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1890 Prince Edward Island election

A win that wasn’t a win for long

January 30, 1890

Sometimes, even the closest of elections aren’t the most heated of contests, aren’t decided over controversial issues or don’t feature engaging, charismatic leaders.

Take the 1890 election in Prince Edward Island, for example.

Called for January 30 of that year, it came very shortly after Neil McLeod was sworn in as premier of the small province. He took over from W.W. Sullivan, who resigned from the post in late 1889.

The Conservatives, under Sullivan, had been in power since 1879. McLeod was a member of Sullivan’s cabinet and was relatively progressive for his time, promoting labour-friendly legislation while in office. Though some Conservatives didn’t appreciate this direction, McLeod was nevertheless the only real contender for the job when Sullivan stepped aside.

McLeod’s opponent during the campaign was John Yeo, the leader of the leaders. But according to Frederick Driscoll, writing in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the Liberal leader “did not announce much by way of policy and campaigned against what [he] thought to be the weak record of the government”.

As would often be the case in PEI politics, McLeod instead touted his party’s links with the government in Ottawa which, in 1890, was still run by John A. Macdonald and the Conservatives.

The 19th century (and into the first decades of the 20th century) was a time of a deeply partisan press — every party had its allied newspaper, and those newspapers often went to war with the newspapers supportive of the opposing party. The Daily Examiner, out of Charlottetown, was no exception. A Conservative-aligned newspaper, the Examiner often railed against whatever charges were being made in the Liberal-aligned Patriot.

But reporting on election day, the Examiner tried to keep things cordial — at first.

“In the city the contest was close and exciting from the beginning,” wrote its correspondent. “The candidates were, personally, very well matched. Few had a word to say against any of them. Each was respected and popular. The contest was between the parties not between the men.”

It wasn’t long before the Examiner cast some aspersions on the means by which the Liberals (or the “Oppositionists”, as they were termed) got their vote out.

“Following their usual tactics, [the Oppositionists] ‘put their best foot foremost,’ and brought early to the polls every floating voter whom they could, by any means, command.”

Of course, the Conservatives wouldn’t stoop to such tactics. And while the Liberals might round-up vagabonds and drifters with the aid of a little booze, the Conservatives got the support of the right kind of people — at least according to the Examiner:

“By two o’clock—after the intelligent voters, who man our workshops and factories, our counting-houses and stores and offices—had polled their votes, McLeod…had obtained an advantage which the Oppositionists, with all their force and ability, and their ‘human devices’, could not overcome.”

The result was incredibly close, with the Conservatives winning 16 seats and the Liberals claiming 14. The popular vote was also nearly evenly divided between the two parties, with little having changed since the previous election of 1886.

A note on sources: Researching early elections is often difficult, as sources (when they can be found) do not always agree and newspaper reports from the time are unreliable. The Wikipedia page for this election, for example, lists both the Liberals and Conservatives as winning 15 seats — perhaps why the 1890 election was often referenced as PEI’s first minority government when Dennis King’s PCs won a minority in 2019. Elections PEI also lists the breakdown as 15 seats for each party in their historical references. But the document includes pencil marks, showing that an elected member recorded as a Liberal was actually a Conservative, which would put the count as 16-14. This is the result listed in several other sources, including the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Other sources refer to the McLeod government as being re-elected in 1890, rather than ending in a tie, and James William Richard, the member corrected by pencil in the Elections PEI document, is listed in the Canadian Parliamentary Companion for 1897 as a Conservative. For that reason, I believe the 16-14 result is the correct one.

McLeod’s narrow majority was not built to last. When Macdonald called a federal election in early 1891, three members of McLeod’s provincial caucus opted to run for a seat in the House of Commons. Two of the three byelections subsequently held to fill these vacancies went to the Liberals, with the third going to an Independent Conservative.

The byelection defeats meant McLeod had lost his majority in the legislature. Losing a motion of non-confidence, he asked for a dissolution, the lieutenant-governor refused, and McLeod resigned. Frederick Peters of the Liberals was asked to form a government and his party would remain in office in Prince Edward Island for another 29 years.

1904 Prince Edward Island election

When the premier’s seat ended in a tie

December 7, 1904

At the turn of the 20th century, the Liberals were well-ensconced at the top of Prince Edward Island’s politics. By 1904, the party had been in power for 13 years and Arthur Peters, installed in 1901, was only the latest in a string of Liberal premiers.

A lawyer “born into what passed for an aristocracy in 19th-century Prince Edward Island”, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Peters also happened to be the brother of Frederick Peters, who had governed the province from 1891 to 1897.

That’s not to say that there weren’t challenges for the Liberals in Prince Edward Island. While the province’s economy had been booming in the 1880s, by the 1890s it was stagnating on the edges of a country that was increasingly looking westwards. As fortunes worsened, P.E.I.’s politics turned to how the Island could get a better deal from the federal government.

Representation in the House of Commons was one point of contention. The province’s declining population as a share of the country’s as a whole had decreased its allocation of seats from six to just four by 1903, and Peters was a vocal opponent of Prince Edward Island’s falling clout.

Peters also pushed for P.E.I. to get a bigger subsidy from the federal government. That government just happened to be run by a Liberal prime minister in Wilfrid Laurier, and when Peters called an election for December 7, 1904, he had no qualms arguing that voters would ensure a better deal for P.E.I. by electing a Liberal government in Charlottetown to match the one in Ottawa.

The Canadian Annual Review analyzed the situation facing both the Liberal government and the Conservative opposition.

“Against the Government was the increasing taxation and indebtedness, the prevailing lack of prosperity amongst the Island farmers and leadership of the Conservatives by a young and talented man. As to actual performance the Liberal party had to its credit the abolition of the Legislative Council, or rather its curious amalgamation with the Assembly; the obtaining of some important financial re-arrangements from the Dominion; and the passing of a fairly popular, though not always enforced, Prohibitory Liquor law.”

John A. Mathieson, the young man leading the Conservatives, had hopes for a breakthrough. In the federal election held in early November, the Conservatives had won three of P.E.I.’s four seats. Surely that ‘Dominion’ success would translate over to the provincial sphere, even if Robert Borden’s Conservatives were still on the opposition benches in the House of Commons.

In the words of The Globe’s correspondent in Halifax, “the election was one of the most exciting ever held in the Province, and both parties worked hard, fine weather and good roads bringing out large votes.”

The Liberals brought the most votes out.

Peters secured a result very similar to the one his predecessor had won in 1900. The Liberals were ahead in 21 seats with 54.1% of the vote, a small gain of 0.6 percentage points. The Liberals swept Prince County, gaining a seat from the Conservatives, but lost one seat in Queens County.

Kings County remained the region of strength for the Conservatives, as it was there that they won seven of their eight seats.

But the most interesting result was in 2nd Kings, where Peters faced a tough fight. When the special votes were counted — people were allowed to vote wherever they held property, even if they had also voted where their primary residence was located — Peters found himself in a tie with the Conservative candidate, Harvey David McEwen, at 515 votes apiece.

While the result kept the premier out of the legislature for a few months, he was eventually able to claim the seat in a byelection called in early 1905. By then, it was agreed that Peters would win by acclamation and McEwen, a prosperous businessman, would go back to his life outside of politics.

But Peters didn’t get to enjoy being premier for much longer — he died of Bright’s disease at the age of 53 in 1908. Mathieson, the “young and talented man”, would eventually get his turn as premier in 1911.

Still, Peters would leave at least one lasting legacy. By 1914, Prince Edward Island was at risk of losing yet another seat in the House of Commons. His campaign to maintain P.E.I.’s representation finally bore fruit when the government of the day decided it would not decrease the number of seats P.E.I. had, but instead stipulate that no province could have fewer seats in the House of Commons than it does in the Senate. That rule has survived for over a century and, today, Prince Edward Island’s seat allocation remains unchanged, and very generous, at four.

1919 Prince Edward Island election

Unrest in the midst of unquestioned prosperity

July 24, 1919

While it included some Liberals, the Unionist government of Robert Borden was primarily Conservative. It had successfully led the country through the First World War but not without leaving a few scars, and when soldiers returned from overseas they expected to be treated like heroes — and that things would change.

That desire for change swept up governments across the country. And many of them were Conservative, regardless of what moniker the Dominion government might have adopted.

The cyclical nature of Canadian elections is not a new invention, and shortly after Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals were removed from office in 1911 following a long stint in power, Prince Edward Islanders did the same with their Liberal government, sweeping in the Conservatives under John A. Mathieson in 1912.

Mathieson and the Conservatives were returned to power in 1915 but with a much-reduced majority. Two years later, Mathieson resigned to take up a judicial appointment and his attorney general, Aubin-Edmond Arsenault, was chosen as his replacement.

Across the aisle from Arsenault sat a veteran of PEI politics. John Howatt Bell had been first elected as a Liberal in the 1886 provincial election. But he was a troublemaker, quarreling with his own premier. He left provincial politics at the end of the century to try his luck at the national level, successfully at first when he ran in a federal byelection but he was defeated in the next general contest. He stepped aside from politics for about 15 years before returning as a Liberal MLA in the 1915 provincial election.

