MINORITY GOVERNMENTS CONSIDERED: ARE THEY THE NEW NORMAL?

Geoff Norquay

Time changes perceptions. In the moment of the Pearson years, the House of Commons was in constant tumult and turmoil, and “the country,” Geoff Norquay writes, “was treated to a succession of tawdry scandals…it seemed that national politics could fall no lower.” Forty years on, the Pearson era is remembered “for a bounty of landmark progressive legislation.” Other minority governments, Trudeau (1972-74), Clark (1979-80), Martin (2004-2006), don’t do so well in the test of time. Which brings us to the current minority governments of , and the role of the opposition Liberals, from Stéphane Dion in one House, to Michael Ignatieff in the next.

Le temps modifie les perceptions. Pendant les années Pearson, la Chambre des communes était en perpétuel chambardement et « le pays ébranlé par une série de scandales sordides », rappelle Geoff Norquay. « La politique canadienne ne semblait pouvoir tomber plus bas », ajoute-t-il. Quarante ans plus tard, on parle aujourd’hui de cette époque comme d’une « période faste en mesures progressistes de portée historique ». Les gouvernements minoritaires qui ont suivi — ceux de Trudeau (1972-1974), de Clark (1979-1980) et de Martin (2004-2006) — n’ont pas aussi bien résisté à l’épreuve du temps. Qu’en sera-t-il des deux gouvernements minoritaires de Stephen Harper, dont l’opposition libérale aura été successivement dirigée par Stéphane Dion et Michael Ignatieff ?

t is amazing how the passage of time changes percep- “golden age” of modern nation building, the period when tions. For those of us coming of age and political aware- the architecture of durable and treasured national institu- I ness in the Canada of the 1960s, Canada’s 10th decade tions was put in place. Despite all the partisanship of those was a period of brutal and unsurpassed partisanship. Through years, Pearson’s minority governments of 1963-65 and 1965- a combination of mismanagement and hubris, between 1958 68 produced a bounty of landmark progressive legislation, and 1962, squandered the largest majority including universal medicare, the Canada and ever seen to that point in Canadian history. His government Pension Plans, the Canada Assistance Plan, Canada Student finally collapsed of its own weight and because of his para- Loans, the unified armed forces, official bilingualism and the noid leadership style and a cabinet hopelessly divided over Maple Leaf flag. placing nuclear weapons on Canadian soil. With or without the perspective of history, other mod- Diefenbaker was succeeded by Mike Pearson, the Nobel ern Canadian minority governments were not nearly as suc- Prize-winning diplomat, who never really got the hang of pol- cessful as Pearson’s: itics, and who would keep Diefenbaker at bay but never win a G The Trudeau minority ran from 1972 to 1974, sustained majority of his own. The two loathed each other, and as the by an understanding between the Liberals and the NDP. insults flew, the country was treated to a succession of tawdry The political flavour of the time was economic national- scandals — Hal Banks, Lucien Rivard, the Munsinger affair, the ism and the result was the creation of the Foreign Invest- Expo’ 67 construction fiasco — while Pearson lost four cabinet ment Review Agency and Petro-Canada as a Crown ministers to various forms of corruption and other misadven- corporation. Neither survives in its original form today, tures. It seemed that national politics could fall no lower. their original objectives long since overtaken by events But 40 years’ perspective provides an entirely different and changing attitudes. The only other significant ini- view of what the Pearson minorities actually achieved in the tiative of that period was the indexation of old age pen- mid to late 1960s. Today, they are widely regarded as the sions — a worthy initiative, but hardly groundbreaking.

