Genevieve Simms

With the re-election of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, Canada faces a third consecutive minority government for the first time since the 1960s. To put it another way, alone among western nations, Canada has so far failed to elect a majority government in the 21st century (assuming the new century began in 2001, not 2000). At a time when the ongoing “war on terror” has been joined by a new “war on recession,” our failure to trust any party with a majority says much about the sorry state of politics in Canada.

Harper does not hold the record for the longest single-term minority government in Canadian history. That distinction still belongs to the second term of Lester Pearson’s Liberals (1965 to 1968), which lasted for 960 days. By contrast, at the time of Parliament’s dissolution last month, Harper had been in power just 937 days. Still, assuming that Harper avoids another election for two more years, he’s well set to beat Pearson’s two-term total as a minority leader of 1,508 days.

As he embarks on his second minority mandate, is Harper also set to become the new Pearson? By that, I don’t mean he’s about to become a state-loving, public-program-oriented Liberal, but rather, my question is does he have the ability to make a minority government function effectively and productively for two or three years? After all, it was Harper’s belief that Parliament had become dysfunctional that allegedly prompted him to call the last election. Whatever the validity of that belief, the point is that without a majority in the House, the Conservatives must govern with the willing consent and co-operation of at least one other party. Otherwise, the last election was simply about spending $300 million to give Harper an additional 19 seats — roughly $15 million per seat — without any obvious sign of democratic renewal.

As the prospect of anyone winning a majority in the past election became less and less likely, several commentators noted that minority governments have been common in Canada’s history. Liberal William Lyon Mackenzie King and Conservative Arthur Meighen each governed without a majority in the 1920s, as did John Diefenbaker, Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark and Paul Martin in the post-1945 era. While these governments had a varied track record of success and achievement, the point remained that lacking a majority did not necessarily prevent a focused and tactful prime minister from governing with the support of the House.

Again, Lester Pearson stands as the prime example of this. Elected as a minority government in 1963 and again in 1965, his Liberals nevertheless won the active co-operation of the NDP and, in doing so, managed to enact a platform of legislation that effectively transformed Canada into a modern nation. Pearson set up the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which paved the way for the Official Languages Act (1969). He also established the National Productivity Council (forerunner of the Economic Council of Canada), the Canada Pension Plan, Social Insurance cards and a new points-based immigration program. He also unified the navy, army and air force into a single Canadian Armed Forces and, through his minister of justice, Pierre Trudeau, legalized abortion and homosexuality.

The lesson to be learned is that a minority government can survive and deliver a strong program of legislation, as long as it has the support of others. Winning this support, of course, depends on the character and abilities of the prime minister himself, and here any comparison between Harper and Pearson breaks down.

By the time he became prime minister in 1963, Pearson had a long record of public service to his credit. He had served as a medic and a pilot in the First World War, had taught at the University of Toronto in the 1920s, had entered the civil service in the 1930s and had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his role in creating the United Nation Peacekeeping Corps. Never a flamboyant or even particularly inspiring campaigner, Pearson nevertheless came close to scoring majority victories (48 per cent of all seats in 1963, 49 per cent in 1965) in elections where voter turnout was in the mid-to-high 70 per cent range.

By contrast, Harper’s service has been limited to advancing his own agenda, first through the old Reform Party, then the National Citizens Coalition and now the born-again Conservative Party. His own record over the past three years also suggests that it was he, as much as anyone else, who was responsible for any dysfunctionality that Parliament may have exhibited.

In their book Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada’s Leaders, historians Jack Granatstein and Norman Hillmer placed Pearson at number 6, despite his never having won the support of a majority of Canadians. In his own review of Canadian leaders, Right Honourable Men, Michael Bliss hints at why Pearson stands out despite his failure in this respect. “He knew his limits,” Bliss writes, “and when he reached them he took himself out of the game and handed the ball to the guy who threw hard and fast.”

Bliss’s words could be applied to Stéphane Dion, who last week finally acknowledged his own limitations and accepted the need for a new leader of the Liberal party. However, they could stand as a challenge to Harper. Twice he has stood before the Canadian voters and twice he has failed to convince them that he deserves or can be trusted with a majority, winning just 40 per cent of all seats in 2006 and 46 per cent this year. Not even Pearson, one of Canada’s greatest prime ministers, had the nerve to come back for a third time.

David Bright has published widely on Canadian social, labour and criminal justice history. He teaches history and politics at Niagara College, Ontario.