Subsequent Development of The Party (to 1899)
When Norquay resigned as Premier in 1887, his successor David H. Harrison also became leader of the Conservative parliamentary caucus. Norquay was able to reclaim the latter position early in 1888, following an extremely divided meeting of senior Conservative politicians. By this time, the new Liberal Premier Thomas Greenway had formally introduced party government to the province, and no one doubted that Norquay was now the province's Conservative leader.
The Conservative Party was not yet a legally recognized institution in the province, however, and began to lose its conherence again after Norquay's death in 1889. Conservative MLAs simply referred to themselves as "the opposition" for most of the decade that followed. Rodmond P. Roblin was the dominant Conservative MLA between 1890 and 1892, but he does not seem to have been recognized as an official leader.
After Roblin's defeat in the election of 1892, William Alexander Macdonald became the leader of the opposition. In 1893, his election for Brandon City was declared invalid, and he lost the subsequent by-election. Remarkably, the election of Macdonald's successor, John Andrew Davidson, was also voided in 1894. For the remainder of this parliament, James Fisher seems to have been the leading figure in the opposition ranks. It is not clear if he was formally recognized as "leader of the opposition", or even as an official member of the Conservative Party.
Rodmand Roblin was re-elected in 1896, and officially became opposition leader in the legislature. The next year, Hugh John Macdonald (son of former Prime Minister John A. Macdonald) became the party's official leader, while Roblin continued to lead the opposition in parliament.
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