The Liberals hoped to capitalize on Islanders’ discontent with the government. The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs said that the Conservatives had “against them the general unrest and high prices countered, however, by unquestioned prosperity.” Things were going well in Prince Edward Island, but Islanders weren’t feeling it.

The high cost of living — as it was termed even then — and the soldiers’ feeling of ill-treatment upon their return from France were key factors in this “general unrest”. Farmers were also upset with the government, but unlike elsewhere in Canada they failed to organize themselves into a party in PEI. (In 1920, provincial United Farmer candidates would be elected in both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.)

Also at play was sectarian prejudice. The Annual Review said that Arsenault’s Acadian background and Roman Catholicism raised “certain Orange prejudices and grievances”. The Orangemen were also upset that Arsenault appointed an “alleged Sinn Feiner” as secretary to the superintendent of education instead of a Protestant.

Bell and the Liberals ran on providing cleaner and more efficient government, including new investments in education (to promote the “patriotic spirit of the pupils”) and co-operation with farmers’ organizations to lower the costs of goods.

The Conservatives were primarily swept-up in the desire for change. When the election was held in “glorious weather”, in the words of the Charlottetown Guardian, the voters turfed Arsenault and his Conservatives.

The Liberals won 24 seats, a jump of 11 since the previous election. Their candidates captured 51.7% of the vote, up less than two points. But, in a very evenly-divided province, that was enough to ensure a landslide victory.

The Conservatives, down four points to 45.7% of the vote, lost 12 seats, winning only five. Three were on the east coast, one in Summerside and the fifth being Arsenault’s — won in the part of PEI where the province’s francophones are still concentrated to this day.

One Independent was also elected: John Alexander Dewar, a former Conservative who failed to win his party’s nomination, and ran and won in his old district — thanks in large part to the Liberals, who didn’t put up a candidate of their own.

Observers at the time concluded that the soldier and Protestant vote went strongly against the government, while the Guardian blamed the “prevailing unrest and the unlimited promises of Liberal candidates”.

With the benefit of hindsight, however, it is clear that this election result was also part of a broader movement against the Conservatives. The party governed five provinces and in Ottawa at the outbreak of the First World War. By 1921, the Conservatives would be out of office not only in Charlottetown, but in Ottawa and in every other provincial capital across the country, too.

1959 Prince Edward Island election

PEI goes with the flow

September 1, 1959

It was 1959 and Prince Edward Island was in an awkward spot. For the first time since the 1920s, the province had been governed for an extended period of time by a party that also didn’t hold sway in Ottawa.

That had to be fixed.

First elected in 1935 a few months before Mackenzie King’s Liberals returned to federal office, by 1959 the PEI Liberals had been in power for 24 years under four different leaders. The latest was Alex Matheson, who took over in 1953 and won the 1955 election.

Louis St-Laurent was the Liberal prime minister at the time. But in the late 1950s the country had swung to the Progressive Conservatives. John Diefenbaker was elected with a minority government in 1957 and he quickly turned that into a landslide majority the year later. That landslide included a sweep of all four seats in Prince Edward Island.

Undaunted, Matheson sent the province to the polls to boast of his “forward-looking program”, which included free text books for elementary school children, pensions for unmarried women and widows starting at the age of 60 and new trading relationships abroad.

All well and good, but what about Diefenbaker?

All four of his PEI MPs actively participated in the campaign to help elect their provincial cousins, now under the leadership of Walter Shaw.

A 71-year-old farmer and retired deputy minister of agriculture, Shaw didn’t have a seat in the legislature when he took over the opposition PCs, who had just a handful of seats. Matheson obliged Shaw by giving him a bench he could sit on on the floor of the legislative assembly in order to provide some guidance to his MLAs.

Shaw’s platform included the provincial government taking over the portion of teachers’ salaries paid by cash-strapped local school boards. He also pledged support for fishermen and farmers and called the PCs the “party of the causeway”.

Of course, Diefenbaker had merely promised an engineering study about a possible causeway linking Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick, but Shaw made it seem that a vote for the PCs meant a vote for a causeway that was definitely going to happen (it didn’t).

Shaw leaned hard on the notion that PEI needed a friend in the prime minister’s office, saying that Islanders “see the advantage of keeping the province in line with a generous Conservative administration in Ottawa.”

With some degree of self-interest, Matheson said that provincial and federal politics should be kept separate. But his campaign understood they were swimming against the current and instead put a “Matheson government” forward in its advertisements rather than the Liberal brand. Shaw and the PCs, meanwhile, featured Diefenbaker prominently in their advertisements.

It was an unsubtle message, but it worked.

After winning only three seats in 1955, the PCs captured 22 in 1959. The Liberals were reduced to just eight seats, six of them in the southeast corner of the island.

Despite the lop-sided seat result, the voting was actually quite close — the PCs took 50.9% of the vote, a gain of six points since 1955, while the Liberals took the remaining 49.1%.

Bagpipers and 2,500 supporters greeted Shaw for his victory speech, but the results were also greeted warmly in Ottawa. Though they had won a thumping victory only a year before, the Diefenbaker PCs needed some good news. The Liberals had successfully been re-elected on an anti-Diefenbaker message in Newfoundland the month before and new Gallup polling was showing support for the federal PCs slumping. An upset win in PEI improved the mood.

But it wouldn’t last. Diefenbaker’s government became unpopular and was reduced to a shaky minority in 1962. Similarly, Shaw experienced the loss of a few seats when he took Islanders back to the polls that same year. But he held on and in 1966 tried to secure a third mandate for his PCs.

Except by then there was a big problem for Shaw.

The Liberals were back in power in Ottawa.

1968 Prince Edward Island Progressive Conservative leadership

When the premier and opposition leader were neighbours

September 21, 1968

In the 1966 provincial election, Prince Edward Island swung narrowly from the Progressive Conservatives to the Liberals, ending the premiership of Walter Shaw. It wasn’t a decisive defeat, however, as Shaw’s PCs retained 15 seats in the 32-seat legislature.

But by 1968, Shaw had been leading the PCs for over 11 years — and he had his eye on retirement. He’d be turning 81 by year’s end (though the newspapers couldn’t quite get his age right, with three different articles pegging him to be 79, 81 and 83 years old) and he thought that was the time to go.

“I have been under no pressure to retire from the party,” he told the press when he announced his intention to step aside, “but I am at an age when one should consider retirement.”

Somewhat grimly, Shaw pointed out that “no one should hold on until other circumstances, either ill health or death, intervenes. It would be most unfair to stay on until something happens.”

So, the PEI PCs were off to find another leader. Five different candidates came forward, but by voting day only three were still in the running.

They were led by George Key. He wasn’t an MLA and was just 37 years old. But he was the mayor of Summerside, PEI’s second-largest city, and was seen as a centrist Tory.

His main competition was Cyril Sinnott, an internal medicine specialist and the MLA for Kings 5th, which he won by a single vote in the 1966 provincial election. If Key was the moderate, Sinnott was the right-winger (which he himself admitted).

Also on the ballot was Ivan Kerry, the party’s president. With his deep ties in and knowledge of the party, he was seen as a wildcard. But the Charlottetown correspondent for The Globe and Mail felt that Key and Sinnott were the front runners, as they had “launched strong campaigns for the leadership and each cites support from provincial party leaders.”

Over 1,300 voting delegates attended the convention held on September 20 and 21 at the Kennedy Coliseum in Charlottetown. Party members were treated to a speech by Robert Stanfield, who had taken over the national party the year before but was only a few months out from his crushing defeat at the hands of Pierre Trudeau in June 1968 (except in PEI, where the PCs carried all four seats).

But with just three candidates on the ballot, the only question was whether it could be settled on the first one.

It was, with Key winning 691 votes, or about 52% of all those who cast a vote. Sinnott finished second with 36%, with Kerry taking just 12% of the vote.

So, the PCs had their leader — a young man who could take on the Liberal government of Alex Campbell, himself only 34 years old. And who would know how to beat him better than his own neighbour?

Yes, Prince Edward Island is a small place. And it just so happened that George Key shared a lot with Alex Campbell.

“Premier Campbell and I are neighbours in Summerside,” he said in answer to reporters’ questions after his victory. “We attend social functions at each other’s home and we’ve even taken our vacations together. However, I’m afraid I don’t agree with his policies.”

It would’ve been even more awkward to run directly against Campbell in his own riding, so Key opted to run elsewhere. It didn’t help — he would go down to defeat by a mere eight votes as Campbell’s Liberals expanded their narrow majority to a landslide victory in 1970. The PEI PCs would be reduced to just five seats in that campaign, with both Sinnott and Kerry among the defeated, and the PEI Liberals would remain in office for the rest of the 1970s.

1976 PEI Progressive Conservative leadership

PEI PCs go for the steady hand

September 25, 1976

The Progressive Conservatives in Prince Edward Island had been going through a rough patch ever since they lost the 1966 election to Alex Campbell’s Liberals. It had been a close fight in that campaign, but the party was reduced to just five seats four years later. In 1974, the PCs only did a little better, winning six of 32.

