Peter Mackay’s announcement that he will be exiting federal politics raises a number of questions. Though he proffered the standard answer of spending more time with his family, there are whispers of doubt amongst Conservatives that there is more to this story. Are we seeing fractures within the Conservative alliance, which has allowed the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) to govern since 2006?
Throughout modern Canadian political history, the Conservatives have only held power when they have been able to hold all of their factions together. John Diefenbaker, Joe Clark, and Brian Mulroney faced this problem as leaders and prime ministers. Whenever the Conservatives were divided, they were in opposition. The most telling example of this was when the then Progressive Conservatives were decimated in the 1993 election, which left them with only two seats after nine years as a majority government, the Reform Party and Bloc Quebecois splitting their seats, ensconcing the Chretien government in place.
The Progressive Conservatives, once again led by Clark, slowly regained seats in Eastern Canada, but they had lost the West to the Reform Party. The Reform Party could not itself make gains into Central and Eastern Canada, as its brand of Conservatism was not palatable there. Even when it tried to remarket itself as the Canadian Alliance, it could not make any significant gains. Canadian conservatism was divided by its ideology – the two camps being the centrists (the Progressive Conservatives and the far right (Canadian Alliance).
In 2003, the Progressive Conservatives held a leadership race, which would be won by Peter Mackay, and it would be he who would enter into talks with Stephen Harper to “unite the Right.” The Canadian Alliance needed the title of Conservative to help win the East, and with the marriage of the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance, it gained this coveted moniker, creating the CPC.
At first there was some trepidation of this new Conservative party, and it lost to Paul Martin’s Liberals in 2005. However, that minority government did not last long, and the newly minted CPC would win with two successive minority governments in 2006 and 2008. This was partially due to the fact that it presented centrist policies that were acceptable to most Canadians, and it was rewarded with a majority government in 2011 for this reason.
Harper’s Conservatives quickly diverted from its previous course of centrism, however, stepping toward the hard right of politics, which has raised some concerns amongst Conservatives. Many in the past felt that the marriage of two factions was more of a hostile take-over, and their musings may have been proven true with a return to the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance platforms.
The departure of a number of cabinet ministers, many former Progressive Conservatives, does not look promising. Jim Prentice’s defeat, himself a former Progressive Conservative who embraced the right, shows the fracture lines that are present here in Alberta. The Wildrose Party has many of the same roots as the Reform Party, and its brand of conservatism was not fully accepted in this past election. Does this portend the preference for more centrist policies in Canada for the next federal election? Peter Mackay helped bind two factions of conservatism together. With him leaving politics, can Harper keep those two sides together much longer?
John Kennair is an international consultant and doctor of laws who lives in St. Albert.
