Amusing Historical Parallels

Voters feel exhausted after years of endless constitutional wrangling and a divisive referendum on the country`s new constitutional arrangements, and they further resent that the political class bogged itself down in this constitutional quagmire and all but ignored a recession, inflation, and high interest rates – and thus higher mortgagepayments.

A party called Reform threatens the incumbent Tories from the right with abject electoral annihilation and a political realignment, especially because the incumbent Tories ignored the faltering economy and the real material struggles that ordinary people face in favour of their petty internal squabbles and internecine warfare. The man who won the incumbent Conservatives their majority at the last general election resigned after incurring near-universal contempt amongst the electorate across the country and after his reputation as a high-roller who revelled in his wealth perhaps a bit too much worn thin; consequently, the Conservatives elected a new leader who after some initial high hopes now seems woefully, and perhaps even comically, inept and led one of the most disastrous campaigns in living memory. Furthermore, the main opposition from the parliament just dissolved has, after a decade or so out of power, reinvented itself and now presents itself as a fiscally prudent formation of the centre-left and seems like the only party capable of winning support in all regions of the country.

That description fits both Canada in 1993 and the United Kingdom in 2024. And what is more, British Conservatives over the last two years  have whispered in hushed tones amongst themselves that they could suffer the same fate as our old Progressive Conservative Party in 1993. They are well-aware of the analogy, and it terrifies them.[1]

Rishi Sunak Has Sunk His Own Campaign

Rishi Sunak became the leader of the Conservative Party on 24 October 2022 after Liz “I’m a fighter, not a quitter” Truss resigned the leadership and premiership and no other Conservative MPs ran against him. His Majesty the King then invited Sunak to form a government and appointed him as Prime Minister on 25 October 2022. Labour has consistently polled ahead of the Conservatives since late 2021 when word first broke of Boris Johnson’s scandal of breaking pandemic rules with drinks parties at Number 10, and Labour opened up a massive and insurmountable lead in the mid-40s after the disastrous Liz Truss managed to crash the Pound, tank the markets, and kill the Queen in only fifty days in 2022. Sunak has failed to reverse the trends of the last three years, and the Conservatives lost badly and came in third overall behind Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the local elections for councils and mayors in England on 3 May 2024.[2] This devastating rout prompted some Conservative MPs to muse about ousting Sunak as leader, and thus ultimately as prime minister; while the Tory rebels officially “ended [their] plot to oust Sunak,” the grumbling continue throughout May, and Sunak for all practical purposes lost the confidence of his parliamentary party.[3]

Sunak probably advised His Majesty King Charles III to dissolve parliament for an election earlier than the deadline of December because of the lingering discontent with his leadership, and no parliament means no 1922 Committee. But Sunak announced the upcoming dissolution on 22 May under an inauspicious rain which soaked his suit and made him look like a melting mirage. The King formally dissolved parliament on 30 May 2024 after one week of parliamentary wash up – a tradition which we do not practise here in Canada. Since Parliament repealed the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act and restored the Crown’s underlying prerogative authority over the dissolution of parliament, the King issued a trio of proclamations (slightly different from our trio): one dissolving the previous parliament and summoning the next for 9 July 2024, a second ordered the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain to affix the Great Seal of the Realm to that first proclamation, and a third ordering the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain to and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to issue the writs for Great Britain and Northern Ireland, respectively.[4]

• Privy Council (2024-05-30) Proclamations for the Election

Sunak has fumbled from one gaffe to the next and has succeeded only in making Theresa May’s snap election and campaign in 2017 look competent. His half-baked and desperate policy to reimpose National Service from the first time since the 1960s invited derision and provoked laughter from young people in the audience of SkyNews’s debate between Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

But Sunak might have irrevocably sunk his own campaign earlier this week when he provoked enormous outrage by leaving the commemorations for the 80^th anniversary of D-Day early. Former Prime Minister and current Foreign Secretary David Cameron stood in for Sunak and looked as if he were still the Prime Minister standing next to French President Emmanuel Marcon, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and American President Joe Biden. (Incidentally, the absence of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also raises some questions).

