Canadian election neepery
Jan. 23rd, 2006 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacCanada is one country that still runs its governments on the classic system of the Ins and the Outs. The Liberal Party, having been in office about 2/3rds of the last century, once for a 22-year stretch, are the natural In Party. They know it, and they act like it: the resulting smugness and sense of entitlement is what leads to their occasional downfall, which comes about once every twenty years.
Today's election, which the Conservatives took with a weak 124-103 seat lead (81 seats for everybody else) is the third time since World War II that the party has swept out of the West and toppled a long Liberal reign by forming a minority government. (There is no tradition of coalition government in Canada: plurality parties, including the Liberals on a few occasions, form their own governments and negotiate for outside support from third parties. Since the Conservatives have been trending right in recent years, while of the two third parties one is socialist and the other is separatist, this could get interesting.)
On both previous occasions the Conservative minority government heralded a tidal wave that formed a massive Conservative majority, though in the second case it didn't happen immediately. The 1957 minority government of John Diefenbaker (Saskatchewan) skillfully parlayed their position into a majority the next year. The 1979 government of Joe Clark (Alberta) was less fortunate: deciding to act confidently as if they had a majority, they merely alienated the third parties and immediately collapsed. The great Conservative victory didn't come until five years later under Brian Mulroney (the only postwar Conservative PM not from the West, he was an Irish from an eastern Quebec mining town).
What happened next in both cases was very interesting: the worst governments in Canadian history. The Liberals may be smug and even crooked, but as politicians go they're basically competent. The Conservatives aren't. The Diefenbaker government was consumed by amateur ministers, lost their majority at the next election in 1962 and disappeared entirely a year after that, not to be seen again for another sixteen years. Mulroney did manage two terms, but the problems that developed particularly over constitutional issues were a nightmare. One journalist, asked to write an essay about every administration in Canadian federal history, submitted for Mulroney's the single sentence, "The less said about that the better." Even the West was disgusted, forming a new rebel party which nearly pushed the Conservatives out of the Commons altogether for a term. After ten years of name changes and false starts, the rebels and the rump reunited just before the 2004 election to form the new model Conservatives under Stephen Harper (Alberta again) who are therefore now where Dief was in 1957 and Clark in 1979.
Which model will they follow, if either, and will the final result be less disastrous than it was twice before? Dynamics are different this time. One factor in Diefenbaker's fall was that he simply did not get along with JFK. One reason for the Liberals' loss this time was that PM Paul Martin's anti-US rhetoric, otherwise acceptable to many Canadians, had gotten to the point where voters feared a disruption of the smooth trade on which their economy depends. Harper is a more pro-US figure; will he improve relations or will he merely suck up to Bush, and will the Bushies accept anything less?
On all these counts, Canada-watchers will wait and see.
Today's election, which the Conservatives took with a weak 124-103 seat lead (81 seats for everybody else) is the third time since World War II that the party has swept out of the West and toppled a long Liberal reign by forming a minority government. (There is no tradition of coalition government in Canada: plurality parties, including the Liberals on a few occasions, form their own governments and negotiate for outside support from third parties. Since the Conservatives have been trending right in recent years, while of the two third parties one is socialist and the other is separatist, this could get interesting.)
On both previous occasions the Conservative minority government heralded a tidal wave that formed a massive Conservative majority, though in the second case it didn't happen immediately. The 1957 minority government of John Diefenbaker (Saskatchewan) skillfully parlayed their position into a majority the next year. The 1979 government of Joe Clark (Alberta) was less fortunate: deciding to act confidently as if they had a majority, they merely alienated the third parties and immediately collapsed. The great Conservative victory didn't come until five years later under Brian Mulroney (the only postwar Conservative PM not from the West, he was an Irish from an eastern Quebec mining town).
What happened next in both cases was very interesting: the worst governments in Canadian history. The Liberals may be smug and even crooked, but as politicians go they're basically competent. The Conservatives aren't. The Diefenbaker government was consumed by amateur ministers, lost their majority at the next election in 1962 and disappeared entirely a year after that, not to be seen again for another sixteen years. Mulroney did manage two terms, but the problems that developed particularly over constitutional issues were a nightmare. One journalist, asked to write an essay about every administration in Canadian federal history, submitted for Mulroney's the single sentence, "The less said about that the better." Even the West was disgusted, forming a new rebel party which nearly pushed the Conservatives out of the Commons altogether for a term. After ten years of name changes and false starts, the rebels and the rump reunited just before the 2004 election to form the new model Conservatives under Stephen Harper (Alberta again) who are therefore now where Dief was in 1957 and Clark in 1979.
