The party was founded in the aftermath of Canadian Confederation and was known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party" until it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873. Primarily under the leadership of John A. Macdonald, the Conservatives governed Canada from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1896. During these two periods of governance, the party strengthened ties with Great Britain, oversaw the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, significantly expanded Canada's territorial boundaries, and introduced the National Policy of high tariffs to protect domestic industries.
During its third period of governance from 1911 to 1921, the Conservative Party introduced the income tax and women's suffrage for federal elections, and most notably oversaw Canada's involvement in World War I. In 1917, the party introducedconscription, triggering a national divide known as the Conscription Crisis. As a result of the crisis, the party joined with pro-conscription Liberals to become the "Unionist Party", which existed until 1920. The Conservatives were defeated in the 1921 election.
The Conservatives briefly formed government in 1926 and from 1930 to 1935. During the latter period, the Conservatives were faced with the Great Depression, although the party was widely unpopular for its handling of it, leading to their defeat in 1935. In 1942, the Conservatives attempted to broaden their base by electing Manitoba ProgressivePremierJohn Bracken as their new leader at that year's leadership convention. Bracken agreed to become the party's leader on the condition that it change its name to the "Progressive Conservative Party of Canada".
Macdonald became the leader of the Conservative Party and formed the first national government in 1867. The party brought together ultramontane Quebec Catholics, pro-tariff businessmen, United Empire Loyalists, and Orangemen. One major accomplishment of Macdonald's first government was the creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway which also led to the Pacific Scandal that brought down the government in 1873.[5]
The Liberal-Conservatives under Macdonald returned to power in 1878 by opposing the policy of free trade or reciprocity with the United States and promoting, instead, the National Policy which sought to promote business and develop industry with high tariff protectionist measures as well as settle and develop the west.[6]
The principal difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals in this period and well into the twentieth century was that Conservatives were in favour of imperial preference (a protectionist system in which tariffs would be levied against imports from outside the British Empire) and strong political and legal links with Britain while Liberals promoted free trade and continentalism (that is closer ties to the United States) and greater independence from Britain.[7] Macdonald died in 1891 and, without his leadership, the Conservative coalition began to unravel under the pressure of sectarian tensions between Catholic French Canadians and British imperialists who tended to be anti-French and anti-Catholic. The government's mis-handling of the grievances that aroused the Red River Rebellion and the North-West Rebellion, and its hanging of their leader Louis Riel), and the Manitoba Schools Question exacerbated tensions within the Conservative Party and suppressed much of the support among Quebecois for the Conservative party, a problem only smoothed over by the 1980s.
Free trade between Canada and the U.S. was the major issue of the 1911 election. Wilfrid Laurier's Liberals, in favour of increased trade with the U.S., were swept from power. Robert Borden led a new Tory administration that emphasised a revitalised National Policy and continued strong links to Britain. Borden had built a base in Quebec by allying with anti-Laurier Quebec nationalists, but, in government, tensions between Quebec nationalists and English Canadian imperialists made any grand coalition untenable.[8]
World War I created a further strain as most Quebecers (plus pacifists and many workers, farmers and socialists across the country, especially immigrants) were unenthusiastic about Canadian involvement in what they saw as a foreign, and particularly British, conflict, while Borden's supporters, most living in English Canada, supported Canada's war effort and its policy of conscription of men for the war (see Conscription Crisis of 1917).[9]
The attempt to turn the Conservatives into a hegemonic party by merging with Liberal-Unionists failed as most Liberals either joined the new Progressive Party of Canada or rejoined the Liberals under its new leader William Lyon Mackenzie King. One critical issue in this split was free trade - farmers were particularly hostile to Tory tariff policy and free trade was a key issue in the creation of the Progressives while the Conscription Crisis destroyed any remaining Conservative base in Quebec for generations, leaving them with even less support than they had before the Union government.
Borden's successor, Arthur Meighen formally attempted to make the Unionist coalition permanent by creating the "National Liberal and Conservative Party" but most Liberals ended up returning to their old party and some Conservatives balked at what they saw as an attempt to destroy the Conservative Party. John Hampden Burnham, MP for Peterborough West, quit the government caucus to sit as an Independent Conservative and resigned his seat in order to contest it in a by-election on his position.
Meighen's party was defeated by the Liberals in the election of 1921 coming in third behind the Progressives. At March 1922 caucus meeting the party voted to revert to its original name of the Liberal-Conservative Party.
The Liberals were reduced to a minority government in the 1925 election. The Conservatives won a plurality of seats in the House of Commons, but King was able to stay in power with the support of the Progressives and form a minority government. King's government was defeated in a vote in the House of Commons within months and Prime Minister King asked Governor-GeneralByng to call a new election but Byng refused and asked Meighen to form a government.
