Unite the Right (Canada)
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The Unite the Right (
1987–1993: Fragmentation on the political right
The Reform Party came into being in 1987, due in part to opposition to Prime Minister
In the 1993 election, the upstart Reform Party won 52 seats in the west, and the once-powerful PCs led by newly minted Prime Minister Kim Campbell were reduced to only two seats in Parliament. Both parties were, however, almost completely shut out of Ontario and Quebec in this election, and also in the elections of 1997 and 2000. The two central Canadian provinces together represented over half the seats in the House of Commons; in the 1993, 1997 and 2000 elections, the total number of central Canadian seats held, collectively, by the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance and the PCs never rose above six, out of a total of over 170 available seats.
With two right-wing parties competing for power, it became apparent that unseating the governing Liberals would be next to impossible. In the
The Liberals under
Barriers to a merger
There were many barriers to a merger. Polls had found that two-thirds of traditional PC voters would vote for the Liberals before endorsing a united Canadian Alliance/PC party. Some Westerners also had deep concerns that the new party would be dominated by Central Canada, much as they thought the Progressive Conservatives had been. Leadership and MPs from both sides of the division also opposed a merger out of concerns that both parties were distinct political entities and not part of a larger conservative movement.
1995–1996: Early efforts to unite the right
During the 1995 Quebec referendum, Reform leader Preston Manning implored the two sitting PC MPs, Elsie Wayne and party leader Jean Charest, to sit in Parliament with the Reform Party caucus. The combined weight of 52 Reform MPs and two PC MPs would have allowed a unified caucus to replace the 53-member separatist Bloc Québécois caucus as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Charest, however, refused to merge and instead focused his efforts on rebuilding the shattered PC Party.
In 1996, David Frum and Ezra Levant organized the "Winds of Change" conference in Calgary, an early attempt to encourage the Reform Party of Canada and Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to merge so that a united rightwing party could defeat the Liberal Party of Canada in the subsequent election. Manning and Charest were both invited to attend but declined.[1]
1997–2000: The United Alternative / Canadian Alliance
After the second Liberal win in 1997, it became increasingly obvious that having two right-of-centre parties was splitting the vote and ensuring further Liberal majorities. Reform leader Manning was criticized by some members in his own party and by Western media for not "broadening the popular base of Reform." Manning had originally suggested that the Reform Party was meant to be a new party, a third way as a
Reformers were convinced that a union would have to involve the creation of a new party, as opposed to one party being enveloped by the other. Therefore, the Reform Party launched a number of efforts to convince like-minded PCs to join with them in creating a new united right-of-centre movement for Canada regardless of the agenda of the PC leadership. A secondary goal of the movement was to at least have the current parties agree not to run two right-of-centre candidates in the same ridings in the next federal election. A series of informal conferences and mini-conventions were staged under the auspices of Manning and the Reform Party on the benefits of a "United Alternative."
While the United Alternative movement was focused on creating a broader coalition for conservative voters, it had to compete with
In 1998, under the auspices of 1993 Reform Party candidate and ardent social conservative
The efforts to create a United Alternative did not sit well with the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives. The PC Party eventually passed an amendment to the party's constitution stating that the party had to run a candidate in every federal riding in the next election. Having been rebuffed by PC leader Joe Clark, Manning urged the Reform Party membership to "Think Big" and eventually a real "United Right" effort was launched. In early 2000, the Reform Party held two national conventions in Ottawa that culminated in its demise and the creation of the "Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance", or CCRA. However, a number of pundits pointed out that if the word "party" was added on to the end of the name, the acronym would actually be CCRAP. Consequentially, the name was changed to the "Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance", more commonly known as the Canadian Alliance.
Not all Reformers were in favour of the creation of a new right-wing political party. Some Reformers were actually populists who did not necessarily aspire to right-wing solutions for government in Canada. Led by Reform MPs Darrel Stinson and Myron Thompson, a protest movement was launched known as "Grassroots United Against Reform's Demise" or GUARD. The movement sent letters and e-mails to party members and officials urging them to not vote in favour of a new party.
Ultimately, Manning's bid to create a new party was successful, although the personal consequences for his initiative would be high. The Canadian Alliance leadership race was expected to be a pro forma contest in which Manning's leadership would be easily reconfirmed. However, the race quickly became a contest. Many CA members felt that a new party needed a new leader. Eventually Manning's bid for the CA leadership was defeated by Alberta Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and Provincial Treasurer Stockwell Day. While the party was seen by some as a happy union of former Reformers and Blue Tory PCs who were disaffected with Joe Clark's Red Tory leadership, the Canadian Alliance was still seen by many as merely the Reform Party in new clothes. Furthermore, many Reformers became disaffected with the CA due to Manning's ouster as the movement's leader.
2000–2002: Fragmentation of the Canadian Alliance
After a below-expectations result in the 2000 election and the failure of the CA to reduce Joe Clark's PCs to independent status, a year of factional in-fighting began in 2001 over Stockwell Day's troubled leadership of the Canadian Alliance. Several controversies surrounding Day's personality, statements, and actions led to a number of disaffected CA officials and MPs, including party stalwarts Deborah Grey and Chuck Strahl, to formally break with the Alliance caucus. Thirteen MPs left the Canadian Alliance during this period of instability. The thirteen MPs sat as the Democratic Representative Caucus (DRC) and eventually decided to affiliate themselves with the PCs, sitting as one group in the House of Commons and holding joint meetings. The DRC also launched its own website and began setting up "Democratic Reform Party" constituency associations in anticipation of a snap election.
