The
Conservative Party of Canada ( ), colloquially
known as the Tories, is a
political party in Canada
which was
formed by the merger of the Canadian
Alliance and the Progressive
Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. The party is
positioned on the right of the
Canadian political spectrum. The party
received 37.6% of the popular vote in the most recent federal
election. However, its leader
Stephen
Harper was appointed as
Prime Minister of Canada, because
centrist and
centre-left Members of Parliament were distributed
among several different political parties.
History
Predecessors
The Conservative Party is political heir to a series of
right-of-centre parties that have existed in Canada, beginning with
the
Liberal-Conservative
Party founded in 1854 by Sir
John
A. Macdonald and Sir
George-Étienne Cartier. The
party later became known simply as the
Conservative Party
after 1873. Like its historical predecessors and conservative
parties in some other commonwealth nations (such as the
Conservative Party of the United
Kingdom), members of the present-day Conservative Party of
Canada are sometimes referred to as "Tories". The modern
Conservative Party of Canada is also legal heir to the heritage of
the historical conservative parties by virtue of assuming the
assets and liabilities of the former Progressive Conservative Party
upon the merger of 2003.
The first incarnations of the Conservative Party in Canada were
quite different from the Conservative Party of today, especially on
economic issues.
The early Conservatives were known to espouse
economic protectionism and
British imperialism, by
emphasizing Canada's ties to the United Kingdom
while vigorously opposing free trade with the
United
States
; free trade being a policy which, at the time, had
strong support from the ranks of the Liberal Party of Canada. The
Conservatives also sparred with the Liberal Party due to its
connections with French Canadian nationalists including
Henri Bourassa who wanted Canada to distance
itself from Britain, and demanded that Canada recognize that it had
two nations,
English Canada and
French Canada, connected together
through a common history. The Conservatives would go on with a
popular slogan "one nation, one flag, one leader" and supported
policies such as the assimilation of
French Canadians, aboriginals, and
immigrants.
Progressive Conservative Party
The Conservative Party's popular support waned (particularly in
western Canada) during difficult economic times from the 1920s to
1940s, as it was seen by many in the west as an eastern
establishment party which ignored the needs of the citizens of
Western Canada. Westerners of
multiple political convictions including
small-"c" conservatives saw the party
as being uninterested in the economically-unstable Prairie regions
of the west at the time and instead holding close ties with the
business elite of Ontario and Quebec. As a result of western
alienation both the dominant Conservative and Liberal parties were
challenged in the west by the rise of a number of protest parties
including the
Progressive
Party of Canada, the
Co-operative Commonwealth
Federation (CCF), the
Reconstruction Party of
Canada and the
Social
Credit Party of Canada. The Progressives once outpaced the
Conservatives, and, in 1920, became Official Opposition, though
soon after, the Progressive Party folded. Former Progressive leader
John Bracken became leader of the
Conservative Party in 1942 subject to several conditions, one of
which was that the party be renamed the
Progressive
Conservative Party. Meanwhile, many former supporters of the
Progressive Party shifted their support to either the federal CCF
or to the federal Liberals. The advancement of the
provincially-popular western-based conservative Social Credit Party
in federal politics was stalled, in part by the strategic selection
of leaders from the west by the Progressive Conservative Party.
Conservative leaders such as
John
Diefenbaker and
Joe Clark were seen by
many westerners as viable challengers to the Liberals who
traditionally had relied on the electorate in Quebec and Ontario
for their power base.
While none of the various protest parties
ever succeeded in gaining significant power federally, they were
damaging to the Conservative Party throughout its history, and
allowed the federal Liberals to win election after election with
strong urban support bases in Ontario
and Quebec
. This
historical tendency earned the Liberals the unofficial title often
given by some political pundits of being Canada's "natural
governing party". Prior to 1984, Canada was seen as having a
dominant-party system led by
the Liberal Party while Conservative governments therefore were
considered by many of these pundits as caretaker governments,
doomed to fall once the collective mood of the electorate shifted
and the federal Liberal Party eventually came back to power.
