Talk:Progressive Conservative Party of Canada

Headline text

Bold textThe party never merged with the Progressives in 1942. John Bracken made it a provision of his taking over the leadership of the Conservative Party in that year that it officially adopt the additional name in deference to his period in office as Progressive Premier of Manitoba.

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Article needs a reference and links to provincial Progressive Conservative parties.

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Okay, I went in and altered the changes stating that this party had been 'resurrected' as the Progressive Canadian Party. Not true - that's a new party, and this one's still gone. I've certainly referred to it, and we'll see from here how events shape things further. Radagast 13:24, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

PC Party

It's splitting hairs as to whether the Progressive Canadian Party is a continuation of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada - betrayed by its leadership in October 2003 - or a new party.

The Progressive Canadian Party (PC Party) was formed by members of the Progressive Conservative Party who do not wish to be associated with the Alliance.

In January 2004, they applied to Elections Canada for registration under the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada name. This name was no acceptable to the Chief Electoral Officer. In March 2004, the Progressive Canadian name was accepted.

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I don't think it's accurate to state that this party existed from 1867-2003. My take on the subject would be that the "Progressive Convservative Party of Canada" only existed as this specific party from the merger with the Progressives in 1942 until the merger with the Alliance in 2003. Before that it would have been the previous name, etc. etc. I'm not a political scientist but it seems that ideologies and ideas change with the wind in Canadian politics. The "Conservative Party of Canada" in another decade or two (should it survive in this format) will likely look nothing like what it did in its infancy around 2003-2004 after the merger of the PC's and the Alliance, just the same as the Conservative Liberals etc. from the 1850's-60's didn't appear to look anything like the Tories of Bennett in the 30's or of Diefenbaker in the 50's-60's and Mulroney of the 80's-90's. "Protectionists", "Anti-America", "Pro-Britain" has evolved to become "Pro-Free Trade", "Pro-America", "Forget-Britain" with the only thing common among all of these parties being the word "Conservative" in capital letters... Cheers, Plasma east 21:16, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Plasma east: "this specific party from the merger with the Progressives in 1942". Actually, no, it did not merge with the Progressive Party. The Progressive Party continued to exist at the federal level after 1942. Most federal Progressives joined the Liberal Party or the CCF when the party did eventuallt fold, if they had not already. See Progressive Party of Canada. The Conservative Party changed its name when Bracken became leader, i.e., it was, as marketers would say, 'new name -- same great product'. This was just the last of several name changes for this party - Liberal-Conservative, Unionist, National Government, Conservative. It was a quite different situation in 2004 when two organizations formally and legally merged. I hope this clarifies things. Kevintoronto 11:22, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• • Interesting... so my question would be what defines the existence of a particular party or its brand for a specific time period - the brand/name being used, its corporate/legal existence, or the changes in ideas/platform over time? I understand how the article bases the 1867-2003 historical existence of the PC Party but to the average voter it wouldn't seem to make a lot of sense as they all appear to be different parties (just guessing).

• • • I understand your point, but changes in a party's ideas/platform will not necessary be discrete events. It would be difficult and contentious to try to categorize the parties in that way. At what precise time did the PC Party transition from the nationalism of Diefenbaker to the continentalism of Mulroney? I would argue that it was a process through the Stanfield, Clark and Mulroney eras that culminated in the Free Trade Agreement. (Remember Mulroney trashing John Crosbie's continentalist agenda in the 1983 leadership convention?) I think that changes in the corporate/legal existence represent logical breaks in continuity that justify creating a new article. Another example would be the CCF/NDP. The CCF did not just change its name, it actually (I believe) disbanded and created a new party, which was initially called "the New Party". The New Party added 'Democratic' to its name a year later. Regards, Kevintoronto 10:53, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• • • • I'll buy it, just not sure if others would as corporate/legal usually = name change in the minds of most people. Air Canada being the exception I guess! Forgot to sign the above post. Cheers, Plasma east 22:52, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Conservative?

