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The Parti conservateur du Québec (in English: Conservative Party of Quebec) was a political party in Quebec, Canada.
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Origins
The party originated as the parti bleu which was formed around 1850 by the followers of Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine. The parti bleu opposed the anti-clericalism and radicalism of its rival, the parti rouge of Louis-Joseph Papineau.
The parti bleu supported the role of the clergy in Quebec society. Members of the parti bleu, led by George-Étienne Cartier from Canada East, joined with the followers of Sir John A. Macdonald in Canada West to form a coalition government with Cartier as co-premier from 1857 to 1862. It was out of this coalition that the Conservative Party was formed (then known as Liberal-Conservative), laying the basis for Confederation in 1867.
Post-Confederation
With Confederation and Quebec's entry as a province, what had been the parti bleu became the Quebec wing of Macdonald's Conservative Party. It formed the government in the province, with Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau as Quebec's first premier. Cartier acted as Macdonald's Quebec lieutenant in the federal House of Commons. The Conservatives dominated Quebec politics at both the federal and provincial level for the next 30 years. The Conservatives held power in Quebec City for 25 out of 30 years, providing eight of the province's ten premiers in that period.
However, the party became increasingly divided between a moderate wing and an Ultramontane wing of Catholic fundamentalists. As well, the party's links with the federal Conservatives harmed the party as the Tories in English Canada became increasingly identified as hostile to French Canadians and Quebec. The execution of Louis Riel in 1885 outraged French Canadians and hurt the Macdonald Conservatives at the polls.
After Macdonald's death in 1891, the coalition that formed the national Conservatives unravelled, particularly around the Manitoba Schools Question that pitted English-Canadian Protestants against French-Canadian Catholics. This issue essentially ended the possibility of a significant French-Canadian presence in western Canada.
The federal Conservatives lost the 1896 federal election, largely due to the collapse of their support in Quebec. The provincial Conservative government of Edmund James Flynn lost the 1897 Quebec election.
With the defeats of 1896 and 1897, the Conservatives became a minority party in Quebec at both levels of government. The Conservative Party of Quebec never formed another provincial government. The Quebec Liberals held power without interruption for the next 38 years.
Decline and re-emergence as Union Nationale
Conservative fortunes were further hurt by the Conscription Crisis of 1917 when the federal Conservative government of Robert Borden invoked conscription against the opposition of Quebec. This led to riots in the province.
In 1933, Maurice Duplessis became leader of the Quebec Conservatives. The next year, the ruling Liberal party split when a group of nationalist Liberals dissatisfied with the government of Louis-Alexandre Taschereau bolted from the party to form the Action libérale nationale or ALN. Duplessis wooed the dissident party and, two weeks before the 1935 election, the Conservatives and ALN formed a "Union Nationale" alliance to contest the election. The alliance was later formalized as a merger into a single political party, the Union Nationale. The UN took power in the 1936 election, and went on to dominate Quebec politics until Duplessis died in 1959.
Leaders of the Parti conservateur du Québec
- Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau 1867-1873 (premier 1867-1873)
- Gédéon Ouimet 1873-1874 (premier 1873-1874)
- Charles-Eugène Boucher de Boucherville 1874-1878 (premier 1874-1878, 1891-1892)
- Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau 1878-1882 (premier 1879-1882)
- Joseph-Alfred Mousseau 1882-1884 (premier 1882-1884)
- John Jones Ross 1884-1887 (premier 1884-1887)
- Louis-Olivier Taillon 1887-1896 (premier 1887, 1892-1896)
- Edmund James Flynn 1896-1904 (premier 1896-1897)
- Pierre-Évariste Leblanc 1905-1908
- Joseph-Mathias Tellier 1909-1915
- Philémon Cousineau 1915-1916
- Arthur Sauvé 1916-1929
- Camillien Houde 1929-1932
- Maurice Duplessis 1933-1936 (later, premier as head of Union Nationale)
Election results
| General election | # of candidates | # of seats won | % of popular vote |
| 1867 | 69 | 51 | 59.90% |
| 1871 | 67 | 46 | 56.81% |
| 1875 | 68 | 44 | 56.53% |
| 1878 | 66 | 32 | 51.50% |
| 1881 | 62 | 48 | 54.12% |
| 1886 | 63 | 26 | 48.09% |
| 1890 | 62 | 24 | 46.47% |
| 1892 | 71 | 51 | 53.39% |
| 1897 | 67 | 23 | 43.82% |
| 1900 | 34 | 7 | 42.08% |
| 1904 | 24 | 6 | 31.27% |
| 1908 | 62 | 14 | 39.92% |
| 1912 | 75 | 16 | 42.68% |
| 1916 | 55 | 6 | 35.09% |
| 1919 | 22 | 5 | 19.50% |
| 1923 | 71 | 20 | 40.47% |
| 1927 | 69 | 9 | 35.45% |
| 1931 | 89 | 11 | 43.06% |
| 1935 | 34 | 16 | 18.84% |
See also
- Union nationale
- Politics of Quebec
- List of Quebec general elections
- List of Quebec premiers
- List of Quebec leaders of the Opposition
- National Assembly of Quebec
- Timeline of Quebec history
- Political parties in Quebec
- List of elections in the Province of Canada
External links
- National Assembly historical information (http://www.assnat.qc.ca/fra/patrimoine/)
- La Politique québécoise sur le Web (http://www.quebecpolitique.com/)fr:Parti conservateur du Québec