In 1984, the Progressive Conservative Party's electoral fortunes
made a massive upturn under its new leader,
Brian Mulroney, an
anglophone Quebecers and former president of the
Iron Ore Company of Canada, who
mustered a large coalition of westerners aggravated over the
National Energy Program of
the Liberal government and Quebecers who were angered over Quebec
not having distinct status in the
Constitution of Canada signed in
1982. This led to a huge landslide victory for the Progressive
Conservative Party. Progressive Conservatives abandoned
protectionism which the party had held strongly to in the past and
which had aggravated westerners and businesses and fully espoused
free trade with the United States and integrating Canada into a
globalized economy.
This was accomplished with the signing of the
Canada-United
States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1989 and much of the key
implementation process of the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), which added Mexico
to the
Canada-U.S. free trade zone.
Reform Party of Canada
In the
late 1980s and 1990s, federal conservative politics became split by
the creation of a new western-based protest party, the populist and
social conservative Reform Party
of Canada created by Preston
Manning, son of Alberta
Social
Credit Premier Ernest Manning. It advocated deep
decentralization of government power, abolishment of
official bilingualism and
multiculturalism, democratization of the
Canadian Senate, opposed
abortion, opposed extending rights to
homosexuals and suggested a potential return to
capital punishment, and advocated
significant privatization of public services. Westerners felt
betrayed by the federal Conservative Party, seeing it as catering
to Quebec and urban Ontario interests over theirs. In 1989, Reform
made headlines in the political scene when its first MP,
Deborah Grey, was elected in a by-election in
Alberta, which was a shock to the PCs which had almost complete
electoral dominance over the province for years. Another defining
event for western conservatives was when Mulroney accepted the
results of an unofficial Senate "election" held in Alberta, which
resulted in the appointment of a Reformer,
Stanley Waters, to the Senate.
By the 1990s, Mulroney had failed to bring about Senate reform as
he had promised (appointing a number of Senators in 1990). As well,
social conservatives were dissatisfied with Mulroney's
social progressivism. Canadians in
general were furious with high unemployment, high debt and deficit,
unpopular implementation of the
Goods and Services Tax (GST)
in 1991, and the failed constitutional reforms of the
Meech Lake and
Charlottetown accords. In 1993, support
for the Progressive Conservative Party collapsed, and the party's
representation in the House of Commons dropped from an absolute
majority of seats to only two seats. The 1993 results were the
worst electoral disaster in Canadian history, and the Progressive
Conservatives never fully recovered.
In 1993, federal politics became divided regionally. The Liberal
Party took Ontario, the Maritimes and the territories, the
separatist
Bloc Québécois
took Quebec, while the Reform Party took Western Canada and became
the dominant conservative party in Canada. The problem of the split
on the right was accentuated by Canada's
single member plurality electoral
system, which resulted in numerous seats being won by the Liberal
Party, even when the total number of votes cast for P.C. and Reform
Party candidates was substantially in excess of the total number of
votes cast for the Liberal candidate.
Merger
With the right-wing vote split, the Liberal Party won three
successive majority governments which led the Reform Party and
elements of the Progressive Conservative Party to advocate "uniting
the right" which was completed in 2003, when the
Canadian Alliance (formerly the Reform
Party) and Progressive Conservative parties agreed to merge into
the present-day Conservative Party, with the Alliance faction
conceding its populist ideals and some social conservative
elements.
Defence Minister
Peter MacKay and many
other high-profile former Progressive Conservatives, including the
former Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney
see the Conservative Party today as a natural evolution of the
conservative political movement in Canada. MacKay has suggested
that the Conservative Party is a reflection of the reunification of
conservative ideologies under a "big tent". MacKay has often said
that fractures have been a natural part of the Canadian
conservative movement's history since the 1890s and that the merger
was a reconstitution of a movement that has existed since the Union
of Upper and Lower Canada.
On October 15, 2003, after closed-door meetings were held by the
Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party, Stephen
Harper (then the leader of the Canadian Alliance) and
Peter MacKay (then the leader of the
Progressive Conservatives) announced the "'Conservative Party
Agreement-in-Principle", thereby merging their parties to create
the new Conservative Party of Canada. After several months of talks
between two teams of "emissaries", consisting of
Don Mazankowski,
Bill
Davis and
Loyola Hearn on behalf of
the PCs and
Ray Speaker Senator
Gerry St. Germain and
Scott Reid on behalf of the Alliance, the
deal came to be.