Some anonymous editor keeps trying to change the ideology from "moderate/centrist conservatism" to "conservatism" without providing any explanation. So why should I have to provide an explanation for reverting? I shouldn't but I will anyway. Let's be clear: the PC Party was, for the largest part of its history, more moderate than other conservative parties, and particlaurly more moderate tan the new Conservative Party of Canada. Adding "moderate/centrist" is a useful distinction. Diefenbaker, Stanfield, Clark, Mulroney, Campbell and Charest were all Red Tories, i.e., from the progressive wing of the party, and they led the party from 1960-something almost to the end. Ground Zero 22:22, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What in the hell are you talking about Brain Mulroney was a Blue Tory Adding "moderate/centrist" is misleading leave Political ideology as "conservatism" this is an Encyclopedia not a blog. You sould have facts.

Michaelm, please calm down. I made an argument for why the ideology should be left as it is, and you have only responded with abuse. I contend that Brian Mulroney was a Red Tory, especially with respect to his stand on capital punishment (he opposed it), fiscal policy (he cut less from government spending than Chretien/Martin), and tax policy (he did not cut taxes anywhere near the degree that Chretien and Martin did). And with regard to you comment, "You should have facts", I will note that you have not provided a single fact to support your argument. But then, why would you start doing so now? You will not win this argument by being abusive. Ground Zero 03:57, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What is the differ between center-right and right-of-center? Everyone's got a life. So it's not to your liking once jsut go with it!

reworked ideology section

I have reworked the ideology section as it was riddled with errors. Before you challenge me, let me tell you I was involved with the PC Party on many levels (Youth Worker to Campus Assocation President), and met many PCs such as Senator Norman Atkins, Brian Mulroney, Joe Clark, Larry Grossman, Frank Miller, William Davis, and George Hees between 1978 and 1993. I worked and canvassed with candidates in 1979, 1984, and 1988 Dominion elections and with Provincial Ontario candidates in 1985 and 1987. I have an MA in Political Economy and taught second-year students as a TA for two years. I heard George Grant lecture. My family are all life-long tories, but certainly not neocons.

The "socially-progressive and fiscally conservative" tag for Red Tories is hopelessly simplistic and ignorant of the pre-Confederation and Disraelian traditions within Macdonaldian conservatism.

I have corrected the section, but it is hardly the final edit. When time allows, I will draft a more unified and coherent entry. TrulyTory 06:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge?

Shouldn't this article be in the same article as the Conservative Party of Canada (historic)? They were the same party, with just a name change.Habsfannova 16:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• That would take two fairly long articles and combine them into one article that exceeds the suggested maximum length for articles. I don't think that would be an improvement. You are correct in saying that they were the same party, but the change in name provides a fairly logically place to break the history in to two articles. Ground Zero | t 12:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Alrighty...just thought it was strange...even if you look in the printed form of the Canadian Encyclopedia, going to "Progressive Conservative Party" says simply, "See: Conservative Party". I also notice that the colours change in all the diagrams between the switch in name, but the Original Conservatives have the same colour as the "new" Conservatives. Kind of odd. I also notice that there's a lot of overlap in descrpitions on the two pages...Habsfannova 17:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what diagrams you're referring to. There shouldn't be a colour change. In all of the elections results tables that I have created, and there are quite a lot, I hvae used the "Progressive Conservatives" colour for the party from 1967 to 2004, and "Conservative" after that. Ground Zero | t 23:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, my bad...I misunderstood...just looked at Image:Legendcdnele.PNG and found that the Conservatives post 03 use the same colour as the old Conservatives, while the PCs have a different colour from the two.Habsfannova 00:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe the two articles are too long to merge, but they really shouldn't stay the way they are. The principal problem is that the two articles are not really aware of each other. There is overlapping content, there is confusion (this article covers the period from 1942 onward but doesn't state that explicitly), and the cross-references between the two are too subtle. Are there any (Progressive) Conservative party historians out there who could streamline the text and clarify the chronological separation between the two? -- Justinbb 03:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

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Progressive Conservative Party still exists

According to your Rump section, there are still Progressive Conservatives who sit in parliament. So the party is not dead. See the extract below. Watercool 04:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Rump PC caucus Following the merger, a rump Progressive Conservative caucus remained in Parliament, consisting of individuals who declined to join the new Conservative Party. In the House of Commons, Joe Clark, André Bachand and John Herron sat as PC members.

