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As mentioned earlier, here's an essay I wrote the morning after the 1997 election, announcing the death of the Progressive Conservatives. A few rough spots I'd re-work were I to do it again, but overall, I'm happy with how it turned out. I'm not yet ready to write a similar eulogy for the Liberals; I think they still may be able to move back towards the centre.
Death of a Friend
June 3rd, 1997
I’ve had to say good-bye to an old friend. It’s never easy, seeing them go from a robust, powerful force to a mere shadow of their former self, kept alive by only the most extraordinary of measures. But now I must admit it: the Progressive Conservative Party is dead.
It’s difficult to believe that the party of Sir John A. Macdonald, of John Diefenbaker, even of Brian Mulroney is now in the throes of rigor mortis. However, the election of a mere twenty Tory members of Parliament on June 2nd is the final nail in the coffin of one of Canada’s oldest political parties.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Two consecutive terms of majority government under Mulroney, a feat last performed by Louis St Laurent some forty years earlier, should have brought in a new, dominant era for the Tories. Their backrooms were filled with smoky conversations suggesting the Liberals had finally been displaced as Canada’s natural governing party.
But public distaste for the Mulroney government lead to the disastrous 1993 election, where the Tory campaign suffered from daily collapses and flip-flops. Overnight, Kim Campbell went from being Canada’s first female Prime Minister to an unemployed political scientist. And the descent began in earnest. The Tory long knives last used against Joe Clark were brought back, with Campbell unceremoniously dumped for Jean Charest, one of two Tory MPs to survive the 1993 massacre.
Jean Charest spent the next three and a half years trying to rebuild the party. No potluck supper was too small, no bus ride too long in his constant quest to shore up the fading Tory fortunes. Criss-crossing the country, rousing dispirited members: these were the jobs of Jean Charest.
In 1995, Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s mishandling of Quebec’s referendum rocketed Jean Charest to national prominence. He became the voice of federalism in Quebec. Even Chretien’s fit of pique, cutting off Charest’s speech following the narrowest of victories, couldn’t diminish the accomplishment. Jean Charest became Canada’s favourite political leader, and Quebec’s favourite federalist voice.
But this was all for naught. The same Tory strategists who lead the party from a majority government to obscurity brought forward two more self-destructive strategies for the 1997 campaign. First, they shifted party policy to the right to compete with the Reform party. This pushed offstage the left-of-centre “Red” Tories, who could otherwise have appealed to disenchanted Liberal supporters. Second, in a desperate attempt to distance the party from its two most recent terms in office, they sold voters Jean Charest instead of the party, referring only in small print to the PC Party, trying to distance themselves from the hated Mulroney Progressive Conservatives.
The 1997 election results were an unmitigated disaster for the Tories. Their gains in Atlantic Canada came from previously Liberal ridings repudiating the right-wing economic policies of the ruling Liberal party. Their move to the right was ignored in the vote rich regions of Ontario and the West, areas crucial to the survival of the party. Selling the leader rather than the party means all the work of the ‘97 campaign will be lost when Jean Charest leaves federal politics in the next few years. The Tories will thus be left with no identity, nor policy, nor leader.
Canada used to be a nation of two founding political parties. Today the Liberal Party is all that remains. As for the Progressive Conservatives? Requiescat in Pacem.
Death of a Friend
June 3rd, 1997
I’ve had to say good-bye to an old friend. It’s never easy, seeing them go from a robust, powerful force to a mere shadow of their former self, kept alive by only the most extraordinary of measures. But now I must admit it: the Progressive Conservative Party is dead.
It’s difficult to believe that the party of Sir John A. Macdonald, of John Diefenbaker, even of Brian Mulroney is now in the throes of rigor mortis. However, the election of a mere twenty Tory members of Parliament on June 2nd is the final nail in the coffin of one of Canada’s oldest political parties.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Two consecutive terms of majority government under Mulroney, a feat last performed by Louis St Laurent some forty years earlier, should have brought in a new, dominant era for the Tories. Their backrooms were filled with smoky conversations suggesting the Liberals had finally been displaced as Canada’s natural governing party.
But public distaste for the Mulroney government lead to the disastrous 1993 election, where the Tory campaign suffered from daily collapses and flip-flops. Overnight, Kim Campbell went from being Canada’s first female Prime Minister to an unemployed political scientist. And the descent began in earnest. The Tory long knives last used against Joe Clark were brought back, with Campbell unceremoniously dumped for Jean Charest, one of two Tory MPs to survive the 1993 massacre.
Jean Charest spent the next three and a half years trying to rebuild the party. No potluck supper was too small, no bus ride too long in his constant quest to shore up the fading Tory fortunes. Criss-crossing the country, rousing dispirited members: these were the jobs of Jean Charest.
In 1995, Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s mishandling of Quebec’s referendum rocketed Jean Charest to national prominence. He became the voice of federalism in Quebec. Even Chretien’s fit of pique, cutting off Charest’s speech following the narrowest of victories, couldn’t diminish the accomplishment. Jean Charest became Canada’s favourite political leader, and Quebec’s favourite federalist voice.
But this was all for naught. The same Tory strategists who lead the party from a majority government to obscurity brought forward two more self-destructive strategies for the 1997 campaign. First, they shifted party policy to the right to compete with the Reform party. This pushed offstage the left-of-centre “Red” Tories, who could otherwise have appealed to disenchanted Liberal supporters. Second, in a desperate attempt to distance the party from its two most recent terms in office, they sold voters Jean Charest instead of the party, referring only in small print to the PC Party, trying to distance themselves from the hated Mulroney Progressive Conservatives.
The 1997 election results were an unmitigated disaster for the Tories. Their gains in Atlantic Canada came from previously Liberal ridings repudiating the right-wing economic policies of the ruling Liberal party. Their move to the right was ignored in the vote rich regions of Ontario and the West, areas crucial to the survival of the party. Selling the leader rather than the party means all the work of the ‘97 campaign will be lost when Jean Charest leaves federal politics in the next few years. The Tories will thus be left with no identity, nor policy, nor leader.
Canada used to be a nation of two founding political parties. Today the Liberal Party is all that remains. As for the Progressive Conservatives? Requiescat in Pacem.