almost all of the Tories' western support bled to Reform, allowing it to replace the Tories as Canada's major centre-right party. However, the party was virtually nonexistent east of Manitoba. Notably, despite finishing second in the popular vote, it was nosed out by the Bloc Québécois for official opposition status due to being completely shut out of Quebec and winning only one seat in Ontario. While the party did manage to become Canada's official opposition, inadequate support in eastern Canada prevented it from posing a true challenge to the Liberal government. Ontario and Quebec are guaranteed 59 percent of seats in the Commons under both Constitution Acts, making it politically impossible to form even a minority government without a significant base of support in either province.
Demand for unity by the right encouraged Manning to promote a new movement, the "United Alternative", to create a small-c conservative alternative to the Liberals. Manning blamed "conservative" vote-splitting for keeping the Liberals in power, although some polls showed that the Liberals were the second choice of many PC voters (especially in Ontario). Manning's efforts created a strong debate in the Reform party, and he would even write a letter to the effect that he didn't want to lead Reform anymore, but would only lead the new party. The opposition died down after Manning won a leadership review with 74.6 per cent support at the January 2000 UA convention.[4]
In 2000, following the second of the two United Alternative conventions, the party voted to dissolve in favour of a new party:[citation needed] the "Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance." After the convention, the Reform Party applied to change its name, short name, and logo; this application was granted by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, retroactive to March 27, 2000. As of that date, what used to be the Reform Party of Canada was registered as the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance.[5][6] The newly-named party's platform was a mixture of the PC and Reform platforms. However, it was in fact a renamed and enlarged Reform Party. Former Reform members dominated the new party; with few exceptions, the Reform caucus in the Commons essentially became the Alliance caucus. Mulroney called the party "Reform in pantyhose", and some opponents referred to the party as the "Reform Alliance" to enforce this perception.
Media covering the convention quickly pointed out that if one added the word "Party" to the end of the party's name, the resulting initials were "CCRAP"[7][8] (humorously pronounced "see-crap" or just "crap") even though it, like the Bloc, didn't actually have the word party in its name. One day later, the party changed its official name to the "Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance".[7] However, it was almost always called simply "the Canadian Alliance" (which was accepted on first reference in most media outlets) or "the Alliance". However, the "CCRAP" nickname was still used by its opponents. Deborah Grey, the deputy leader of Reform, was chosen as the new party's interim leader, becoming the first female Leader of the Opposition in Canadian history.
The federal Progressive Conservatives under Joe Clark refused to participate in these talks, but there was strong support from many provincial Tories, especially in Ontario and Alberta. Subsequently, at the new party's first leadership convention, Manning was defeated by Stockwell Day, longtime Treasurer (finance minister) of Alberta. One Progressive Conservative senator, Gerry St. Germain, joined the new party in October 2000, becoming the Alliance's only member of the Senate.
2000 federal election
In the fall of 2000, the Liberals called a snap election that caught the Alliance off-guard. Nonetheless, the party went into the election with great hopes, campaigning on tax cuts, an end to the federal gun registration program, and their vision of "family values". Day was expected to have greater appeal to Ontario voters. At one point, the Alliance was at 30.5 per cent in the polls, and some thought they could win the election, or at least knock the Liberals down to a minority government. However, the Liberals responded by accusing the Alliance of having a "hidden agenda" (e.g., to introduce two-tier health care, and threatening gay rights and abortion rights), which the party denied.
Though disappointed with the election results in Ontario, the Alliance increased its presence to 66 MPs, including two MPs from Ontario. Nationally, the party increased its popular vote to 25 per cent. The Alliance remained the Official Opposition in the House of Commons. The Liberals increased their large majority mostly at the expense of the NDP, and the Tories under Joe Clark lost many seats and remained in fifth place, but Clark was elected in Calgary Centre in the middle of Alliance country, so the overall political landscape was not significantly changed. Like Reform, the Alliance was perceived mostly as a Western protest party.
Aftermath
However, the Alliance's failure to win more seats east of Manitoba, along with residual resentments from the Alliance leadership contest and questions about Day's competence, led to caucus infighting. In the spring of 2001, eleven MPs who either voluntarily resigned or were expelled from the party formed the "Independent Alliance Caucus". The group was led by Chuck Strahl and included Grey. Day offered the dissidents an amnesty at the end of the summer, but seven of them, including Grey and Strahl, turned it down and formed their own parliamentary grouping, the Democratic Representative Caucus. The DRC formed a coalition with Clark's Tories in the House, which was widely seen as an attempt by Clark to reunite the Canadian right on his terms. The split forced Day to call a new leadership convention, and, in April 2002, former Reform MP Stephen Harper defeated Day at the subsequent leadership election.
Once Harper assumed the leadership, most of the rebellious MPs rejoined the Alliance. Two MPs did not rejoin, however: Inky Mark chose to remain outside of caucus, and eventually joined the Tories, and the scandal-plagued Jim Pankiw was rejected when he applied for readmission to the Alliance caucus.
Provincial wings
During its short history, the Canadian Alliance never seriously entertained the prospect of forming provincial wings or forging formal links with existing provincial parties. The vast majority of Alliance supporters in most provinces supported, and continued to support, their provincial Progressive Conservative parties, while most supporters in Saskatchewan remained loyal to the Saskatchewan Party and in BC supported the conservative BC Liberals.
However, an attempt to form a provincial party with clear, if unofficial links with the Alliance was made in Alberta, where the Alberta Alliance was formed in 2002. Under the leadership of Reform/Alliance activist Randy Thorsteinson, the new party never sought a formal link with the Alliance, and if it had done so the overture would likely have been rebuffed since many Albertan Alliance members continued to support the Alberta Progressive Conservatives. However, the Alberta Alliance copied the colours of the Alliance and many of its logos bear a striking resemblance to those of the federal party. The Alberta Alliance continued to grow following the federal party's merger, and the provincial party fielded a full slate of candidates for the 2004 provincial election, on November 22, 2004, and won one seat in the Legislature.
