The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PC; ) was a centre to centre-right federal political party in Canada that existed from 1942 to 2003.
From Canadian Confederation in 1867 until 1942, the original Conservative Party of Canada participated in numerous governments and had multiple names. In 1942, its name was changed to the Progressive Conservative Party under the request of Manitoba Progressive Premier John Bracken. In the 1957 federal election, John Diefenbaker carried the Tories to their first victory in 27 years. The year after, he carried the PCs to the largest federal electoral landslide in history (in terms of proportion of seats). During his tenure, human rights initiatives were achieved, most notably the Bill of Rights. In the 1963 federal election, the PCs lost power. The PCs would not gain power again until 1979, when Joe Clark led the party to a minority government victory. However, the party lost power only nine months later. In 1983, Clark lost his leadership role to Brian Mulroney, who helped the PC Party gain popularity in Quebec. Mulroney won back-to-back majority governments in 1984 and 1988, and during his tenure, major economic reforms such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the goods and services tax (GST) were introduced.
The unpopularity of the GST, the government's failed attempts with the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, and the early 1990s recession, caused the party to become heavily unpopular, and thus collapse in the 1993 federal election, winning just two seats. Western Canadian PC support transferred to the more right-wing Reform Party, whereas PC support from Quebec transferred to the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois. Ultimately, the Progressive Conservatives did not recover in the subsequent 1997 and 2000 federal elections. When it became clear that neither the Progressive Conservatives nor the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance (the latter being the successor of the Reform Party) could defeat the incumbent Liberals that governed since 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.
History
Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, belonged to the Liberal-Conservative Party ().
The federal Tories governed Canada for over 40 of the country's first 70 years of existence. However, the party spent the majority of its history in opposition as the nation's number-two federal party, behind the Liberal Party of Canada. From 1896 to 1993, the Tories formed a government six times—from 1911 to 1921, briefly in 1926, from 1930 to 1935, from 1957 to 1963, from 1979 to 1980 and from 1984 to 1993. It stands as the only Canadian party to have won more than 200 seats in an election—a feat it accomplished twice: in 1958 and 1984.
The party suffered a decade-long decline following the 1993 federal election and formally dissolved on December 7, 2003, when it merged with the Canadian Alliance to form the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada. The last meeting of the Progressive Conservative federal caucus was held in early 2004. The Conservative Party of Canada took power in 2006 and governed under the leadership of Stephen Harper until 2015, when it was defeated by the Liberal Party under Justin Trudeau.
Between the party's founding in 1867 and its adoption of the "Progressive Conservative" name in 1942, the party changed its name several times. It was most commonly known as the Conservative Party.
Several loosely associated provincial Progressive Conservative parties continue to exist in Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. As well, a small rump of Senators opposed the merger, and continued to sit in the Parliament of Canada as Progressive Conservatives. The last one of them rescinded their party status in 2016. The Yukon association of the party renamed itself as the Yukon Party in 1990. The British Columbia Progressive Conservative Party changed its name to the British Columbia Conservative Party in 1991. Saskatchewan's Progressive Conservative Party effectively ceased to exist in 1997, when the Saskatchewan Party formed – primarily from former PC Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) with a few Saskatchewan Liberal MLAs joining them.