This article covers the history of the Conservative Party of Canada. Predecessors The Conservative Party is political heir to a series of right-of-centre parties that have existed in Canada, beginning with the Upper Canada Tories of the nineteenth century. John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier later founded the Liberal-Conservative Party. The party later became known simply as the Conservative Party after 1873. Like its historical predecessors and conservative parties in some other Commonwealth nations (such as the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom), members of the present-day Conservative Party of Canada are sometimes referred to as "Tories". The modern Conservative Party of Canada is also legal heir to the heritage of the historical conservative parties by virtue of assuming the assets and liabilities of the former Progressive Conservative Party upon the merger of 2003. The first incarnations of the Conservative Party in Canada were quite different from the Conservative Party of today, especially on economic issues. The early Conservatives were known to espouse economic protectionism and British imperialism, by emphasizing Canada's ties to the United Kingdom while vigorously opposing free trade with the United States, free trade being a policy which, at the time, had support from the ranks of the Liberal Party. The Conservatives also sparred with the Liberal Party because of its connections with French Canadian nationalists including Henri Bourassa, who wanted Canada to distance itself from Britain and demanded that Canada recognize that it had two nations, English Canada and French Canada, connected together through a common history. Progressive Conservative Party of Canada The Conservative Party's popular support waned (particularly in Western Canada) during difficult economic times from the 1920s to 1940s, as it was seen by many in the west as an eastern establishment party that ignored the needs of the citizens of Western Canada. Westerners of multiple political convictions (including small-"c" conservatives) saw the party as being uninterested in the economically unstable Prairie regions of the west at the time; instead, Western Canadians believed the party held close ties with the business elite of Ontario and Quebec. As a result of western alienation, both the dominant Conservative and Liberal parties were challenged in the west by the rise of a number of protest parties including the Progressive Party of Canada, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the Reconstruction Party of Canada and the Social Credit Party of Canada. In 1921, the Conservatives were reduced to third