That wasn’t good enough for PC leader Melvin McQuaid, and he quit as opposition leader two years later. A seat on P.E.I.’s Supreme Court bench was waiting for him.

The initial frontrunner to replace McQuaid was David MacDonald, the four-term PC MP for Egmont. But MacDonald was a Red Tory, and the Red Tories held sway in the federal Progressive Conservative Party after Joe Clark’s leadership victory earlier that year. Though he mulled a move to provincial politics, MacDonald decided to stay in Ottawa as one of Clark’s frontbenchers. He’d eventually be rewarded for his loyalty by being named to Clark’s (short-lived) cabinet in 1979.

When MacDonald dropped out, another veteran from federal politics took advantage of the opportunity. Angus MacLean had an even longer track record in office. The MP for Malpeque had been elected for the first time in a 1951 byelection. A farmer and WWII veteran, MacLean served as the fisheries minister in John Diefenbaker’s government.

A “Tory of the old school”, according to Martin Dorrell of The Globe and Mail, MacLean was 62 years old and hailed from rural Prince Edward Island. The decline of the Island’s agricultural sector was his main concern.

In some ways, his opponent couldn’t have been more different. James Lee was just 39 years old. Though he ran for the PCs in 1974, he didn’t get himself a seat. He had to wait until a byelection in 1975 to get into the Legislative Assembly. But that victory finally gave the PCs an MLA from Charlottetown, the city they had been shut out of in both 1970 and 1974.

The Canadian Press correspondent in Charlottetown described the different approaches of the two leadership contenders:

“The convention was a contrast to the noisy, placard-waving type of affair common in most other parts of Canada. A ‘wild’ demonstration here usually involves no more than a few placards and a choice of music, with candidates usually choosing either the skirl of bagpipes or the rasping sound of fiddles and guitars.”

MacLean opted for the bagpipes, entering the convention hall “accompanied only by his wife and a piper”, while Lee attempted more of the “big city zip”. What that “zip” was wasn’t described by the CP correspondent, but it apparently did not go over very well.

Lee put up a decent performance, but the majority opted for the experience and simplicity of the veteran MacLean. He took 57.4% of the 1,026 ballots cast.

In response to Lee’s approach, MacLean said that “high tension campaigning is not my style. It doesn’t work for me. That kind of thing tends to create party divisions. I do it quietly at the kitchen table and not with hoopla.”

He promised to keep the party united and get its organization ready for the next election. MacLean would come up just short in 1978, but would lead the PCs back to power in 1979. He’d stay on for only two years. By then, the PCs were ready to pass the baton to someone who had gained experience: James Lee.

1978 Prince Edward Island election

A squeaker, all right

April 24, 1978

The year was 1978 and Alex Campbell, the premier of Prince Edward Island, was hoping to do something no other premier had ever done before in his province: win a fourth consecutive election.

Though only 44, Campbell was already the longest-serving premier in PEI’s history (a title he still holds today). He had come into office as a younger man in 1966 and had led the PEI Liberals to more wins in 1970 and 1974. But a fourth win in 1978 was not going to be easy.

The party had already lost a couple of seats to the Progressive Conservatives in byelections and the Tories seemed geared-up for the campaign. They had a new leader in Angus MacLean, though he was hardly new to politics.

MacLean had served a quarter century as a PC MP, in the job long enough to have served as fisheries minister in John Diefenbaker’s government. “A politician without flair or a sense of style,” in the words of Martin Dorrell in the Globe and Mail, MacLean was “a reluctant speaker and a man who had never been able to dispel suspicions that he had returned to the province to retire.”

But return he did, taking over the provincial party’s leadership in 1976 and getting himself into the legislature in a byelection. The Liberals were confident they could beat MacLean (the contrast in age between the two leaders was stark) but Campbell nevertheless recognized that “no one has this in the bag.”

The Liberals presented their budget and shortly thereafter dropped the writ. Campbell wanted to continue his work diversifying the economy, largely with the help of federal funds from the Liberal government in Ottawa. New industries would bring 2,000 jobs to the province, cutting unemployment by half.

MacLean, however, emphasised the old industries that had built Prince Edward Island: the fisheries and the family farm. While Campbell might want to spend Ottawa’s money on economic diversification, MacLean wanted more self-sufficiency and autonomy for PEI — and for Islanders themselves.

Despite Campbell’s modernity, politics could still be old-fashioned in PEI. The Canadian Press reported “a predictable element of old-style politics [that emerged after the writ drop] — a stream of highway repair trucks.”

Widely considered a bitter campaign, the most competitive since Campbell had come to power, the PCs emphasised the team around MacLean, while the Liberals put the focus on the premier.

The Liberals had many promises in their platform, denounced as a “shopping list” by MacLean, while the PCs spoke broadly about values and objectives but kept their promises unspecific and a platform was never even released.

That unorthodox approach contrasted with that of the Liberals.

“The party has also taken some hard knocks over the slickness of its advertising,” Dorrell wrote. “The campaign, conducted by an out-of-province firm, features a photograph of Mr. Campbell in which the bags and worry-lines around his eyes have been air-brushed away, leaving the unfortunate impression that he has never known a hard day at the office.”

The results were extremely close. The Liberals dropped nine seats to just 17, with the PCs picking up nine to finish with 15. The Liberals took just under 51% of the vote while the PCs took just over 48%. Only 50 votes separated the Liberals’ Ralph Johnstone from Flora Bagnall of the PCs in 1st Queens. Without those votes, the two parties would have ended in a tie.

The NDP, which ran a far smaller slate of candidates than it did in 1974, took less than 1% of ballots cast.

The Liberals lost seats across the island, but primarily in and around Charlottetown. Their block of seats in Prince County at the western extremity of PEI kept them in office.

Islanders were nearly evenly split — and in some cases they literally were. At the time, Islanders elected two members to the legislature for every seat, one a “councillor” and the other an “assemblyman”. In five of PEI’s 16 districts, voters elected a Liberal for one of those titles and a Tory for the other.

“It was a squeaker, all right,” Campbell admitted on election night.

For the PCs, it looked like the Liberal government was nearly done. MacLean commented that it was “just a matter of whether it’s going in one sweep or in installments.”

After 12 years as premier and facing a divided legislature — the Liberal speaker reduced the party’s majority to one — Campbell decided to resign later that year. It put the legislature in an even more unstable situation. Bennett Campbell, his successor as premier but no relation, called an election in early 1979 to settle the impasse. Islanders indeed broke the tie, and Angus MacLean became premier.

1993 Prince Edward Island Liberal leadership

A coronation for Catherine Callbeck

January 23, 1993

The 1980s and early 1990s were dominated by constitutional debates — Quebec’s referendum in 1980, the negotiations over the repatriation of the constitution in 1981, the Meech Lake Accord of 1987 and the Charlottetown referendum in 1992. It elevated provincial premiers to the national stage. While that might not have necessarily made them household names, even the premiers of Canada’s smallest provinces were national figures.

Joe Ghiz was one of them, having become premier of Prince Edward Island in 1986. His Liberals dominated the province, winning all but two seats in his 1989 re-election campaign and still being very popular in the polls as the next election approached. But Ghiz decided that was enough, and announced his resignation in October 1992.

A handful of provincial cabinet ministers were touted as serious contenders, but in the end there was only one: Catherine Callbeck. First elected as an MLA in 1974, after which she served in cabinet for one term before leaving politics for a time, Callbeck had been the Liberal MP for Malpeque since 1988. She was the first to enter the leadership contest and resigned her federal seat, starting the campaign with the support of half of PEI’s cabinet ministers and most of the Liberal caucus. Her show of force dissuaded others from throwing their hats into the ring, something Callbeck didn’t mind.

"If no one else chooses to throw their hat in,” she said, “it could make the transfer smoother because leadership contests can be divisive.”

As the deadline for entering the race approached, it seemed like the PEI Liberals were heading for an acclamation. But on the very last day, two men stepped up to challenge Callbeck.

One was Bill Campbell, a social activist and federal civil servant somewhat well-known in Charlottetown.

The other was a complete unknown. Larry Creed, in his late 20s, was an unemployed construction worker and called himself the “beans and bologna candidate”. He admitted he entered the race simply because it was heading for a coronation.

Neither Creed nor Campbell had any political experience and Callbeck was the heavy favourite. She ran a largely promise-free campaign (wanting to save those for the upcoming election), but there was some disagreement over the Confederation Bridge — Callbeck wanted it to go ahead as planned, while Creed wanted a plebiscite on it.

More than 1,500 delegates (a big number in a province of around 130,000 people) attended the convention in Charlottetown, but it was a “low-key convention with only token demonstrations and little sign-waving on a convention-room floor so packed with chairs that there wasn't much room for it anyway”, according to the Ottawa Citizen’s correspondent.

“While Campbell emotionally promised full employment in 10 years and Creed choked up when he mentioned his parents, Callbeck delivered a cool, straightlaced speech reflecting her meticulous personality and middle-of-the-road Liberalism.”

