Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Liberal Party Isn’t Very Hearty

(Written for rabble.ca's election coverage)

There was a time when being named leader of the federal Liberal Party was a virtual guarantee that a politician was going to become Prime Minister of Canada. Edward Blake was the only Liberal leader who never made it. John Turner, of course, was PM for only three months and failed to win an election. Since 1867, Liberal leaders, not counting Stephane Dion, have served as Prime Minister for an average of eight years each. Collectively they have governed the country for eighty of the one hundred and forty-one years since Confederation.

The glory days of the Liberal Party began in 1896 with the election of Wilfrid Laurier as Prime Minister. Seventy-five of their eighty years in power have been since then. A key to victory for the Liberals was their lock on the majority of seats in Quebec in every election they won from 1896 to 1984. They failed to win a majority of seats in Quebec in the three successive majority wins of Jean Chretien (although they did succeed in holding a majority of Quebec seats as a result of by-election wins following the 2000 election). Chretien’s easy victories relied on massive majorities in Ontario. The Liberal house came tumbling down as a consequence of the acquisition by the Canadian Alliance of the Progressive Conservative Party in December 2003 and the Sponsorship Scandal.

The demise of a Liberal Quebec spells the end of the Grits as Canada’s natural rulers. With a united right, the multi-party splits outside Quebec don’t work any more to favour the Liberals and they’re not likely to in the future. This does not mean the Conservatives have become the natural governors. The fact that one third of Canadians now plan to vote for the NDP, the Bloc or the Greens means that we are en route to a new set of governing arrangements.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not certain, but seem to recall that John Diefenbaker took a majority of Quebec's seats in 1958.

James Laxer said...

John Diefenbaker did win a majority of seats in Quebec in 1958 and so did R.B. Bennett in 1930. My point was that in all of their federal election victories from 1896 to 1984, the Liberals won a majority of seats in Quebec.

Northern PoV said...

"we are en route to a new set of governing arrangements"

if only that were true

the vote split on the center-left means a Tory gov't - likely a majority

yes 60% of us voted against "free trade" in 88 - and the vote split gave Brian an easy win

Dion & May started it ... why didn't Layton get on board?
ego! (same reason he brought down Martin's govt in 2005)

Stephen K said...

I fear northern pov is right. The governing arrangement could take the form of Con governing majorities that would be entirely preventable if progressives could see the wisdom in uniting. As long as we don't have proportional representation, anyway.

Anonymous said...

layton is not totally responsible for bringing down the martin gov't, because 2 Libs voted against the gov't, and because martin would have called an election a few weeks later anyways, as he had promised. the ndp had to vote with the outraged canadian population on the sponsorship scandal.

anyways, james, what is missing in your post is a class analysis of canadian politics, and of the realignment of social forces in the various parties.

the CP is slowly becoming the 'natural' governing party for Canadian capitalism in the present phase of neoliberalism, because it has a policy agenda that matches the economic needs of capital (ie, a decentralized economic union backed by military might) and accommodates quebec autonomy to some extent.

for this reason, the CP is getting the ear of the capitalist class, the corporate press, the defence lobby, upper-middle class strata, and the centre/right think tanks.

in other words, harper has developed a highly class conscious policy agenda that reflects the real organization of capitalist power in canada.

the Libs, and the NDP, on the other hand, are much less class conscious and embody a contradictory mix of social forces, none of which either oppose or support the neoliberal agenda on clear social/material grounds. hence their confusion and drifting and inconsistency and isolation.

the Libs and NDP are trying to (re)become the governing party of the past, which worked fine during the National Policy periods, but not now under neoliberalism.

the left needs to be entirely recreated because the NDP, despite a few progressive policies, is trying to become the liberals of the past -- but it simply won't work.

unfortunatley, there is no social basis of social movements and working class movements to sustain a new left party.

so, we have to hold our nose and vote ndp. not very promising.

Anonymous said...

I can't see a political firmament without the Liberals. They've been down before in the Dief and Mulroney years and come back as strong and mendacious as ever. If they are a spent force, the polls don't show that the NDP are poised to replace them. The thought that we are in for 8 years of Harper, chilling though it is, seems a likelihood. That should give the Grits enough time to reorganize and masquerade as progressives long enough to regain power.