He soon rose to prominence as he used the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to expose the corrupt practices of the Liberal government of Alexandre Taschereau and force it to call an early election.

Capitalizing on his success, Duplessis called a caucus meeting at Sherbrooke's Magog Hotel and received the support of 15 Conservatives and 22 ALN members in favour of a merger of the two parties under his leadership under the name Union nationale.

The government adopted a farm credit policy in 1936, which was popular in rural areas where the party's most loyal base of supporters lived, but for the most part the administration of Maurice Duplessis protected the status quo.

For instance, it gave the Catholic clergy government money to provide public education, health care and other social services.

Also, the legislature passed the Act to protect the Province Against Communistic Propaganda, better known as the Padlock Law, in 1937, which provided evidence of Duplessis's interest in appearing tough on communism.

Federal Cabinet Member Ernest Lapointe, the Quebec lieutenant of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, promised that no one would face conscription if voters supported the Liberals.

The Union Nationale enjoyed a surge after a majority of Canadian voters allowed the federal government to pass conscription.

However, since rural areas were significantly overrepresented, the Union Nationale won 48 seats to the Liberals' 37, allowing Duplessis to return as premier.

[13] The government was also accused of discrimination against Jehovah's Witnesses, receiving insufficient royalties for the extraction the province's natural resources and allowing election fraud for its own benefit.

Well aware that he faced, at most, two years before the next election, Sauvé saw the need to modernize one of the most conservative governments in Canada, and initiated a program of reform called "100 Days of Change."

[15] Johnson published a book called Égalité ou indépendance (Equality or independence), which appealed to a number of nationalist voters.

Even though the Liberals won a plurality of the vote in the 1966 election, the Union Nationale eked out a narrow majority in part because rural areas were significantly overrepresented.

His administration established CEGEPs (Collèges d'enseignement général et professionnel, or 'College of General and Vocational Education') in 1967, abolished the Legislative Council of Quebec and completed the dam and the generating station of Manic-5 in 1968 and laid the groundwork for the public health insurance plan that would later be implemented by the Liberal government of Robert Bourassa.

The official visit of French President Charles de Gaulle in Canada in 1967 and Daniel Johnson, Sr.'s sudden death in 1968 left the party divided between its nationalist wing and members who clearly positioned themselves as federalists.

[17] In addition, the Union Nationale lost a portion of its conservative base, including MNA Gaston Tremblay, to the Ralliement créditiste.

[18] In 1974, former UN Cabinet Member and interim leader Maurice Bellemare won a by-election, and the party again was represented in the National Assembly.

In May 1976, business owner Rodrigue Biron, a former card-carrying Liberal supporter who had no experience in provincial politics, was chosen as party leader.

On January 9, 1981, federal Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Roch LaSalle was acclaimed leader of the Union Nationale.

The electorate was increasingly polarized over the constitutional issue, with conservative-leaning voters split between either the federalist Liberals or the sovereigntist Parti Québécois in provincial elections.

Furthermore, a number of small conservative and créditiste parties were created and were in competition with the Union Nationale for the few thousands of votes that were still up for grabs.

The Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ) was established about at the same time and made a significant breakthrough in the districts that were once considered the base of the Union Nationale's support.

[32] The media claimed that the Parti Québécois was going through a phase of Union-Nationalization (French: unionnationalisation) when, in the mid-1980s, it chose Pierre-Marc Johnson as its leader and put the issue of Quebec sovereignty on the back burner.