Sunak issued a rote apology shortly thereafter, which did not prevent some of his own cabinet ministers like Penny Mordaunt from publicly criticising him – something unthinkable here in Canada where partydiscipline makes our prime ministers almost like presidents.[5] On 10 June, Sunak even took the extraordinary step of denying that he had considered resigning as prime minister over this D-Day Scandal.[6]

Philip Norton’s Essay on Replacing a Prime Minister During the Writ

Philip Norton, a Professor of Government at the University of Hull and a Conservative life peer, mused earlier this week on the possibility that Rishi Sunak could resign either as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party or as both party leader and as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland during the writ and before polling day on 4 July 2024. He noted that under the Conservative Party’s constitution, the 1922 Committee cannot oust Sunak because MPs cease to be MPs upon the dissolution of parliament and that if a prime minister died in office during the writ, the King would have to appoint a cabinet minister with no leadership ambition to serve as “acting prime minister” to serve as caretaker during the writ and who would resign either when Labour won a majority or, if the Conservative won a majority, once the Conservative Party selected its new leaders. The Conservative Party could perhaps at the same time also appoint a separate interim leader from the interim or acting prime minister.

Funnily enough, Canada offers concrete precedents on what remain hypotheticals for the United Kingdom – and they all happen to involve federal and provincial Conservative parties, too.

Interim Party Leaders Become De Facto Caretaker Premiers By Default

This strange scenario could not play out in the same way in the United Kingdom (nor in Australia, nor in New Zealand) but can happen in Canada because parliamentary parties no longer elect their own leaders from amongst sitting MPs; instead, the broader membership of the political party, either through a delegated convention or direct vote, elect party leaders in a process which takes several months. Normally in Canada, an incumbent party leader and premier would announce his or her intention to resign from the leadership and the premiership but formally remain in office for those few months during which candidates compete for the leadership of the party, and only formally resign once the party has elected a new leader. The Governor then commissions the new leader of the party to form a new ministry by virtue of that party’s parliamentary majority. For instance, Brian Mulroney announced on 24 February 1993 that he would not lead the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada into the next election and would resign as both party leader and prime minister once the delegated convention elected a new leader. The party elected Kim Campbell as leader on 13 June 1993, upon which Mulroney vacated that post, but Mulroney did not formally resign as prime minister until 24 June 1993.[7]

This Canadian method only works when the outgoing prime minister or premier agrees to remain as party leader and prime minister for the few months during which the leadership election takes place. But when a Canadian parliamentary party ousts its leader outright more in line with how the British Conservatives or the Australian Liberals or Australian Laborites get rid of their leaders, the Canadian method breaks down and requires a bizarre stop-gap similar to what Norton postulated. Stranger still, this sort of breakdown happened twice in Canada in 2014.

This fate first befell in Newfoundland and Labrador in January. Kathy Dunderdale, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, lost the confidence of her parliamentary party after MHA and caucus chair Paul Lane crossed the floor to the Liberals.[8] She also raised the ire of many Newfoundlanders by dismissing their concerns over severe storms and power outages in January.[9] Dunderdale announced on 22 January 2014 that she should resign as party leader and premier and left those offices by 24 January.[10] Her immediate departure forced the parliamentary party to elect Finance Minister Tom Marshall as interim leader, once more because he expressed no interest in running in the leadership election, and the media dubbed him an “interim premier” when the Lieutenant-Governor appointed him to form a government on 24 January 2014.[11] The Executive Council Office of Newfoundland and Labrador did not pay heed to this media contrivance and simply announced that “the Honourable Tom Marshall will be sworn in as the 11th Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow (Friday, January 24) in the Drawing Room at Government House.”[12] Nowhere did it demote him to a mere “interim premier” or “acting premier.” Paul Davis won the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador on the third ballot – not an auspicious start – on 13 September 2014.[13] The Lieutenant-Governor swore him in as the 12^th Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador on 26 September 2014, and he went on to lose the next general election a year later and resigned as premier on 11 December 2015.[14]