On December 5, the Agreement-in-Principle was ratified by the
membership of the Alliance by a margin of 96% to 4% in a national
referendum conducted by postal ballot. On December 6 the PC Party
held a series of regional conventions, at which delegates ratified
the Agreement-in-Principle by a margin of 90% to 10%. On December
7, 2003, the new party was officially registered with
Elections Canada. On March 20, 2004,
Stephen Harper was
elected
leader.
The merger was the culmination of the Canadian "
Unite the Right" movement, driven by the
desire to present an effective right-wing opposition to the
Liberal Party of Canada, to
create a new party that would draw support from all parts of Canada
and would not split the right-wing vote.
The merger process was controversial.
David Orchard had a written agreement from
Peter MacKay at the
2003
Progressive Conservative Leadership convention excluding any
such merger and led an unsuccessful legal challenge to it. Orchard
(under the Progressive Conservative party leadership election
rules) is still owed at least $70,000 by the newly merged
Conservative Party. This debt has been recognized as legitimate by
the Conservative Party lawyers; however, its reimbursement is on
hold pending the outcome of legal matters between the party and
Orchard.
At the time of the merger four sitting Progressive Conservative
Members of Parliament —
André
Bachand,
John
Herron, former Tory leadership candidate
Scott Brison, and former Prime Minister
Joe Clark — decided not to join the new
Conservative Party caucus, as did retiring PC Party president
Bruck Easton. Clark and Brison argued
that the party's merger with the Canadian Alliance drove it too far
to the right, and away from its historical position in Canadian
politics. Brison, at first, voted for and supported the
ratification of the Alliance-Tory merger, then crossed the floor to
the Liberals. Soon afterward, he was made a parliamentary secretary
in
Paul Martin's Liberal government, and
became a full cabinet minister after the
2004 federal election.
Herron also ran as a Liberal candidate in the election, but did not
join the Liberal caucus prior to the election. He lost his seat to
the new Conservative Party's candidate
Rob Moore. Bachand and Clark both
retired from Parliament at the end of the session.
One former Alliance MP, former Alliance leadership candidate
Keith Martin, also left the party on
January 14. He retained his seat in the 2004 election, running
under the Liberal banner. In the 38th Parliament (2004-2005),
Martin served as
parliamentary
secretary to Bill Graham, Canada's minister of defence. He was
reelected a second time in the 2006 general election.
Additionally, three
senators, the
late
William Doody,
Norman Atkins, and
Lowell Murray, declined to join the new party
and continue to sit in the upper house as a
rump caucus of Progressive Conservatives. The
Martin Liberals exacerbated the Tory split in the Senate by
appointing, in February 2005, provincial Progressive Conservatives
Nancy Ruth and
Elaine McCoy as senators and additional members
of the rump PC Senate caucus. Ms. Ruth, however, later did join the
new Conservative party in March 2006.
In the early months of the Conservatives' existence two
Conservative MPs also became publicly disgruntled with the
leadership, policy, and procedures of the new party. Former
Progressive Conservative MP
Rick
Borotsik became openly critical of the new party's leadership
during its initial months of existence and officially retired from
politics at the end of the parliamentary session of spring
2004.
Former Canadian Alliance MP
Chuck
Cadman rejected the new party's
riding nomination procedures in
March after losing his local riding's Conservative nomination to an
outside challenger. His membership in the Conservative party was
revoked in late May. Cadman ran as an independent candidate in the
federal election of June 2004. He was re-elected as the only
independent in the new parliament but died of cancer in July
2005.
Additionally, after the 2004 federal election, Tory Senator
Jean-Claude Rivest left the
Conservatives to sit as an independent member of the Senate, citing
his concerns that the new party was too right-wing and insensitive
to Quebec needs and interests.
Leadership election
With
17,296 votes and 56.23% party support, Stephen Harper was chosen as leader of the
new party in the March 20,
2004 leadership election, defeating former Ontario provincial PC
Cabinet minister Tony Clement (2,887
votes, 9.4%) and former Magna
International CEO Belinda
Stronach (10,613 votes, 34.54%) on the first
ballot.
