For rather short values of "always". The current federal Conservatives are Preston Manning's Reform Party with different logos, no real relation to the federal Progressive Conservatives who preceded them. (Not that the PCs were that much better—I'm leery of claiming they were more socially centrist without doing research on their actual policies at the time of collapse—but there isn't a lot of them in the current party's DNA.)
Fair enough and that's a fun discussion... but I was replying to someone who said CPC, not all historical federal 'conservative' parties. The old PC/Reform split allowed for conservatives and right liberals to belong to different parties. Different times, policy wise though I think you're right, the PC party is dead and gone in the CPC. I wonder where their voters went.
👋. I was a member of the federal PCs back in the day. I worked on both Mulroney campaigns, voted for him once, and even voted for Kim Campbell. I continued to support the party until the Reform takeover. Moderate PCs were very much made to feel unwelcomed, and I didn't support most of what became policy.
I've been voting Liberal since. Which was a big jump for me. But the CPC aren't conservative. They're right-wing, populist reactionaries.