The same happened a two months later in Alberta, though only after a longer and more protracted struggle. On 20 March 2014, Progressive Conservative MLAs in Alberta forced Premier Allison Redford to resign as party leader and premier with immediate effect after a string of resignations from cabinet and caucus and controversies stretching back three months.[15] On 21 March, The parliamentary party then selected long-time MLA and cabinet minister and Redford’s Deputy Premier Dave Hancock as interim leader – precisely because he had no interest in running in the leadership election to replace Redford.[16] The media then reported that the Lieutenant Governor swore in Dave Hancock as “interim premier” on 23 March 2014.[17] In reality, Canada’s system of government knows no such media contrivance as an “interim premier” or “acting premier” but only a premier. Hancock voluntarily restricted his own decisions and activities as Premier of Alberta to necessary business and therefore served as a kind of caretaker and declared, “This is not a time for me to bring forward an agenda.”[18] Formally, however, he still possessed plenary executive authority from 23 March 2014 until he resigned on 15 September 2014 and would have exercised that authority in the event of an emergency. Jim Prentice won the leadership election with 77% of the vote on the first ballot on 7 September 2014,[19] and the Lieutenant Governor invited him to form a government on 15 September 2014.[20]

Marshall and Hancock both still carried out normal business as premiers of their respective provinces and, for example, both attended the annual summit of the Council of the Federation with the other provincial and territorial premiers in August.[21] The meeting agenda refers to them both as “Premier”, not “interim premier.” The media contrived the idea of an “interim premier” because they did not understand how else to explain the bizarre combination where the parliamentary party loses confidence in the incumbent party leader and premier and forces her immediate or imminent resignation in the manner of Australian Liberal and Labor Parties or the British Conservative Party but where the broader membership of the party still have to elect a new party leader after a campaign of several months in typical Canadian fashion, and where therefore this new premier knowingly assumes office for a limited and short duration of a few months. “Acting prime minister” or “acting premier” usually refers to a cabinet minister who carries out the functions of the incumbent prime minister or premier when he is out of the country or province or otherwise unable to attend to his duties. But since the life of a ministry is tied to the tenure of the prime minister or premier, an acting prime minister or premier would automatically lose that title or function if the incumbent died in office or resigned. Sir Mackenzie Bowell served as acting prime minister while Prime Minister Sir John Thompson toured Europe in 1894. Norton used “Acting Prime Minister” in the way that the Canadian media used “Interim Premier” in 2014, which is to say, a de facto caretaker prime minister who accepts the King’s commission to form a government knowing that he will only serve for a short duration and then tender his resignation once the results of the election become clear.

The Bizarre Canadian Precedent of 1896

Sir Mackenzie Bowell and Sir Charles Tupper

Canada also provides a precedent for what happens when the incumbent prime minister resigns during the writ and after the dissolution of parliament, although one can scarcely imagine that an incumbent prime minister would voluntarily put the Governor General in this constitutional bind. This sort of scenario where the Governor General would have to appoint a new prime minister during the writ from amongst cabinet ministers who seem uninterested in running for the party leadership would probably only happen today if the incumbent prime minister died in office and made such a course absolutely necessary.

The incumbent Prime Minister Senator Sir Mackenzie Bowell resigned as Prime Minister of Canada on 27 April 1896, three days after he had advised the Governor General to dissolve the 7^th Parliament. Governor General Lord Aberdeen then commissioned the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Sir Charles Tupper, as Prime Minister on 1 May 1896 – during the writ. This could only happen because Lord Aberdeen knew of and had agreed to carry out the arrangement struck between Bowell and Tupper in January 1896, which admittedly makes even this strange case less damaging and controversial than what Norton outlined in his essay.