The result was a landslide victory — as expected.

Callbeck took 79% of the vote on the first ballot, easily beating both Creed and Campbell, who took 16% and 5% of delegates’ votes, respectively.

Callbeck had just become the premier of Prince Edward Island — and only the second woman to become premier in Canada’s history, having been beaten to the punch by British Columbia’s Rita Johnston by little more than a year.

She wasn’t intimidated at the prospect of being a woman in a male-dominated field.

"When I took my Bachelor of Commerce at Mount Allison,” she said, “I was the only woman in the class. When I taught at Saint John Institute of Technology, I was the only woman on the business administration staff. When I served in cabinet in Prince Edward Island I was the only woman. When I was in business, I dealt mainly with men."

Without a seat in the legislature, Callbeck didn’t waste any time before calling an election, setting a date for March. In the 1993 PEI election, she rode a wave of popularity (and a tide going against anything Tory blue at the time) to win 31 of 32 seats — another landslide victory, making her the first Canadian woman to lead a political party to electoral success.

1993 Prince Edward Island election

Prince Edward Island makes history

March 29, 1993

For Catherine Callbeck and the Liberals of Prince Edward Island, 1993 held little suspense.

After Joe Ghiz announced his resignation as premier, a job he had held since 1986, it quickly became apparent that Callbeck, the Liberal MP for Malpeque and former provincial cabinet minister, would be his successor. Some 1,500 delegates confirmed this in January 1993 when they overwhelmingly gave their support to Callbeck over her two little-known opponents.

A provincial election was expected shortly after Callbeck was sworn in as premier — and it set up a campaign unlike any other seen in Canada before, as two women leading parties of government faced off against each other.

The PEI Progressive Conservatives, who had been thrashed by Ghiz’s Liberals in 1989, had chosen Pat Mella as their leader a year later. A school teacher, Mella energetically critiqued the Liberal government from outside the legislature.

That’s because there weren’t many seats reserved for Tories in Charlottetown. In the last election, the Liberals had won 30 of 32. And even one of those two PC MLAs had been persuaded to resign in order to accept a government appointment from the Liberals. The other MLA, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, decided not to re-offer.

That meant Mella would be leading a cast of 32 candidates without a single incumbent among them.

“I think it’s time for a change,” Mella said, “and you might as well mean it literally.”

Politically, things looked good for the Liberals. But Callbeck had her own challenges to face as premier of a province with 18% unemployment and prospects of more job losses on the horizon.

One of those fears was that Jean Chrétien’s Liberals, widely expected to defeat the PCs in a federal election later that year, would put a stop to the building of a tax facility in Summerside to process the GST. Chrétien had pledged he would scrap the GST, which would put hundreds of jobs in Summerside in danger.

In the end, Islanders needn’t have worried.

Playing it safe, Callbeck ran a campaign of “splashy advertisements, bland speeches and personal contact with thousands of voters in muddy farmyards and chilly church basements,” according to The Globe and Mail’s Kevin Cox. Callbeck avoided controversy and detailed commitments whereover possible.

Mella, by comparison, was a lively speaker and sharp critic, and her detailed platform included many promises to Islanders, including attention-grabbing ones like ending political patronage and funding kindergarten. But she wasn’t able to move the dial much in her favour, and having to apologize for some radio ads that went after Callbeck personally — attack ads were just not how things were done in PEI — did not help matters.

In a climate of insecurity and uncertainty about the province’s economic future, Islanders opted for the status quo — and nearly awarded the Liberals a sweep.

The Liberals captured 31 seats, a gain of one from the previous election. The party captured both of the seats vacated by the PC MLAs but left one on the table: Pat Mella’s.

It was a disappointing result for the PCs, who had hoped to make a breakthrough. But Mella was able to get herself a seat in the legislature and increase her party’s share of the vote by four points to 39.5%. The Liberals dropped nearly six points to 55.1%, but it didn’t matter much. Callbeck had coupled her leadership landslide in January with an electoral landslide little more than two months later.

Her victory didn’t make her Canada’s first female provincial premier, as Rita Johnston beat her to that title in 1991 in British Columbia. But Johnston and her Social Credit Party went down to defeat later that year. Avoiding that fate made Callbeck the first woman to become premier with an electoral mandate of her own — not that Callbeck thought much about it.

“I can honestly say I don’t feel that type of pressure,” she said. “I’m the sort of person that I take on a challenge and I do the best I can, that’s what I’m going to do as premier of Prince Edward Island.”

2003 Prince Edward Island Liberal leadership

A second Ghiz for the Liberals

April 5, 2003

The 2000 provincial election in Prince Edward Island was one the PEI Liberals wanted to forget.

Against Pat Binns’s incumbent Progressive Conservative government, Wayne Carew nearly led the party to complete destruction. The Liberals were reduced to just a single seat (and that won by just 157 votes) and 34% support. At the time, that represented the worst performance for the Liberals in the party’s long history. (The party reached a new low this past Monday.)

Carew held on as leader for a few months, but by the fall of 2000 he decided it was time to step down.

"It will always be something that you wish you could have another crack at," he said. Ron MacKinley, the lone Liberal survivor from 2000, took over as interim leader.

There wasn’t much of a rush to fill that job in a province dominated by Binns and the PCs. Not until February 2003, just a few weeks before the nomination deadline, did two candidates come forward.

Alan Buchanan was the first. An MLA for 4th Queens from 1989 to 1996, Buchanan had served as a cabinet minister in the Joe Ghiz and Catherine Callbeck governments, taking on important portfolios like health and justice. Since leaving politics ahead of the 1996 campaign that brought the PCs to power, Buchanan had been working in the private sector. He launched his leadership campaign in his hometown of Belfast in front of 250 supporters.

A few days later, Robert Ghiz joined the fray.

A familiar name in Prince Edward Island as the son of Joe Ghiz, premier from 1986 to 1993 (he passed away from cancer in 1996), Robert Ghiz was just 29 years old. While the family name was well-known among Islanders, his was also a well-known face in Liberal circles, as Robert Ghiz served as Atlantic advisor to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

"We need a resurgence of energy that has been the backbone of our party,” he told the 275 or so supporters gathered for his campaign launch in Charlottetown. “We need a leader who wants to work hard, a leader who will bring about dramatic change in this organization — a change in attitude, a change in mind set."

Ghiz, however, was not banking his strategy on nostalgia for the years of his father, who led the Liberals to big victories in 1986 and 1989.

"I'm not my father,” he said. “I just hope I can learn from some of the good things he did on PEI."

The convention at the Charlottetown Civic Centre was very well-attended, as nearly 4,000 Liberal party members would cast a ballot.

"I didn't know there were this many Liberals left on P.E.I.," one delegate joked to the CBC.

While Ghiz pitched the message of renewal, Buchanan leaned into his experience. During his convention speech, he argued that "I am ready to lead this party. I have earned my stripes and my apprenticeship is over." But decisions he had made when in government, particularly a pay cut for public sector workers, were still haunting him.

With 3,979 ballots cast, Ghiz emerged as the favourite — but only just. He earned the support of 2,065 delegates, giving him 52% of the vote. Buchanan was only 161 votes behind with 1,904, or 48%.

"The Liberal Party is ready for change,” Ghiz said in his speech before the ballots were cast. “The province is ready for change, the Tory era is ending and I am here to offer this party a fresh start.”

"We need to learn from our past, live in the present and build now for the future. Today is the start of a new page in the history of our party."

He was right about that, but that new page wouldn’t be turned just yet.

In the 2003 election called a few months later, Ghiz would improve the Liberals’ standing, win himself and three other Liberals a seat in the legislature and increase the party’s vote share by eight percentage points. Unlike Carew, he would get another crack at the premiership. But he’d have to wait four more years before occupying the same office that his father once did.

2003 Prince Edward Island election

A hat trick for Pat Binns

September 29, 2003

After two consecutive majority governments for the P.E.I. Progressive Conservatives, premier Pat Binns decided to go for something no Tory had managed before in P.E.I. since the 19th century: three wins in a row.

The omens for Binns and the PCs looked good in mid-2003. The last election had only been three years earlier, but unemployment in Prince Edward Island was low (by P.E.I. standards) at 11% and the number of jobs had increased significantly since the PCs had come to office in 1996. Polls put satisfaction with the Binns government around 80% and, just to leave nothing to chance, the PCs had spent the months before the election call announcing new reductions in fees and taxes, such as the capping of auto-insurance rates. That had been a thorny issue which hurt other PC premiers in the Maritimes, and Binns wasn’t going to take the risk.

A bean farmer and one-term PC MP during the Brian Mulroney years, the 54-year-old Binns announced the expected election at his own nomination meeting. His was the last of the 27 PC nominations that needed to be lined up.

Against the PCs, the Liberals had a fresh face in their new leader — though not an unfamiliar name. In April 2003, the party had chosen the 29-year-old Robert Ghiz, son of former premier Joe Ghiz, who had governed from 1986 to 1992 and had passed away in 1996. Robert Ghiz won by a margin of 161 votes over former cabinet minister Alan Buchanan in a contest in which 4,000 Islanders cast a ballot.

