Minority governments in Canada

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During the history of Canadian politics there have been eleven previous minority governments on the federal level, and a number provincially. The twelfth federal minority government was elected in the 2006 election.

In a minority situation, governments must rely on the support of other parties to stay in power, providing less stability than a majority government. At the federal level, no minority government has lasted a standard term, and most have lasted less than two years.

William Lyon Mackenzie King

• Seats short of a majority 1921: 1
• Seats short of a majority 1925: 22
• Seats short of a majority 1926: 7

Canada's first minority government was a result of the rise of the Progressive Party in western Canada. In the 1921 election the Liberals under William Lyon Mackenzie King fell one seat short of a majority government. The almost seventy member strong Progressive contingent had little unity and there was always at least one that would vote with the government on any matter. Mackenzie King thus governed as if he had a majority.

In the 1925 election, the Progressives fell to 25 seats, but the Liberals won only 101 seats. both losing seats to the Conservative Party, which won 116. The Progressive were far closer to the Liberals, and Mackenzie King as Prime Minister had the first option of forming a government. He did so and governed with the help of the Progressives until June 1926.

In 1926, a scandal over the customs department cost Mackenzie King the support of the Progressives. He thus asked the Governor General to dissolve parliament and hold another election. Viscount Byng of Vimy, the Governor General, refused, and opted to give the Conservatives a chance to govern. This infuriated Mackenzie King who felt that the appointed Governor General should not be able to override the Prime Minister. This led to the King-Byng Affair.

Arthur Meighen of the Conservatives was given his chance to govern, but his attempt to lead a minority government failed in September of 1926. In the subsequent election, the Liberals used the furor over the King-Byng Affair to win a strong majority government.

Arthur Meighen

• Seats short of a majority 1926: 8

Arthur Meighen led two short lived Conservative governments. The first was a majority at the end of 13th parliament, elected in 1917 under the Unionist ticket. The second government was a minority in 1926. Meighen's conservatives won a plurality of the seats in the previous 1925 election, however a government was instead formed via an agreement between the Liberals and Progressives. After King's Liberals had lost the progressives' support he requested parliament to be dissolved by then governor general, Lord Byng, resulting in the King-Byng Affair. The resulting conflict caused King to shortly resign as prime minister, and Byng subsequently appointed Meighen as prime minister. On July 1 1926, a week after Byng appointed him prime minister, Meighen lost a confidence vote in the House of Commons resulting in the 1926 election.

¹Not elected as such

John Diefenbaker

• Seats short of a majority 1957: 22
• Seats short of a majority 1962: 17

After many decades of Liberal rule, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, led by John Diefenbaker, unexpectedly won a minority government in the 1957 election. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, seeing the mood of the nation, stepped aside and let Diefenbaker govern. Diefenbaker needed the support of the Social Credit Party of Canada and three independents to get any legislation passed. This minority lasted only a few months. The seminal moment was Lester Pearson announcing to Diefenbaker that because of the slight decline in economic performance, and the fact that the Liberals had won the popular vote, he should hand power back to the Liberals. Diefenbaker, in a rage, launched a 2 hour speech condemning the Liberals, and revealing a document from the previous government predicting the economic decline. Diefenbaker would soon call an election, and win the largest majority government in Canadian history.

The Diefenbaker government ended badly with party infighting, a poor economy and controversies over relations with the United States during the Kennedy administration. In the 1962 election, the Tories won only a minority. This time, the momentum was with the Liberals and the imploding Tories were all but incapable of governing due largely to a split in Diefenbaker's Cabinet over the deployment of Bomarc missiles in Canada. The government was defeated in the House on a confidence issue on February 5, 1963, forcing the 1963 federal election which the Tories lost.

Lester B. Pearson

• Seats short of a majority 1963: 5
• Seats short of a majority 1965: 2

In the 1963 election, the Liberals, led by Lester B. Pearson, were also unable to win a majority. The next three years were productive ones, however, as a close working relationship between the Liberals and the New Democratic Party (NDP) resulted in he introduction of Canada's health care system, the Canadian flag, and the Canada Pension Plan. In 1965, Pearson asked the Governnor General to dissolve Parliament in an attempt to win a majority, but the make up of parliament after the 1965 election remained almost exactly the same, leading to three more years of a productive alliance between the Liberals and NDP.

Canada's constitutional law dealing with minority governments was altered in 1968 when Pearson's government was unexpectedly defeated on a matter of confidence. While this should have led to an immediate dissolution of parliament, none of the parties were ready, and Pearson was in the process of being replaced as leader of the Liberals. By mutual agreement among the party leaders, a new motion was passed that retroactively declared that the budgetary matter on which the government was defeated was not a matter of confidence, setting a new precedent.

