Ghost of a flea

Conservative? Yes!

Sounds like Catholicism Wow! ... Progressive Conservative Party leader Peter MacKay has launched a website for PC Party members wishing to work toward the ratification of the recent agreement to form a single Conservative Party in Canada. The site includes information on the ratification process and on how to get involved locally.

The Blue Draft and Yes for Unity sites provide further information. Meantime, the maple leaf has been replaced by the name "David Orchard" at David Orchard's website. His socialism and isolationism may have vampirized the weakened rump of the PC Party but he still does not have the votes to block a merger. His attempt to block the democratic process by lawsuit shall fail.

And another thing. Orchard and his ilk claim a merger would mean the end of Canada's oldest political party and the party of Canada's first Prime Minister (amongst other accomplishments). In fact, the Conservative Party has only been the Progressive Conservative Party since 1942. Today's moonbats would have us believe a merger with the Alliance would mean a loss of the party's Progressive tradition when in fact the Progressives were... wait for it... a western protest party! Many Progressives were "Liberals in a hurry" and some were inspired by Fabian socialism but the bulk of the movement was annoyed by MacDonald's Trudeau-style "national policy" and favoured north-south free trade. The more things change...

Orchard's appeal to the party of Sir John A. MacDonald is equally problematic. At the time of Confederation the party was called... wait for it... the Liberal Conservative Party. They dropped the "Liberal" part for their 1896 victory, perhaps to avoid confusion with their opponents in the Liberal Party. A Canadian Alliance version of the story claims the official name of the party remained the Liberal Conservatives right through to 1942. The Britannica agrees with them.

* The "Liberal-Conservative Party" (est. 1854) formed the first Dominion government in 1867, led by Liberal-Conservative Sir John A. Macdonald.
* Macdonald had already served in a succession of colonial coalitions with Liberals (1854) and George Brown Reformers (1864).
* The first Ontario Tory government was actually a Liberal-Conservative coalition with Reformers, headed by someone who called himself a liberal Reformer, John S. Macdonald (1867-71)
* Rowell Liberals and Borden Conservatives formed a pro-Conscription coalition known as Unionists in 1914, who ran as the "Union Party" in 1917 and controlled the government until 1920.
* The "National Liberal and Conservative Party" was the name adopted in 1921 since the party consisted of both Liberals and Tories.
* Only from 1925 to 1942 was it known by default as the Conservative Party. It was still officially the Liberal Conservative Party.
* Another merger took place in 1942 with the Progressive Party, resulting in the name "Progressive Conservative Party", led by a Manitoba Liberal-Progressive with no Conservative experience, John Bracken.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at November 3, 2003 06:10 AM