Despite the interest, the prize at the time was not particularly glittering.

The Liberals had been out of power for seven years and had been shellacked in the last election when they had been reduced to just a single seat in the 27-seat Legislative Assembly. Only 157 votes in that one riding had prevented a clean sweep of the island by the PCs.

But P.E.I. had only ever known two parties of government — the Liberals and the Tories. If Ghiz wasn’t the favourite to win the upcoming election, he would eventually get a good shot at becoming premier.

While young, Ghiz boosted the party’s fortunes. His father had been a popular premier, though his son rarely spoke of his father on the stump as he wanted to steer his own course. He gave the moribund Liberals new energy and criticized the government for increased electricity rates, one of its few vulnerabilities. He also put the premier on the defensive during the leaders debate.

The Liberals started the campaign about 20 points behind the PCs in the polls, but by election day the race was looking closer. No one, though, doubted that Binns would prevail in what had been widely seen as a low-key, dull election without any major controversy or decisive issue.

On voting day, the damage from Hurricane Juan couldn’t keep Islanders from casting a ballot, as turnout still managed 83% despite nearly half of households losing power. Even Binns had to watch the results on a small TV powered by a generator.

Those results gave the PCs its third consecutive majority government with 23 seats, a loss of only three since the previous election. The PCs still managed to win a majority of ballots cast despite dropping nearly four points.

Ghiz and the Liberals put up a decent fight, gaining three seats (two of them in Charlottetown, including the district in which Ghiz was running) and increasing their vote share by eight percentage points, ending with just under 43%.

The New Democrats, under rookie leader Gary Robichaud, managed just 3.1% of the vote. The party had failed to run a full slate and finished no better than third in any riding, barely clearing double-digits in just one district.

For Binns and the PCs, the gamble of an early election had paid off nicely. On election night, Binns joked that “sometimes it's called P.E.I., sometimes it's P.E. Island. But tonight I want to call it P.C. Island."

I guess you had to be there.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections Prince Edward Island and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

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1905 Alberta election

Alberta’s first election

November 9, 1905

When Wilfrid Laurier, the Liberal prime minister, announced that two provinces would be carved out of the North-West Territories in 1905, it was understood that they would governed by Liberal premiers. After all, it was a Liberal MLA who was appointed to be Alberta’s first lieutenant-governor, and he accordingly named the new Alberta Liberal leader to be the new province’s first premier.

That man had been chosen in August 1905 at a convention in Calgary attended by about 150 delegates. These Liberals had to get a provincial organization up and running, and to lead it they chose Alexander Rutherford, an unflashy lawyer who had served in the territorial assembly since 1902. Aiding his rise to the party leadership — and thus the premiership — might have been the fact that Rutherford had ruffled few feathers in his brief time in politics.

He wasn’t too keen on the terms of Alberta’s entry into Confederation that had been decided upon by Laurier, who imposed separate schools on Alberta to protect the French Canadian Catholic minority and retained federal government control over Alberta’s public lands and natural resources. But, Rutherford was a Liberal and a team player.

After naming a cabinet, Rutherford set November 9, 1905 as the date of Alberta’s first election. His Liberals would be opposed by the Conservatives, who named a Calgary lawyer named Richard Bedford Bennett as their leader. Their convention was held in Red Deer, the first in a long list of Alberta political events held in the city.

Bennett and the Conservatives went on the attack against the Liberals and the Alberta Act which, they claimed, infringed on provincial autonomy. But Rutherford and the Liberals had a powerful ace up their sleeves: patronage. Even if they had only been in office for a few weeks, that time gave them the chance to reward their friends.

Alberta also happened to be, contrary to its modern political make-up, a pretty Liberal place. The influx of immigrants into the province from around the world gave the party that brought them to the country a natural constituency.

The 1905 Canadian Annual Review highlighted the mosaic that Alberta had become:

Victoria was largely Galician [Eastern European] in its vote. Vermilion had a population mainly American in character … Leduc was strongly French-Canadian in complexion and the local Conservative candidate, Mr. C. A. Simmons, was, by the way, a relation of Sir Charles Tupper. In Wetaskiwin there was a considerable Swiss vote … Stoney Plain was almost entirely German in its racial complexion. Cardston was largely a Mormon constituency.

Farmers were also pre-disposed to supporting the free-trade Liberals over the protectionist Conservatives. In the 1904 federal election, Laurier had carried three of the five seats that occupied what would become Alberta and was only a few hundred votes away from winning all five.

Ably run by Liberal MP Peter Talbot, who had been Laurier’s preferred choice for the premiership before he declined, the Liberal campaign focused voters’ attention on Bennett. Unlike the inoffensive Rutherford, Bennett had made enemies as a lawyer representing some of the most powerful (and hated) companies in Alberta — including the Canadian Pacific Railway.

To little surprise, Rutherford’s Liberals prevailed easily, winning 23 of 25 seats and about 58% of the vote. The Conservatives were only able to win two ridings: Rosebud, north of Calgary, and High River, south of it.

Bennett, running in Calgary, went down to defeat.

Though his time in office would be relatively short (he resigned in 1910), Rutherford would be the first Liberal premier of what would be Alberta’s first political dynasty. The party would remain in office for 16 years, until it was replaced by the United Farmers of Alberta in 1921.

More than 20 years after his defeat in Calgary, R.B. Bennett would go on to take over the leadership of the national Conservative Party. After winning the 1930 election and becoming prime minister, Bennett would be “rewarded” with leading the country through the Great Depression and being defeated after a single term in office.

1909 Alberta election

The last Liberal landslide in Alberta

March 22, 1909

In office since the province’s creation and the subsequent 1905 election, Alexander Rutherford and the Liberals had spent their first years in power setting up the institutions and infrastructure of newborn Alberta.

Lewis G. Thomas, writing in The Liberal Party in Alberta, said that heading into the 1909 election the Rutherford Liberals “could point to a record of achievement, to the foundations soundly laid for a new province. The province had acquired a publicly owned telephone system and extensive public works had been carried out. The interests of agriculture had been promoted and those of labour given consideration. A judicial system was in good working order, the educational system was functioning adequately although salaries were low and a scarcity of male teachers was feared.”

But a growing, bustling province meant there was a need for more railways. Just a few months before the election was called, Rutherford announced a new policy on the part of the Alberta government: it would guarantee the bonds for three railway projects and so gain these much-needed railways without a significant investment of public money.

It was the kind of safe, sound policy that Rutherford had come to be known for and the Liberals launched their campaign under the slogan “Rutherford, Reliability and Railways”.

It helped that the Conservatives weren’t really capable of putting up much of a fight. The party was effectively leaderless. After R.B. Bennett was defeated in 1905, Albert Robertson took over as leader of the official opposition in the legislature. But he wasn’t particularly beloved by Conservatives (musing about breaking the link with the British Empire, maybe even by annexation to the United States, didn’t help) and he was never permanently given the role. Even when the man they did have in mind declined at the party’s convention, the Conservatives weren’t willing to name Robertson as party leader. R.G. Brett, who was named president of the party, was nominally given the title.

Bennett, though, was still the leading attack dog and he led that attack from Calgary, charging that the Rutherford government had given favour to Edmonton over his city, what with the capital going to Edmonton and the University of Alberta going to Rutherford’s home town.

The Conservatives had some progressive policies in their platform, including the public ownership and operation of the railways, more direct democracy through recalls and referendums and pledges for significant government spending in building up Alberta’s infrastructure.

But the Liberals had all the advantages of an incumbent government and were ready for the campaign. They went on the attack themselves, charging that the Conservatives were in the pocket of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The CPR was dead-set against the Liberals, in part because their government wanted to fund new railways that would compete with it.

The disarray on the Conservative side helped mitigate the fact that Rutherford, while respected, wasn’t an electrifying campaigner or great speaker. He was also more non-partisan than a lot of Liberals would have liked. Before election day, Rutherford appealed to Albertans in the Strathcona Plaindealer for “the elimination of selfish and partisan considerations. I appeal to you not as Liberals or Conservatives, but as Albertans. The Province must stand before the party.”

The Liberals had no trouble winning another huge mandate from Alberta’s (male) voters. The party captured 36 seats, with one Independent Liberal also being elected. The legislature increased in size significantly and the Liberals won nearly all the extra seats, including eight by acclamation. The party’s share of the vote was up slightly to just over 59% — or comfortably over 60% including the Independent Liberal candidates.

Only two Conservatives pulled off a victory. One of them was R.B. Bennett in Calgary, but neither Brett nor Robertson were elected to join him in the legislature. Bennett would take over as opposition leader before heading to Ottawa.

Among the small, motley crew of opposition MLAs were Charlie O’Brien, a socialist elected in the Rocky Mountain riding where the province’s coal mines were located, and future Conservative leader Edward Michener, who won this time as an Independent.

