Led by its founder Preston Manning throughout its existence, Reform was considered a populist movement that rapidly gained popularity and momentum in Western Canada during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In a 1989 by-election, Reform won its first-ever seat in the House of Commons before making a major electoral breakthrough in the 1993 federal election, when it supplanted the PCs as the largest conservative party in Canada.

In opposition, the party advocated for spending restraint, tax cuts, reductions in immigration, and wider reform of Canada's political institutions such as the Senate.

Although they became the Official Opposition, a Liberal majority and disappointment with the lack of Eastern seats led many members to question the future direction of the party.

Prior to World War I, Western Canada featured broadly the same political climate as the rest of the country, with a two-party system consisting of the Liberal and Conservative parties.

This continued until the 1958 Canadian federal election, when the landslide victory of the Progressive Conservatives (PC) under Western populist Prime Minister John Diefenbaker largely eliminated Social Credit as a serious competitor in Western Canada (albeit its provincial branches in Alberta and British Columbia dominated their legislative assemblies until 1970 and 1991 respectively), and left political contests in the region largely polarised between the Progressive Conservatives and the CCF's successor, the New Democratic Party.

Social Credit continued to provide a nominal alternative to the Progressive Conservatives for right-wing voters, but from 1968 onwards the party would only successfully elect MPs in Quebec, and a backlash over the party's failure to take a stance on supporting a motion of non-confidence in Joe Clark's government in 1979 resulted in its complete collapse as a political force.

While they made little headway against the Progressive Conservatives, who won another landslide victory in 1984, they had one of the stronger performances among the minor parties that year.

In May 1987, a conference called "A Western Assembly on Canada's Economic and Political Future" was held in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Leading figures in this movement included Ted Byfield, Stan Roberts, Francis Winspear, and Preston Manning.

Their main complaints against the Mulroney government were its alleged favouritism towards Quebec, lack of fiscal responsibility, and a failure to support a program of institutional reform (for example, of the Senate).

The roots of this discontent lay mainly in their belief that a package of proposed constitutional amendments, called the Meech Lake Accord, failed to meet the needs of Westerners and Canadian unity overall.

The Reform Party was founded in October 1987 at a convention in Winnipeg, Manitoba led by three principal organizers: Preston Manning, son of Alberta premier Ernest Manning; Stan Roberts, former Liberal Party MP; and Robert Muir, former president of the Canadian Petroleum Law Foundation.

The constitutional debacle, together with unpopular initiatives such as the introduction of a Goods and Services Tax (GST) and a series of high-profile scandals, contributed to the implosion of the Progressive Conservatives' "grand coalition" ahead of the 1993 election.

Despite sharp ideological differences, Reform's populism struck a responsive chord with many NDP voters who were dissatisfied with Audrey McLaughlin's leadership.

Many Red Tory voters in both Atlantic Canada and Ontario were fed up with the PCs, but found Reform's agenda too extreme and shifted to the Liberals.

Despite strong support in rural Ontario, vote splitting with the PCs meant that Reform only one seat, Simcoe Centre.

It also managed to put forward its own strategy for national unity after the slim federalist victory in the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty, which advocated deep decentralization of powers from the federal government to the provinces and territories.

Manning was critcized, however, for not appearing at federalist rallies in Quebec, as Prime Minister Chrétien and new Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest had done.

Manning recognized the frustration by Canada's right-wing proponents and began discussions towards the launch of a new pan-Canadian party, using "United Alternative" ("UA") forums to bring grassroots Reformers together with Tories.

Though the Canadian Alliance was intended to attract a broader base of right-of-centre voters, former Reform members dominated the newly named party.

However, the failure to win more than the two seats in Ontario led to questions over Day's leadership and calls for greater cooperation with the Progressive Conservative Party.

Under the tag "Operation Back to the Future", it was launched in Spring 2005 as an umbrella for all original Reformers across the nation who felt that they were still without a political home.

[20][21][22] Reform's early policy proposals for immigration were seen as highly controversial in Canada including a policy pamphlet called Blue Sheet that was issued in mid-1991 stating that Reformers opposed "any immigration based on race or creed or designed to radically or suddenly alter the ethnic makeup of Canada".

[23] The statement was considered too controversial and subsequent Reform Party policy documents did not declare any similar concern for a radical alteration of the ethnic make-up of Canada.

[24][21] In an updated version of the party's policy platform released as the Blue Book in 1996, Reform supported the acceptance and integration of immigrants and refugees that met the requirements of the UN 1951 Refugee Convention "regardless of race, language or culture" while calling for limits on family migration, barring non-citizens from claiming state unemployment welfare and stricter penalties against illegal immigration.

[30] In 1993, Manning was again confronted by an example of intolerance by a Reform Party candidate, John Beck, who made a series of anti-immigrant remarks in an interview with Excalibur, the York University student paper.

"[16] Long-time Progressive Conservative member and political commentator Dalton Camp observed the 1994 Reform convention in Ottawa and was personally disgusted with what he heard, saying, "The speechifying gives off acrid whiffs of xenophobia, homophobia, and paranoia—like an exhaust—in which it seems clear both orator and audience have been seized by some private terror: immigrants, lesbians, people out of work or from out of town and criminals.

[19] Another controversial motion in the 1995 convention called for tighter regulation of people infected with HIV, which was supported by 84 percent of the delegates.

[16] On the issue of episodes of racism and extremism within the Reform Party, Manning himself recognized the serious dangers that the political ideology of populism (which the Reform Party supported) posed should racists and extremists infiltrate it and spoke of the serious need for the party to repel such racism and extremism, saying that: If a revival of grassroots democratic populism is to be characteristic of the revitalization of Canadian federal politics of the 1990s, especially in Quebec and the West, it is of primary importance that its leaders be well versed in ways and means of preventing populism from developing racist or other extremist overtones.