IX.

Conservative Unification

After an electoral defeat of such magnitude, virtually unparalleled in developed industrial democracies, the future of the Progressive Conservative Party was in doubt. Many of the party’s constituencies appeared to have permanently shifted their support to other parties, most notably the Canadian Alliance, a populist conservative party based in Canada’s western provinces.

Jean Charest, one of the two Progressive Conservatives elected in 1993, became party leader after the election. Under Charest’s leadership, the Progressive Conservatives showed a recovery in the 1997 election, winning 20 seats. However, these seats were largely confined to the Atlantic provinces. Charest resigned his seat in the Canadian House of Commons in March 1998 to become leader of the Québec Liberal Party after Daniel Johnson resigned as leader of that party. After Charest’s departure, Joe Clark, a former Progressive Conservative prime minister who served briefly from 1979 to 1980, was elected leader of the party.

In the November 2000 elections the Progressive Conservatives won just 12 seats in Parliament, the minimum required for the party to retain representation in the House of Commons. At the same time, the Canadian Alliance solidified its position as the leading party of the right in Canada.

In 2003 the Progressive Conservatives merged with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative Party, unifying the most powerful conservative groups in Canadian politics. The party immediately became the official opposition in Parliament. A small group of former Progressive Conservatives rejected the merger, however, and formed the breakaway Progressive Canadian party.

In the 2006 parliamentary elections the Conservative Party rose to power, ending 12 years of Liberal governance in Canada. The rise of the Conservative Party is a significant development in Canadian politics, although its prospects for long-term leadership remain uncertain.