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Big Blue Machine (Ontario)

Progressive Conservative Party
of Ontario
Active provincial party
President Rick Dykstra
Leader of the Opposition Patrick Brown
Opposition House Leader Jim Wilson
Founded 1854; 163 years ago (1854)
(as the Conservative Party)
Preceded by Upper Canada Tories
Headquarters 400-59 Adelaide St. E
Toronto, Ontario
M5H 3H1
Student wing Ontario PC Campus Association
Youth wing Ontario PC Youth Association
Membership 2015: 76,581
Ideology Conservatism
Economic liberalism
Liberal conservatism
Political position Centre to Centre-right
Colours Blue
Seats in Legislature
28 / 107
Website
www.ontariopc.com

The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (French: Parti progressiste-conservateur de l'Ontario), often shortened to Ontario PC Party or PC, is a right-of-centre political party in Ontario, Canada. It governed the province for 80 of the 149 years since Confederation, including an uninterrupted run from 1943 to 1985. It is the Official Opposition in the current Legislative Assembly of Ontario. The party is made up of anywhere from libertarian conservatives supporting classical economics theory to moderate progressives supporting a more keynesian approach, positioning itself at different sides of this spectrum throughout its history

The first Conservative Party in Upper Canada was made up of United Empire Loyalists and supporters of the wealthy Family Compact that ruled the colony. Once responsible government was granted in response to the 1837 Rebellions, the Tories emerged as moderate reformers who opposed the radical policies of the Reformers and then the Clear Grits.

The modern Conservative Party originated in the Liberal-Conservative coalition founded by Sir John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier in 1854. It is a variant of this coalition that formed the first government in Ontario with John Sandfield Macdonald as Premier. Sandfield Macdonald was actually a Liberal and sat concurrently as a Liberal Party of Canada MP in the Canadian House of Commons but he was an ally of John A. Macdonald. His government was initially a true coalition of Liberals and Conservatives under his leadership but soon the more radical Reformers bolted to the opposition and Sandfield Macdonald was left leading what was essentially a Conservative coalition that included some Liberals under the Liberal-Conservative banner. After losing power in 1871, this Conservative coalition began to dissolve. What was originally a party that included Catholics and Protestants became an almost exclusively English and Protestant party, more and more dependent on the Protestant Orange Order for support, and even for its leadership. The party became opposed to funding for separate (Catholic) schools, opposed to language rights for French-Canadians, and distrustful of immigrants. Paradoxically, an element of the party gained a reputation for being pro-labour as a result of links between the Orange Order and the labour movement.


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