Democracy Challenged: How to End One-Party Rule in Canada

Will the Progressive Conservative Party become, once more, a viable national force–or will it, after the next federal vote, wither on the vine and disappear forever from the national scene with negative results for Canada and Canadians? It is the author’s contention that there is no use crying about one-party rule and blaming the Liberals. One-party rule has come about largely because of the weakness of the conservative party in leadership, organization, and fundraising.

Canadians are worried. They want to return to the two-party system as quickly as possible. Longtime MP Heward Grafftey [who served as a cabinet minister in the Clark government] tells the inside story of the Progressive Conservative Party’s fall from grace, 1956-2001 and outlines bold strategies that would rebuild the party, and once again unite the country and eliminate alienation in the West and Quebec.

Contents:

• The Diefenbaker Years 1956-1967
• The Stanfield Years 1967-1976
• Clark to Mulroney
• Campbell, Charest and Clark Recycled
• A Brief History of French Canada
• A Brief History of Western Canada
• The Power of the Finance Department
• Looking Back and Ahead

Heward Grafftey was a federal member of Parliament for eighteen years, first elected in 1958 when he was twenty-nine years old. At one time he was the only Progressive Conservative member in the Commons from Quebec. He was named Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance in 1962 and Minister of Science in 1979. In 1965, in opposition, he sponsored an all-party brief on motor vehicle highway deaths and injuries. He presently heads the non-profit Safety Sense Institute of Canada.

Heward Grafftey is the author of The Senseless Sacrifice: A Black Paper on Medicine [M&S], Why Canadians Get the Politicians and Governments They Don’t Want [Stoddart], and Portraits from a Life [Véhicule]. He has also written five family reference books on safety. In 1982 he was made a Queen’s Counsel.