In the 2004 election, Bachand and Clark did not to run for re-election, and Herron ran as a Liberal, losing to Rob Moore in his riding of Fundy—Royal. Scott Brison, who had joined the Liberal caucus immediately upon departing the Conservative Party, was reelected as a Liberal in the 2004 election.

In the Senate, William Doody, Lowell Murray and Norman Atkins also declined to join the new party, and continue to sit as Progressive Conservative senators. On March 24, 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin appointed nine new senators, two of whom, Nancy Ruth and Elaine McCoy, were designated as Progressive Conservatives. Thus there may be Progressive Conservative senators until 2021 when McCoy, the youngest of the five, attains the mandatory retirement age of 75, or later if subsequent senators designate themselves Progressive Conservatives. Nancy Ruth has since left to sit with the Conservative Party. Adding the death of Senator Doody on December 27, 2005, this reduced the number of PC Senators to three.

They just use the Tory name...it doesn't mean that the party still exists. Otherwise, we'd have an article for an "Independent" party.Habsfan|t 12:20, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Stephen Harper

As the article notes, the PC Party dissolved itself in 2003 at the time of the creation of the new CPC. The CPC is not the legal continuation of the PC Party. The PC Party was, on the other hand, the legal continuaiton of the Liberal-COnservative Party and the (old) Conservative Party. I don't think that Harper belongs here. He belongs on the CA anda CPC pages only. Ground Zero | t 18:20, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

While it was not a legal continuation, and a distinction should be made to support that, the majority of its constituents fell under the banner of the CPC and I believe that there is encyclopedic relevance to the brief mention of the history of this spiritual successor.

oxymoron

Can someone explain to me (in short) the name of this party.

Its a complete contradiction in terms, you can't be progressive and conservative??

has someone told this to the Canadians?

We have a few contradictions down here in Australia but nothing so obvious! I'm a 'l' liberal moron. does that count?

• Just to inform the Wikipedian from Australia, in Canada, the PC Party, was named so because a former member of a party called the Progressive Party of Canada, became leader of the Conservative Party in 1942, and fused some of his ideas with the party and had it renamed the Progressive Conservative Party. As for the recent explanation of the name, former PC leader Joe Clark emphasized the party to be socially progressive and fiscally conservative. Under PC John Diefenbaker, in the 1950s and early 60s the party began to take progressive stances on controversial issues at the time, such as banning capital punishment, demanding that South Africa be kicked out of the Commonwealth, that racist elements of immigration laws be removed, and that aboriginals be given the right to vote. Still, the party remained very conservative on other issues, such as British imperialism and traditional conservative economic protectionism until replaced by North American continentalism and neoconservatism in the 1980s. [Unsigned comment by User:R-41 -- please sign your comments!]

• "We have a few contradictions down here in Australia but nothing so obvious!" Umm... the most obvious contradiction in Australian politics in that the conservative party in Australia is called the Liberal Party of Australia. Doh! And yes, it is well understood here that this is an oxymoron. Some pundits have called it the Forwards Backwards Party. Ground Zero | t 18:22, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

• Calling a conservative party the Liberal Party of Australia is NOT an oxymoron, since the terms "liberal" and "conservative" overlap.

PC Party

The new pc party is the continuation of the old one. Anderchuk 03:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• In what way?
• Please provide evidence -- you cannot expect other editors to accept these changes just because you say they are true.
• You must get consensus here on the talk page before you make changes that significant to an article.
• Most importantly, the ProgCdn Party was formed by a small numbers of former ProgCons Party members. That does not make it a continuation. Even the Chief Electoral Officer refused to let them use the ProgCdn name and logo. Ground Zero | t 11:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The new pc party is the continuation of the old one because:

• The old party never actually folded, and thus this is its manifestation
• As mentioned many of the old PC party stayed with the new one
• Its initials (PC) are the same and its logo is the same

The electoral officer not letting them use the ProgCdn was as much a political decision as anything; in any event, the electoral officer does not get to decide what is or isn't a party, rather its members do. And these members clearly say they are a member of the PC party. Anderchuk 05:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The logo is similar, not the same. The initials are alo the same as for Personal Computer, Private Constable, and other phrases -- the initials are not relevant. The chief electoral officer is non-partisan. Some ProgCons joined the Liberal Party, so by your reasoning, we would have to add the Liberal Party to the list of successor parties.

