Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay pulled off the political equivalent of herding cats with their merger of the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservatives to birth the Conservative Party of Canada. While the right bickered over whose brand of conservatism was the purest or the best, these two forged a big tent that actually let us win elections and form government. 

That’s the Harper legacy screaming at conservatives during the 20th anniversary of forming government.

The era of Alliance versus Progressive Conservatives was a period of division for conservatives in Canada. Alliance kept to its purist fiscal policy and ideological hard lines, and Progressive Conservatives took the right-leaning centrist vote. Splitting conservatives apart and handing Liberals a government.

Harper and MacKay entered the picture, and they stitched together social conservatives, libertarians, moderates, and populists. No ideological purity tests, just a focus on beating the left. Then we had three straight election wins.

Unity was the strategy that worked against the Liberals. Integrating all types of conservatives together under one banner, the Conservative Party of Canada. We’re never going to be unanimous on anything, but we all have the same foundational conservative principles. It’s not about lurching left to chase liberals. It’s about smart compromise, uniting under one banner, debating policy on the small issues, and marching together on the big fights.

I think about this now because fast-forward to today, we have something very similar brewing. Albertans want independence. Nationalist groups say the Conservatives aren’t tough enough on immigration. 

Now with the internet, it’s a circus. It’s all libertarians versus populists, establishment versus fringe, and blue Tories versus red. Conservatives are so busy defining what conservatism is that some forget where the real fight is.

Harper and MacKay’s answer was the big tent, and that’s the party we have today.

Fractures in the conservative movement were part of our downfall in the 2021 election. In 2021, PPC votes surpassed the Conservative loss margin in 21 ridings across Canada. This is based on the assumption that they would all have voted Conservative, but it still makes the point. It’s great to vote with your heart, but our Westminster system has no proportional vote representation. The PPC continues to be on the fringe, winning no seats and setting up the Liberals for more seats.

Here’s where Gen Z conservatives come in, and why the legacy of Harper and MacKay resonates with me. We’re the first generation to grow up inside the conservative big tent. We’ve inherited the stability, but now we’re watching online radicalization pull at the seams. Algorithmic echo chambers reinforce ideas that get high engagement.

Radicalization thrives on absolutes, all-or-nothing demands that create fractures. Gen Z grew up with technology, and we see how algorithms amplify the voices that divide us most.

With the 20th anniversary of Harper forming government, we need to remember how we got there: unity.

Ryan Comeau is a contributor to TrendingPolitics.ca