Incidentally, the origins of this strange precedent also took root in the succession crisis within the Conservative Party between 1891 and 1896 and a botched cabinet coup in January 1896. Sir John A. Macdonald had served as Prime Minister of the Province of Canada and the Dominion of Canada for 28 years and four non-consecutive terms between 24 May 1856 and 6 June 1891, when he died in office only a few weeks after leading his Conservatives to their fourth consecutive parliamentary majority.[22] His death sent the Conservative Party into chaos, and four subsequent Conservative Prime Ministers either resigned or also died in office between June 1891 and July 1896. Governor General Lord Stanley appointed Senator Sir John Abbot as Macdonald’s successor, though he only managed to serve one year (16 June 1891 to 24 November 1892) before tendering his resignation due to ill health; he died in October 1893.[23] Stanley then appointed Sir John Thompson on 5 December 1892, but he died of cardiac arrest while dining with Her Majesty Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle on 12 December 1894.[24] Governor General Lord Aberdeen settled on Senator Sir Mackenzie Bowell on 21 December 1894 simply because he had already been serving as Acting Prime Minister while Thompson travelled out of the country. His doomed premiership only lasted until 27 April 1896.[25]

In January 1896, Sir Mackenzie’s cabinet rebelled against him and demanded his resignation.[26] On the evening of 3 January 1896, George Foster, Minister of Finance and Receiver General, and Haggart met the Governor General immediately after Bowell had left Rideau Hall and informed His Excellency that they and five of their colleagues had lost confidence in Bowell, believed that his ministry could not secure passage of the Address-in-Reply to the Speech from the Throne, and wanted to see Tupper the Elder appointed as his successor.[27] Bowell called them The Seven Bolters.

Privy Council Office’s Guide to Ministries Since Confederation indicates that they left cabinet effective on 5 January 1896. However, six of these seven would end up returning 10 days later.^[28]

• On 5 January, Walter Montague resigned as Minister of Agriculture, John Wood resigned as Controller of Customs, George Foster resigned as Minister of Finance and Receiver General, John Haggart resigned as Minister of Railways and Canals, and William Ives resigned as Minister of Trade and Commerce, but they all returned not only to cabinet but also to their same portfolios on 15 January – as if nothing had happened.
• Charles Tupper the Younger resigned as Minister of Justice and Attorney General on 5 January and did not return to cabinet, instead allowing his father to take his place.
• Arthur Dickey resigned as Minster of Militia and Defence on 5 January and returned to the reconstructed ministry on 15 January as the new Minister of Justice and Attorney General. Senator Alphonse Desjardins then took the defence portfolio on 15 January.

With great reluctance, Bowell offered his resignation to Aberdeen on 8 January, but Aberdeen refused because he disliked and did not want to appoint Tupper. He told Bowell that the incumbent Prime Minister who introduced a Speech from the Throne should remain in office at least until the House of Commons pronounced on the Address-in-Reply.^[29] Bowell even declared before the Senate on 9 January that he had offered his resignation but that the Governor General did not accept it.^[30]

“I therefore beg to state that after several interviews with the Governor General respecting the resignation of seven of my colleagues in the cabinet, I yesterday waited upon His Excellency for the purpose of tendering my resignation. His Excellency intimated that he was not at that moment prepared to receive it. The chief reason for this attitude on the part of His Excellency is that the Speech from the Throne, although presented to Parliament, has not yet been considered, nor an expression of opinion given by Parliament upon it. It is regarded by His Excellency as unfitting, that the Premier, as head of the administration responsible for that speech, should not have a full opportunity of reviewing the situation and testing the feelings of Parliament thereon.

