# Conservative Party of Canada > Not to be confused with the British [[Conservative Party (UK)]]. The **Conservative Party of Canada** (CPC) is the principal party of the Canadian right, formed in 2003 by the merger of the Canadian Alliance — the successor to [[Preston Manning]]'s [[Reform Party of Canada]] — with the old Progressive Conservative Party. The merger ended a decade in which a split right had handed the [[Liberal Party of Canada]] successive majorities, and reunited Western populist conservatives with the party's Red Tory and Quebec remnants under one banner. ## The 2003 Merger The split that made the merger necessary began in 1987, when [[Preston Manning]] founded the [[Reform Party of Canada]] to channel [[Western Alienation]] — the prairie provinces' grievance that Central Canadian elites (Toronto finance, Quebec language politics, Ottawa bureaucracy) dominated national policy at the West's expense. Reform surged federally in 1993, winning 52 seats while the Progressive Conservatives collapsed to just two — the worst defeat for a governing party in Canadian history. The right was now divided between Reform's Western populist base and the Progressive Conservatives' Eastern establishment remnant. Reform rebranded as the Canadian Alliance in 2000 to broaden its appeal eastward, but the effort stalled. In October 2003, Alliance leader [[Stephen Harper]] and Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay negotiated a merger agreement. The Alliance membership voted 96% in favor; the PC side was narrower but sufficient. On December 8, 2003, the Conservative Party of Canada was born. The merger's terms gave the Alliance's populist base the numbers and the PCs' institutional brand the name — a deal that papered over ideological tensions that persist to this day. ## The Harper Era (2006–2015) [[Stephen Harper]] won the CPC's first leadership race in 2004 and led the party to a minority government in 2006, ending thirteen years of [[Liberal Party of Canada]] rule. He governed as a disciplined incrementalist: cutting the GST, toughening criminal sentencing, expanding military spending, and carefully avoiding the [[Social Conservatism]] issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) that could fracture his coalition. Harper won a second minority in 2008 and finally secured a majority in 2011. The majority years saw the party govern as fiscal conservatives and resource-economy boosters — championing oil-sands development, signing the [[NAFTA]] renegotiation groundwork, and positioning Canada as a reliable [[NATO]] ally. Harper's critics charged that his governing style was hyper-centralized, intolerant of dissent within caucus, and hostile to the media and the civil service — complaints that echo the vault's broader [[Conservative Movement]] pattern of leaders who treat institutional checks as obstacles rather than features. The Conservatives lost to [[Justin Trudeau]]'s Liberals in 2015, ending the Harper era. Harper resigned the leadership and retreated to the private sector, but his influence over the party's infrastructure — fundraising networks, riding associations, policy instincts — endured. ## Leadership Transitions The post-Harper succession exposed the party's fault lines: **Andrew Scheer (2017–2020)** won the leadership as a consensus candidate acceptable to both the party's social-conservative and libertarian wings. He lost the 2019 election to [[Justin Trudeau]]'s Liberals despite winning the popular vote — a result that fueled [[Western Alienation]] grievances about Canada's first-past-the-post system. Scheer resigned after revelations about personal expense controversies. **Erin O'Toole (2020–2022)** ran to the right in the leadership race ("Take Back Canada") then pivoted to the center for the 2021 general election, embracing carbon pricing and softening the party's tone on [[Social Conservatism]]. The pivot satisfied neither wing: he lost the election and was ousted by his own caucus in February 2022. **[[Pierre Poilievre]] (2022–present)** won the leadership with 68% on the first ballot, running on a combative [[Populism]] that channeled anger at [[Immigration]] levels, housing costs, [[Climate Change]] policy (specifically the federal carbon tax), and institutional elites. His rhetoric — "gatekeepers," "the elites," "let people be free" — borrowed from the [[Donald Trump]] and [[Brexit]] playbooks while maintaining a distinctly Canadian register. Poilievre pulled the party further from its Red Tory roots and closer to the [[Right-Wing Populism]] template the vault tracks globally. ## The 2025 Election Poilievre entered the April 2025 election as the heavy favorite. The Conservatives had led polls for over two years, [[Justin Trudeau]] had resigned the Liberal leadership amid historic unpopularity, and the party held its strongest fundraising position ever. The result was a shock: [[Mark Carney]], who had replaced Trudeau as Liberal leader and prime minister, won a minority government. Carney neutralized Poilievre's strongest attacks by scrapping the carbon tax and reframing the election around [[Donald Trump]]'s trade threats — casting himself as the steady hand against American economic aggression. The Conservatives won 41.3% of the popular vote — their highest share since [[Brian Mulroney]]'s 1988 landslide — but the vote was inefficiently distributed, translating to fewer seats than the Liberals' lower share. Poilievre lost his own seat in Ottawa, a humiliation that immediately triggered calls for leadership review. The 2025 result reprised the party's recurring dilemma: a populist pitch that energizes the Western base but fails to convert enough seats in Ontario and Quebec, the provinces where Canadian elections are decided. ## Vault Significance The CPC matters to the vault as a case study in the structural tensions of right-wing coalition politics: **The populist-establishment divide.** Every CPC leader since Harper has had to manage the gap between the [[Reform Party of Canada]]'s populist DNA and the governing pragmatism required to win Central Canadian seats. The [[People's Party of Canada]], founded by [[Maxime Bernier]] after he lost the 2017 leadership race, exists to exploit that gap — pulling the CPC rightward on [[Immigration]] and [[Nativism]] without ever winning seats itself. **The American mirror.** The CPC's trajectory — from brokerage party to populist vehicle — parallels the [[Republican Party]]'s evolution under [[Donald Trump]]. The parallels include anti-elite rhetoric, [[Immigration]] hawkishness, [[Climate Change]] skepticism, hostility to legacy media, and a leader-centric style that marginalizes internal dissent. The [[Canadian History Hub]] tracks where the parallels hold and where Canada's parliamentary system and political culture bend the pattern. **Trade and sovereignty.** Harper's embrace of [[Free Trade]] and [[NAFTA]] gave way to Poilievre's more ambivalent stance as [[Donald Trump]]'s tariff threats reshaped the political calculus. The party now must reconcile its [[Free Trade]] heritage with a base that increasingly sees continental integration as a threat to Canadian sovereignty — the same tension the [[USMCA]] page tracks from the American side. ## See Also - [[Canadian History Hub]] — the vault's broader Canada coverage - [[Reform Party of Canada]] — the populist ancestor - [[Stephen Harper]] — the leader who built the merged party - [[Pierre Poilievre]] — the current leader and populist turn - [[Justin Trudeau]] — the Liberal rival who bookends the Harper-to-Poilievre arc - [[Mark Carney]] — the Liberal who won the 2025 election - [[Liberal Party of Canada]] — the perennial opponent - [[People's Party of Canada]] — the right-flank challenger - [[Western Alienation]] — the prairie grievance that birthed Reform - [[Preston Manning]] — the Reform founder - [[Maxime Bernier]] — the PPC founder who split from the CPC - [[Populism]] — the ideological current Poilievre rides - [[Right-Wing Populism]] — the global template - [[Conservative Movement]] — the broader ideological ecosystem