RT_1984 Posted October 19, 2003 Report Posted October 19, 2003 A new website has been launched which will give indepth coverage of the conservative merger as the exciting process unfolds. Information will include key players involved in the merger, potential leadership candidates, and ways to participate at the grassroots level. www.bluedraft.com Don't forget to buy a PC Party Membership via mail, phone, or online: http://www.pcparty.ca/doc/510/ Join the party and vote to ratify the merger. Quote
RT_1984 Posted October 19, 2003 Author Report Posted October 19, 2003 Unite the Right timeline CanWest News Service Wednesday, October 15, 2003 ADVERTISEMENT The road to unite the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance has been fraught with numerous twists, turns and unforeseen obstacles. For many Canadians, however, a merger of federal conservative parties has been deemed essential in order to give the right a legitimate shot at knocking the Liberals from power. • As former prime minister Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative began to lose support among Canadians, especially those in the West who were upset with Ottawa’s overtures to Quebec and lack of progress on issues dear to westerners, the Reform Party of Canada was formed in 1987. Preston Manning, son of former Alberta premier Ernest C. Manning, helped form the fledgling group and was chosen the party’s leader. • After years of developing a groundswell of grassroots support in the West, Deborah Grey wins Reform’s first seat in the House of Commons in a March 13, 1989, byelection in Alberta. • The 1993 federal election marks a breakthrough for the party when Reformers elect 51 MPs to the House of Commons, including Manning. • After the 1997 federal election, the party raises its total to 60 MPs and becomes the official Opposition in the House of Commons, but Reformers fail to extend the party’s base beyond Western Canada and Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s Liberals win their second consecutive majority government. • Throughout 1998, Manning continues bridge-building efforts among like-minded conservatives searching for informal solutions to unite the right. Those efforts were especially focused in Ontario where vote splitting among conservatives was blamed for clearing the way for Grit victories. • March 25, 2000. Reformers, heeding Manning’s plea, vote overwhelmingly to dissolve their party and fight the next election under the banner of the Canadian Alliance. The endorsement ended an oft-divisive two-year crusade by Manning to persuade party members that building a broader coalition of small-c conservatives is their fastest track to power in Ottawa. • At a July 8, 2000, Alliance leadership convention, the party and the nation are stunned when Stockwell Day wins more than two-thirds of delegate support to wrestle the party’s leadership from Manning. • In the November 2000 federal election, the Alliance fails to capitalize on the momentum of that summer’s leadership convention and is defeated soundly by the Liberals. The party retains official Opposition status with 66 seats, but again fails to gain that elusive foothold in Ontario. • Dissent among Canadian Alliance MPs, who claim they can no longer support Day as leader, reaches a boiling point in the spring of 2001 when several MPs, lead by Grey and Chuck Strahl, bolt from the CA benches to sit as the Democratic Representative Caucus. • Later that year, Joe Clark’s Tories, sensing an opportunity to capitalize on Alliance turmoil, invite the CA MPs -- now known as the dissidents -- to sit with the PCs. They accept and the working coalition becomes know as the Progressive Conservative-Democratic Representative Coalition. The group, however, is not formally recognized as a party by the Speaker of the House of Commons. • Pressure on Day to resign as party leader continues throughout 2001 and on Dec. 12 he calls a leadership race for the winter-spring of 2002, and declares himself a candidate. • Stephen Harper is elected leader of the Canadian Alliance on March 20, 2002. by winning more than 55 per cent of the mail-in ballots in the campaign. Day, who was his nearest rival in a field of four candidates, has 37 per cent. Most of the dissident MPs later return to the Alliance benches. • On Aug. 6, 2002, Tory Leader Joe Clark announces he will step down. Later, Harper calls for a joint Tory-Alliance leadership race by the end of the summer, a move that Clark rejects. • At a Tory convention in Edmonton later that month delegates reject a motion to join forces with the Alliance. • On Jan. 15, 2003, Nova Scotia MP Peter MacKay declares his candidacy for the Tory leadership, which he wins on the fourth ballot with 64 per cent of the delegate support in June. MacKay beats Calgary lawyer Jim Prentice, but makes a convention floor deal with candidate David Orchard. The deal included the promise the Tories would run candidates in every riding. • Reports, however, emerge Harper and MacKay agreed in June to begin an exploratory merger process, and talks between party representatives have been ongoing since August. • After weeks of tumultuous negotiations, where talks were on one day but off the next, the Alliance and Tories seemed poised to merge. Compiled by CanWest News Service © Copyright CanWest News Service Quote
westcoast99 Posted October 19, 2003 Report Posted October 19, 2003 (edited) Just like Tory draft. Neat. Edited August 11, 2015 by Gugsy Quote
Mr. Chater Posted October 19, 2003 Report Posted October 19, 2003 Word is coming in from the Progressive Conservative Youth Federation and the Globe and Mail that the Management Committee of the Progressive Conservative Party, the governing body of that Party, will soon debate a resolution on whether or not to cut off sales of new PC memberships. Quote
Cameron Posted October 19, 2003 Report Posted October 19, 2003 I am also launching a website. "yestomerger.org". Will be up in the coming days. Gugsy, you are a trooper. Glad you are a PC.... Quote Economic Left/Right: 3.25 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.26 I want to earn money and keep the majority of it.
dnsfurlan Posted October 20, 2003 Report Posted October 20, 2003 Gugsy, you are a trooper. Glad you are a PC.... You mean a Conservative, now, right? Quote
westcoast99 Posted October 20, 2003 Report Posted October 20, 2003 (edited) Yes Edited August 12, 2015 by Gugsy Quote
Mr. Chater Posted October 20, 2003 Report Posted October 20, 2003 at the bottom of our hearts, we always were Quote
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