Under these circumstances I deem it my duty to endeavour, as far as in me lies, to re-organize the Government. […] If I cannot succeed in re-organizing the administration within the three days, then I shall do that which is the constitutional duty of every premier who finds himself in such circumstances, namely, place my resignation in the hands of His Excellency.”^[31]

Bowell agreed on 14-15 January to Tupper’s terms of reintegrating six of the seven bolters into cabinet and accepting a de facto power-sharing between them in a reconstructed ministry. Bowell pledged to resign the premiership at the end of the last session of Parliament so that Tupper could lead the Conservative Party in the election. While Bowell did not step down and make way for a successor until a few months later, the cabinet revolt, in effect, succeeded: Sir Charles Tupper became the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and de facto Prime Minister from 15 January until the Governor General appointed him as Prime Minister de jure on 1 May 1896. Tupper and Bowell had struck a bargain which allowed Bowell to save face: Bowell would continue serving as Prime Minister from his perch in the Senate until the dissolution of parliament, but Tupper would take the premiership and lead the party in the election. Tupper explains this unusual arrangement in his autobiography:

“Asked by the recalcitrant members of the Cabinet to assume the leadership, I refused, declaring that I would not do so except at the request of the Premier, Sir Mackenzie Bowell. It was not until all efforts on his part at reconstruction had failed that he requested me to become leader of the party. I told him I would do so if he was prepared to receive back all of his colleagues, to which he assented. The Government was then reconstructed by my appointment as Secretary of State and leader of the party in the House of Commons until after the session was over, when, by arrangement, I was to succeed Sir Mackenzie Bowell as Prime Minister.”[32]

This inter-cameral and intra-party powerstruggle between Senator Sir Mackenzie Bowell and Sir Charles Tupper capped off 18 years of continuous Tory rule in Ottawa, from 1878 to 1896. Here at least the parallels of a tired old Conservative Party on the verge of being swept out of office seem apt. Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals won a parliamentary majority on 23 June 1896, winning 117 seats compared to the Conservatives’ 89. Worse still, Governor General Lord Aberdeen had to force Tupper to resign on 8 July 1896 when he refused to sign off on some of Tupper’s outgoing patronage appointments.[33]

This is certainly not the sort of precedent with which the British Conservatives would want to associate.

Conclusion

The Conservatives are stuck with Rishi Sunak. As Norton pointed out, MPs cease to be MPs once the King dissolves parliament for a general election, which means that the 1922 Committee cannot oust Sunk as leader. At this stage, only the caretaker cabinet could attempt to oust Sunak as prime minister or induce him to resign. Sunak would set a new precedent of resigning as Prime Minister during the writ and would, from a practical standpoint, only hasten and exacerbate the electoral extinction that the Conservatives face. A hypothetical Acting Prime Minister Lord Cameron could certainly not stave off defeat. More importantly, this scenario would, as Norton also notes, put the King in an untenable and precarious predicament and undermine his neutrality as a constitutional monarch. Under such exceptional circumstances, I would argue that the King would not be obliged to accept Sunak’s resignation during the writ under such cowardly circumstances at all. His Majesty King Charles III should not allow Sunak to shirk his duty and should instead tell him that he must stay on until polling day on 4 July and resign only when the results of the election that he sought become clear.

Similar Posts: 

• Bowden, J.W.J. “Reviewof Pivot or Pirouette? The 1993 Canadian General Election by Tom Flanagan,” The Dorchester Review 13, no. 1 (June 2023): 85-90.
• Mimetic & Mendacious Mirth: The Secret to Jean Chretien’s Political Success and Enduring Appeal (March 2024)
• Bowden, J.W.J. “The Origins of the Caretaker Convention: When Governor General Lord Aberdeen Dismissed Prime Minister Tupper in 1896.” Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 16, no. 2 (2022): 391-444.
• Bowden, James W.J. “Well-Earned Obscurity: Review of Barry Wilson’s Sir Mackenzie Bowell: A Prime Minister Forgotten by History.” The Dorchester Review 11, no. 2 (December 2021): 75-79.
• 1896: Tupper & Laurier Debate the Role of the Governor General and Popular vs Parliamentary Sovereignty (April 2020)