Again, for a controversial change like this, YOU MUST GET CONSENSUS FOR BEFORE MAKING THE CHANGE to avoid a pointless edit war. Ground Zero | t 10:45, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

List of Tory Prime ministers

Stephen Harper was never elected to Parliament as a PC MP. He spent most of his political career in the Reform Party and Canadian Aliiance fighting against the PC Part. He should not be here. He belongs in the CPC article only. Comments? Ground Zero | t 19:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Ground Zero, I totally agree with you on the fact that "Stephen Harper was never elected to Parliament as a PC MP". However the "new" Conservatives are often called Tories, including by the Canadian Press. And the titles of the lists are Tory Prime Ministers of Canada and Tory leaders since Confederation, therefore I believe that Stephen Harper should be included on these lists. Nat Tang ^{ta | co | em} 06:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I understand that the titles of the list say "Tory", but the article is about the Progressive Conservative Party under the PC name and its previous names. It is not about the new Conservative Party of Canada, which is a different organization. "Tory" is simply a nickname, and is not an official designation (some CA types objected, initially, to the use of Tory for the new party.) Why is there no list in the Canadian Alliance and Reform Party of Canada articles showing Stephen Harper as leader of the successor to those parties? Ground Zero | t 11:04, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

My guess is that the number of people who were leaders of the Reform/CA is too short. For reform, there was only one person, and the CA has only had 2. Anyways, I propose that we create a page and move the list there. Your thoughts? Nat Tang ^{ta | co | em} 15:38, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree to that. I don't think it belongs in the PC article, and can live with it being on separate page. Regards, Ground Zero | t 16:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Y Done. Nat Tang ^{ta | co | em} 18:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks muchly. I've made some edits to the new article. Ground Zero | t 18:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

This article ought to be pruned... there's a lot of duplicate information in another article

The Conservative Party of Canada (historical) contains information on the party before it became the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. This page ought only to contain 1942-2004 (+ senate rump) information. After all, the Reform Party page and the Canadian Alliance Page are separate. The conservative party navigation link at the bottom makes no sense unless the proper prune is made mdmenzel 05:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Funny, I was just reading through the page and thinking the same thing ... 11 years later. Obviously this isn't a hotbed of editing activity :-). If I get some time over the next while, I may attempt a bit of a cleanup. Especially regarding some incorrect information regarding the formation of the Liberal-Conservative party. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:37, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Having two separate articles and semi-treating the 1942 renaming as though a entirely distinct entity was formed, with some uncertainty on that point, is extremely confusing. There was a single party from 1867-2003. If the articles are too long then a better split would be to move the full history into a "History of" article with this one containing the key points, the ideology and the groups claiming succession here. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The article would be too long, so this would require a merger and redivision which would make thousands of existing links in articles into redirects, which could be less useful for readers. For example, if the two articles were merged into the "PC Party" article, and then the pre-1943 history hived off into a separate article, all of the links to the current "Conservative Party (historical)" article would now go to the "PC Party" article, even though more relevant information would be found in the "History of the PC Party" article.

I think the articles are clear that there was one party under (at least) two names. If it is confusing, the text could be clarified to avoid confusion. If readers do not read beyond the article title, then there is really little we can do for them. Ground Zero | t 15:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Party on social issues

In the lead it says the party "with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues" that needs to be sourced, this was a party which in the 1980s nearly reintroduced the death penalty and had abortion laws struck down by the supreme court. Threadnecromancer (talk) 01:50, 26 June 2014 (UTC)Threadnecromancer

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sources

This article is around 50 paragraphs long. Only six footnotes. 208.64.157.5 (talk) 03:02, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

edits

User:Ak-eater06, you reverted some fairly significant edits that I made (I was logged out at the time) with no explanation. I believe they are needed and have reinstated. Could you give me an idea what your concern is with those edits? Amandil21 (talk) 15:53, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

User:Amandil21 You're the one who reverted my significant edits. In which I wanted to expand the lead. Why did you revert the edit I worked hard on? Ak-eater06 (talk) 17:13, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

My lead:

The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PC; French: Parti progressiste-conservateur du Canada) was a centre-right federal political party in Canada that existed from 1942 to 2003.