Which model will they follow, if either, and will the final result be less disastrous than it was twice before? Dynamics are different this time. One factor in Diefenbaker's fall was that he simply did not get along with JFK. One reason for the Liberals' loss this time was that PM Paul Martin's anti-US rhetoric, otherwise acceptable to many Canadians, had gotten to the point where voters feared a disruption of the smooth trade on which their economy depends. Harper is a more pro-US figure; will he improve relations or will he merely suck up to Bush, and will the Bushies accept anything less?
On all these counts, Canada-watchers will wait and see.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 06:47 pm (UTC)Perhaps I should also have added that every criticism that Paul Martin has made of the Bushies sounds right-on to me. Like many of the Canadian voters, I too might be nervous that his outspokenness might damage other aspects of US [government]-Canadian [government] relations, like trade policy. But, as I did say, I'd be skeptical that anything Harper could do would repair this, short of degrading himself and his country before a set of arrogant asshats.
On social policy I wouldn't worry for the moment. Harper couldn't have won if he hadn't dropped the right-wing social rhetoric he displayed in '04. But that change in tone means little. What means a lot is that he can't do anything in Parliament, for he has a minority and all three other parties support little things like gay rights. If he gets a majority at a later date, then we could worry. But Canadian politics are highly volatile, and I doubt a Bush-like administration would last more than one term.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 06:49 pm (UTC)Uh, no it doesn't. Nor in the legislature either; Canada doesn't have proportional representation, though I think one or two of the provinces do for their legislatures. Also, Canada doesn't have a President either. Are you sure you're not thinking of another country?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 07:03 pm (UTC)There are a lot of countries that require proportional representation in the legislature based on the parties' vote. Most continental European countries, the Scottish parliament, New Zealand, Israel. Most of them have a threshold percentage before representation is allowed. And this leads to a lot of coalition governments, but those coalitions don't include everybody.
But Canada is not one of those countries. Nor is the UK (the Westminster parliament). They're like the US: whoever gets the most votes, majority or plurality, in each district wins the seat, period. There are no multi-member seats, no extra members to bring balance to the vote, nothing like that.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 07:47 pm (UTC)MAHER: I have one more thing to try to—
CAMPBELL: [overlapping] No, but in Canada – in Canada, third-party votes translate into seats in the House of Commons.
NADER: Of course.
CAMPBELL: In France, you get a runoff election if nobody gets a majority. It’s a sudden-death playoff on November 2nd. There’s no opportunity for people to redo a vote if their votes don’t play out.
NADER: Right.
CAMPBELL: And so, I mean, politics isn’t an abstract exercise. It’s about real flesh-and-blood human beings. [voices overlap]
DREIER: And when you have a Socialist member of the United States Congress—
CAMPBELL: [overlapping] And how they will be affected by the decision.
NADER: And without the third party, NDP, you wouldn’t have had health insurance for everybody.
MAHER: Ralph—
CAMPBELL: It’s true! Because the votes for them translate into seats in the House of Commons.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 09:29 pm (UTC)That's certainly true, and I said it in my original post: "There is no tradition of coalition government in Canada: plurality parties, including the Liberals on a few occasions, form their own governments and negotiate for outside support from third parties." Obviously, then, this will have its effect on what governments do. I said that too: "Since the Conservatives have been trending right in recent years, while of the two third parties one is socialist and the other is separatist, this could get interesting." And again in my reply to orangemike: "On social policy ... Harper can't do anything in Parliament, for he has a minority and all three other parties support little things like gay rights."
What Campbell was saying is very different from saying that a certain level of votes entitles a third party to seats in Parliament. In the Canadian system, it doesn't. In Campbell's government, for instance, the NDP got slightly hammered: in the previous election they'd got 20.4% of the vote but held only 14.6% of the seats. Campbell's party, the Conservatives, held 57% of the seats but had only received 43% of the vote. Majorities tend to get magnified in a plurality-vote system.
Campbell distinguishes Canada's multi-party system from the French presidential election runoff. Well, that's for a single office. Some countries have runoffs or instant runoffs for individual parliamentary seats, but I know of no countries that would eliminate an entire third party from parliament that way.
Why don't we have much elected third parties in the US? Several reasons. One is that US parties, not being parliamentary, are decentralized: politicians pursuing unconvential political agendas in the US find much more room to pursue them under the umbrella of major parties.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 07:09 pm (UTC)