2019 & 2021

We have just undergone a futile election which has produced substantively the same outcome as the previous general election in October 2019: a Liberal plurality around 15 to 20 seats short of a majority.

On 21 October 2019, Canadians elected the 43^rd Parliament as follows:

As of around 0900 on 21 September, the preliminary results show that on 20 September 2021, we have elected a 44^th Parliament virtually identical to its predecessor. The results in some ridings might change as Elections Canada counts the rest of the mail-in ballots this week, but the general result of a Liberal plurality at roughly the same level as two years ago will not.

Thus far, the Liberals have lost one seat, from 157 to 156, and the Conservatives have held steady at 121.

1963 and 1965

This scenario has occurred once before with respect to the 26^th and 27^th Parliaments elected in 1963 and 1965.

On 8 April 1963, Lester Pearson’s Liberals won the plurality of seats. John Diefenbaker later resigned the premiership, and Pearson became Prime Minister and head of a single-party minority government.

The House of Commons then sat 265 MPs, which made the threshold for a majority 133. By 1965, Pearson believed that the Liberals could gain those extra five seats and win the majority that he so coveted. Opinion polls throughout 1965 favoured the Liberals, which only enticed Pearson even more.[2]The House of Commons adjourned and rose for the summer on 30 June 1965 with the intent of returning on 27 September.[3]However, Diefenbaker provided Pearson political cover by declaring on 3 July, during the summer recess, that the Dorion Report would force the House of Commons to withdraw its confidence from the Pearson government as soon as it reconvened in September.[4]Pearson decided to trigger a snap election and advised Governor General Vanier to dissolve the 26^th Parliament on 8 September 1965. But Canadians denied him a majority and instead elected in the 27^th Parliament almost a direct transcription of its predecessor on 8 November 1965.

The Liberals gained 2 seats but still fell 3 short of a majority. The Conservatives also gained 2.

Conclusion

This election of 2021 has already made history as the most futile and pointless election since 1965; perhaps not coincidentally, Trudeau in 2021 called a snap election under similar circumstances after a similar amount of time as did Pearson in 1965. The 44^th Parliament will look virtually identical to the 43^rd, and the Liberals and Conservatives even won similar percentages of the popular vote in 2019 and 2021. Preliminary results show that the Conservatives once again won the plurality of the popular vote by two to three percent but did not win the plurality of seats. This election has also confirmed that Canada has entered a prolonged phase of minority parliaments. In the 21^st century (which began on 1 January 2001), Canadians have gone to the polls in general elections seven times – in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2021 – and have returned majority parliaments in only two out of these seven elections, in 2011 for the Conservatives and in 2015 for the Liberals. Perhaps the next cycle of electoral reform will begin very soon; Trudeau himself even mused again on 18 September that he prefers ranked ballots in single-member districts, the system by which Australians elect members to their House of Representatives, but lamented the lack of “consensus.”[6]

The incumbent Trudeau government shall remain in office and test the confidence of the 44^th Parliament later this fall. Under the Privy Council Office’s Guidelines, “[The caretaker period] ends when a new government is sworn-in, or when an election result returning an incumbent government is clear.” As in 2019, this leaves a great deal of ambiguity. Since the tenure of the Prime Minister determines that of the ministry as a whole, the first condition does not apply in this case because a “new government” will not be sworn in at all before this 44^th Parliament first meets. The Trudeau government, the 29^th Ministry since Confederation, took office on 4 November 2015 and will remain in office until Trudeau resigns. That leaves the second condition, “when an election result returning an incumbent government is clear.” The atrocious phrasing of that second clause notwithstanding, Television told us around 22:30 on 20 September of the “Liberal victory” and then project a “Liberal minority government,” which might constitute a “clear” outcome “returning an incumbent government.” I found a similar ambiguity in October 2019, and I am not sure on what date that year the Privy Council Office regarded the caretaker period as having ended. But contrary to what Television says, we have not returned “another” Liberal minority government – we have apparently sustained the same Trudeau government in office. Our prime ministers only serve more than one term if they resign and the Governor General reappoints them.

In any event, Trudeau announced in his victory speech that he regards the results of this election as a “clear mandate to get Canada through this pandemic to the brighter days ahead.”[7]

As Trudeau remarked in one of the French-language debates, we can expect to go to the polls yet again within 18 months, perhaps unless the Liberals and New Democrats enter into a confidence-and-supply agreement as their territorial counterparts in Yukon did earlier this year, or a formal coalition.

Similar Posts:

• Voting in the 44^th General Election and Forming a Government Thereafter (September 2021)
• Elizabeth May and the Spectre of Proportional Representation, Part 2 (November 2019)
• Elizabeth May and the Spectre of Proportional Representation, Part 1 (November 2019)
• Justin Trudeau Remains Prime Minister But Subject to the Caretaker Convention (October 2019)
• Andrew Scheer Is Not Exactly Wrong: Forming Governments in Minority Parliaments (October 2019)

Notes

[1] Audrey O’Brien and Marc Bosc, “Appendix 12: General Election Results Since 1867,” in House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 2^nd Edition (Ottawa: House of Commons, 2009), 1277.

[2] John T. Seywell, “Election Background,” chapter 1 in Canadian Annual Review, 1965 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 68-69.

[3] Journals of the House of Commons of Canada, 27^th Parliament, 2^nd Session, volume 112, (30 June 1965), page 333.

[4] John T. Seywell, “Election Background,” chapter 1 in Canadian Annual Review, 1965 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 68.

[5] Audrey O’Brien and Marc Bosc, “Appendix 12: General Election Results Since 1867,” in House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 2^nd Edition (Ottawa: House of Commons, 2009), 1277.

[6] Morgan Lowrie, “Trudeau Open to Electoral Reform, Says He Is a Fan of Ranked Ballots,” The Canadian Press, 18 September 2021.

[7] City News, “Justin Trudeau Delivers Victory Speech After Federal Win,” 21 September 2021. He says this at 3 minutes, 20 seconds.