CHRIS WADDELL:
Alliance-Progressive Conservative merger
CBC News Viewpoint | October 20, 2003 | More from Chris Waddell
If it all seems more than a little familiar, that's because it is. This script has been played out at least three times before – and on every occasion with the same result.
Every few years small "c" conservatives get desperate. Worried that they will never again form a national government, they reorganize, reform themselves, sometimes even change their name. At the same time, more often than not, the SOS goes out to a provincial premier to come to the rescue of the party.
Along with the recently-announced planned merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives, the names of former Ontario premier Mike Harris and current Alberta Premier Ralph Klein have been floated as potential leaders of the now reunited small "c" movement to run under the name the Conservative Party of Canada
But it's all been done before.
In 1942, Mackenzie King had been Liberal leader for more than 20 years and prime minister for about three-quarters of that time. The Conservatives were desperate and turned to the very successful premier of Manitoba and leader of that province's Progressive party, John Bracken, to become national Conservative leader.
In exchange for accepting the job, he demanded the party add Progressive to its name and the Progressive Conservatives were born.
Six years and one electoral defeat at the hands of King later, Bracken was gone and the Liberal prime minister was nearing retirement.
This time the Progressive Conservatives chose Ontario Premier George Drew as their new leader. He was defeated handily twice by Liberal Louis St. Laurent and resigned in 1956.
In centennial year, 1967, Lester Pearson was nearing the end of his tenure as prime minister and the Tories looked again to the provinces, this time choosing Nova Scotia Premier Robert Stanfield.
In the face of Pierre Trudeau's 1968 leadership victory, Stanfield's time as Tory leader turned out to be just as successful as previous premier-saviours. He came close in 1972 but close doesn't count and he left in 1976.
So what's different this time? Well, actually nothing.
The small "c" conservatives are desperate, thinking they are never going to win again and so they're going to change their name and unite behind... a provincial premier?
This isn't the United States where four of the past five presidents won election as president after serving terms as state governors.
In Canada's 136 years, a provincial premier has never led a federal party to victory and become prime minister.
The problem the "new" Conservative Party faces is exactly the same as the one the old Progressive Conservative party faced for more than the past half-century under a succession of premier-leaders: What to do about Quebec?
Since Confederation only two governments have won elections with 50 per cent or more of the total vote. They were both Progressive Conservatives – John Diefenbaker in 1958 and Brian Mulroney in 1984.
In both cases they had strong support from Quebec voters. In 1958, it was because it was clear the Tories were going to win nationally and Quebec didn't want to be left out. Diefenbaker won 50 of the province's 75 seats.
In 1984, Brian Mulroney built a coalition that included all the groups in the "new" Conservative party plus the soft sovereigntists in Quebec. The result – 58 of Quebec's 75 seats. Four years later in the free trade election, the PC total in Quebec went to 63.
But that four years also contained the seeds of what broke apart Mulroney's coalition: special status for Quebec.
It was expressed in the form of awarding a CF-18 repair contract to Montreal's Canadair Ltd. even though Winnipeg's Bristol Aerospace submitted a lower bid, and in the Meech Lake Accord, followed after its failure by the Charlottetown Accord.
In the West, they were the springboards for Preston Manning and the Reform party, with its demand that all provinces be treated equally. In Quebec, the rejection of Meech Lake led to the creation of the Bloc Québécois and the Mulroney coalition was decimated – reduced to two seats in 1993.
A decade later there is no sign the "new" Conservatives are anywhere in Quebec. That might not be so important if the Bloc was going to win 45-55 seats in the next federal election. It's more likely, though, that the BQ will win 10-15.
Handing the remaining 60 seats to a Paul Martin-led Liberal party puts the Conservatives in a huge hole – the same hole they have been in for the past 60 years.
The new party's policies may help a bit but it's hard to see how the former Alliance elements of the party can budge on special status. Even though the Parti Québécois is no longer in power, there is no sign that Quebec is anxious to become just one of 10 under Jean Charest.
It's too early to know what the new party's policies will be on the issue yet much to the chagrin of the small "c" conservatives, Quebec continues to hold their electoral fate in its hands and there's no sign the "new" Conservative party has any idea what to do about that.
They can content themselves with the knowledge that in 1930, 1958 and 1979 Canadians were so fed up with Liberal governments that they elected the Conservatives – twice with a majority and once in a short-lived minority.
At some point that will happen again although there's nothing in the current Alliance-PC merger that suggests that day is coming any time soon.
Maybe the best approach for the new party would be to jump a generation or two. Against the senior citizen Paul Martin and a Liberal government campaigning for a fourth term choose a young leader, a fresh face that isn't a former premier, who can emphasize the generational difference.
Wait. Wasn't that the 36-year-old Joe Clark in 1976?
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CHRIS WADDELL
POLITICAL COLUMNIST
Christopher Waddell is the first occupant of the Carty Chair in Business and Financial Journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Waddell has a Ph.D. in History from York University and has served as Parliamentary bureau chief for CBC Television news, a senior editor with the Financial Post, a reporter with the Report on Business, and as Ottawa bureau chief, associate editor and national editor for the Globe and Mail.
He writes for CBC News Online on topics of interest in Canadian politics.
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