Meighen's government was defeated three days after taking office by a vote in the Commons, leaving no choice but a new election. The general election produced a Liberal victory. Wiseman argues that Liberals emphasized Canadian nationalism while Conservatives "exuded British imperialist pride". The "King–Byng Affair" played primarily to Canadian nationalist sentiment because it was felt the Governor General, a British government appointee, had overstepped his bounds and that this was a sign of excessive British influence in Canadian politics. The political impact of the King–Byng Affair therefore favoured the Liberals.[10]
Bennett and the Great Depression
Meighen was replaced as Tory leader by R. B. Bennett, a millionaire Calgary businessman at the 1927 leadership convention, the first time a Tory leader was chosen by this method. Bennett led the Conservatives to power in the 1930 election, largely as a result of the inability of the Liberal government (or any government in the western world) to deal with the Great Depression. Bennett promised to end the economic crisis in three days by implementing the old Conservative policy of high tariffs and imperial preference.
When this policy failed to generate the desired result Bennett's government had no alternative plan. The party's pro-business, pro-bank inclinations provided no relief to the millions of unemployed who were now becoming increasingly desperate and agitated. The Conservatives seemed indecisive and unable to cope and rapidly lost the confidence of Canadians becoming a focus of hatred, ridicule and contempt. Car owners who could no longer afford gasoline reverted to having their vehicles pulled by horses and dubbed them "Bennett buggies".[11][12]
R. B. Bennett faced pressure for radical reforms from within and without the party:
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), formed in 1932, prepared to fight its first election on a socialist program. The Social Credit movement was gaining supporters in the west and shocked the country by winning the Alberta provincial election and forming government in September, 1935. Bennett's own government suffered a defection as his Trade minister, Henry Herbert Stevens, left the Conservatives to form the Reconstruction Party of Canada when Bennett refused to enact Stevens' plans for drastic economic reform and government intervention in the economy to deal with the crisis.[13]
Bennett attempted to prevent social disorder by evacuating the unemployed to relief camps far away from the cities but this only exacerbated social tensions leading to the "On-to-Ottawa Trek" of unemployed protesters who intended to ride the rails from Vancouver to Ottawa (gathering new members along the way) in order to bring their demands for relief to Bennett personally. The trek ended in Regina on July 1, 1935, when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, on orders from the Prime Minister, attacked a public meeting of 3,000 strikers leaving two dead and dozens injured.
In desperation, Bennett had attempted to save his government by reversing its laissez-faire policies and, belatedly, implementing "Bennett's New Deal" based on the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Bennett proposed progressive income taxation, a minimum wage, a maximum for work week hours, unemployment insurance, health insurance, an expanded pension program, and grants to farmers. The Conservatives' conversion to the concept of a welfare state came too late, and the Conservatives were routed in the October 1935 election, winning only 40 seats to 173 for Mackenzie King's Liberals.[12]
The Bennett years left the Conservatives in the worst shape they had ever been – not only did enmity towards the Conservatives continue in Quebec as a legacy of the Conscription Crisis of 1917, but they were now reviled in the West for their perceived insensitivity to the needs of farmers in the Dust Bowl and Westerners turned to Social Credit or the CCF making the Conservatives their fourth choice. The Conservatives would have to wait twenty years before their fortunes in Western Canada revived.[13]
National Government label
Bennett's successor, Robert Manion, was chosen at the 1938 leadership convention which also officially changed the name of the party from the Liberal-Conservative Party to the National Conservative Party.[14] The Conservatives fought the 1940 election under Manion with a different name, "National Government".
With the election taking place during World War II, the party ran on a platform of forming a wartime national unity government. Manion proposed to have Liberal and Labour supporters of the coalition concept run as "National Government" candidates nominated through open riding conventions in which members of any party would be allowed to vote. The concept did not pan out and, in practice, the National Government candidates were all Conservatives. Despite the new name, the party failed to gain any seats, and Manion was personally defeated in his riding.
The idea for running under a "National Government" platform was likely inspired by the Union Government which the Conservatives formed during World War I in coalition with some dissident Liberals.
Decline and reinvention as Progressive Conservatives
After Manion's defeat, the Conservatives again turned to Arthur Meighen for leadership. Senator Meighen was appointed the party's leader for the duration of the war in November 1941 by a unanimous vote at a national conference of several hundred party delegates after a motion to hold a leadership convention was defeated. He resigned from the Senate and attempted to enter the House of Commons from a safe Conservative seat but was trounced by the CCF in a February 1942 by-election in York South. His party's agitation for a re-enactment of conscription in World War II only further alienated Quebec from the Conservatives. Meighen resigned as leader following his defeat.
Became Senate Leader when Meighen resigned to run for a seat in the House of Commons. Conservative Party became Progressive Conservative Party of Canada as of December 11, 1942. Ballantyne served as first Progressive Conservative Senate leader until 1945.
Election results 1867–1940
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
↑ Donald Creighton, John A. Macdonald: The Old Chieftain. Vol. 2 (1955).
↑ Donald V. Smiley, "Canada and the Quest for a National Policy." Canadian Journal of Political Science 8#1 (1975): 40–62.
↑ Lowell C. Clark, "The Conservative Party in the 1890s" Report of the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association / Rapports annuels de la Société historique du Canada, (1961) 40#1 pp. 58–74. online
↑ R.C. Brown and Ramsay Cook, Canada, 1896–1921 A Nation Transformed (1974).