Some
Conservative activists had hoped to recruit former Ontario Premier
Mike Harris for the leadership but he
declined, as did New
Brunswick
Premier
Bernard Lord and Alberta Premier
Ralph Klein. Outgoing Progressive
Conservative leader
Peter MacKay also
announced he would not seek the leadership of the new party as did
former
Democratic
Representative Caucus leader and Canadian Alliance Member of
Parliament (MP)
Chuck Strahl.
Jim Prentice, who had been a candidate in the
2003 PC
leadership contest, entered the Conservative leadership race in
mid-December but dropped out in mid-January due to an inability to
raise funds so soon after his earlier leadership bid.
2004 general election
Two months after Harper's election as national Tory leader,
Liberal Party of Canada
leader and Prime Minister
Paul Martin
called a
general
election for June 28, 2004. However, in the interim between the
formation of the new party and the selection of its new leader,
factional infighting and investigations into the
Sponsorship Scandal significantly
reduced the popularity of the governing Liberal Party. This allowed
the Conservatives to be more prepared for the race, unlike the
2000 federal
election when few predicted the
early
election call. For the first time since the
1993 federal election, a
Liberal government would have to deal with a united conservative
front. The Liberals attempted to counter this with an early
election call, as this would give the Conservatives less time to
consolidate their merger.
During the first half of the campaign, polls showed a rise in
support for the new party, leading some pollsters to predict the
election of a
minority
Conservative government. An unpopular provincial budget by Liberal
Premier
Dalton McGuinty hurt the
federal Liberals' numbers in Ontario, as did a weak performance
from Martin in the leaders' debates. The Liberals managed to narrow
the gap and eventually regain momentum by targeting the
Conservatives' credibility and motives, hurting their efforts to
present a reasonable, responsible and moderate alternative to the
governing Liberals.
Several controversial comments were made by Conservative MPs during
the campaign. Early on in the campaign, Ontario MP
Scott Reid indicated his feelings as Tory
language critic that the policy of
official bilingualism was unrealistic
and needed to be reformed. Alberta MP
Rob
Merrifield suggested as Tory health critic that women ought to
have mandatory family counseling before they choose to have an
abortion. BC MP
Randy White
indicated his willingness near the end of the campaign to use the
notwithstanding clause of the
Canadian Constitution to override the
Charter of Rights on the issue of
same-sex marriage, and
Cheryl Gallant, another Ontario MP, compared
abortion to terrorism. The party was also criticized for issuing
press releases accusing both Paul Martin and
Jack Layton of supporting
child pornography, although both releases
were recalled within a few hours.
Harper's new Conservatives emerged from the election with a larger
parliamentary
caucus of 99 MPs while the
Liberals were reduced to a minority government of 135 MPs,
requiring the Liberals to obtain support from at least twenty-three
opposition MPs in order to guarantee the passage of Liberal
government legislation. The Conservatives' popular vote, however,
was actually lower than the combined Alliance and PC popular vote
in the 2000 federal election.
Founding convention: March 2005
In 2005, some political analysts such as former Progressive
Conservative pollster
Allan Gregg and
Toronto Star columnist
Chantal Hébert suggested that
the then-subsequent election could result in a Conservative
government if the public were to perceive the Tories as emerging
from the party's founding convention (then scheduled for March
2005) with clearly defined, moderate policies with which to
challenge the Liberals.
The convention provided the public with an opportunity to see the
Conservative Party in a new light, appearing to have reduced the
focus on its controversial social conservative agenda (although
most Conservatives continue to oppose
same-sex marriage). It retained
its populist appeal by espousing tax cuts, smaller government, a
grassroots-oriented democratic reform, and more decentralization by
giving the provinces more taxing powers and decision-making
authority in joint federal-provincial programs. The party's law and
order package was an effort to address the perception of rising
homicide rates, which had gone up 12% in 2004.
Statistics Canada.
On May 17, 2005, MP
Belinda
Stronach surprised many when she
crossed the floor from the Conservative
Party to join the Liberal Party.
In late August and early September 2005, the Tories released ads
through Ontario's major television broadcasters that highlighted
their policies towards health care, education and child support.
