SEPTEMBER 2004 Thomas S

IS THERE AN ANGEL TO RIDE THE OTTAWA WHIRLWIND? Thomas S. Axworthy Minority parliaments have lives of their own, writes Tom Axworthy, who lived through five of them in the 1960s and 1970s, and has experienced both the propping up and the toppling of minority governments. Power moves from the executive to the legislature, and MPs become more important than deputy ministers. The House leader becomes a closer confidant of the prime minister than the finance minister. Reading the mood of the House, and counting heads, becomes critical to the survival of the government. As Paul Martin returns at the head of a minority government, he faces a reinvigorated and united Conservative Party. After the splintered oppositions that produced three easy Liberal majorities in the Chrétien era, “this de-alignment era is clearly passed and re-alignment is on the horizon” with the election of 2004. Can Paul Martin ride the whirlwind of minority Parliament, or is he heading out into a perfect storm? Les minorités parlementaires ont une vie bien à elles, écrit Tom Axworthy, qui en a connu cinq durant les années 1960 et 1970, et qui a vu de près comment se construit et se renverse un gouvernement minoritaire. Le pouvoir politique se déplace de l’exécutif vers le législatif, de sorte que les députés acquièrent plus d’importance que les sous-ministres. Le président de la Chambre devient un confident intime du premier ministre, éclipsant même le ministre des Finances dans ce rôle. La survie du gouvernement dépend étroitement de son aptitude à percevoir et à interpréter les moindres nuances d’opinion parmi les députés et à savoir compter au moment des votes en Chambre. Au moment où Paul Martin prend la direction d’un gouvernement minoritaire, il fait face à un Parti conservateur revivifié et uni. Les divisions qui ont caractérisé l’opposition à l’époque du régime Chrétien ont donné trois victoires faciles au Parti libéral, mais cette période de dissension est nettement révolue, affirme Tom Axworthy, et on peut deviner un ralliement des forces à l’horizon. Paul Martin saura-t-il s’en tirer dans la mêlée qui attend son gouvernement minoritaire ou au contraire sera-t-il consumé dans la conflagration ? riting for a more heroic age, Joseph Addison in ments in a row, an economy that was performing at the top his 1705 poem, “The Campaign,” described the of the G8 league, with public support well over 50 percent. W leadership of the Duke of Marlborough as the But amidst this political bounty there was also the poisoned cool-headed ability to shape cascading events: chalice of the sponsorship scandal, and the release of the So when an angel by divine command auditor general’s indictment in February 2004 put the new With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, Martin government on the defensive, a stance from which Such as of late over pale Britannia past, it never really recovered until the last two weeks of the June Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; election campaign when it finally persuaded a plurality of And, pleas’d th’almighty’s orders to perform, voters to look at the Conservative alternative instead of Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm. venting their anger about Liberal misdeeds. Paul Martin may have begun his prime ministership in The June 2004 election returned a minority Parliament December 2003 confident that, like Addison’s hero, he — Canada’s first since 1979 — and with 135 seats Martin could respond to events with a central guiding intelligence will have a second chance to make his mark. Minority gov- and organize his policy battalions into a coherent whole, ernments, however, are very different entities from the but that is not how recent history has unfolded. Martin took majority governments Canadians have become accustomed over a Liberal Party that had won three majority govern- to since 1980. Minority Parliaments produce whirlwinds of 20 OPTIONS POLITIQUES SEPTEMBRE 2004 Is there an angel to ride the Ottawa whirlwind? an altogether different intensity than Harvard political scientist V.O. conservative-leaning workers, the normal political gusts. For starters, Key Jr., in his seminal 1955 article, Reagan Democrats. every member of Parliament knows “Theory of Critical Elections,” first Great Britain demonstrates a sim- that another election is just around pointed out that some elections have ilar cyclical pattern of critical elec- the corner, so minority Parliaments are more important long-range conse- tions: the 18th-century Whigs and like permanent election campaigns. quences for the political system than Tories morphed into the 19th-century What happens in the next minority others. “Critical” elections are those Liberals and Conservatives, but in Parliament will largely depend on rare electoral upheavals that funda- 