22 OPTIONS POLITIQUES OCTOBRE 2009 Minority governments considered: are they the new normal?

G The Clark minority never really today that with the passage of time ments have been in office for a cumu- took shape in substantive legisla- could prove to be equally visionary. lative total of 20 years and three tive terms, and was famously Many people believe that large public months. That’s a little more than 22 defeated on the presentation of its and private investments in carbon cap- percent of the time. The longest minor- first budget. ture and storage may well be the most ity lasted three years and seven months G The Martin minority of 2004 to effective single step Canada could take to (Mackenzie King, 1922-25), and the 2006 had but one crowning achieve- reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. shortest lasted five months (John ment, the negotiation of a 10-year Those investments are about to happen, Diefenbaker, 1957-58). The average agreement with the provinces to and we’ll know in about 20 years how duration of a minority government is improve health care and reduce wait that works out.) one year, five months and nine days. times, but other initiatives were Another important message from Writing on the Web site overshadowed by the sponsorship the Pearson minorities is that noisy par- Mapleleafweb.com, Rhonda Lauret scandal. Neither the national early tisanship and a productive parliament Parkinson and Jay Makarenko have pre- learning and child care program nor are not mutually exclusive, although in sented a useful taxonomy of minority the Kelowna Accord survived the the moment, corrosive politics may governments in the Canadian context. first year of the Harper government, serve to obscure the creative and impor- They suggest that the strategies necessary and the Conservatives suffered neg- tant work that is getting done. for a minority government to survive ligible political damage from wind- Forgotten today in the glow of all the result in three basic kinds of minorities: ing them down. achievements of that period is that by G Ad hoc minorities, in which the gov- the time came along in ernment negotiates support on a s we assess our current round of 1968, most Canadians would have hap- case-by-case basis. Such minorities A minority governments, there are pily offered up their first-born just to are relatively unstable, because there some interesting lessons to be learned bring an end to the partisan bickering. are no durable alliances and no guid- from Canada’s minority experiences over By far the most important influence ing principles to govern interparty the last half century, and especially from of history’s judgment on the Pearson era relationships. Issue-by-issue compro- the Pearson minorities of long ago. is the lasting perception that minority mise becomes the order of the day. The most important message is governments do actually get good things G Loose alliance minorities, where that it takes time for historical assess- done. In fact, the “successful” Pearson “the governing political party ments to develop and mature, so it is parliaments have conditioned how strikes an informal deal with other best to let some years pass before exercising judgment Pearson’s minority governments of 1963-65 and 1965-68 on the achievements or fail- produced a bounty of landmark progressive legislation, including ures of a particular govern- ment or parliament. What universal medicare, the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans, the seems incredibly important Canada Assistance Plan, Canada Student Loans, the unified today could be a minor foot- armed forces, official bilingualism and the Maple Leaf flag. note a generation from now, and a decision that appears to be a Canadians look at minority governments political parties to ensure majority sleeper today might turn out to be bril- to this day. As a result, when we began support. Often this involves the liant with the perspective of 20 years. our latest period of minority government governing party taking on certain The reason is that subsequent in 2004, we were told by commentators policies that are central to the events can make or break major deci- and analysts that minorities were noth- other parties’ platforms.” sions taken years earlier, and endow ing to be feared; that, indeed, they are G Formal agreement minorities, in them with the mantle of success or fail- often more sensitive to public opinion, which two or more political par- ure. Back in the 1980s, on the day the more collaborative among the parties ties that together hold a combined Mulroney cabinet made the decision to and therefore more accountable to the majority agree on a written docu- fund the Hibernia project in offshore electorate. Well, maybe not so much! ment that details the specific obli- Newfoundland and Labrador, John gations of the parties and sets a Crosbie told his colleagues, “Depending inority governments in Canada time frame in which the agree- on the price of oil 20 years from now, we M are still the exception to the ment will run. will be seen as either visionaries or rule, but we actually have a fair Coalition government is the final fools.” Today, no one would question amount of experience with them. step in the continuum, in which “two the wisdom of that decision, but at the Canada experienced its first minority or more parties enter into a long-term time, it was far from a sure thing. (There in 1921, and in the succeeding 88 agreement to form the government, to is, by the way, a potential sleeper issue years, 12 separate minority govern- the exclusion of all other parties.”

