| The Conservative Party's splitting is a hot issue in current Canadian politics. The Liberal Party and the Conservative party had alternatively been two governing parties by the early 1990s since the establishment of Confederation in 1867. The Conservatives had completely dominated the political life during the first 30 years of Confederation since the middle of the nineteenth century. However, the 20th century saw the liberal Party turn into a dominant party. More seriously, the governing Conservative Party split into several groups at the end of 1980s, which led to its humiliating failure in the federal election of 1993. In this thesis, I tried to analyze the cause and affect of the contemporary Canadian Conservative Party s splitting. There are altogether four sections in this thesis.In section 1, I emphatically analyzed the cause of the contemporary Conservative Party as a long-term opposition party from the perspectives of economic policy, policy towards nationalities and world economy cycle. The cause of the contemporary Canadian Conservatives' splitting can be traced back to early years of the twenties century. On the whole, during the twenties century, the defects in the Conservatives economic policy is the underlying cause of the Conservative Party as a long-term opposition party. The most evident defects of Conservatives' policy towards nationalities is the handling of Quebec issue. Furthermore, the world economy cycle hasn' t made an opportunity for the Conservative Party as a long-term governing party.In section 2, I elaborated on the cause of the Contemporary Conservative Party' splitting. In order to amend constitution, Mulroney made great efforts to bring an agreement to Meech Lake Accord that recognized Quebec as a 'distinct society . But the agreement failed because of the opposition from Manitoba and Newfoundland. As soon as it failed, the Conservatives in favour of Quebec and Western Canada broke away from the core Tory. In short, the failure of Meech Lake Accord to get ratified directly led to the splitting of the Conser-vative party. And also, the defects in Mulroney's economic policy and diplomatic policy greatly lowered the Conservative Party's profile and accelerated its splitting. Furthermore, the Conservative Party' s splitting reflected two main issues of Canadian political life, western regionalism and Quebec nationalism. When the Conservative government can' t balance the interests of the two sides, die conservatives on the side of Quebec and western Canada broke away from the core Tory.In section 3, I summarized the affect of the contemporary Conservative Party's splitting by analyzing three federal elections of 1990s in Canada. The failure of Meech Lake Accord made western regionalists among Conservatives break away from the core Tory and participate in the Reform Party that became the second party in 1993 federal election. In addition, the failure of Meech Lake Accord led to the growing of Bloc Quebecois in 1990. The rising of two new parties greatly weakened the Conservative Party's forces and had an important effect on its future as a large number of voters supported two new parties instead of the Conservative party in 1993 election. As a result, the Conservative Party failed in the federal election of 1993. It was reduced from 169 to 2 seats in Parliament, while the Liberals managed to return to office. After 1993, neither party appears poised to present a credible challenge to the governing liberals and a regionalization of party politics takes shape.In section 4, I analyzed and predicted the future of the contemporary Canadian Conservative Party. Though it has significant number of voters, it is indebted, has little policy space in which to define itself, suffers from a much-reduced organizational capacity, and boasts few effective parliamentarians. So the Conservative Party is still facing a very uncertain future and has a long way to go to restore its position as a competitive national party that it had been for the long era. On the right, the cause of an elec... |
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