This column was originally produced as a briefing note for Rubicon Strategy.

Don Newman

August 16, 2021

Almost two years ago Justin Trudeau lost his majority in the House of Commons. Sunday he began a 36 day campaign to get it back.

Although under no pressure in Commons despite his minority government status, Trudeau has set the country on an election campaign that he hopes will re-establish the majority. That would let his Liberal Party govern for the next four years without having to worry that the other parties in the House will get together to decide it is they who want an election.

The leaders of the other parties have cried foul. Canada has a fixed date election law which mandates that a general election has to be called no later than four years after the one which preceded it. The Conservatives, Bloc Québécois, New Democrats and Greens are all saying an election now is unnecessary. But the reality is that a prime minister in a minority will call an election far enough away from the last one to be credible, at any time he thinks he can win it.

Obviously, Trudeau has brought on the election now because the public opinion polls are telling everyone that the Liberals have a good chance of gaining enough seats to be back in a majority. Conversely, they are telling the other parties that their fortunes are likely to suffer.  So Trudeau is following the time tested path of minority PMs seeking to achieve a majority. This political gambit does not always succeed in producing a majority government. But it succeeds often enough that prime ministers are always tempted to try it, and even if it does not produce a majority, it has never led to a PM directly losing power.

Look at the record. In 1963 Liberal Lester Pearson won a minority government, sending the John Diefenbaker and the Progressive Conservatives to the opposition benches. Two year later, in 1965, Pearson and the Liberals felt emboldened enough to try for a majority. But they miscalculated. After a rancorous campaign the Liberals picked up only three seats, but the PCs picked up two. The House of Commons was virtually unchanged and minority government continued until Pierre Trudeau became Liberal leader in 1968 and led the party to a majority.

But majority government was short lived. In 1972 the Liberals barely hung on to power. Two seats separated them and the Conservatives of Robert Stanfield, while the NDP held the balance of power. But by 1974 Liberal fortunes improved, Pierre Trudeau conspired to have his government defeated in the House, then led his Liberals to a narrow majority in the election in the summer of 1974.

It was more than 30 years until another Prime Minister of a minority government called an election when he didn’t have to. But when he did, Stephen Harper and his Conservatives did it twice. In 2008 the election he called increased the number of Conservative seats from 127 to 143, but still short of a majority. But when the opinion polls told him in 2011 that the time was right to try again Harper didn’t hesitate. He called an election that returned 166 Conservative members, and after four tries he finally had his majority in a House of 309 members.

Justin Trudeau has not hesitated this time. He followed his father’s example and became leader of the Liberal party in 2013  and then prime minister in 2015 at the head of a majority government. Four years later, like his father, he was reduced to a minority. Now he wants another copycat performance.

The next five weeks will tell the tale.

Policy Magazine Contributing Writer and Columnist Don Newman, a lifetime member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, is Executive Vice President of Rubicon Strategy in Ottawa.