Minority governments in Canada
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The House of Commons after the 2006 election, resulting in a Conservative minority government (in blue) |
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.
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Liberal minority after the 1921 election |
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Liberal minority after the 1925 election |
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Liberal minority after the 1926 election |
*Seats short of a majority
1921: 1
*Seats short of a majority
1925: 22
*Seats short of a majority
1926: 7Canada'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.
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Conservative1 minority after the 1925 election |
*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
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Tory minority after the 1957 election |
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Tory minority after the 1962 election |
*Seats short of a majority
1957: 22
*Seats short of a majority
1962: 17After 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.
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Liberal minority after the 1963 election |
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Liberal minority after the 1965 election |
*Seats short of a majority
1963: 5
*Seats short of a majority
1965: 2In 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.
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Liberal minority after the 1972 election |
*Seats short of a majority
1972: 23
2In 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
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Tory minority after the 1979 election |
*Seats short of a majority
1979: 6While 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 â€" 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 QuĂ©bec 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.
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Liberal minority after the 2004 election |
*Seats short of a majority
2004: 20Although 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.
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Conservative minority after the 2006 election |
* Seats short of a majority
2006: 30
3Although 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 102
3 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.
