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Unite the Right, also referred to as the United Alternative, was a Canadian political movement from 1997 until 2003. Its goal was to merge the country's two right wing political parties: the Reform Party of Canada (later the Canadian Alliance [CA]) and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The aim was to create a single conservative party that could defeat the governing Liberals. The goal of uniting the right was accomplished in December of 2003 with the formation of the Conservative Party of Canada.
There were many barriers to a merger. Polls had found that two-thirds of Tory voters would vote for the Liberals before the Reform or Canadian Alliance parties. 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.
Disenchantment and Division
The division in the right stemmed from the 1993 election when the upstart Reform Party (formed in 1987) won significant support in the west, and the once powerful PCs were reduced to only two seats. The Reform Party had come into being in 1987, in large part in opposition to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's government in the late 1980s. A significant number of Western Canadians had strongly disliked what they perceived as his pro-Quebec approach. They also viewed the Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Accord as not in the west's interest.
With two right-wing parties, it very quickly became apparent that unseating the Liberals would be near impossible. In the 1997 Canadian federal election both the PCs and the Reform Party polled roughly 19% each respectively. The Reform Party emerged with 60 seats and Official Opposition status while the demoralized PCs emerged from the brink of oblivion with 20 seats and regained party status (a min. of twelve seats is required for official party status and federal funding). More importantly, the Liberals emerged with only a 5 seat majority in the election and many pundits suggested that the combined Tory and Reform votes would have been enough to unseat the Liberals or at least reduce them to minority status. The Liberals have governed Canada since 1993, and have never really been threatened by the divided right. Especially important in the Liberal's electoral success was the province of Ontario. From 1993 to 2004, the Liberals utterly dominated that province. Both the Reform and the PC party received many votes, but because of the first past the post system this was not enough to win more than a handful of Ontario's approximately 103 seats. At the same time the united Ontario Provincial Conservatives, who some suggested were kindred spirits in policy and direction to Reform, had formed a popular provincial government under Premier Mike Harris.
"United" Alternative 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. Therefore the Reform Party launched a number of efforts to convince the Tories to join with them, or to at least not run candidates in the same ridings. Having been rebuffed by Tory leader Joe Clark, the Reform Party eventually launched an effort on its own to unite the right. This became known as the United Alternative Movement, which in 2000 led to the creation of the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, more commonly known as the Canadian Alliance. The party, despite a new name and new leader in Stockwell Day, was still seen by many as merely the Reform Party in new clothes.
Fragmentation After a below-expectation result in the 2000 election and the failure of the CA to reduce Joe Clark's PCs to independent status, the Canadian Alliance began severe in-fighting over the Day's leadership. A number of disaffected Alliance MPs, led by Deborah Grey and Chuck Strahl, left the Alliance caucus. They sat as the Democratic Representative Caucus (DRC) and eventually decided to affiliate themselves with the Tories, sitting as one group in the House of Commons and holding joint meetings.
After the near collapse of the Canadian Alliance and the rise in defections to the Progressive Conservatives it appeared that the right in Canada would remain fractious and fragmented into the foreseeable future. For a brief period three separate elected right-wing political movements existed in the House of Commons in 2001-2002 (the PCs, the CA and the DRC). However, things were soon to change.
New Leadership In April 2002, Stockwell Day was replaced by Stephen Harper, one of the original 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 healm, MPs who had left the party's caucus returned to the Canadian Alliance. With Day no longer running the Canadian Alliance, a merger was much more agreeable to many Tory members. PC Party Leader Joe Clark, who had spurned off many attempts to unite the right during his leadership announced his impending retirement as PC Party Leader in August 2002. A Leadership Convention was scheduled for May 2003.
On May 31, 2003, Peter MacKay won the Tory leadership race. Unlike Joe 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 in regards to creating more unity on the right. Over the summer and autumn of 2003 a series of protracted negotiations by a group of Tory and Alliance emmisaries including Don Mazankowski and Bill Davis for the PCs and Gerry St. Germain and Ray Speaker for the CA. It was later revealed that auto-parts magnate Belinda Stronach acted as a moderator for the discussions. 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 hedgemony. 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.
The New Conservatives After years of struggle, the long awaited goal was realized in Autumn 2003. The summer negotiations eventually produced an "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." The main sticking point during the Autumn negotiations had been the method of choosing the merged party's leader. The Tories pushed for an equal number of votes for each riding, that would benefit their much more national scope and lower membership (65, 000); the Alliance hoped for a one member one vote system that would benefit their much larger western membership (120, 000). Harper conceded the issue. In early December 95.9 percent of the CA membership approved the union and 90.4 percent of the PC Party delegates also endorsed the initiative in a national convention. The party was officially formed on December 8, 2003. Harper was elected leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada on March 20, 2004 and MacKay was appointed deputy leader.
Aftermath Months later, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin would call 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 sponsorhip scandal had knocked some wind out of the Liberal's political sales resulting in the election being backed up to late June as opposed to early April and this allowed the Conservatives to be more prepared for the race, unlike the 2000 Election. For the first time since the 1984 Canadian federal election, a Liberal government would have to deal with a united conservative opposition. Contrary to many predictions the Conservatives ran a well run and unified campaign, unlike the Liberals who faltered badly until the last two weeks. Polls quickly 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 Tories 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-Tories also chose to support the Liberals. These included MPs Scott Brison, Keith Martin and John Herron who all defected to the Liberals as well as lukewarm endorsements of Liberal Party candidates at the onset of the campaign being extended by former Tory MPs Joe Clark, André Bachand, Rick Borotsik, and former federal PC Party President Bruck Easton.
Harper's Conservatives emerged from the election with a larger parliamentary Caucus of 99 MPs (plus one independent conservative MP Chuck Cadman who was re-elected) while 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. Some political analysts such as Allan Gregg and Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hebért have suggested that the next election which is anticipated in autumn 2005 or spring 2006 could result in a Conservative government.
Related Links:
External links - CBC News Indepth: Conservative Party (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/conservativeparty/)
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