Progressive Canadian Party:
The future of Canadian conservatism.

For Immediate Release May 20, 2016

Newmarket, Ont. - The Vancouver Convention of the Conservative Party, beginning May 26, will be a telling moment in the survival of what Preston Manning calls the "conservative movement" and most observers will recognize as the Canadian arm of American neoconservatism.  It will be the first meeting of the movement in Vancouver since the Reform convention in 1997 and the corporate party's first convention since the 2015 defeat.  It is meaningful for former Progressive Conservatives and Progressive Canadians, and indeed for Canadian politics.
 
The election result on October 19, 2015 is reason for members of the new Conservative Party of Canada to think deeply on the future of their party and on whether it really has a place in Canadian political life.

What is clear is that the party formed by the "merger"of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada has been rejected by Canadians who now recognize the result of the merger was not the renewed Progressive Conservative party Tory voters have thought they were voting for in elections since 2003.
 
New Conservative Party policy, politics, outlook and direction and political culture have been imported from the Canadian Alliance and its predecessor the Reform Party.  Progressive Conservative policy, politics, outlook and direction and political culture have been pushed aside and ignored.
 
Some former Canadian Alliance members publicly revisited Preston Manning's infamous "The West wants in" diatribe by claiming "The West wants out."  They echo Stephen Harper's firewall federalism, showing their contempt for democracy and insulting all Canadians in all parts of Canada, North, South, East, and West. The party Stephen Harper founded is not about Tory and Canadian conservative principle.
 
Integrity, parliament, and Canada matter: that is the message of the 2015 election. The party once led by Stephen Harper, and previously by Stockwell Day and Preston Manning under other names, fails on all three counts. They framed the ballot question in the 2015 election. Canadians voted to replace the party, leader, and government in power since January 23, 2006.
 
Progressive Conservatives remaining in the new Conservative Party are justified in feeling betrayed by the policy and leadership of the decade old party.  It is time to either bring that party to an end or to create a renewed Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from the ashes of crushing defeat and rejection by Canadian voters.
 
Canadians will watch the Vancouver convention with interest.  Will we see a renewed Tory party or will the party created in 2003 fail to understand the message sent by Canadians on election day 2015?   "Will Conservatives go back to the future, or look forward to the past," as writer Michael Harris has asked?
 
Those of us who share the "progressive Conservative" vision of the Tory party Sir John A. Macdonald first spoke of in 1854 have reason to take heart in the decision of Canadians on October 19, 2015. The national vision of the party of Confederation, of nation-building, and of Sir John A.'s National Dream of One Dominion from Sea to Sea is endorsed by Canadians who see the divisive politics of the last ten years put to rest.
 
Canadians have moved on. It is time for what was purposely called briefly the "Conservative Party" to do so as well.
 
It is time for Progressive Conservatives to come together to restore the vision to the party which first built a strong, united Canada to take heart in the decision of Canadians. It is time to consider a Progressive Conservative alternative.  To present to Canadians the Progressive Canadian Party
 
This continuing "PC Party" exists to provide a principled home for progressive-conservatives who have decided enough is enough, that a Tory party must again become the party offering to Canadians nation-building and national unity.
 
We invite you to join us and we offer you leadership by example of what Sir John A. Macdonald's "progressive Conservative" party should look like to Canadians today.
 

PC Party Press Releases http://progressivecanadian.ca/index.php/news/press-releases

Progressive Canadian Party responds to
special parliamentary committee on electoral reform.

For Immediate Release May 12, 2016

Newmarket, Ont. - The Progressive Canadian Party believes that fundamental change to our democracy in Canada should be discussed by ALL registered political parties in committee, then considered through a Supreme Court of Canada reference on the outcome as to its constitutionality and meaning for Canadians, and followed by a national referendum on the result.
 
Fundamental change to our democracy, in which the new government has made an arbitrary choice to make 2015 the last election using Canada's system of Single Member Pluralities/Majority (SMP) elections in each riding, sometimes referred to as First Past the Post (FPTP), is too important to be the decision solely of a Special Committee alone dominated by the current government and approved by cabinet.
 
PC Party Leader, the Hon. Sinclair Stevens raised concerns that the process and the principles described by Democratic Institutions Minister, the Hon. Maryam Monsef, exclude our existing system of voting rights as a choice for Canadians and may favour political movements and parties over the democratic rights of Canadians.
 
Mr. Stevens suggested that if a Special Committee is to be struck to discuss these issues, all registered political parties should be consulted, especially since party representation is key to the principles outlined by Minister Monsef and that the virtues of our existing electoral system should be central to the national conversation rather than surrender to the view that "whatever is, is wrong."  A new status quo centred on party and  movements might well lead to priorities and elections concerned mainly with the  interest of party and movements, creating governance by party oligarchies, while systems of ranked ballots might well serve the interest of party insiders only.
 
For these reasons, Mr. Stevens argued with the support of PC Party National Council, a wider discussion is necessary and if a Special Committee of political parties is to be struck in such an extraordinary way then all registered political parties should be consulted both within and outside parliament.
 
Mr. Stevens noted that this was the process engaged when the Standing Committee on Procedures and House Affairs consulted - but then ignored - all party consultation on Bill C-16, the fixed date election act which had such consequence for the 2015 election.
 
He stressed further that an all party Special Committee consulting all registered political parties should be followed by a Supreme Court of Canada reference concerning the constitutionality of any proposal made by the committee and that the proposal should then be the subject of a national referendum given the fundamental changes to Canada's democracy any such change would bring.  The Charlottetown Accord in 1992 alone proposed change of similar consequence in recent memory.
 

 -30-

For more information contact:
The Hon. Sinclair Stevens,
Leader, PC Party
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
1-888-666-3821
 
Brian Marlatt
PC Party candidate-of-record South Surrey-White Rock,
Electoral Reform Spokesman
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Skype
 
Previous Party statements on the issue of Electoral Reform:
http://pcparty.org/index.php/component/content/article/168
http://pcparty.org/index.php/component/content/article/169
http://progressivecanadian.ca/index.php/component/content/article/170