OTTAWA — Wanted: 50 progressive Canadians to keep alive vote-splitting on the right.

A small group of disgruntled former Tories has successfully registered a new political entity with Elections Canada, called the Progressive Canadians - or PC Party. Now the PCs are seeking 50 candidates to carry the standard in the next federal election and make them eligible for all rights and privileges under the Elections Act.

Organizer Joe Hueglin, a former Tory MP from Niagara Falls, Ont., said Monday the Progressive Canadians are a reaction to the merger of the former Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance, and the subsequent leadership victory last week of former Alliance chief Stephen Harper.

"If the Liberals tar this new party as being Reform III, as right wing as the NDP is left wing, then there is nothing in the centre to contest the Liberals," said Hueglin.

"That's why our aim is to become a registered party at the end of the election, so there will be on the books a centrist, moderate party."

Hueglin claims that about a dozen people across the country - most in southwestern Ontario - have expressed an interest in being candidates.

The organization has a mailing list of 330 names.

"Our aim is not a nation-wide campaign," he said. "The focus is on the 50 candidates."

The Progressive Conservative name died when the merger with the Alliance was formally ratified by members of both parties in December.

The dissident group tried to register the name with Elections Canada, but was rejected.

They settled on Progressive Canadians as a "nom de guerre," said a press release, but continue to consider themselves Progressive Conservatives.

Hueglin expects the ballot in ridings with Progressive Canadian candidates will read PC Party and he makes no apologies if voters get confused.

"They might be - in which case they will follow that which led them to vote the way they did in the last election," he said.