The ads each featured Stephen Harper discussing policy with
prominent members of his
Shadow
Cabinet. Some analysts suggested at the time that the Tories
would use similar ads in the expected
2006 federal election,
instead of focusing their attacks on allegations of corruption in
the Liberal government as they did earlier on.
An Ipsos-Reid Poll conducted after the fallout from the first
report of the
Gomery Commission on
the sponsorship scandal showed the Tories practically tied for
public support with the governing Liberal Party
[39068], and a poll from the Strategic Counsel
suggested that the Conservatives were actually in the lead.
[39069] However, polling two days later showed
the Liberals had regained an 8-point lead
[39070].
2006 general election
On November 24, 2005,
Opposition leader
Stephen Harper introduced a
motion of no confidence which was
passed on November 28, 2005. With the confirmed backing of the
other two opposition parties, this resulted in an
election on January 23,
2006, following a campaign spanning the Christmas season.
The Conservatives started off the first month of the campaign by
making a series of policy-per-day announcements, which included a
Goods and Services
Tax reduction and a child-care allowance. This strategy was a
surprise to many in the news media, as they believed the party
would focus on the
sponsorship
scandal; instead, the Conservative strategy was to let that
issue ruminate with voters. The Liberals opted to hold their major
announcements after the Christmas holidays; as a result, Harper
dominated media coverage for the first few weeks of the campaign
and was able "to define himself, rather than to let the Liberals
define him". The Conservatives' announcements played to Harper's
strengths as a policy wonk
[39071], as opposed to in the 2004 election and
summer 2005 where he tried to overcome the perception that he was
cool and aloof. Though his party showed only modest movement in the
polls, Harper's personal approval numbers, which had always trailed
his party's significantly, began to rise relatively rapidly.
On
December 27, 2005, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
announced it was investigating Liberal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's office for potentially
engaging in insider trading before
making an important announcement on the taxation of income trusts. The revelation of the
criminal investigation and Goodale's refusal to step aside
dominated news coverage for the following week, and it gained
further attention when the
United States
Securities and Exchange Commission announced they would also
launch a probe. The income trust scandal distracted public
attention from the Liberals' key policy announcements and allowed
the Conservatives to refocus on their previous attacks on
corruption within the Liberal party. The Tories were leading in the
polls by early January 2006, and made a major breakthrough in
Quebec where they displaced the Liberals as the second place party
(after the Bloc Québécois).
In response to the growing Conservative lead, the Liberals launched
negative ads suggesting that Harper had a "hidden agenda", similar
to the attacks made in the 2004 election. The Liberal ads did not
have the same effect this time as the Conservatives had much more
momentum, at one stage holding a ten-point lead. Harper's personal
numbers continued to rise and polls found he was considered not
only more trustworthy, but also a better potential Prime Minister
than Paul Martin. In addition to the Conservatives being more
disciplined,
media
coverage of the Conservatives was also more positive than in
2004. By contrast, the Liberals found themselves increasingly
criticized for running a poor campaign and making numerous gaffes.
[39072]
On January 23, 2006, the Conservatives won 124 seats, compared to
103 for the Liberals. The results made the Conservatives the
largest party in the 308-member House of Commons, enabling them to
form a minority government. On February 6, Stephen Harper was sworn
in as the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada, along with his
Cabinet.
First Harper Government (2006-2008)
The
Federal Accountability
Act in response to the
sponsorship scandal,
President of the
Treasury Board, the Honourable
John Baird introduced the
bill to the
Canadian House of
Commons on April 11, 2006. The bill was passed in the House of
Commons on June 22, 2006, and was granted
royal assent on December 13, 2006.
The
2006 Canadian federal
budget was presented to the House of Commons by Finance
Minister
Jim Flaherty on May 2, 2006.
The government announced that the
Goods and Services Tax would
be lowered from 7% to 6% (and eventually to 5%);
income tax cuts for middle-income earners, and
$1,200-per-child
childcare payment (the
"Universal Child Care Benefit") for Canadian parents. On June 6,
2006, the budget was introduced for third reading in the House of
Commons and was declared passed by unanimous consent as the result
of procedural confusion. (The
Bloc Québécois had previously
indicated that it would support the budget, and its passage was
never in doubt.)
On October 31, 2006, Finance Minister
Jim
Flaherty announced that the government would begin taxing
income trusts in 2011, which went against one of their campaign
promises, causing much consternation among supporters.
