With Confederation and Quebec's entry as a province, what had been le parti bleu became the Quebec wing of Macdonald's Conservative Party and formed the government in the province with Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau as Quebec's first Premier while Cartier acted as Macdonald's Quebec lieutenant in the federal House of Commons. The Conservatives dominated Quebec politics at both the federal and provincal level for the next thirty years. The Conservatives held power in Quebec City for twenty five out of thirty years providing eight of the province's ten premiers in that period.

However, the party became increasingly divided between a moderate wing and an ultramontane wing of Catholic fundamentalists. As well, the party's links with the federal Conservatives harmed the party as the Tories in English Canada became increasingly identified as hostile to French Canadians and Quebec. The execution of Louis Riel in 1885 outraged Quebecers and hurt the Macdonald Conservatives at the polls. After Macdonald's death in 1891 the unravelling of the coalition that formed the national Conservatives unravelled, particularly around the Manitoba Schools Question that pitted English Canadian Protestants against French Canadian Catholics and essentially ended the possibility of a significant French Canadian presence in western Canada. The federal Conservatives lost the 1896 election, largely due to the collapse of their support in Quebec and the provincial Conservatives government of Edmund James Flynn lost power in 1897.

With the defeats of 1896 and 1897 the Conservatives became a minority party in Quebec at both levels of government and the Conservative Party of Quebec never formed another provincial government.The Quebec Liberals held power without interruption for the next thirty eight years.

Conservative fortunes were further hurt by the Conscription Crisis of 1917 when the federal Conservative government of Robert Borden invoked conscription against the opposition of Quebec leading to riots in the province.

In 1933, Maurice Duplessis became leader of the Conservatives. The next year, the ruling Liberal party split when a group of nationalist Liberals dissatisfied with the government of Louis-Alexandre Taschereau bolted from the party to form the Action libérale nationale or ALN. Duplessis wooed the dissident party and, two weeks before the 1935 election the Conservatives merged with the ALN to form the Union Nationale which ultimately took power in 1936 and went on to dominate Quebec politics until Duplessis died in 1959.

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