Notes

[1] Anand Menon and Daniel Bédard, “Is the Conservative Party Heading for a 1993 Canada-Style Collapse?” The UK in a Changing Europe, 1 December 2022; Jack Peat, “Tories Fearful of Canada ’93-Style Wipeout,” The London Economic Forum, 21 January 2024; Peter Walker, “Another Canada 93? Tory Sunak Critics Fear Extinction-Level Election Result,” The Guardian, 20 February 2024; Mark Wegierski, “What Can British Conservatives Learn from the late Brian Mulroney?” Conservative Home, 11 March 2024; Wayne Hunt, “Can the Tories Avoid the Fate of Canada’s Conservatives?” The Spectator, 1 June 2024; Jabed Ahmed, “Rishi Sunak and the Truth about a ‘Canada 1993’ Election Wipeout,” The Independent, 1 June 2024; Leyland Cecco, “Conservative Wipeout: The Lesson of Canada’s 1993 Election Offers to the Tories,” The Guardian, 7 June 2024.

[2] Sam Francis, “Tories Hit by Big Council Losses in Last Pre-General Election Test,” BBC News, 3 May 2024.

[3] Henry Zeffman, “Tory Rebels Back Off Sunak Coup Despite Election Loses,” BBC News, 3 May 2024; BBC News, “‘Tories Crushed’ as Rebels ‘End Plot to Oust Sunk,’” 4 May 2024.

[4] United Kingdom, Privy Council, “A Proclamation for dissolving the Parliament and for calling another to meet on Tuesday the ninth day of July 2024”, “an Order directing the Lord Chancellor to affix the Great Seal to the Proclamation,” and “Order directing the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to issue Writs for the calling of a new Parliament to meet on Tuesday the ninth day of July 2024,” in “Orders Approved and Business Transacted at the Privy Council, Held by the King at Buckingham Palace on 30^th May 2024,” at pages 4 to 7.

[5] Jennifer McKiernan, “PM Apologises for Leaving D-Day Commemorations Early,” BBC News, 7 June 2024.

[6] Becky Morton, “Sunak Says He Has Not Considered Resigning as PM,” BBC News, 10 June 2024; Sky News, “Rishi Sunak Did Not Consider Quitting After D-Day Scandal – and Hits Back at Nigel Farage Comments about ‘Our Culture,’” 10 June 2024.

[7] Ross Howard, “PM Says It’s Time to Pass Torch,” The Globe and Mail, 25 February 1993, A1; Howard Ross & Jeff Sallot, “Campbell Calls For Unity As Tories Elect Her Leader,” The Globe and Mail, 14 June 1993, A1; Privy Council Office, “Twenty-Fourth Ministry, 17 September 1984 – 24 June 1993,” in Guide to Canadian Ministries Since Confederation, 25 September 2023.

[8] CBC News, “Kathy Dunderdale to Step Down as N.L. Premier,” 21 January 2014.

[9] Jane Taber, “How Tory Rifts and Muskrat Falls Helped Bring About Dunderdale’s Resignation,” 22 January 2014.

[10] CBC News, “Kathy Dunderdale Resignation: ‘It is Time to Step Back,’” 22 January 2014.

[11] Jane Taber, “The New Boss: Who Is Newfoundland’s New Premier?” The Globe and Mail, 22 January 2014; The Globe and Mail, “Tom Marshall Sworn In as Interim Premier for Newfoundland and Labrador,” 24 January 2014;

[12] Newfoundland and Labrador, Executive Council Office, News Releases, “Media Advisory: Swearing-In Ceremony for the Honourable Tom Marshall,” 23 January 2014.

[13] CBC News, “Paul Davis Wins PC Leadership, Becomes Premier-Designate,” 13 September 2014.

[14] Newfoundland and Labrador, Executive Council Office, News Releases, “Media Advisory: Swearing-in Ceremony for Premier-Designate Paul Davis,” 25 September 2014; Newfoundland and Labrador, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, “Preliminary Results for the 2015 Provincial Election,” 30 November 2015; Newfoundland and Labrador, Executive Council Office, News Releases, “Media Advisory: Premier and Cabinet Swearing-in on December 14,” 11 December 2015.