On November 22, 2006, Harper introduced his own motion to recognize
the Québécois as forming a "nation within a united Canada". Five
days later, Harper's motion passed, with a margin of 266–16; all
federalist parties, as well as the
Bloc Québécois, were formally
behind it.
During three by-elections held on September 17, 2007, mayor
Denis Lebel captured the seat of
Roberval for the Conservatives, taking it from the Bloc, while
Bernard Barre ran a close second in Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot. This
raised the Conservative total in the House of Commons to 126
members. Some believe these results indicate that the Conservatives
have consolidated their position as the main federalist option in
Quebec, outside of Montreal.
On
February 27, 2008, allegations surfaced that two Conservative Party
officials offered Independent MP
Chuck
Cadman a million-dollar life insurance policy in exchange for
his vote to bring down the Liberal government in a May 2005 budget
vote. If the elements of the story are true, the
Conservatives' actions may amount to a criminal offence. Under the
Criminal Code of Canada, it is illegal to bribe an MP. An audio
tape suggests then-opposition leader
Stephen Harper was not only aware of a
financial offer to Chuck Cadman but gave it his personal
approval.
The
Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP) has been asked to investigate, and confirmed
late February 28, 2008 that it is examining a claim from the
Liberal Party that the
incident violates the Criminal Code's Section 119 provisions on
bribery and corruption.
The RCMP searched Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa on
April 15, 2008 at the request of Elections Canada. Elections
commissioner William Corbett requested the assistance of the
Mounties. Elections Canada is probing Conservative party spending
for advertisements during the 2006 parliamentary election
campaign.
The Conservative Party of Canada, having reached the $18.3-million
advertising spending limit set out under the Canada Elections Act,
transferred cash to 66 local campaign offices. The local campaigns
sent the money back to national party headquarters to buy local
television and radio advertisements for their candidates.
Financial agents for at least 35 of those Conservative candidates
later asked to be reimbursed for those expenses. Candidates who get
10 per cent of the votes in their riding get a portion of their
election expenses returned from Elections Canada. Elections Canada
refused, saying the party paid for the ads, not the candidates. The
Conservatives maintain they didn't break any rules.
On May 26, 2008, the Conservative Party recognized in a
private-members bill the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as an act of
genocide. The famine, orchestrated by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin,
has been recognized as genocide by a dozen countries—although some
historians disagree.
2008 general election
On September 7, 2008 Stephen Harper asked the Governor General of
Canada to dissolve parliament. The
election took place on 14
October. The Conservative Party returned to government with 143
seats, up from the 127 seats they held at dissolution, but short of
the 155 necessary for a majority government. This is the third
minority parliament in a row in Canada, and the second for
Harper.
The Conservative Party pitched the election as a choice between
Harper and the
Liberals'
Stéphane Dion, who they portrayed as a weak and ineffective leader.
The election, however, was rocked midway through by the emerging
global financial crisis and this became the central issue through
to the end of the campaign. Mr. Harper has been criticised for
appearing unresponsive and unsympathetic to the uncertainty
Canadians were feeling during the period of financial turmoil, but
he countered that the Conservatives were the best party to navigate
Canada through the financial crisis, and portrayed the Liberal
"Green Shift" plan as reckless and detrimental to Canada's economic
well-being.
The Conservative Party released its platform on October 7. The
platform states that it will re-introduce a bill similar to
C-61.
Second Harper Government (2008-present)
A new cabinet was sworn in on October 30, 2008. On December 4,
2008, Harper asked
Governor
General Michaëlle Jean to
prorogue Parliament in order to avoid a vote of confidence
scheduled for the following Monday, becoming the first
Prime Minister of Canada ever to do
so. The request was granted by Jean, and the prorogation lasted
until January 26, 2009.
Policy convention: November 2008
The party’s second convention was held in Winnipeg in November
2008. This was the party’s first convention since taking power in
2006, and media coverage concentrated on the fact that this time,
the convention was not very policy-oriented, and showed the party
to be becoming an establishment party.
