Progressive Conservative Party of Canada - Rump PC Caucus

Rump PC Caucus

Following the merger, a rump Progressive Conservative caucus remained in Parliament, consisting of individuals who declined to join the new Conservative Party. In the House of Commons, Joe Clark, André Bachand and John Herron sat as PC members.

In the 2004 election, Bachand and Clark did not run for re-election, and Herron ran as a Liberal, losing to Rob Moore in his riding of Fundy—Royal. Scott Brison, who had joined the Liberal caucus immediately upon departing the Conservative Party, was reelected as a Liberal in the 2004 election.

In the Senate, William Doody, Lowell Murray and Norman Atkins also declined to join the new party, and continued to sit as Progressive Conservative senators. On March 24, 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin appointed nine new senators, two of whom, Nancy Ruth and Elaine McCoy, were designated as Progressive Conservatives. Thus there may be a Progressive Conservative senator until 2021 when McCoy, the youngest of the five, attains the mandatory retirement age of 75, or later if subsequent senators designate themselves Progressive Conservatives. Nancy Ruth has since left to sit with the Conservative Party. Adding the death of Senator Doody on December 27, 2005, and the mandatory retirement of Norman Atkins on June 27, 2009, and Lowell Murray on September 26, 2011, left McCoy as the sole Progressive Conservative in the Senate and the last sitting PC in either chamber of Parliament.

After being expelled from the Conservative Party caucus in June 2007, Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey designated himself as an "independent progressive conservative".