Reform conservatism : the intellectual development of conservatism in Alberta, 1963–1982

From 1963 to 1982, a durable new form of conservatism, ‘reform conservatism,’ arose and evolved in Alberta in opposition to the universalist liberal philosophy of the Pearson and Trudeau governments. This thesis offers a distinct historical interpretation by contrasting conservatism and liberalism and determining that Alberta’s disputes with Ottawa between 1963 and 1982 constituted a conflict between these distinct political philosophies. During this period, the Pearson and Trudeau governments sought to maximize individual autonomy and remake Canadian identity along universal lines, evolving Canadian liberalism from a classical to a Kantian form. In contrast, reform conservatism was based on Alberta Premier Ernest Manning’s understanding of liberty not as autonomy of the will, but as individual responsibility sustained by a moral order underpinned by Christianity and respect for British cultural and political traditions, along with an economic order based on free enterprise and limited government. During the 1970s, Premier Peter Lougheed maintained the basic framework of Manning’s conservatism but integrated a new component, provincialism, which drew upon a distinct conservative tradition of decentralized federalism. The conflict came to a head between 1980 and 1982 over the National Energy Program, compulsory metrification, and the new Constitution. As conservatives in Alberta came to understand these disputes as related expressions of the same universalist liberal project, Manning’s conservative principles, Lougheed’s provincialism, and a demand for structural reform coalesced into the reform conservative alternative to universalist liberalism. These developments crystallized the reform conservative philosophy, which would ultimately form the intellectual basis for the Reform Party of Canada. Methodologically, this thesis analyzes through an intellectual historical lens the political and philosophical thought of Alberta’s political and intellectual leaders alongside the ideas expressed in the province’s public discourse. This study draws on the Premiers’ Papers of Ernest Manning and Peter Lougheed, Canadian newspapers, letters to the editor, pamphlets, policy statements, speeches, public polling, and archival records. Together, these sources connect elite political thought to its public reception.