However, the results of voting at the convention reveal that the
party’s populist side still had some life. A resolution that would
have allowed the party president a director of the party’s fund was
defeated because it also permitted the twelve directors of the fund
to become unelected “ex-officio” delegates. Some
politically-incorrect policy resolutions were debated, including
one to encourage provinces to utilize “both the public and private
health sectors”, but most of these were defeated.
Prorogation of Parliament
After the Conservative Party released their economic statement on
November 27, 2008, there was much criticism from Liberal Party, the
NDP, and the Bloc Québécois. The opposition parties were against
the cuts in public funding for political parties, and they alleged
that the Conservatives were not doing enough, and had no plan, to
stimulate the weakening economy when the Finance Minister, Jim
Flaherty, insisted that the government would "stay the course" and
deliver a surplus budget in the coming year. As a result, these
parties formed a coalition and planned to bring down the
Conservative government through a non confidence vote. Prime
Minister Harper asked the Governor General, Michaëlle Jean, to
prorogue parliament to prevent the coming confidence vote. The
Governor General granted this request December 4 and parliament was
prorogued until January 26, 2009.
Ideology, principles, and policies
The new Conservative Party is an amalgam of two contrasting views
about
conservatism in Canada.
Historically, the Progressive Conservatives touted traditional
Red Tory ideals like state funded social
programs, rejected closer ties with the United States and attempted
to model Canada after centuries-old British institutions. Western
Canadian conservatism, embodied in the Canadian Alliance party, was
more inspired by Western U.S.-based conservatism; it espoused
closer ties with the United States,
Blue
Tory conservatism, privatization, smaller government as well as
reform and overhaul of political institutions (on the
American/Australian model) and a decentralized federalism (a
limited government in Ottawa with stronger provinces, as also
advocated by
Brian Mulroney). The new
party generally supports a
market
economy approach to the economic sphere. The Conservative Party
also provides a home for a multitude of other conservatives, such
as
libertarian
conservatives, environmental conservatives,
Canadian republicans,
monarchists, and many others.
Since most of the MPs for the new party as well as the grassroots
supporters come from the western provinces, its policy has
significant influence from
Reform
Party of Canada philosophy, even though the new party has shed
much of Reform's social conservative image, and is more focused on
economic, military, "law and order" and democratic
reform/ethics-in-government issues. Unlike the old Progressive
Conservatives, it more reflects a strong Blue Tory ideology.
Prime
Minister Stephen Harper is known as
an avid fiscal conservative and a strong supporter for a strong
military within the context of a joint command for the Canadian Forces co-operating and co-planning
with the U.S. under the umbrella of a central command, modeled
after NORAD
. Like
former United States President
George
W. Bush, he does not oppose
same-sex civil unions, but does oppose
same-sex marriage.
The merger symbolizes the latest chapter in the evolution of
conservatism in Canada, as the historical
Conservative
Party, which was founded by
United Empire Loyalists, was
vehemently opposed to free trade and further integration with the
United States, aiming instead to model Canadian political
institutions after British ones. Then under the leadership of Brian
Mulroney, the party emphasized market forces in the economy and
reached a landmark free-trade deal with the United States. Some
critics argue that the current incarnation of conservatism espouses
pro-American views, aspires to emulate American capitalism, less
government involvement in the economy and more grassroots-oriented
Jeffersonian democratic reform.
The Conservative Party generally favours lower taxes, smaller
government, more decentralization of federal government powers to
the provinces modeled after the
Meech
Lake Accord and a tougher stand on "law and order" issues. It
is also opposed to the legalization of
cannabis and has had a free vote on whether the
House wanted to reopen the issue of
same-sex marriage, which was
defeated.
The party favors more spending on the
military, and harmonizing standards.
As the successor of the
western-based
Canadian Alliance, the party also supports reform of the
Senate to make it "elected, equal, and
effective" (the "
Triple-E Senate").
In practice, however, party leader Stephen Harper appointed the
unelected
Michael Fortier to both
the Senate and to the Cabinet on 6 February 2006, the day his
minority government took office.
On December 22, 2008 the Prime Minister filled all eighteen vacant
Senate seats. It was earlier reported in the
Toronto Star that this action was "to kill any
chance of a Liberal-NDP coalition government filling the vacancies
next year".