Rutherford’s big majority victory turned out to be no guarantee of security. Allegations of corruption (which remain unproven) and charges of incompetence (which appear closer to the mark) coming from a contract awarded to the Alberta & Great Waterways Railway undermined Rutherford’s authority. Exacerbated by divisions within the Liberal caucus, this forced Rutherford to resign as premier in 1910.

The Liberals would have trouble shaking off the A&GW scandal, though they would manage to win two more times before falling to the United Farmers of Alberta in 1921. But the Liberal dominance of Alberta was over — single-digit opposition caucuses in Alberta would be a thing of the past. At least, for a little while.

1930 Alberta Liberal leadership

North vs. South in the Alberta Liberal Party

March 27, 1930

From its creation in 1905, Alberta was Liberal. The Alberta Liberal Party formed the first dynasty in a province that likes its dynasties, winning each of the province’s first four elections. But the Alberta Liberals’ last time in office came to an end in 1921, and the party hasn’t been in power since.

That election saw the rise of the United Farmers of Alberta, an agrarian populist party that, along with the Progressives at the national level, broke the old party system. The Farmers beat Charles Stewart’s Liberals in 1921 and did the same in 1926, when the Liberals were under the leadership of Joseph Tweed Shaw. By the time the next election approached in 1930, the Liberals needed a new leader to replace him.

Leadership contests were new-fangled things at the time, having only become established practice in Canadian politics little more than a decade earlier. They weren’t long drawn-out campaigns with well-known candidacies, leadership debates or membership drives. It often all came down to what happened on the convention floor.

For the Alberta Liberals, who would hold their leadership convention on March 27, 1930 in Calgary, it wasn’t even certain who would stand for the job a few days out. A few candidates were rumoured to be interested, but it wasn’t even known whether or not Shaw would allow his name to be put forward again until, the week of the convention, he finally declared he would decline any nomination.

By the time the convention was held (on a Thursday), it was obvious that the race would primarily come down to two candidates — one representing the southern wing of the party, the other representing the north.

The southern standard-bearer was John Walter McDonald, a lawyer and mayor of the small town of Fort MacLeod. Born in Toronto but living in Alberta for more than 20 years, McDonald had run as the Liberal candidate in the Macleod riding, losing to the UFA in 1926.

Newspapers differed on his chances, the Edmonton Bulletin claiming the southerner was largely unknown in the north while the Lethbridge Herald suggested the local boy, who it called “an able public speaker, a life-long Liberal and a close student of public affairs”, was well known to Liberals throughout the province.

Alberta Liberals from northern Alberta coalesced around William Robinson Howson, an Edmonton lawyer without political experience but propped up by the support of younger delegates to the convention.

In addition to these, two others were nominated from the convention floor.

There was John Campbell Bowen, a former Edmonton MLA who briefly served as party leader until Tweed took over in 1926, and Hugh John Montgomery of Wetaskiwin, another former MLA who was defeated in the Farmers’ 1921 victory.

Hector Lang, the MLA for Medicine Hat, and George Webster, an MLA for Calgary, were also nominated by delegates. But they declined their nominations, Webster opting to nominate McDonald himself.

“One of the hottest fights in the history of the Liberal party in this province,” according to the Lethbridge Herald, had to go to three ballots. On the first ballot, McDonald emerged with the most support at 40%, followed closely by Howson at 36%. Bowen trailed in third with 16.5%, while Montgomery came up in fourth with 8%.

With more than 60% of the vote between them, it seemed possible that the candidates from the north could team up to beat McDonald, the lone southern candidate.

That didn’t happen. On the second ballot, Bowen and Montgomery lost about nine percentage points, nearly all of that going to McDonald. On the final ballot, McDonald emerged victorious with 54% of delegates’ votes, Howson growing only to 40%, Bowen dropping to 6%.

Perhaps delegates had decided they wanted a candidate with a little more political experience than the neophyte Howson. The result, though, was interpreted by some as the southern wing of the Liberal Party flexing its organizational muscle.

McDonald wouldn’t have long to get comfortable in the job. Premier John Brownlee of the United Farmers set the date for the 1930 election for June 19, less than three months after the seatless McDonald took over the Liberal Party leadership. While McDonald would lead the Liberals to a few modest seat gains, one of those was not his own. Again without a seat, McDonald’s leadership of the party wouldn’t last and, in 1932, he was replaced by Howson. No longer a neophyte, Howson had managed to do what McDonald couldn’t in 1930: win a seat in the legislature.

1944 Alberta election

The importance of being Ernest

August 8, 1944

From the moment that William Aberhart and Social Credit stormed to power in Alberta in 1935, the province’s politics were a punchline for the rest of the country. Pledging to implement Social Credit’s unorthodox, unworkable theories of monetary reform, Aberhart failed to deliver the promised $25 monthly dividend to Albertans and had his legislation blocked and disallowed by the federal government and the lieutenant-governor.

The province’s experiment in Social Credit almost ended in 1940, when opponents to Aberhart formed a united front and the Socreds only narrowly secured another term in office. It would be Aberhart’s last, however, as he died in 1943.

The heir apparent to “Bible Bill” was Ernest C. Manning, only 34 when the Social Credit caucus unanimously chose him as leader and premier. Manning had been Aberhart’s disciple and right-hand man, and accordingly took over Aberhart’s Back to the Bible radio show along with the reins of the province.

Manning was a believer in Social Credit, but he was also pragmatic. Despite all of the turmoil surrounding the Aberhart years, Alberta was coming out of the Depression with a booming economy and better services. Manning made a few half-hearted attempts to show the Socreds that he was still intent on trying to implement Aberhart’s programme, but he also pledged to keep his government’s efforts within provincial jurisdiction. The passing of Aberhart made it possible for Social Credit to become a more serious party — and for the failures of the past to be forgotten. Ernest Manning was no William Aberhart, but in a good way.

In any case, by 1944 Manning had something more potent to take to voters than the wacky theories of Social Credit: anti-socialism.

The Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation was becoming a strong force in Canadian politics. It was competing with the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives at the national level. It finished second in the 1943 Ontario election and shocked the country when it formed a government for the first time after the 1944 Saskatchewan election. Just as Aberhart had set his sights on Saskatchewan after taking power in Alberta, Douglas and the CCF was setting its sights on Alberta.

Elmer Roper, who won the CCF’s first seat in Alberta in a 1942 byelection, was leading a party with a strong organization. He pledged to nationalize Alberta’s industries, including the exploitation of its natural resources. He provided a good target for Manning, who emphasized Social Credit as a “free enterprise party”.

Roper criticized Manning for "going conservative”, as Social Credit was seen in some quarters as a left-wing movement in the 1930s. And, in some ways, it was — Social Credit had brought in some “socialist” legislation, instituting publicly-funded care for tuberculosis patients and free surgeries, hospitalizations and examinations for cancer patients.

But Manning’s vision of the role of government was different than the CCF’s. Whereas the CCF wanted to nationalize industry and put into place universal programs, Manning believed that the state should only step in where people couldn’t take care of themselves. For those who could, individual responsibility was what mattered — for Manning, Social Credit was for private individualism, CCF was for state socialism.

Though the fight was primarily seen as one between Social Credit and the CCF, another major player was the Independent Citizen’s Association, a coalition of former Conservatives, Liberals and United Farmers who were united in their opposition to the Socreds. They had nearly defeated Aberhart in 1940, but by 1944, and under the leadership of James Walker, the party’s cohesion was falling apart. Also on the ballot were the Labour Progressives under James MacPherson, the successors to the Communists who had been banned only a few years before.

A correspondent for The Globe and Mail in Edmonton wrote at the campaign’s outset that “right now, it’s almost too early to guess who’ll win from among the three major groups — Social Credit, C.C.F. and the Independents. But it will be an up-and-at-’em battle all the way.”

That battle became literal at one CCF meeting in Lethbridge, where the Social Credit candidate in attendance was “ejected and punched”. National CCF leader M.J. Coldwell, who was campaigning in Alberta, tried to downplay the affair, but Social Credit was happy to use the incident as an example of the “Gestapo methods” that the CCF would use if they came to power.

Nationally, the Alberta election was overshadowed by the campaign taking place in Quebec on the very same day. There, the Liberals under Adélard Godbout were in tough against Maurice Duplessis’s Union Nationale, and the electoral campaign served as a proxy for Quebec’s opposition to conscription. By contrast, Ernest Manning had pledged to support the federal government’s war effort and members of the armed forces were able to select three extra MLAs to represent the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.

Though the outcome of the election was seen as unpredictable, things were moving in Social Credit’s favour. Fears of the rise in popularity for the CCF was sapping the support for the Independents, pushing them toward Social Credit. The Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal, the two major Alberta newspapers long dismissive of and opposed to Aberhart’s government, reluctantly endorsed Manning, urging voters to rank Social Credit candidates second after the Independents on the ranked ballots that were then in use, an admission that, for all its faults, they preferred a re-elected Social Credit government to a CCF victory.

In the end, it wasn’t close at all. So sweeping was Ernest Manning’s victory that the Canadian Press called the election just 26 minutes after the polls had closed.