Pierre E. Trudeau

• Seats short of a majority 1972: 23²

In the 1972 election, the Liberals under Pierre Trudeau won only two seats more than the Tories. It was the second election for Trudeau as party leader. However, even though the Liberals entered the election strong in the polls, the Trudeaumania buzz had all but evaporated, and the party was further damaged by a weak economy. With few issues to campaign on, and one of the weakest campaigns in Canadian history, they were again forced to rely on the NDP to remain in power. In this instance, the NDP demanded the creation of Petro-Canada among other things to support the Liberals. The government fell on May 8, 1974, on a sub-amendment to the budget (thus a question of confidence). The Trudeau Liberals won a large majority government in the resulting 1974 federal election.

²Speaker was elected as independent

Joe Clark

• Seats short of a majority 1979: 6

While the Liberals have had first the Progressives and later the NDP to support them in minority situations, the Progressive Conservatives had little experience attracting support as a minority government. Seven months after the 1979 election which ended 11 years of Trudeau Liberal government the Tory government of Joe Clark was defeated in motion of no confidence in the governent and its budget moved by Bob Rae of the NDP and supported by the Liberals.

Clark might have prevented this defeat had his government agreed to support the Québec based Social Credit Party in its bid to maintain official party status — the party's seat total had fallen to six seats as a result of the 1979 election. However, Clark had hoped to follow the precedent set by Diefenbaker and pledged to "govern as if" he had a majority and then advance to a majority government through a new election without having to make deals with smaller parties. He also wished to win seats in Québec in his own right and saw the conservative, populist Social Credit Party as an obstacle rather than a potential partner. As a result of Clark's refusal to extend recognition to Social Credit its MPs abstained in the Non-Confidence vote that brought down the Clark government on December 13, 1979, a defeat caused by the Social Credit abstention and the absence of a handful of Tory MPs due to illness or travel. The dissolution was portrayed as a blunder and the budget Clark fought 1980 election on was unpopular with voters. On February 18, 1980, the PCs were defeated by the Trudeau Liberals who were elected to a majority government.

Paul Martin

• Seats short of a majority 2004: 20

Although the 2004 federal election was initially expected to be easy for Martin to win a fourth consecutive Liberal majority government, during the campaign many began instead to predict a far closer result. Mostly due to the sponsorship scandal, polls started to indicate the possibility of a minority government for the Liberals, or even a minority Conservative government, which in turn created speculation of coalitions with the other parties. Towards the end of the campaign, the Liberals were running attack ads against the Conservatives. In the end, the Liberals fared better than the final opinion polls had led them to fear, but not well enough to win a majority.

On May 10, 2005, a motion was passed by the opposition parties in the House of Commons to instruct a committee to call for the dissolution of the government. The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois defeated the Liberals and the NDP by 153 votes to 150. Although the motion was technically nothing more than a procedural instruction to a committee, the Conservatives and Bloc demanded the resignation of the government. There is ongoing debate between parties and constitutional experts as to whether or not this was a vote of no confidence. For further details, see [CBC news].

On May 19, 2005, the House voted on two budget bills, deemed unquestionable matters of confidence. With the support of two independents and Conservative MP Belinda Stronach - who crossed the floor to the Liberals and was appointed Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, becoming a member of the Liberal cabinet - the result of the vote was a tie, which was broken in favour of the government by the Speaker of the House of Commons, resulting in a vote of 153-152.

On November 24, 2005, the opposition Conservatives introduced a motion of no confidence. The motion was seconded by the NDP. On November 28, the government was defeated by a margin of 171 to 133, having been defeated by the united opposition forces (Conservatives, NDP, and Bloc Québecois.) In the early morning of November 29, 2005, Martin went to Governor General Michaëlle Jean to ask for the dissolution of parliament and a January 23, 2006, election.

Stephen Harper

• Seats short of a majority 2006: 30³

Although several public opinion polls predicted that the 2006 election would result in either a strong Conservative minority or a slight majority, the Liberals enjoyed a last-minute surge but were unable to overtake the Conservatives. However, the surge did result in the smallest minority government in Canadian history, with the fewest pecentage of government seats ever and the largest number of seats short of a majority. All parties held the balance of power, the Liberal party with 102³ seats, the Bloc Québécois with 51 seats, and the NDP with 29 seats. André Arthur, a popular radio host from Quebec City, was the only independent elected. As Liberal Peter Milliken has been reelected as Speaker, the Conservatives now effectively hold a minority only 29 seats short of a majority as the Speaker traditionally votes only to break a tie and always in favor of the government. Thus, the Conservatives hold a majority together with any one of the opposition parties assuming no defections.

Stephen Harper leads a minority Conservative government and was sworn in as Prime Minister on February 6th. Bill Graham is the leader of the opposition. As of March 18, 2006 Graham has been interim leader of the Liberal party and will remain so until a leadership convention is held. Paul Martin resigned as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada on that date in order to quell any rumours that he might run in any future election.

³Initial results of the 2006 election indicated that the Conservatives would fall 31 seats short of a majority. However, after the election but before the new Parliament took office, Liberal David Emerson crossed the floor to join the Conservatives and Stephen Harper's cabinet amidst some controversy. This increased the size of the Conservative caucus to 125 seats, only 30 seats short of a majority.

 

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