POLICY OPTIONS 23 OCTOBER 2009 Geoff Norquay

Cabinet includes representation from yet trust the opposition with a majority,” soft Quebec nationalists and western the members of the coalition. or “Voters wanted to teach the govern- conservatives in 1993 led directly to the It’s relatively easy to slot the ment a lesson, but they weren’t ready to rise of both the Bloc Québécois and the recent Canadian minority govern- turn it over to the other guys.” Whether Reform Party. After the reunification of ments into these categories. Most have a rational and purposive collective “pub- the PCs and the Alliance, the taken the “ad hoc” approach, with the lic mind” actually exists is highly doubt- Conservatives regained the political mass Pearson, Clark, Martin and Harper ful, but the theory has some validity. to challenge the Liberals, but the persist- ence of the Bloc with its con- What is different about the current round of minority stant 50-odd seats has been government is that under the leadership of Stéphane Dion the principal cause of and Michael Ignatieff, the Liberals essentially ceded the “duty Canada’s recent minorities. If minorities are often to oppose” aspect of their role as official opposition. They transitional, then what became the default saviours of the Harper government, and strategies do the parties use compounded their problem through a never-ending series of to make the transition from loud threats and abject back-downs. minority to majority, or from opposition to government? governments all falling into this cate- With the benefit of hindsight, it can The parliamentary rules of the road gory. None of these governments had a often be seen that minorities are transi- for political parties in the Canadian sys- particular opposition party as a regular tional — a halfway house in the move- tem are simply summarized. The govern- “dance partner,” although the Martin ment from a government of one political ment seeks to implement its policies and government made a one-off deal with stripe to another. This was certainly the programs through legislation, regulation the NDP to sweeten its budget and case in the 1950s and 1960s, when the and spending allocations. It positions its avoid defeat in the spring of 2005. long-running King-St. Laurent govern- initiatives as an efficient and effective The 1972-74 Trudeau government ment gave way to the Diefenbaker 1957 response to the issues of the day, the was a “loose alliance” minority through minority, quickly to be succeeded by the challenges facing the country and the its arrangement with the NDP, and the Conservative majority of 1958. Similarly, interests of citizens. Meanwhile, the role David Peterson Ontario government as the Diefenbaker majority lost favour, of the opposition is to oppose the gov- from 1985 to 1987 was a “formal agree- voters first reduced Diefenbaker to a ernment’s proposals, to critique them, to ment” minority, again with the NDP. minority, then elected the first of two offer alternatives and to hold the majori- Pearson minorities in 1962, and those ty party to account for its management nterestingly, the only coalition gov- minorities proved to be transitional to a of government and the economy. In the I ernment in Canadian history long Liberal run in government under case of the official opposition, these occurred in a majority rather than Pierre Trudeau. The same phenomenon responsibilities extend to the preparation minority situation. During the First occurred in the more recent transition and presentation of a comprehensive World War, Conservative Prime from Liberal to Conservative. The plan for an alternative government at the Minister Robert Borden formed a Martin minority of 2004-06 proved to be next general election. “Union Government” of pro-conscrip- transitional between the 12 years of In a majority situation, these rules tion Conservatives and Liberals. Liberal rule under Chrétien and Martin of the road play out in a fairly pre- Coming back to the present, while and the Harper Conservatives. dictable fashion. A majority sets a it’s way too early for an informed dependable three-to-five year lifespan assessment of what the past five years here’s another kind of transition for a government and the parties gov- have produced in terms of landmark T that fosters the creation of minori- ern themselves accordingly. The gov- initiatives or groundbreaking legisla- ties, and it’s a transition within the polit- ernment knows it has several years to tion, it’s an opportune time to ask ical system, and particularly with the implement its platform. It can take on what history tells us about the factors sudden advent of a third or fourth politi- unpopular, complex or time-consum- that create minority governments, cal party. It’s clear that the surprising rise ing issues early in its mandate know- what makes them stable or unstable of the Progressives in the 1920s (58 seats ing it will have the time to rebuild the and how the political ground rules dif- in 1921 and 22 seats in 1925) denied political capital it needs to expend to fer between majorities and minorities. both the Liberals and the Conservatives make challenging reforms. When a minority is elected in the possibility of a majority throughout Majority realities impose themselves Canada, it’s obvious that it results from a that period. Majorities did not return on the opposition parties as well. In the divided electorate, and much is often until the Progressives all but disappeared first couple of years of a majority man- read into the “public mind”: “Voters in 1930. Similarly, the collapse of Brian date, they focus on laying down markers wanted to make a change, but they don’t Mulroney’s “grand coalition” between for future use. Blocking legislation or

