Alberta Progressive Conservatives: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Alberta Progressive Conservative party is a provincial right of centre party in the Canadian province of Alberta. The PC party has formed provincial government, without interruption, since 1971 under the leadership of Peter Lougheed (1971-1985), Don Getty (1985-1992) and current Premier Ralph Klein (1992-present).

The Tories were a marginal party in Alberta for most of the province's history. In the province's first election, held in 1905, the Conservatives, led by future Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, won only two seats and were barely able to improve on that in subsequent elections. The main policy difference between the Tories and the Alberta Liberal Party was over the Tories' belief that the province should control its natural resources, which the province had been denied.

In 1913, the Tories achieved a breakthrough winning 18 seats and 45% of the vote. Despite this result, and an even better result in 1917, they were still unable to beat the Liberals. The Tories then split into 'traditional' and 'radical' camps. The party collapsed, and was unable to run a full slate of candidates in the 1921 election. Only one Conservative MLA was returned to the Legislature in this election in which the new United Farmers of Alberta defeated the Liberals and took power.

For the next fifty years, the Tories would be unable to elect more than a half dozen MLAs. The party was marginalized after the UFA was able to negotiate the province's control of its resources from Ottawa, denying the Tories their major policy plank.

In 1935, the UFA collapsed. The Social Credit took power on a populist and Christian conservative platform. Social Credit attracted conservative voters for decades, particularly after the party moved away from its radical social credit economic theories, and embraced fiscal conservatism.

In the late 1930s, the Conservatives and Liberals formed a united front in an attempt to fight Social Credit and, as a result, no Conservative candidates ran in 1940, 1944 and 1948. Supporters of both parties ran instead as independents.

The failure of the coalition strategy led to the reemergence of separate Liberal and Conservative parties in the early 1950s. The Tories only nominated five candidates in the 1952 election, only one of who won election.

The Tories became Progressive Conservatives in 1959 in order to conform with the name of the federal Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. the party continued to be unable to improve their fortunes, and lost their only seats in the legislature.

In March 1965, Peter Lougheed became leader of the party, and began transforming it into a political force by combining conservative financial principles with a modernist, urban outlook. This approach was in stark contrast to the parochialism and rural agrarianism of Social Credit.

In 1967, Lougheed's Tories achieved an electoral breakthrough, electing seven MLAs. Lougheed became the province's Official opposition.

In 1968, Social Credit Premier Ernest Manning stepped down after twenty five years, and was replaced by Harry E. Strom. Strom was unable to reinvigorate the tired, agrarian Social Credit party, which had been in government since the Great Depression. Albertans, particularly those associated with the booming oil industry, began to turn to the young and dynamic Lougheed Tories.

In 1971, the Progressive Conservatives defeated Social Credit, winning 49 seats to Social Credit's 25. The party formed a majority government, with Lougheed as Premier.

In power, the Progressive Conservatives fought a long battle with the federal government over control of Alberta's natural resources (particularly oil). The oil industry provided the Alberta government with large revenue surpluses that allowed it to maintain Alberta as the only jurisdiction without a provincial retail sales tax. Alberta experienced a large development boom, particularly in Calgary, in the 1970s and 1980s.

During the Lougheed years, Alberta became a virtual one-party state, carrying almost all the seats in the provincial legislature. Lougheed's successor's, Don Getty and Ralph Klein, have been unable to match the Lougheed Tories' dominance in the provincial legislature, but both have enjoyed large majorities nevertheless.

Tensions have developed within the party between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives as the former have raised concerns about issues such as same sex marriage. This has motivated Klein to muse about Alberta using the Canadian Constitution's notwithstanding clause to deny gay couples rights accorded to them by the courts. Alberta under the Tories has also been the province most willing to challenge Canada's system of Publicly funded medicine, introducing private clinics and threatening to opt out of the Canada Health Act.

While the popularity of the Tories sagged somewhat under Don Getty, it has been revived under Ralph Klein, whose government has been more socially conservative. It seems unlikely that either opposition party (the Alberta Liberal Party and the Alberta New Democrats) will be in a serious position to challenge the Conservatives for power in the near future.

However, some commentators believe a serious challenge is at least possible from an upstart party on the right which unlike a left wing party could realistically threaten Tory bastions in Calgary and rural areas. The newly-formed Alberta Alliance gained some momentum in June 2004 when MLA Gary Masyk left the Tory caucus to join the new party.

• See also: List of Canadian political parties