Don Newman

November 5, 2021

The new Parliament elected on September 20th will meet for the first time on November 22nd. Already, even before the first session begins, speculation is starting about how long this Parliament will last.

That is because this Parliament is a minority House.  The Liberals have the most seats, but not enough to command a majority in the 338-seat House of Commons. That means together the other four parties could combine their votes and deny the Liberals the “confidence” of the House. The loss of confidence would force Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to visit Governor General Mary May Simon and report that he could no longer govern. He would undoubtedly ask for an election that would almost certainly be granted and the whole electoral process would start again.

The tradition of “confidence” is as old as our British parliamentary system. It began in the 19th century, but like a lot of good things that began 200 years ago, time and evolving developments have made the tradition of confidence badly in need of a modernizing update. The power to do that resides in the House of Commons. Whether the will to do it also resides there is another matter. But if enough public pressure is mounted on MPs, a more rational system of confidence could be instituted that would work to the benefit of all parties in the House and to the country as a whole.

When parliaments were first constituted there were only two political parties. The one with the most seats in an election formed the government. The one with smaller representation became the Opposition. Generally, Members of Parliament voted with the group they had been elected with, although they showed more independence of thought and action than most MPs do now. In fact It was a Conservative, Donald Smith, who led a breakaway group of MPs who left Sir John A. Macdonald and his government in the 1873 Pacific Railway Scandal that in turn lead to the election of 1874 and four years of Liberal Government.

It would be an unlikely MP who would contemplate doing that today. But the proliferation of political parties, and the representation in the House of Commons of as many as five of them, has made the possibility of minority government as likely as not following an election.

Look at the record. Since elections in particular and politics in general entered the modern age with the advent of television, there have been 21 general elections in Canada since 1957. Eleven of those elections have produced minority governments. None of those has lasted with a government serving a full term in office. Some have been defeated in the House of Commons. More often, as in the most recent example, the prime minister of the day has triggered an election from his position of power, hoping the vote will result in a majority in the Commons that will rid him of the need to cooperate with at least one pesky opposition party.

The proliferation of political parties, and the representation in the House of Commons of as many as five of them, has made the possibility of minority government as likely as not following an election.

The result of this leads to a certain political instability in Canada. It also leads to opposition parties sometimes having to support a minority Government on policies to which they are diametrically opposed in order to avoid an election they cannot afford to contest. This was readily apparent in the period between 2006 and 2011, when the Liberals almost cravenly kept Stephen Harper and the Conservatives in power, voting for budgets they opposed. This act of political survival almost ruined the party, and was a factor in leading to its worst showing ever in the 2011 election—third place—that finally produced a majority Conservative government.

The answer to this conundrum lies in the fixed date election act passed by the Conservative government in 2007. It calls for a general Election on the third Monday in October, four years after the previous election was held. It also allows for a Prime Minister to ask the Governor-General to call an election any time, and in fact that is what Harper did twice after sponsoring the fixed date legislation and then ignoring it as he tried to turn minority governments into majorities.

The fixed date legislation did trigger the 2015 and 2019 elections. And now that it is on the books and has been used, it should be given a greater status. As well the GG should be given formal responsibility for maintaining a government in office it at all possible.

This is how a revised confidence system would work. A minority government that lost a vote on a budget or throne speech or some other confidence measure would be able to seek the confidence of the House again 24 hours later. This vote would not be on any specific measure, simply a motion that said only that the Government has the confidence of the House.

There is a precedent for this. In 1968, the Liberal minority government of Lester B. Pearson lost a late-night confidence vote on a portion of the spending estimates by being careless and having too few members in the House. The opposition Conservatives clamoured for the government to resign and face an election. But the Liberals were in the middle of a leadership campaign, and they negotiated with the New Democrats, who were also unready for an election, and two days later a simple confidence motion saved the government.

Putting this procedure into the rules of the House of Commons would not fundamentally change anything. But it would allow opposition parties to vote against measures they did not support, then negotiate with the government on changes they could accept and allow the Commons to continue. Similarly, the opposition parties could refrain from negotiating with the government and perhaps agree amongst themselves to form a government when asked to do so by the governor general.

Because that is what the governor general would have to do. He or she would have to offer another party, almost certainly the Official Opposition, the opportunity to form a government and face the House in a confidence test. If that party negotiated astutely and survived the test, it would then be the government and continue in office until the fixed date of the next election – or until it was defeated on a confidence matter.

If a new government could not survive a confidence vote, then the GG would call an election.

Adopting a system like the one I have outlined would force the parties in the House to be more co-operative. It would give more MPs a chance to have greater in put in the process of governing, which in theory is what minority governments are supposed to be about. And it would lessen the opportunity to ask the question: “How long do you think the minority government will last.”

Contributing Writer and columnist Don Newman, an Officer of the Order of Canada and a lifetime member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, is Executive Vice President of Rubicon Strategy in Ottawa.