Читать книгу Full Circle: Death and Resurrection In Canadian Conservative Politics - Bob Plamondon - Страница 11

Before turning to John Diefenbaker, it is worth reviewing the events that led to the change in the party’s name, from Conservative to Progressive Conservative. The change occurred after Bennett’s tenure and during a twenty-three-year period when Conservatives were out of power. To understand the significance of the name change, we need to look at the history of the Progressive Party.

The Progressive Party was a significant force in federal politics in the early 1920s. At its peak, it was the second largest party in the House of Commons, winning 65 seats in the 1921 general election. Preston Manning credits the Progressive Party with pressuring the government to pass the 1930 constitutional amendment that transferred the ownership of natural resources from the federal government to the prairie provinces. Many similarities can be found between the Progressive Party of the 1920s and the Reform Party of the 1990s. Both were western-based and populist. Both believed in similar approaches to democratic inclusiveness. They shared a distrust of mainstream political parties and advocated giving more power directly to voters through initiatives such as referendum, recall, and more free votes in the House of Commons. Both parties were heavily influenced by social issues with identifiable spiritual dimensions. The Progressive Party supported free trade, and was a voice against the power and interests of big business, particularly in the sectors of transportation and agriculture. The Progressive Party carried a more agrarian influence than Reform, likely because of the era in which it existed. On matters of social policy, both Reform and the Progressives were strongly conservative. Finally, Reform and Progressives built voter support on what was otherwise the electoral base of the Conservative party while in government. Unlike Reform, however, Progressives were able to establish some popularity in Ontario.

Among the more notable Progressive politicians was John Bracken, who served as the Liberal-Progressive premier of Manitoba from 1922 to 1942.When Bracken was elected leader of the federal Conservative party on December 11, 1942 (at a convention in which John Diefenbaker was a candidate), he insisted that the party be called the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

Many Canadians believed that the term progressive was added to indicate a more compassionate form of conservatism. The history of the Progressive Party shows that this was not the case. When the 2003 merger of the PCs and the Alliance was analyzed, critics cited the dropping of the progressive moniker as evidence of a hard shift in policy to the right. The implication was that if the party was no longer progressive, then perhaps it had become regressive. The Progressive Party was historically a closer cousin to the Reform party than it was to the so-called Red Tories, who thought of themselves as the progressive wing of the party. When John Bracken changed the party name in 1942, an important historical connector to Progressive—some would say Reform—values was symbolically lost.

Unfortunately for conservatives, the name change was of no clear immediate electoral benefit, as the Progressive Conservative Party did not achieve power for fifteen years, until John Diefenbaker led the charge in the election of 1957.