Conservative Party of Canada
On October 15, 2003, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party (under its new leader Peter MacKay) announced that they would merge to form a new party, called the Conservative Party of Canada. The union was ratified on December 5, 2003, with 96 per cent support of the membership of the Canadian Alliance, and on December 6, 90.04 per cent support of elected delegates in the PC Party. On December 8, the party was registered with Elections Canada, and on March 20, 2004, former Alliance leader Stephen Harper was elected as leader of the party with MacKay serving as deputy leader. The new party was dubbed "the Alliance Conservatives" by critics who considered the new party a "hostile takeover" of the old Progressive Conservatives by the newer Alliance. However, some grassroots Alliance supporters who had adhered to the old populist ideas of the Reform Party feared that the merger would signal a return to what they saw as indifference to Western Canadian interests. The Alliance also subsequently shed some of its populist and socially conservative policies during the merger.
The new Conservative Party formed the Canadian government on February 6, 2006, and won two additional elections (2008 and 2011) under the leadership of Stephen Harper; of these, the 2006 and 2008 votes resulted in the party governing only as a minority; only in 2011 was a majority mandate achieved. The party was defeated in 2015, by the Liberals, and became the official opposition party in the House of Commons.
Party leaders
Deborah Grey — March 27, 2000 – July 8, 2000 (interim)
Charles Joseph Clark is a Canadian statesman, businessman, writer, and politician who served as the 16th prime minister of Canada from 1979 to 1980.
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a centre-right federal political party in Canada that existed from 1942 to 2003.
The Reform Party of Canada was a right-wing populist and conservative federal political party in Canada that existed under that name from 1987 to 2000. Reform was founded as a Western Canada-based protest movement that eventually became a populist conservative party, with strong Christian right influence and social conservative elements. It was initially motivated by the perceived need for democratic reforms and by profound Western Canadian discontent with the Progressive Conservative Party.
Ernest Preston Manning is a Canadian retired politician. He was the founder and the only leader of the Reform Party of Canada, a Canadian federal political party that evolved into the Canadian Alliance in 2000 which in turn merged with the Progressive Conservative Party to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. Manning represented the federal constituency of Calgary Southwest in the Canadian House of Commons from 1993 until his retirement in 2002. He served as leader of the Official Opposition from 1997 to 2000.
The 2000 Canadian federal election was held on November 27, 2000, to elect members to the House of Commons of Canada of the 37th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party won a third majority government.
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The Conservative Party of Canada, colloquially known as the Tories, is a federal political party in Canada. It was formed in 2003 by the merger of the two main right-leaning parties, the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance, the latter being the successor of the Western Canadian-based Reform Party. The party sits at the centre-right to the right of the Canadian political spectrum, with their federal rival, the Liberal Party of Canada, positioned to their left. The Conservatives are defined as a "big tent" party, practising "brokerage politics" and welcoming a broad variety of members, including "Red Tories" and "Blue Tories".
The Progressive Party of Canada, formally the National Progressive Party, was a federal-level political party in Canada in the 1920s until 1930. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers parties in several provinces, and it spawned the Progressive Party of Saskatchewan, and the Progressive Party of Manitoba, which formed the government of that province. The Progressive Party was part of the farmers' political movement that included federal and provincial Progressive and United Farmers' parties.
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The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, often shortened to the Ontario PC Party or simply the PCs, colloquially known as the Tories, is a centre-right political party in Ontario, Canada.
An interim leader, in Canadian politics, is a party leader appointed by the party's legislative caucus or the party's executive to temporarily act as leader when a gap occurs between the resignation or death of a party leader and the election of their formal successor. Usually a party leader retains the leadership until a successor is formally chosen — however, in some situations this is not possible, and an interim leader is thus appointed by the party's caucus or the party executive. An interim leader may also be appointed while a leader is on a leave of absence due to poor health or some other reason, and then relinquish the position upon the leader's return.
A Red Tory is an adherent of a centre to centre-right or paternalistic-conservative political philosophy derived from the Tory tradition, most predominantly in Canada but also in the United Kingdom and Australia. This philosophy tends to favour communitarian social policies, while maintaining a degree of fiscal discipline and a respect of social and political order. It is contrasted with "Blue Tory" or "High Tory". Some Red Tories view themselves as small-c conservatives.
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The Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta was a provincial centre-right party in the Canadian province of Alberta that existed from 1905 to 2020. The party formed the provincial government, without interruption, from 1971 until the party's defeat in the 2015 provincial election under premiers Peter Lougheed, Don Getty, Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach, Alison Redford, Dave Hancock and Jim Prentice. At 44 years, this was the longest unbroken run in government at the provincial or federal level in Canadian history.
Conservatism in Canada is generally considered a movement which is primarily represented by the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada in federal party politics, as well as various centre-right and right-wing parties at the provincial level. The first party which called itself "Conservative" in what would become Canada was elected in the Province of Canada election of 1854.
John Herron is a Canadian former politician and Red Tory.
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This article covers the history of the Conservative Party of Canada.
References
↑ Paikin, Steve (August 30, 2016). "What I wish I could have asked Stephen Harper". TVOntario. TVOntario. Retrieved November 2, 2019. the centre-right forces in the country were split among the Canadian Alliance, the Progressive Conservative Party, and the Bloc Quebecois
↑ Jill Mahoney (April 3, 2000). "Tories vow court action over new party's title". The Globe and Mail. p.A4. ProQuest1124995129. Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley decided in favour of a request by former Reform leader Preston Manning to change the Reform Party's name to Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance.
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