Social Credit took 51.9% of the vote, a gain of nine points over the near-death experience of the 1940 election. The party won 51 seats, 15 more than in the last election, sweeping every riding outside of the multi-member Calgary and Edmonton districts.

Roper and the CCF finished second in the votes with 24.9%, a 14-point jump over 1940. But they were only able to elect two MLAs, one in Edmonton (Roper) and one in Calgary. Instead, the Independents managed to finish second in the seat count, winning three seats (two in Calgary and one in Edmonton). Their support had plunged 26 points, however, to just 16.8%.

Also elected was William Williams under the banner of the Veterans & Active Force Party, while the Labour Progressives were shut out, capturing 4.3% of ballots cast.

Manning’s victory in 1944 would establish Aberhart’s shaky Social Credit Party as the dominant force in Alberta politics for nearly three decades. Manning would combine significant spending, social conservatism and anti-socialism, along with the economic prosperity that came with the discovery of oil at Leduc in 1947, to win seven straight elections. But the dynasty would end with Manning — the party was defeated in the first election after his retirement and shortly thereafter drifted into irrelevance.

1958 Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership

Alberta PCs hope to ride the Diefenbaker wave

August 16, 1958

Being a Conservative in Alberta was once as tough as being a Liberal.

After Social Credit’s surprise win in the 1935 election, the Alberta Conservatives teamed up with the Liberals (and defeated United Farmers) to form a united front against the Socreds as part of the Independent Citizen’s Association.

They weren’t successful at dislodging Social Credit from power after repeated attempts and it wasn’t until 1952 that the Alberta Conservatives ran a few candidates of their own once again.

The party had yet to get much of a sniff at power in the province and weren’t getting much closer. Under John Page, the Conservatives managed to win three seats and 9% of the vote in 1955 — and even that poor showing was still their best performance in a quarter century.

But things were looking up for the Progressive Conservatives across the country by the end of the 1950s and the Alberta Tories finally opted to bring their party’s name in line with their federal cousins.

It certainly seemed like a good idea after John Diefenbaker’s landslide victory in 1958. In that election, the federal PCs went from just three seats in Alberta to a clean sweep of all 17, taking 60% of the vote and reducing the previously-dominant federal Social Credit to just 22%. Ernest Manning, the Socred premier, quipped that voters had “put all their eggs in one basket and shot the hen”.

Flush with the victory of their federal counterparts, the Alberta PCs were finally ready to name their first permanent leader since 1937 and scheduled their convention in Edmonton on the 15th and 16th of August, 1958.

Taking place in the newly-completed Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton, the convention was attended by some 1,000 delegates and guests, including about 400 who would cast a ballot. Duff Roblin, who had brought the PCs to power just a few months earlier in Manitoba, delivered the keynote address.

The speakers took aim at the Manning government, which had tried to pre-empt the PC convention by announcing it’s “gigantic” five-year plan, including a series of new investments and the end of the oil dividend that had been paid out to Albertans. The PCs charged that the Socreds had based their plan on polls to “see what would bring them the greatest number of votes”.

The front-runner for the PC leadership was W.J.C. Kirby, a 48-year-old MLA for Red Deer and president of the party since 1953. Cam Kirby had the edge over his rivals due to his legislative experience and his familiarity within the party.

His main rival was Alan Lazerte, a 30-year-old lawyer from Edmonton with support from the northern delegates. He told the convention that they were “choosing the next premier" and criticized the Socreds for making the legislature “more like a puppet show than a place of parliamentary debate”.

Also in the running was Calgary MLA Ernest Watkins, who described Manning’s five-year-plan as having “a pinch of Conservative policy, a tablespoon of sugar and lots and lots of water”, as well as Ernest Toshach, the mayor of Drumheller, and Gifford Main of Edmonton.

Kirby was widely seen as the favourite, but he was also seen as a centralizing figure. Those who wanted a more grassroots approach to party organization gathered around Lazerte.

When the first ballots were counted, Kirby was indeed in front with 38% of delegates’ votes, followed by Lazerte at 27%. Watkins, Toshach and Main followed. A second ballot clarified matters when support for the bottom three candidates dropped and support coalesced behind Kirby and Lazerte.

Though Lazerte gained on Kirby in that second ballot, Kirby widened his lead on the third with the elimination of Main and a reduction in support for Toshach and Watkins. On the fourth ballot, Watkins fell further and Kirby was able to win without the need for a fifth round, taking 52% of the vote to Lazerte’s 40% and Watkins’s 8%.

On winning the title, Kirby promised “better government” for Albertans and that he would transform the PCs into the chief alternative to the Socreds.

In the provincial election that followed less than a year later in June 1959, Kirby only half-delivered on his pledge. The Progressive Conservatives did indeed emerge as the main rival to the Socreds and finished second in the vote count with 24%, a significant jump from their showing in 1955. But Social Credit also saw its support increase to 56%, leaving no opposition party with more than one seat — including the PCs, who elected only a single candidate: Ernest Watkins.

Kirby would resign early in 1960 and the PCs would spend a little more time in the wilderness. The PCs weren’t selecting the next premier in 1958, but they would make that choice only a few short years later with the elevation of Peter Lougheed to party leader in 1965.

1962 Alberta Liberal leadership

Small-town mayor becomes Alberta Liberal leader

January 14, 1962

It’s been a long, long time since being an Alberta Liberal was easy.

The struggles of the Alberta Liberal Party are not just a recent phenomenon — and the blame can’t all be laid at the feet of one Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Take the 1959 Alberta election, for instance. In that vote, Ernest Manning’s Social Credit captured 61 of 65 seats on offer. The Liberals, then under Grant MacEwen, managed just 14% and a single seat. It wasn’t MacEwen’s.

So, the job of being the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party became vacant. And it stayed that way for more than two years.

By 1962, the Liberals decided it was time to fill that vacancy. The names of a few promising candidates were bandied about, but in the end it came down to just two.

One was Bryce Stringam, a former MLA who was elected as an Independent in 1955 and served for one term in the legislature.

The other was Dave Hunter. The mayor of the small northern community of Athabasca, Hunter was serving as president of the Union of Alberta Municipalities and was the odds-on favourite to win.

About 500 delegates gathered in Calgary in January 1962 for the convention, an event that was enlivened by a fiery performance by Ross Thatcher, leader of the Saskatchewan Liberals. Though himself only an opposition leader in Regina, he had reinvigorated the Liberal Party there and would eventually end the CCF’s long run of power in 1964.

For now, though, Thatcher’s job was to rally the Liberal troops in this neighbouring province. And it wasn’t his first time — in the previous fall, he had spoken at a rally in Edmonton where he “apparently inspired some members of the Alberta [Liberal] executive to the point where they were all set to go out and fight. Unfortunately,” wrote Andrew Snaddon, the Globe and Mail’s correspondent in Calgary, “they don’t seem to know what they are fighting about.”

The Liberals recognized that they were unlikely to defeat Social Credit. The party had governed Alberta for more than a quarter century and Manning looked (and, as it turned out, was) unbeatable. But the Liberals had more hope at the federal level, believing that John Diefenbaker’s unpopular Progressive Conservative government was vulnerable. The PCs had swept all of Alberta’s seats in Diefenbaker’s 1958 landslide, but both the Liberals and Socreds believed they could win a few federal seats back in the upcoming vote.

That test was in the future, though. In January 1962, the Liberals had to choose their local standard-bearer to give the brand some new energy. And they chose Hunter by a substantial (unreported) margin.

Snaddon thought Hunter had potential.

“Athabasca is in the northern part of the province,” he wrote, “good Liberal ground in days past. He also has an advantage in rural-dominated Alberta in that he does not come from Calgary or Edmonton, for city interests are conflicting with rural ones.”

However, the Liberals faced an uphill climb.

“Mr. Hunter is not a spectacular orator, nor is he likely to be an inspirational leader,” Snaddon opined. “But he is said to be a determined man and a hard worker.”

The Liberals failed in their first test in the 1962 federal election. While Diefenbaker’s PCs were reduced to a minority, they only lost two seats in Alberta — both to Social Credit.

In the next provincial election in 1963, Hunter would have only limited success. The Socreds won 60 of 63 seats and 55% of the vote, leaving the Liberals with just 20% support and two seats — neither of them Hunter’s.

His leadership would come to an end in 1964 when Hunter failed to win a seat in a byelection.

But Hunter’s short-lived leadership did get the Liberals back their official opposition status, even if it was with just two seats. It wouldn’t last for very long, however, and it would be another 30 years before the Liberals would be awarded that role again.

1966 Alberta Liberal leadership

Alberta Liberals choose a leader — for a little while

January 15, 1966

Politics was changing in the 1960s. Quebec was in the midst of the Quiet Revolution and the United States was reeling from first the election, and then the assassination, of John F. Kennedy. Student-led protests and calls for change emanating from south of the border were being heard in Canada, too, and before the decade was over the country would have its own youthful-seeming, mould-breaking prime minister.

But one place where politics was still very old-fashioned, at least for the time being, was Alberta.

