British Columbia Conservative Party

British Columbia Conservative Party
Party leader	Dan Brooks
founding	1900
Alignment	conservatism
Website	www.bcconservative.ca

The British Columbia Conservative Party (French Parti conservateur de la Colombie-Britannique , translated Conservative Party of British Columbia ) is a conservative political party in the Canadian province of British Columbia . Although it is ideologically similar to the Conservative Party of Canada at the federal level, it maintains no formal relationships. In the first half of the 20th century the party dominated provincial politics, but has only played a marginal role since then.

history

The party was founded in 1900 and two years later decided to run candidates for the next elections to the British Columbia Legislative Assembly . Party chairman Richard McBride announced that in the event of an election victory, the government would be made up of party members (previously the government had always been non-partisan). McBride believed that the lack of parties had so far destabilized the province's political system and hampered economic development. The elections in October 1903 were the first with party candidates and were won by the Conservatives.

Under McBride and his successor William John Bowser , the Conservatives remained in power for 13 years until they were replaced by the Liberals in 1916. In 1928 they won another election and Simon Fraser Tolmie became the new Prime Minister. Tolmies government responded very hesitantly to the Great Depression . The conservatives were so torn by internal power struggles that the party leadership decided not to nominate any official candidates in the November 1933 elections.

To prevent the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from coming to power, Conservatives and Liberals formed a coalition after the 1941 elections. The Chairman of the Conservatives, Vice Prime Minister and Treasury Secretary Herbert Anscomb, wanted to become head of government himself in 1947 after the resignation of Liberal Prime Minister John Hart . But the Liberals had more seats than the Conservatives and prevailed against the coalition partner, so that Byron Ingemar Johnson took over the office. As a result, the relationship between the two parties deteriorated noticeably.

The conservative-liberal coalition government introduced instant run-off voting as an electoral system in 1952 , in the expectation that conservative voters would give the liberals as a second preference, and vice versa. However, it was not the ruling parties that benefited from this electoral system, but the British Columbia Social Credit Party . This was led by WAC Bennett , who a year earlier had tried unsuccessfully to become chairman of the Conservatives and left the party. The coalition broke up and in the 1953 elections the Conservatives were completely marginalized.

Logo 2005 to 2012

After losing its last seat in parliament in the 1956 elections, the Conservative Party sank to insignificance. In 1972 they were able to win two seats again, but this success ultimately proved insignificant. The party has not been represented in the provincial parliament since 1979. The main reason for this is that the British Columbia Social Credit Party up until the early 1990s and the British Columbia Liberal Party since then had almost the same range of voters. In the last few years, however, there has been a marked upward trend.

Election results

British Columbia Conservative Party results in legislative assembly elections:

choice	seats total	candidates data	Weighted seats	be right	proportion of
1903	42	41	22nd	27,913	46.43%
1907	42	42	26th	30,781	48.70%
1909	42	42	38	53,074	52.33%
1912	42	42	39	50,423	59.65%
1916	47	46	9	72,842	40.52%
1920	47	42	15th	110,475	31.20%
1924	48	47	17th	101,765	29.45%
1928	48	48	35	192,867	53.30%
1933	not started
1937	48	43	8th	119,521	28.60%
1941	48	43	12	140.282	30.91%
1945	48	47	37	261,147	55.83% ¹
1949	48	48	39	428.773	61.35% ¹
1952	48	48	4th	129,439	16.84%
1953	48	39	1	40,780	5.60%
1956	52	22nd	0	25,373	3.11%

choice	seats total	candidates data	Weighted seats	be right	proportion of
1960	52	52	0	66,943	6.72%
1963	52	44	0	109,090	11.27%
1966	55	3	0	1,409	0.18%
1969	55	1	0	1,087	0.11%
1972	55	49	2	143,450	12.67%
1975	55	29	1	49,796	3.86%
1979	57	37	0	71,078	5.06%
1983	57	12	0	19,131	1.16%
1986	69	12	0	14,074	0.73%
1991	75	4th	0	426	0.03%
1996	75	8th	0	1.002	0.06%
2001	79	6th	0	2,417	0.15%
2005	79	7th	0	9,623	0.55%
2009	85	24	0	32,519	2.11%
2013	85	56	0	85,783	4.76%

¹ electoral alliance with the British Columbia Liberal Party

Party leader

Surname	Chair	premier
Charles Wilson	1900-1903
Richard McBride	1903-1915	1903-1915
William John Bowser	1915-1924	1915-1916
Robert Henry Pooley	1924-1926
Simon Fraser Tolmie	1926-1936	1928-1933
Frank Porter Patterson	1936-1938
Royal Lethington Maitland	1938-1946
Herbert Anscomb	1946-1952
Deane Finlayson	1952-1961
Davie Fulton	1963-1965
John DeWolf	1969-1971
Derril Warren	1971-1973
George Scott Wallace	1973-1977
Victor Albert Stephens	1977-1980
Brian Westwood	1980-1982
Peter Pollen March	1985-1986
Peter B. Macdonald	1991-1996
David Maurice Mercier	1997-2001
Susan Power	2001-2002
Kenneth Edgar King	2003-2004
Barry Chilton	2004-2005
Wilfred Hanni	2005-2009
John Cummins	2011-2013
Dan Brooks	since 2014

Web links

British Columbia Conservative Party

Individual evidence

^ Elections in British Columbia - Elections BC

[1] Elections in British Columbia - Elections BC