[15] CBC News, “Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s Resignation Statement,” 19 March 2014; CTV News, “Timeline: What Led to Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s Resignation?” 19 March 2014; Kelly Cryderman, Carrie Tait, and Josh Wingrove, “ ‘Thank You. Good Night.’ Alberta Premier Allison Redford Resigns Amid Expense Controversy, Caucus Revolt,” The Globe and Mail, 20 March 2014, A1.

[16] CBC News, “Dave Hancock to Be Next Alberta Premier,” 20 March 2014.

[17] CBC News, “Dave Hancock Sworn In As Interim Premier,” 23 March 2014; Gary Mason and Kelly Cryderman, “Leadership Process Is PC’s Top Concern,” The Globe and Mail, 21 March 2014, A4. Mason and Cryderman wrote that “Dave Hancock, a Progressive Conservative Stalwart and loyalist to the outgoing Ms. Redford, will act as premier.” They also wrote that Hancock “was named to the temporary post Thursday.”

[18] Gary Mason and Kelly Cryderman, “Leadership Process Is PC’s Top Concern,” The Globe and Mail, 21 March 2014, A4.

[19] Carrie Tait, “Low Voter Turnout Overshadows Landslide Victory,” The Globe and Mail, 8 September 2014, A4.

[20] CBC News, “Jim Prentice Says Alberta ‘Under New Management,’” 15 September 2014.

[21] Council of the Federation, “Summer Meeting: August 26-30, 2014 – Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island,” accessed 10 June 2024. The list of participants includes “Premier Dave Hancock, Alberta” – not “interim premier” or “acting premier,” you will note. He also appears in the group photo.

[22] J.W.J. Bowden, “Canada’s Legal-Constitutional Continuity, 1791-1867,” Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 14, No. 3 (2020) at 599. His terms in office were from 24 May 1856 to 2 August 1858, 6 August 1858 to 24 May 1862, 30 May 1864 to 5 November 1873, and 17 October 1878 to his death on 6 June 1891.

[23] Privy Council Office, “Fourth Ministry: 16 June 1891—24 November 1892,” in Guide to Canadian Ministries Since Confederation (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 31 April 2017); Michael Wilcox, “Sir John Abbot,” entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia, 4 January 2019.

[24] Privy Council Office, “Fifth Ministry: 5 December 1892 — 12 December 1894,” in Guide to Canadian Ministries Since Confederation (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 31 April 2017).

[25] Barry K. Wilson, Sir Mackenzie Bowell: A Prime Minister Forgotten by History (Loose Canon Press, 2021), 179; Privy Council Office, “Sixth Ministry: 21 December 1894—27 April 1896,” in Guide to Canadian Ministries Since Confederation (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 31 April 2017).

[26] Barry K. Wilson, “Sir Mackenzie Disembowelled: The 1896 Cabinet Coup,” The Dorchester Review 9, No. 1 (Summer 2019), 22-28.

[27] Ted Glenn, A Very Canadian Coup: The Rise and Demise of Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell, 1894-1896 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2022), 123.

[28] Privy Council Office, “Sixth Ministry” in Guide to Ministries Since Confederation (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 19 January 2022)

[29] Glenn, A Very Canadian Coup, 135.

[30] Glenn, A Very Canadian Coup, 140.

[31] Sir Mackenzie Bowell (Prime Minister), “The Ministerial Crisis,” in Debates of the Senate, 7^th Parliament, 6^th Session, 9 January 1896, 16.

[32] Sir Charles Tupper, Reflections of Sixty Years (Toronto: Cassell and Company, Limited, 1914), 308-309.

[33] J.W.J. Bowden, “The Origins of the Caretaker Convention: When Governor General Lord Aberdeen Dismissed Prime Minister Tupper in 1896,” Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 16, no. 2 (2022): 391-444.