The party began to achieve success following the surprise victory of Peter Duncan McCallum in the 1893 provincial by-election in Lambton East.
[1] By 1894, the mayors of Brantford, London, Hamilton, Chatham, Kincardine, and Petrolia, Ontario were all elected as members of the PPA.
[1] In the 1894 provincial election, the party succeeded in winning nine seats in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
William Henry Reid of the Durham West riding was the only PPA MPP to return to the 1898 provincial legislature,; however, in 1898, he ran and was elected as a member of the Conservative Party.
The PPA ran several candidates in Ontario for the 1896 federal election as a protest against the Conservative Party's conflicted position on the Manitoba Schools Question.