Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
Canadian provincial political party
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC; French: Parti progressiste-conservateur de l'Ontario), often shortened to the Ontario PC Party, or simply the PCs, colloquially known as the Tories, is a provincial political party in Ontario, Canada.
During its uninterrupted governance from 1943 to 1985 known as the Big Blue Machine, the Ontario PC Party adhered to the ideology of Red Toryism, favouring government intervention in the economy, increased spending on infrastructure, education, and health care while remaining progressive on social issues such as equal pay for women, anti-discrimination laws, voting rights for First Nations people and French-language services. In the 1990s, the party underwent a rightward shift to Blue Toryism after the election of Mike Harris as leader, who was premier from 1995 to 2002 and favoured a "Common Sense Revolution" platform of cutting taxes and government spending while balancing the budget through small government. The PCs lost power in 2003 but came back to win a majority government in 2018 under Doug Ford. They were re-elected in 2022 and 2025.
History
Origins
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.
Until becoming the Progressive Conservatives in 1942, the party was officially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Association of Ontario", reflecting its liberal-conservative origins, but became widely known as the Conservative Party.
“Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario” enters the record as canadian provincial political party. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Progressive, Conservative and Party can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q826977. VIAF identifies the subject as 139500627. The Library of Congress control number is n85249096. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 1985, 1995 and 2002.
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This entry incorporates text from “Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.