Originally the early Conservative Party that governed Canada under Prime Ministers John A. Macdonald, Robert Borden, and R.B. Bennett, its name was changed to the Progressive Conservative Party in 1942 under the request of Manitoba Progressive premier John Bracken. Bracken became the party's first leader that same year but was unable to defeat William Lyon Mackenzie King's governing Liberals in 1945. Bracken resigned in 1948 and was succeeded by Ontario premier George A. Drew, who drove the Progressive Conservatives' seat count into historically low numbers in 1949 and 1953.

Drew was succeeded by long-time parliamentarian John Diefenbaker in 1956. During Diefenbaker's leadership, the Progressive Conservatives underwent a shift to Red Tory and moderate policies, which contributed to the party's first-ever victory in the 1957 election, in one of the greatest political upsets in Canadian history. The year after, Diefenbaker carried the PCs to the largest federal electoral landslide in history (in terms of proportion of seats), in which the party's share of seats was nearly 80% in the House of Commons. In 1962, the PCs were reduced to a minority government, losing their majority won in 1958. About ten months later, they lost power, ending nearly six years of Diefenbaker's rule.

In the 1967 leadership election, premier of Nova Scotia Robert Stanfield replaced Diefenbaker as leader. Like Diefenbaker, Stanfield modernized the party's rhetoric as he supported official bilingualism. However, Stanfield led the party to three consecutive defeats, all losing to the Liberals' Pierre Trudeau in 1968, 1972 and 1974. This prompted Stanfield to resign and hand over power to Joe Clark. Clark led the party to a minority government victory in the 1979 election, only to lose power nine months later.

Clark lost his role as leader in the 1983 leadership election to prominent Montreal businessman Brian Mulroney. Mulroney was the only leader in the party's history to carry it to back-to-back majority governments in 1984 and 1988. As a result of this, he served as Prime Minister for nearly 9 years until his resignation in 1993, influenced by his declining popularity partly sparked by Mulroney's attempts with the Meech Lake Accord and growing Western alienation that triggered the rise of the more right-wing Reform Party. Mulroney's former attorney general Kim Campbell won the leadership race to succeed him, but only lasted as Prime Minister for four months due to Campbell and the PCs being decimated in the 1993 federal election, winning just two seats, with Campbell losing her own.

Ultimately, the Progressive Conservatives were never able to recover, something proved in the 1997 and 2000 federal elections. When it became clear that neither the Progressive Conservatives nor the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance (successor of the Reform Party) could defeat the governing Liberals that rose to power in the 1993 election, an effort to unite the right-of-centre parties emerged. In 2003, the party membership voted to dissolve the party and merge with the Canadian Alliance to form the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada.

Although they only got the chance to govern Canada for a total of 16 years, its legacy lives on with the Bill of Rights, North American Free Trade Agreement and goods and services tax. The current Conservative Party of Canada is often thought to be grouped into two factions, Red Tories and Blue Tories, the former often being matched with the Progressive Conservative Party.

User:Ak-eater06, if you don't like what I did with the lede, why did you revert all the rest of the edits I made?

As far as the lede is concerned, check out MOS:LEAD, which says, "As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate". This lead was way longer than that and had a whole bunch of detail. I moved a lot of that detail to the history section of the article. Some of the lead is awkwardly written, too.

There are other major problems, namely that most of the article is completely unsourced and the article has two history sections that overlap. I think my edits helped. If you object to my edits, can you propose other ways of condensing the lead and providing sources and organization to this article? It needs a lot of work. Amandil21 (talk) 04:13, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Seeing no response, I have reinstated my edits. Amandil21 (talk) 12:58, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

User:Amandil21, I am so sorry I haven't gotten back to you. I've been busy with other things and my apologies.

I have tried my best to condense the lead and put it in four main paragraphs. Please take a look :) Ak-eater06 (talk) 19:08, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Ak-eater06, thank you very much for responding and for your work on the lede. It is much better. Personally, I would still like it briefer and less detailed, but I'm not going to make a fuss over it. Amandil21 (talk) 02:46, 26 August 2021 (UTC)