1918, the British Liberal Party split what lessons the parties draw from the mentally change voting patterns, lead- into two by being unable to cope with election that just passed. ing to the dominance of one particular the pressures of the Great War and the party or public philosophy. Elections, Irish question. British politics de- hen a man is to be hanged in a Key wrote, follow cyclical patterns — aligned from its Liberal and W fortnight, advised the alignment, which establishes a stable Conservative base, and by the 1920s redoubtable Dr. Johnson, like Addison pattern of voting behaviour, de- the Labour Party replaced the Liberals another 18th century sage, “it concen- alignment, when the pattern is bro- as the progressive choice. trates the mind wonderfully.” If this be ken, and then realignment, when a so, Paul Martin must be concentrating new stable voting system reappears. anada, too, has had a cyclical pat- C tern of critical elections Not the least of Martin’s worries is the very real possibility that similar to the American and British examples. The criti- the 2004 election heralds the passing of the age of easy Liberal cal question today is majorities into a new era of competitive politics with the whether the 2004 election Conservative Party well positioned to take power. Rather than was critical. In 1878, Sir a temporary hiccup in the traditional electoral dominance of John A. Macdonald’s victory on the National Policy the Liberal Party, the 2004 election may be the tremor that set a pattern for forecasts a political earthquake that is gathering force. Conservative supremacy for nearly a generation, until fiercely. The prime minister has shuf- In the United States, for example, Sir Wilfrid Laurier won Quebec for the fled his Cabinet; next he must find at the 1800 election saw Thomas Liberal Party in 1896. For more than a least $3 billion in spending cuts, Jefferson’s Democrats victorious over hundred years Quebec was the bedrock restore the morale of the public service, the Federalist-Whigs, and the Democrat- of the Liberal Party. Like British poli- reach out to his divided party, recon- Whig era lasted until the 1850s. Then tics after the Great War, Canadian pol- nect with Quebec, renew hope in the de-alignment set in. Typically in de- itics began to be de-aligned with the West that things will be different, and alignment eras, there are high intensity rise of the Progressives in the 1920s, regain the confidence of Canadians in issues, existing party systems cannot but Mackenzie King’s political genius general by showing he knows where he cope and third parties arise. By the ensured that the Canadian Liberal is going. This formidable work of 1850s, the issue of slavery convulsed the Party would not go the way of its reconstruction must be accomplished United States, a new Republican party British cousins. Moreover, in 1935, like in a minority Parliament, which creates arose, the Whigs disappeared and the the American New Deal, King maneu- its own dynamic, in a political atmos- Democrats split into Southern and vered his way through the woe of the phere frenzied with the likelihood of National wings. Lincoln, a former Whig Great Depression and won a victory so another election within a year to eight- congressman was able to add the anti- large that the Liberals became “the een months. Not the least of Martin’s slavery movement to the traditional Government Party.” The King realign- worries is the very real possibility that Whig base, and his elections in 1860 ment lasted for decades; in 1980, for the 2004 election heralds the passing of and 1864 realigned American voters example, in an election in which I the age of easy Liberal majorities into a into a Republican majority, a pattern played a role as an adviser to Pierre new era of competitive politics with that endured until 1932. In that year, Trudeau, the Liberals and the Conservative Party well positioned the Depression broke the backs of the Conservatives split seats in Atlantic to take power. Rather than a temporary Republicans and Franklin Roosevelt cre- Canada, Trudeau swept Quebec with hiccup in the traditional electoral dom- ated a new realignment, the New Deal 74 out of 75 seats, the Conservatives inance of the Liberal Party, the 2004 Coalition, which lasted until 1980. were dominant in the West and election may be the tremor that fore- Ronald Reagan’s sweeps in 1980 and Ontario decided the election with 53 casts a political earthquake that is gath- 1984, in turn, broke up the New Deal Liberal seats to 38 for the ering force. Coalition as he successfully attracted Conservatives and 5 for the NDP. POLICY OPTIONS 21 SEPTEMBER 2004 Thomas S. Axworthy The 1993 election was a critical de-aligning election; the results from which we are emerging only today.

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