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Conservative Party

On October 16th, 2003, the leaders of the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada announced an agreement-in-principle to unite under a new political banner. In December 2003, the merger was overwhelmingly ratified by members of both parties and the Conservative Party of Canada was officially born. This unification of Canada’s conservative parties restored the national political movement.

The new Conservative Party of Canada elected Stephen Harper as its first leader on March 20th, 2004. Shortly after Paul Martin’s Liberal government was defeated on a motion of non-confidence, Canadians voted for change in a general election on January 23rd, 2006. Two weeks later, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet were sworn in to lead the new Government of Canada. When the global economic recession threatened, the Harper Government took timely and prudent action to ensure Canada remained on track for long-term stability. Canadians trusted a Conservative Government to continue leading Canada on a path for economic success when faced with another general election in October 2008.

The Conservative government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper was the third-longest serving minority government in Canadian history and the longest Conservative minority government ever. The Conservatives won 124 seats of 308 national seats (36.3 percent of total votes) in the 2006 election and, following subsequent by-elections, had 127 seats. The party had a solid base in Western Canada, where it holds 67 of the 93 seats in the four westernmost provinces and the Yukon Territory as well as all of Alberta's 28 seats. Since 2000, it made steady inroads in rural and suburban Ontario, winning 41 seats in the province in 2006. The Conservatives made a breakthrough in Quebec province in 2006, electing 10 members in the Quebec City area and eastern Quebec, and then added an eleventh seat in a 2007 by-election. The party also held eight of Atlantic Canada's thirty-two seats. However, the Conservatives remain shut out of Canada's three largest cities - Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal.

With its western base largely secure, the Conservatives were on the offensive in the next federal election, fighting for additional seats in several key two and three-way regional contests: against the Liberals in Ontario and Atlantic Canada; against the Liberals and NDP in Northern Ontario; against the Bloc in rural Quebec; and, against the Liberals and NDP in Winnipeg and Vancouver. The Conservatives reportedly hoped to double their seat total in francophone rural Quebec province in the next election, where they were increasingly seen as the most accommodating of the federalist parties. Polls suggested the party was neck-and-neck with the Liberals in that province, and may even have moved ahead as the leading federalist choice of Quebecers outside of Montreal. The party was also looking for gains in suburban Ontario province as well as in Vancouver. The Conservative Party was the best funded and election-ready of the major parties, with a solid "core" base of supporters of approximately 30 percent nationally.

Party strategists regarded PM Harper, its leader since 2004, as the party's greatest political asset and tactician. His cabinet included senior ministers from Western Canada as well as Ontario and Quebec, including Jim Flaherty (Ontario - Finance), John Baird (Ontario - Environment), David Emerson (British Columbia - International Trade), Stockwell Day (British Columbia - Public Safety), Peter MacKay (Nova Scotia - Defense), and Jim Prentice (Alberta - Industry). In Quebec, Lawrence Cannon (Quebec - Transport) also acted as PM Harper's senior political minister or "lieutenant" in the province, while Maxime Bernier serves as Foreign Minister. However, PM Harper's tendency to centralize decision-making in the Prime Minister's Office - to an even greater degree than his predecessors - limited his ministers' abilities to carve their own political profiles, leaving the PM as the government's very public face.

The Conservatives' brand strength lay in "hard" issues such as tax cuts, the economy, security, and tackling crime. The party had developed its twin campaign themes of "Leadership" and "Getting the Job Done" focusing on government accountability, tax cuts, crime, parental choice in child care, "realistic" environmental choices, stronger defense, and national security. The party presented PM Harper as a decisive, fiscally responsible leader in contrast to Liberal chief Stephane Dion, whom the Conservatives claim is "weak," unable to set priorities, and "not worth the risk."

Conservative political messaging targets the middle-class - especially families - and has attempted to align the Conservatives "on the side of those who work hard, pay their taxes, and play by the rules." Popular suspicion of an extreme right-wing "hidden agenda" on social issues has largely dissipated, although the party remains further to the right of majority public opinion on issues such as climate change and same-sex marriage, and the government's alleged "take-no-prisoners" style continues to raise some concerns about whether the public should trust the Conservatives with a majority mandate.

Controversy over the future of the Canadian Forces' mission in Afghanistan essentially disappeared following the 13 March 2008bipartisan vote in the Commons to extend the mission to 2011. Support for the Conservatives remained strongest among men, but lags among urban voters, women, and ethnic minorities. The latter traditionally supported the Liberal Party, but the Conservatives made efforts to reach out to specific ethnic groups; the government, for example, feted Ukrainian President Yushchenko 26-28 May 2008 and invited him to address a fairly rare joint session of Parliament, in recognition of the Ukraine's sizeable diaspora, particularly in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

When the Liberal-NDP-Bloc Quebecois Coalition rejected the 2011 Budget and force an unnecessary election, Canadians responded by electing a strong, stable, national majority Conservative Government. On October 19, 2015 Canadians returned a new team of 99 Conservative MPs to Parliament. In a close and hard-fought election, Conservatives faced difficult results across the country while making gains in Quebec.

In the period of transition following the 2015 election, the new Conservative Official Opposition selected the Hon. Rona Ambrose as interim leader. With Rona as Interim leader, and a strong Conservative team of MPs and volunteers, the Conservative Party acted as a formidable opposition to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

On May 27th, 2017, in what turned out to be the biggest leadership race in Canadian history, over 141,000 votes were cast for the new CPC leader. Andrew Scheer emerged victorious and become the second permanent leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. With its new leader in place, the Conservative Party is fully prepared to fight the 2019 election.