After the near collapse of the Canadian Alliance and the rise in defections to the DRC, it appeared that the right in Canada would remain fractious and fragmented into the foreseeable future. From September 2001 to May 2002, three separate elected right-wing political entities existed in the House of Commons (the PCs, the CA and the DRC). Many journalists and media analysts were convinced that the Right would totally melt down in a future election with so many conflicting factions competing for the same voter base. When asked by reporters in January 2002 about the troubles on the right, Liberal Heritage Minister
2002: New leadership
In April 2002, Stockwell Day was replaced as leader of the Canadian Alliance by Stephen Harper, one of the original "Class of '88" founders of the Reform Party. Unlike Day, Harper proved to be an able leader and managed to repair most of the damage that his predecessor's leadership had caused. With Harper at the helm, all but two DRC MPs who had left the party's caucus returned to the Canadian Alliance. With Day no longer running the Canadian Alliance, a merger was also much more agreeable to many stalwart Tory members. PC leader Joe Clark, who had spurned off many attempts to unite the right during his leadership, announced his impending retirement as PC leader in August 2002 after the PC-DRC Coalition Caucus dissolved. A leadership election was scheduled for May 2003.
On May 31, 2003, Peter MacKay of Nova Scotia won the PC leadership election. Unlike Clark, MacKay supported open discussions on the concepts of a united party, but promised that, on his watch, no full-fledged union would take place. Shortly after becoming leader, MacKay signalled his openness to broad "talks" with the Canadian Alliance with regard to creating more unity on the right.
2003: Merger negotiations
Over the summer and autumn of 2003, a series of protracted negotiations took place between PC and CA "emissaries":
The negotiations were largely motivated by the juggernaut takeover of the Liberal Party by the extremely popular and successful former Liberal finance minister Paul Martin, and the marked reduction in membership and political donations for both parties due to voter frustration with the status quo Liberal hegemony. Polls showed both the beleaguered PC and Alliance parties losing a large number of seats in the next election to a Martin-led Liberal team across Canada if an amenable solution was not found.
2003–2004: Creation of the Conservative Party of Canada
The goal of a united right was realized in the Autumn of 2003. The summer negotiations eventually produced the Conservative Party Agreement-in-Principle between the PCs and the CA on the establishment of a new Conservative Party of Canada. On October 16, 2003, Alliance leader Stephen Harper and Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay announced the formation of the new united conservative party. Both leaders insisted that the union was not about egos, and was really about making an enormous contribution to protecting tangible democratic freedoms and political choice in Canada. Harper was widely quoted by many media officials during the press conference when he stated, "Our swords will henceforth be pointed at the Liberals, not at each other."[2]
The main sticking point during the autumn negotiations had been the method of choosing the merged party's leader. The PCs pushed for an equal number of votes for each riding that would benefit their lower but much more nationally representative membership (65,000); the Alliance hoped for a one-member one vote system that would benefit their much larger, but centralized Western membership (120,000). Harper conceded the issue. In early December, 95.9% of the CA membership approved the union, and 90.4% of the PC Party delegates also endorsed the initiative in a national convention. The party was officially formed on December 7, 2003. Harper was elected leader of the fledgeling Conservative Party of Canada on March 20, 2004, by the new party's 350,000 members spread out across 301 equally weighted federal ridings. Peter MacKay was appointed deputy leader.
Aftermath
Months later, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin called for a general election. However, in the interim between the formation of the new party and the selection of its new leader, investigations into the
Polls indicated an increase in support for the new Conservative Party and by all pollster indications by mid-campaign, it seemed as if Harper was on the verge of becoming Prime Minister of a minority government. But even at their highest level of support the Conservatives were still some percentage points off the combined total of the two separate right-wing parties that had run in the last election. A number of prominent ex-PCs also chose to support the Liberals. These included MPs Scott Brison, Keith Martin, and John Herron, who crossed the floor to the Liberals. Lukewarm endorsements of Liberal Party candidates at the onset of the campaign were extended by former PC MPs Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, André Bachand, Rick Borotsik, and former federal PC Party president Bruck Easton.
Harper's new Conservatives emerged from the election with a larger parliamentary caucus of 99 MPs. Chuck Cadman, a former CA MP who failed to win the Conservative Party nomination in his riding, was re-elected as an independent. The Liberals were reduced to a thin minority government, relegating the governing party to obtaining support from at least two of the three opposition parties to pass legislation.
In the 2006 Canadian federal election, after a decade of work, the Conservatives seemed to attain their goal of being an electable "United Alternative" when they were given a minority government by the electorate. In the 2011 federal election, the Conservatives under Harper won a majority government, the first majority for a main right-of-centre party since the defeat of the Campbell PC Party in 1993.
Provincial 'Unite the Right'
The term 'Unite the Right' has been used to describe the union of centre-right parties in provinces with a strong
Between 1941 and 1951, there was a
In Alberta, the Alberta Party Political Association, known in its short form as the
In the 1970s, the
From 1936 to 1970, the Union Nationale in Quebec was a coalition party of right-wing Liberals and Conservatives.
See also
- Politics of Canada
- Progressive Canadian Party
- Liberal–National party merger
References
- ^ Canadian Press, "Reform, Tories should merge, right-wing group says", Globe and Mail, May 15, 1996
- ^ "CBC News:Harper and MacKay announce deal to unite the right". Archived from the original on 2004-04-09. Retrieved 2004-04-09.