Decline and Re-emergence As Union Nationale
Conservative fortunes were further hurt by the Conscription Crisis of 1917 when the federal Conservative government of Sir Robert Borden invoked conscription against the opposition of Quebec. This led to riots in the province.
In 1933, Maurice Duplessis became leader of the Quebec Conservatives. The next year, the ruling Liberal party split when a group of nationalist Liberals dissatisfied with the government of Louis-Alexandre Taschereau bolted from the party to form the Action libérale nationale or ALN. Duplessis wooed the dissident party and, two weeks before the 1935 election, the Conservatives and ALN formed a "Union Nationale" alliance to contest the election. On June 20, 1936 the Quebec Conservative Party dissolved when the alliance became a formal merger into a single political party, the Union Nationale.
Two months later, the UN took power in the 1936 election under the leadership of Duplessis. The party was unexpectedly defeated in 1939, but went on to dominate Quebec politics from 1944 until Duplessis died in 1959. In the 1958 federal election, Duplessis lent the UN's electoral machine to John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives, helping them to win the majority of ridings there.
The Union Nationale formed the government again from 1966-1970 and afterwards went into rapid decline, being supplanted by the Parti Québécois as the main opposition to the Liberals.
Read more about this topic: Conservative Party Of Quebec (historical)
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