ABSTRACT
In the autumn of 1993 two long established Canadian national political parties suffered severe electoral defeats in the general election. In spectacular fashion, the governing Progressive Conservative Party (hereafter called the Conservatives) saw its support fall from a majority of 157 seats in the 295-seat House of Commons to a mere 2 seats. For its part, the New Democratic Party (NDP), Canada's long-established social democratic party, saw its representation drop from 44 to 9 seats. The collapse of these two parties was so complete that they no longer qualified for official party status in the new House of Commons. Filling the electoral space created by these developments were the Reform Party, which went from 1 to 52 seats, and the Bloc Quebecois, which went from 8 to 54 seats. The Official Opposition during the previous government, the Liberals, now formed a new majority government with 177 seats. My purpose in this paper is to attempt to explain the fate of the Conservative Party and to speculate on whether or not the party is likely to enjoy a return to more successful times in the future. My discussion of the various potential futures that face the Conservative Party will require that I assess the likely permanence of the Reform Party's success since the two parties largely share the same constituency. I will also attempt to draw out the relevance of these developments in Canada for party politics in the United States. Comparative analysis is a crucial approach in the development of knowledge and the broad similarities between Canadian and U.S. politics and society, despite significant institutional and demographic differences, can make the Canadian experience seem highly relevant to an understanding of the U.S. experience. However, the institutional differences in the governmental systems of the two countries may produce different outcomes despite the many other similarities.
