I've been out of Canada for 15 years, so I missed the whole Conservatives under Harper. However, I think to be fair wrt comparing today's Conservatives to Joe Clark's Conservatives, the latter organisation doesn't really exist any more. The Conservatives were down to 2 seats when they merged with Reform Party. I think that's where to you start to see the drift to the right. They had to actively kick out the really extreme right wingers when that happened, but it's just not the same party at all IMHO. Seeing from abroad, I always got the impression that Harper's government was pretty much exactly what you might expect from a slightly toned down Reform party and it wasn't really a surprise to me.
Thanks for the perspective. I spent about half the Harper years abroad, and while I remember the Progressives Conservatives and the Reform / Canadian Alliance parties merging back in what, 2003? I wasn't really paying enough attention to politics back then to understand the implications. I think to your point the Conservatives in the merger basically marketed themselves as a more moderate Reform party.