The party also supports several other substantial reforms to reduce
the present power of the Prime Minister's Office, such as
establishing fixed election dates every four years and giving
individual MPs more leeway in representing their constituents. In
addition, in the wake of the
sponsorship scandal and the resulting
high-profile
Gomery Inquiry the
Conservative Party advocated government accountability and
transparency reforms.
"Conscientious objectors" to "wars
not sanctioned by the United Nations"
should not be given a special "program" to "remain in Canada",
according to all of the 110 Conservative Party Members of
Parliament who voted on this issue in the Parliament
of Canada on June 3, 2008. On Sept. 13, 2008 this
refusal to set up a “special program” was reiterated by a
Conservative party spokeswoman after the first such
conscientious objector (Robin Long)
had been deported and sentenced to 15 months in jail. This
deportation occurred against the June 3, 2008 recommendation of a
majority of elected representatives in Parliament. (See
details about two motions in
Parliament concerning Canada and Iraq War Resisters)
Party leaders
Electoral results (2004-2008)
| Election |
# of candidates nominated |
# of seats won |
# of total votes |
% of popular vote |
result |
| 2004 |
308
|
99
|
3,994,682
|
29.62%
|
Liberal minority
government |
| 2006 |
308
|
124
|
5,374,071
|
36.34%
|
Conservative minority government |
| 2008 |
307
|
143
|
5,205,334
|
37.6%
|
Conservative minority government |
Provincial parties
The Conservative Party, while officially having no current
provincial wings, largely works with the former federal Progressive
Conservative Party's provincial affiliates. There have been calls
to change the names of the provincial parties from "Progressive
Conservative" to "Conservative". However, there are other small "c"
conservative parties which the federal Conservative Party has close
ties with, such as the
Saskatchewan
Party, the
Action démocratique du
Québec (ADQ), and the
British Columbia Liberal
Party (not related to the federal
Liberal Party of Canada).
The federal Conservative party has the support of many of the
provincial Conservative leaders. In Ontario, successive provincial
PC Party leaders
John Tory,
Bob Runciman and
Tim
Hudak have expressed open support for Stephen Harper and the
Conservative Party of Canada, with former
Mike Harris cabinet members
Jim Flaherty,
Tony
Clement, and
John
Baird now ministers in Harper's government.
Support between federal and provincial Conservatives is more
tenuous in some other provinces. In Alberta, relations have been
strained between the federal Conservative Party and the
Progressive
Conservative. Part of the federal Tories' loss in the 2004
election was often blamed on then Premier Klein's public musings on
health care late in the campaign. Klein had also called for a
referendum on
same-sex marriage. With the
impending 2006 election, Klein predicted another Liberal minority,
though this time the federal Conservatives won a minority
government
[39073]. Klein's successor
Ed Stelmach has generally tried to avoid causing
similar controversies, however Harper's surprise pledge to restrict
bitumen exports drew a sharp rebuke from the
Albertan government, who warned such restrictions would violate
both the
Constitution of
Canada and the
North American Free Trade
Agreement.
After the 2007 budget was announced the two conservative
governments in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland accused the federal
Conservatives of breaching the terms of the Atlantic Accord. As a
result relations have worsened between the two provincial
governments, leading Newfoundland Premier
Danny Williams to publicly
denounce the federal Conservatives, which has given rise to his ABC
(
Anything But
Conservative) campaign in the 2008 election.
While officially separate, federal Conservative Party documents,
such as membership applications, can be picked up from most
provincial Progressive Conservative Party offices. Several of the
provincial parties also contain open links to the federal
Conservative website on their respective websites.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper has attended multiple provincial
Progressive Conservative party conventions as a keynote speaker and
he has encouraged all federal party members to purchase memberships
in their provincial conservative counterparts.
See also
References
- [1]
- [2]
- [3]
- Mounties search Tory headquarters
- CTV.ca | Yushchenko thanks Harper for support in
NATO bid
-
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/realitycheck/2008/10/the_conservative_platform.html
-
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/10/07/tech-conservatives.html
-
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081030.wcabinetn1030/BNStory/politics/home?cid=al_gam_mostview
- [ http://blog.macleans.ca/tag/cpc-conventionwatch-2008/]
- [4], CTV News, February 7, 2006
- http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/552046
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