↑ Robert Craig Brown, Robert Laird Borden: 1914–1937 (1980).
Richard Bedford Bennett, 1st Viscount Bennett was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, philanthropist, and politician who served as the 11th prime minister of Canada from 1930 to 1935.
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a centre to centre-right federal political party in Canada that existed from 1942 to 2003.
The 1921 Canadian federal election was held on December 6, 1921, to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 14th Parliament of Canada. The Union government that had governed Canada through the First World War was defeated, and replaced by a Liberal government under the young leader William Lyon Mackenzie King. A new third party, the Progressive Party, won the second most seats in the election.
The leader of the Official Opposition, formally known as the leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, is the politician who leads the Official Opposition in Canada, typically the leader of the party possessing the most seats in the House of Commons that is not the governing party or part of the governing coalition.
The Unionist Party was a centre to centre-right political party in Canada, composed primarily of former members of the Conservative party with some individual Liberal Members of Parliament. It was formed in 1917 by MPs who supported the "Union government" formed by Sir Robert Borden during the First World War, who formed the government through the final years of the war, and was a proponent of conscription. It was opposed by the remaining Liberal MPs, who sat as the official opposition.
Hugh Guthrie was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as a minister in the governments of Sir Robert Borden, Arthur Meighen and R. B. Bennett.
Robert James Manion was a Canadian politician who led the Conservative Party of Canada from 1938 to 1940. Prior to his leadership of the party, he served in Prime Minister Arthur Meighen and R. B. Bennett's cabinets.
Liberal–Unionists were supporters of the Liberal Party of Canada who, as a result of the Conscription Crisis of 1917 rejected Sir Wilfrid Laurier's leadership and supported the coalition Unionist government of Sir Robert Borden.
During the history of Canadian politics, thirteen minority governments have been elected at the federal level. There have also been two minority governments resulting from governments being replaced between elections, for a total of fifteen federal minority governments in thirteen separate minority parliaments. There have been historical cases where the governing party had fewer than half of the seats but had the support of independents who called themselves members of the party; these cases are not included, as there was never any serious chance of the government falling.
The Conservative Party of Quebec was a political party in Quebec, Canada, from 1867 until 1936, when it merged with members of the Action libérale nationale to form the Union Nationale.
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. Far-right politics have never been a prominent force in Canadian society. The first party which called itself "Conservative" in what would become Canada was elected in the Province of Canada election of 1854.
Arthur Meighen was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Canada from 1920 to 1921 and from June to September 1926. He led the Conservative Party from 1920 to 1926 and from 1941 to 1942.
The Port Hope Conference was a meeting of the Conservative Party of Canada at Port Hope, Canada in 1942 to develop a new party platform.
Wilfrid Garfield Case also known as W. Garfield Case,, was a Canadian politician who served as a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament and Mayor of Owen Sound, Ontario. He is best known for his upset victory over Defence Minister General Andrew McNaughton in the Grey North federal by-election held on 5 February 1945.
The 1919 Liberal Party of Canada leadership election was the first leadership convention held by a federal political party in Canada. It was originally called by the Liberal leader, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, as a national policy convention with the intention of reinvigorating the Liberal Party after eight years of being in opposition. The convention was also intended to re-unite the party, which had split as a result of the Conscription Crisis of 1917. The party had divided into Laurier Liberals, who remained in opposition, and a Liberal–Unionist faction which joined the wartime Union government of Sir Robert Borden in support of conscription. Laurier's death on February 17, 1919 resulted in the meeting being reconfigured as a leadership convention. Previous party leaders in Canada had been chosen by the parliamentary caucus or the outgoing leader. However, the Liberal caucus no longer felt that it was representative of Canada's linguistic and religious diversity and that allowing the entire party to select the leader would result in a more representative choice.
A National Conservative leadership convention began on July 5, 1938, culminating in a leadership ballot on July 7. The Conservative Party of Canada chose Robert James Manion to succeed former Prime Minister R. B. Bennett as party leader.
A Conservative leadership convention was held on October 12, 1927 at the Winnipeg Amphitheatre in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The convention was held to choose a new leader of the Conservative Party to choose a successor to former Prime Minister of Canada Arthur Meighen who had led the party since 1920. This was the first time the Conservatives used a leadership convention to choose a leader. Previous leaders had been chosen by the party's caucus, the previous leader, or by the Governor General of Canada designating an individual to form a government after his predecessor's death or resignation.
This article is the Electoral history of Robert Borden, the eighth Prime Minister of Canada (1911-1920).
The article is the electoral history of Arthur Meighen, the ninth prime minister of Canada.
This article is the electoral history of William Lyon Mackenzie King, the tenth Prime Minister of Canada. A Liberal, he was Canada's longest-serving prime minister, with three separate terms as prime minister, for a total of 21 years and 154 days. He defeated Prime Ministers Arthur Meighen and R.B. Bennett at different times, and was succeeded by Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent in 1948.
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