History of the Conservative Party of Canada

Progressive 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.

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.

[citation needed] Westerners reportedly felt betrayed by the federal Progressive 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 member of Parliament (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.

Canadians in general were disenchanted with extremely high unemployment, Canada's soaring debt and deficit, a bungled implementation of the deeply unpopular Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 1991, and failed constitutional reforms of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords.

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 PC and Reform Party candidates was substantially in excess of the total number of votes cast for the Liberal candidate.

In the PCs in particular, the merger process resulted in organized opposition, and in a substantial number of prominent members refusing to join the new party.

David Orchard argued that his written agreement with Peter MacKay, which had been signed a few months earlier at the 2003 Progressive Conservative Leadership convention, excluded any such merger.

In the early months following the merger, MP Rick Borotsik, who had been elected as Manitoba's only PC, became openly critical of the new party's leadership.

Three senators, William Doody, Norman Atkins, and Lowell Murray, declined to join the new party and continued to sit in the upper house as a rump caucus of Progressive Conservatives.

[citation needed] In the immediate aftermath of the merger announcement, some Conservative activists hoped to recruit former Ontario premier Mike Harris for the leadership.

In the end, there were three candidates in the party's first leadership election: former Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper, former Magna International CEO Belinda Stronach, and former Ontario provincial PC Cabinet minister Tony Clement.

This system was selected as a condition of the merger, to prevent the far larger Canadian Alliance membership base from overwhelming that of the Progressive Conservatives.

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.

Momentum stalled after several Conservative candidates made controversial remarks about homosexuality, official bilingualism and abortion, allowing the Liberal Party to warn of a "hidden agenda".

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 in Montreal) with clearly defined, moderate policies with which to challenge the Liberals.

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.

Some analysts suggested at the time that the Tories would use similar ads in the next election, instead of focusing their attacks on allegations of corruption in the Liberal government as they did prior.

The Conservatives' announcements played to Harper's strengths as a policy wonk,[10] as opposed to the 2004 election and summer 2005 where he tried to overcome the perception that he was cool and aloof.

In his second term, Harper's government responded to the recession of 2007–2008 by introducing the Economic Action Plan that implemented major personal income tax cuts.

In the 2015 federal election, after nearly a decade in power, the Conservatives suffered a landslide defeat at the hands of Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party.

[14] That was completed at the caucus meeting of November 5, 2015[15] where Rona Ambrose, MP for Sturgeon River—Parkland and a former cabinet minister, was elected by a vote of MPs and Senators.

[20] Businessman Kevin O'Leary was the early favourite in the race, until he dropped out, citing weak support in Quebec;[21] he subsequently endorsed Maxime Bernier, who became the frontrunner.

[26] Scheer is a social conservative; he is personally pro-life and opposes same-sex marriage, though like Harper, he stated he wouldn't overturn the legality of both laws.

While the Conservative Party has historically been highly successful in Alberta and Saskatchewan, some point to a growing sense of Western alienation to explain the results.

Scheer announced his pending resignation on December 12, 2019, after the CBC reported that the Conservative party had been paying part of his children's private school tuition.

[29] Though running for the leadership on a "true blue" platform,[30] O'Toole started to nudge the Conservative Party to the political centre as leader.

During the campaign, O'Toole stated he would balance the budget within the next 10 years[34] and reversed his support for repealing the Liberal government's "assault-style" weapons ban.

[35] In a similar manner to the 2019 election, the Conservatives again won the popular vote but fell short of gaining the largest amount of seats, enabling the Liberal Party under Justin Trudeau to form another minority government.

In the letter, Benzen criticized O'Toole's reversal on repealing the Liberal government's carbon tax and assault weapons ban.