Joseph Fred Hueglin is a former Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 and a founder of the Progressive Canadian Party

Progressive Canadian Party

The Progressive Canadian Party is a minor federal political party in Canada. It is a centre/centre-right party that was officially registered with Elections Canada, the government's election agency, on March 29, 2004....

.

Born in Stratford, Ontario

Stratford, Ontario

Stratford is a city on the Avon River in Perth County in southwestern Ontario, Canada with a population of 32,000.When the area was first settled by Europeans in 1832, the townsite and the river were named after Stratford-upon-Avon, England. It is the seat of Perth County. Stratford was...

, Hueglin was elected to Parliament

Parliament of Canada

The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch—represented by her governor general—the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and...

 in 1972

Canadian federal election, 1972

The Canadian federal election of 1972 was held on October 30, 1972 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 29th Parliament of Canada. It resulted in a slim victory for the governing Liberal Party, which won 109 seats, compared to 107 seats for the opposition Progressive...

 in the riding of Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls (electoral district)

Niagara Falls is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 1953.It consists of the city of Niagara Falls and the towns of Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie....

 as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada

Progressive Conservative Party of Canada

The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....

 (PC). In 1974

Canadian federal election, 1974

The Canadian federal election of 1974 was held on July 8, 1974 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 30th Parliament of Canada. The governing Liberal Party won its first majority government since 1968, and gave Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau his third term...

 Hueglin was defeated by the Liberal

Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...

 candidate.

Along with David Orchard

David Orchard

David Orchard is a Canadian political figure, member of the Liberal Party of Canada, who was the Liberal Party candidate for the Saskatchewan riding of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River in the 2008 federal election.Previously, Orchard was a member of the now defunct Progressive Conservative...

, Hueglin has been among the most vocal opponents of the 2003 merger of Canada's two prominent right-wing parties, the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance

Canadian Alliance

The Canadian Alliance , formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance , was a Canadian conservative political party that existed from 2000 to 2003. The party was the successor to the Reform Party of Canada and inherited its position as the Official Opposition in the House of Commons and held...

, into the Conservative Party of Canada

Conservative Party of Canada

The Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...

. He has expressed discomfort over the way the merger took place - which involved PC leader Peter MacKay

Peter MacKay

Peter Gordon MacKay, PC, QC, MP is a lawyer and politician from Nova Scotia, Canada. He is the Member of Parliament for Central Nova and currently serves as Minister of National Defence in the Cabinet of Canada....

 breaking an anti-merger promise he made while campaigning to be the party leader - and the "neoconservative" aspects of Alliance policy, which he feared may dominate the new party's policies.

In 2004, Hueglin became a lead organizer for the Progressive Canadian Party

Progressive Canadian Party

The Progressive Canadian Party is a minor federal political party in Canada. It is a centre/centre-right party that was officially registered with Elections Canada, the government's election agency, on March 29, 2004....

, which he has described as a centrist party.

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