Twenty years ago, the federal Progressive Conservative (PC) Party merged with the Canadian Alliance. How did the merger impact Canadian conservatism?
First, it delivered the “conservative” brand into the hands of the Alliance’s leaders, who have used it to push their right-wing, populist agenda under the guise of mainstream conservatism.
Second, it destroyed the old federal PC party (1942-2003), which stood for moderate conservatism in Canadian politics.
And third, it allowed right-wing Alliance leaders to take control of the federal government between 2006 and 2015.
The Canadian Alliance (2000-03) was the successor to the Reform Party (1987-2000), a Western-based right-wing populist protest party founded by Preston Manning. The Reform Party included some socially reactionary elements. It was opposed to the federal PC party, in part because of its relative progressivism on social and economic issues.
The PC party’s ideological “big tent” always included elements of communitarianism and One Nation conservatism. In an effort to appeal to broader sectors of Canadian society (especially in Ontario and Quebec), the Reform Party reinvented itself as the Canadian Alliance in 2000. Three years later, in order to “unite the right” and defeat the federal Liberals, the leaders of the Canadian Alliance (Stephen Harper) and the federal PC party (Peter MacKay) merged their respective parties.
They founded the new Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) on Dec. 7, 2003.
The CPC is essentially a modified version of the Reform Party. Many of its influencers and leaders (for example, Manning, Harper, Pierre Poilievre, Andrew Scheer and Jenni Byrne) and much of its angry, resentful culture are derived from the Reform Party.
It is not healthy for Canada to have such a party as its governing alternative. If we define political moderation as the willingness to compromise, act pragmatically and take into account the aspirations of broad sectors of a society, then any functioning democracy needs both moderate conservatism and moderate liberalism to thrive. By alternating in government, moderate conservatives and moderate liberals generate a “creative friction” that helps society develop within stable parameters, eschewing extremism (for example, like the centre-right CDU and the centre-left SPD in West Germany).
Progressive conservatism is a distinctly Canadian political philosophy, more similar to traditional U.K. or European conservatism than to modern American right-wing conservatism. Progressive conservatism’s ideological roots are separate from the right-wing populism that gave birth to the Reform Party.
Progressive conservatism stood for gradual progress and rejected both radical-right and radical-left policy solutions. The PC governments led by Joe Clark (1979-80), Brian Mulroney (1984-93), and Kim Campbell (1993), while attempting to streamline the federal government and revitalize the economy, protected the large-scale social safety net programs established during the postwar era.
The CPC founded by Harper and MacKay still struggles to gain traction in urban areas and Quebec, partly because many voters fear its hard-right, populist approach to policy topics such as climate change and various hot-button social issues. As we move into 2024, we can expect Poilievre to continue using populist slogans that present simplistic solutions to complex questions, like rising housing costs. While Poilievre’s populist tone may seem innovative, at some level, it harkens back to the Reform Party’s populism. His belligerent approach toward political opponents, key public institutions and the media also represents a continuation of the political culture inherited from the Reform Party and Harper.
In 2003, many Progressive Conservatives (myself included) supported the merger because we thought it would be a pragmatic way of helping conservatives form government soon. By tying our fate to the Reformers, we ditched our progressive conservative principles and ensured that, for a whole generation, power would be wielded either by Reformers posing as conservatives (2006-15) or by Liberals (2015-present).
For right-wing reactionaries who wanted to take control of the entire centre-right in Canadian politics, the merger has been very beneficial. For traditional and moderate conservatives, the merger has been a tragedy.
Michael Huenefeld was an activist in the federal Progressive Conservative Party from 1998 to 2003. He has also been involved in Vancouver municipal politics and provincial politics in B.C. In 2022, he volunteered for former premier of Quebec Jean Charest’s Conservative Party leadership campaign. In 2002, he received an award from former prime minister Joe Clark for outstanding service to the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and its B.C. council.
A French-language version of this article has been published by Winnipeg-based newspaper La Liberté.
This right-wing merger was a tragedy
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18.12.2023
Twenty years ago, the federal Progressive Conservative (PC) Party merged with the Canadian Alliance. How did the merger impact Canadian conservatism?
First, it delivered the “conservative” brand into the hands of the Alliance’s leaders, who have used it to push their right-wing, populist agenda under the guise of mainstream conservatism.
Second, it destroyed the old federal PC party (1942-2003), which stood for moderate conservatism in Canadian politics.
And third, it allowed right-wing Alliance leaders to take control of the federal government between 2006 and 2015.
The Canadian Alliance (2000-03) was the successor to the Reform Party (1987-2000), a Western-based right-wing populist protest party founded by Preston Manning. The Reform Party included some socially reactionary elements. It was opposed to the federal PC party, in part because of its relative progressivism on social and economic issues.
The PC party’s ideological “big tent” always included elements of communitarianism and One Nation conservatism. In an effort to appeal to broader sectors of Canadian society (especially in Ontario and Quebec), the Reform Party reinvented itself as the Canadian Alliance in........
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