Canadian Alliance replaced by Conservative Party of Canada
The Canadian Alliance (French: Alliance canadienne), formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance (French: Alliance réformiste-conservatrice canadienne), was a centre-right to right-wing federal political party in Canada that existed under that name from 2000 to 2003. The Canadian Alliance was the new name of the Reform Party of Canada and inherited many of its populist policies, as well as its position as the Official Opposition in the House of Commons of Canada. The party supported policies that were both fiscally and socially conservative, seeking reduced government spending on social programs and reductions in taxation.
The Alliance resulted from the United Alternative initiative launched by the Reform Party of Canada and several provincial Tory parties as a vehicle to merge with the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The federal Progressive Conservative Party led by Joe Clark in the late fall of 1998 rejected the initiative to "unite the right." After the Alliance led by Stockwell Day was defeated and a third consecutive Liberal majority government was won in the 2000 federal election, talks reopened and in December 2003, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative parties finally voted to merge into the Conservative Party of Canada.Conservative Party of Canada
On October 15, 2003, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party (under its new leader Peter MacKay) announced that they would merge to form a new party, called the Conservative Party of Canada. The union was ratified on December 5, 2003, with 96 per cent support of the membership of the Canadian Alliance, and on December 6, 90.04 per cent support of elected delegates in the PC Party. On December 8, the party was registered with Elections Canada, and on March 20, 2004, former Alliance leader Stephen Harper was elected as leader of the party with MacKay serving as deputy leader. The new party was dubbed "the Alliance Conservatives" by critics who considered the new party a "hostile takeover" of the old Progressive Conservatives by the newer Alliance. However, some grassroots Alliance supporters who had adhered to the old populist ideas of the Reform Party feared that the merger would signal a return to what they saw as indifference to Western Canadian interests. The Alliance also subsequently shed some of its populist and socially conservative policies during the merger.
The new Conservative Party formed the Canadian government on February 6, 2006, and won two additional elections (2008 and 2011) under the leadership of Stephen Harper; of these, the 2006 and 2008 votes resulted in the party governing only as a minority; only in 2011 was a majority mandate achieved. The party was defeated in 2015, by the Liberals, and became the official opposition party in the House of Commons.
substituted by superseded by succeeded by followed by replaced with