Union Nationale (Quebec) - Collapse and Deregistration

Collapse and Deregistration

On January 9, 1981, federal Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Roch LaSalle was acclaimed leader of the Union Nationale. In the April 1981 provincial election, the party lost all of its seats, and would never elect another MNA. La Salle resigned as leader and returned to federal politics--winning the by-election created by his resignation from parliament a few months earlier.

In the 1980s and in the early 1990s, the Union Nationale no longer could rely on a significant get-out-the-vote organization or attract any media attention. The electorate was increasingly polarized over the constitutional issue, with conservative-leaning voters split between either the federalist Liberals or the sovereigntist Parti Québécois in provincial elections.

Furthermore, a number of small conservative and créditiste parties were created and were in competition with the Union Nationale for the few thousands of votes that were still up for grabs. The situation accelerated the demise of the Union Nationale.

On June 19, 1989, Quebec chief electoral officer Pierre F. Côté withdrew the party's registration after the party was found to be nearly $350,000 in debt. As a result of this decision, it was no longer able to receive contributions or make expenditures. The next day, the interim leader of the party, Michel Le Brun, told a reporter that he would contest the decision before the Quebec Superior Court, arguing that the decision was unfair, and a violation of both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was the first time in Quebec that a party had lost its official status as a result of its debts.

Le Brun was able to resurrect the Union Nationale under the name Parti Renaissance on June 26, 1992. The Parti Renaissance ran candidates in two by-elections in 1993, but the party did not field any eligible candidates in the 1994 election and lost its registration on August 27, 1994.

Although another attempt was made to revive the Union Nationale in 1998, it failed when the party failed to nominate enough candidates to be registered. The Action démocratique du Québec was established about at the same time and has since made a significant breakthrough in the districts that were once considered the base of the Union Nationale's support.

In 2009, former Union Nationale MNAs Serge Fontaine and Bertrand Goulet (both of whom had been among the last Union Nationale members elected to the legislature) announced the formation of a new Conservative Party of Quebec. Fontaine had offered Éric Caire of the ADQ to join the party and become its leader, with a view to attract disaffected ADQ supporters, but this did not materialise and Caire now sits as a member of the CAQ.