It is almost unimaginable, given the horrifying shambles that the present federal government has made of almost everything, that it is potentially on the brink of a premature election, confident that it can regain a majority. The only explanation for this is the traditional unfeasibility of the federal Conservative party. Once the Liberals adopted the policy of alternating English and French-Canadian leaders, and the Conservatives obligingly recruited some prominent English-speaking Liberal politicians to mobilize the anglophone majority in the country to impose conscription on French-Canadians who had no particular reason to feel any filial loyalty to the British or the French in the hecatomb of the First World War, the preeminence of the Liberals was assured. The only federal Conservative leader since that time who was knowledgeable enough of Quebec, and of national political currents generally, to compete on an equal footing with the Liberals was Brian Mulroney. And except for Jean Chrétien, who had the benefit of running against a completely fragmented opposition, he was the only prime minister to win two consecutive majority elections since Louis St. Laurent in 1953.
Conrad Black: The Opposition’s odious ineptitude