24 OPTIONS POLITIQUES OCTOBRE 2009 Minority governments considered: are they the new normal? imposing policy alternatives is simply Hence we come to the need to Ignatieff was doing; they understandably not on, so they play the long game, “make Parliament work,” which is a assumed he was hell-bent to force an elec- building a critical narrative of the gov- constant of minorities and also an tion. As a result, Ignatieff appears, in the ernment record, advancing alternative essential. If the various parties never short term at least, to have exchanged the policies and developing themes they will find ways to put some water in their monkey for a tiger — in the form of pub- use later. Partisan attacks from the oppo- wine, every minority would fall on the lic anger at the prospect of another elec- sition on the government in the early presentation of its first Throne Speech tion less than a year since the last. years of a majority tend to be pro forma. or first budget, and we would literally On the other hand, Ignatieff’s gam- All of these basic dynamics change have an election every year until some- bit seems to have worked, at least in its in a minority situation. one scored a majority. impact on the NDP and the Bloc. As of Because a minority removes tempo- mid-September, the government’s ways ral certainty from the picture, all of the hat is different about the cur- and means motion has passed without essential political roles of government W rent round of minority govern- problem, and the NDP has signalled its and opposition are speeded up, and the ment is that under the leadership of intent to support the government at need for electoral readiness replaces cer- Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, least until its employment insurance tainty and predictability. All parties are the Liberals essentially ceded the “duty reforms are through Parliament later in play all the time, and politics and to oppose” aspect of their role as official this fall. Still, the Liberals need to be short-term positioning are in the ascen- opposition. They became the default concerned about how they handle the dant, because no one knows how long saviours of the Harper government, and next few weeks. If their “oppose-every- the parliament will last. And virtually compounded their problem through a thing-the-government-proposes” every issue — from the substantive to never-ending series of loud threats and approach is ironclad, they will gain the minuscule — becomes an opportu- abject back-downs. A number of conse- marks for consistency. But in the mean- nity for short-term partisan advantage. quences ensued. The NDP and the Bloc time, they will be making no contribu- What also results is a confronta- Québécois were absolved of all respon- tion to making Parliament work, while tion between two basic principles of sibility for “making Parliament work.” turning over the balance of power to our system: the government’s “right to They had a completely free ride — free and the NDP. govern” and the official opposition’s to vote against the government in virtu- Whether this September’s events “duty to oppose.” No one would deny ally all circumstances, and also free to presage a change in the way the cur- the right of a minority government to ridicule the Liberals for their “lack of rent minority Parliament is made to govern; reality demands it. Similarly, principle.” But a major comeuppance work remains to be seen. The next like- no one would gainsay the need for the was just around the corner. ly trigger point for a possible election official opposition to develop its plan This came in the form of Michael is the federal budget, due to be deliv- for an alternate government. But all Ignatieff’s early-September announce- ered next March after the Olympics. three groups — the government, the ment that the days of Liberals automati- We’ll see then. official opposition and the other par- cally propping up the government were ties — are subject to another key con- over. Ignatieff’s strategic objective was to Contributing writer Geoff Norquay was a sideration. That consideration is how get a large and painful monkey off his senior policy adviser to Prime Minister to read the public’s take on when the back, and at the same time to force the Mulroney and communications director next election ceases to be excessive and NDP and the Bloc to share in the pain of to Stephen Harper in opposition during unnecessary and becomes an accept- making Parliament work. As often hap- the 2004-05 minority House. He is a able and logical outcome of a minority pens in politics, the general public didn’t principal with the Earnscliffe Strategy having run its course. see the strategic motivation for what Group in Ottawa. [email protected]

POLICY OPTIONS 25 OCTOBER 2009