The province had been governed by the Depression-era Social Credit Party since 1935. Since 1943, the premier had been the unflashy, deeply Christian and solidly conservative Ernest Manning. It didn’t seem like that was going to change anytime soon.

The Socreds dominated Alberta politics, leaving little room for any real opposition. The tiny opposition that was elected in the 1963 election was led by Dave Hunter and the Liberals. They won all of two seats, taking 20% of the vote. The Socreds, by comparison, won 55% of ballots cast and 60 seats.

The extent of Manning’s dominance was so great that, in 1965, Hunter felt he had better prospects as a federal Liberal — even in Alberta. He resigned his provincial leadership and ran for Lester Pearson’s Liberals in the 1965 federal election, placing a distant second in his riding of Arthabaska.

But with the Alberta Liberals now searching for a leader, there was a bit of optimism around the party’s chances. Social Credit was increasingly showing its age, and when the Liberals mounted their leadership convention the Ottawa Citizen’s correspondent, James H. Gray, noted that “greying heads were notably absent from the convention platform and the convention floor”. This was a more youthful, forward-looking party than it had been before. It was certainly more youthful than the Socreds.

Alberta was changing. Another party had an opportunity to be the vehicle of that change, according to Gray.

“The Alberta population has changed drastically in the past 15 years,” he wrote. “The Socred proportion has been drastically reduced by the huge influx of outsiders and by the attrition of time. A good half the population knows nothing and cares less about the economic conditions that spawned Social Credit.”

There were two front runners for the Alberta Liberal leadership, which would be decided on January 15, 1966.

There was Calgary alderman Adrian Berry, who had ran for the federal Liberals in the last election, finishing a respectable (but still distant) second in Calgary North.

His main rival was Robert Russell of Edmonton, the former executive secretary of the provincial party. According to the Calgary Herald, he hadn’t “cut his chances any by having corsages handed out to the female delegates” of the Women’s Liberal Association, who gathered to hear from the contestants in the days ahead of the vote.

Also on the ballot was Richard Broughton of Ponoka and Wilbur Freeland of Peace River.

A farmer and a veteran of the Second World War, in a couple years Freeland would become the grandfather of Chrystia, the future federal finance minister. For now, though, he was an also-ran in this contest, an “outspoken advocate of left-wing policies, such as public ownership of power”, according to the Herald. Broughton also had little shot and it probably didn’t help that he spent the final days of the campaign on vacation in Mexico.

The convention in Calgary was well-attended, with some 1,000 voting delegates and observers present. The Alberta Liberals wanted to spice up the contest a little and adopted a voting system reminiscent of the American primaries — delegates would choose leaders from within their groups, and have those leaders announce which candidate their group would be backing.

Drawing a queen of spades from a deck of playing cards, Berry spoke first to the convention. He sharply criticized the Social Credit government but he didn’t spare the Liberal Party either, saying “I’m not impressed with our organization in this province.”

The voting system, meant to create excitement, instead sparked confusion, delays and recounts, taking some energy out of the event. The presence of the youth delegates was felt, however, when they voted to add lowering the drinking age to 18 and legalizing birth control to the party platform.

The first ballot ended in a tie, with both Berry and Russell taking 231 votes, each heavily backed by their respective Calgary and Edmonton bases. Freeland took just 78 votes, while Broughton had only 15.

On the second ballot, Freeland’s support was cut nearly in half as most of his and Broughton’s backers went over to Berry. On the final ballot, Russell wasn’t able to pick up more than two votes to Berry’s 16, and that settled matters. Adrian Berry would be the new leader of the Liberals and the standard bearer for change in the province.

It wouldn’t last. Citing divisions with the party executive that made his position “untenable”, Berry resigned in November 1966. Michael Maccagno, who led the opposition in the legislature and who had been interim leader after Hunter’s resignation, resumed that role and kept it, leading an unprepared and divided party into the 1967 election held in May.

The unsteady Liberals weren’t able to become the vehicle of the new Alberta. Instead, it was Peter Lougheed and the Progressive Conservatives who displaced them, finishing second in the 1967 election with more seats than they had ever won since the formation of Social Credit. In 1971, the PCs would finally break the Socreds’ strangle-hold on the province — and the Liberals, now finally under Robert Russell, fell to just 1% of the vote.

1967 Alberta election

The beginning of the end

May 23, 1967

As Canada prepared to celebrate its centennial year, Albertans were on track to return to office the same party that had governed them since the Great Depression.

Four years after Ernest C. Manning led his Social Credit Party to its eighth consecutive victory, sixth under his leadership, the Socred dynasty that started in 1935 looked completely secure. The party had won 60 of 63 seats in the last election. Undoubtedly they’d dominate again.

And why not? Alberta’s economy was humming along and the people were enjoying the prosperity that came from the province’s oil industry. Sure, the Socreds had lost two of three byelections in the last session, but there was little need to worry about that.

After 24 years in office, Manning was instead thinking about retirement. He’d give Social Credit one more election before stepping aside. With that in mind, he presented a “White Paper on Human Resources Development” full of conservative social policies that could give his successor some direction.

The truth of the matter, though, was that the Socreds were starting to show their age. Borne out of the desperation of the 1930s and some eccentric (some would say unworkable) theories of monetary reform, Social Credit seemed to come from a bygone era that was very different from the post-oil-boom Alberta it governed. Nevertheless, Manning was greatly respected and his defeat was unthinkable.

Sensing that a generational change might be coming, Peter Lougheed, a lawyer and former Edmonton Eskimos halfback, decided to take on the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives — a party with no seats in the legislature that managed to run only a half-slate of candidates in 1963. But Lougheed saw it as a better vehicle for his ambitions than the staid old Socreds, and he immediately gave the Tories a youthful, energetic image to match his own.

The Socreds were not completely out of touch, however. Manning approved of attempts to merge Social Credit with the PCs, deputizing two Socreds, including his son Preston, to open negotiations with the PCs, whose own team of negotiators included Joe Clark. They came up with a plan to create an “Alberta Social Conservative Party”, but it went nowhere when old-guard Socreds bristled at the idea of joining the PCs. The Tories, too, decided it wasn’t the best way forward when their prospects seemed bright.

Adopting the slogan “Horizons Unlimited”, Social Credit launched the 1967 Alberta election campaign running on their record of high spending and low taxes. They also aimed their fire at the NDP rather than the PCs, hoping to stir up fears that the spectre of socialism was looming over Alberta.

Lougheed avoided direct attacks on Social Credit, particularly against the much-respected Manning, but he called them ““old and tired — a reactionary administration, reacting day by day”. His party was ready for the campaign, as Lougheed had worked on improving local organizations and identifying quality candidates.

“We’re looking for people who have something unusual going for them,” he said. “They are probably fairly young and probably have never been in politics before, but are well-respected in their communities and are looking for the big challenge.”

The New Democrats under Neil Reimer were running a full slate, and had shown their own organizational abilities when they won a byelection in 1966. Their campaign was centred around the ethics of the Social Credit government. Their lone MLA charged two government members, A.J. Hooke and E. W. Hinman, with abusing their position for personal profit. They would later be cleared by a commission that Manning struck just days before his election call (Hinman, though, would lose the nomination in his own riding over the controversy), but the issue hurt the Socreds’ image as a clean administration.

The Liberals under Michael Maccagno were in worse shape than the other parties, unprepared for the campaign and riven by internal feuds. They joined the NDP in their attack on the Socreds’ ethics, but even a party spokesman admitted it wouldn’t make much of an impact on the electorate because “as far as the public is concerned, Manning could be run over by a bus and they would say it was a smart move”.

The campaign was notable for featuring the province’s first leaders debate. Lougheed challenged Manning to a televised joust, but the incumbent premier ignored him. What the devout evangelical Christian couldn’t ignore was an invitation from the City Centre Church Council to attend a debate at the McDougall United Church in Edmonton.

In front of a crowd of some 1,200, the four leaders answered questions from the audience. Manning performed well, deemed the winner by at least one columnist, but so did Lougheed, who was warmly applauded by the crowd.

“It is fundamental that the government not be considered the be-all and end-all of our democratic process,” Lougheed argued at the debate.

In the end, the biggest issue of the campaign might have been that call for an opposition — any opposition — to Social Credit. It was clear that the PCs were going to do well enough, but the talk was no more lofty than that 10 opposition members might make it to the legislature, up from the five that was estimated at the campaign’s outset. Even Lougheed admitted that winning anything more than seven seats “would be a smashing victory” for the PCs.

As expected, Social Credit was returned with a massive majority. But the party lost five seats and, more worryingly for Manning, 10 percentage points. It took 44.6%, dropping under 50% for only the second time during his tenure.

Lougheed led the PCs to official opposition status, winning six seats and 26% of the vote, a gain of 13 points since the 1963 election. Five of those six seats were won in either Calgary or Edmonton, and all but one of their six MLAs were under the age of 40.

The Liberals retained their three seats but finished with just 10.8% of the vote, a decline that put them behind the shutout New Democrats, who nevertheless increased their vote share by 6.5 points to 16%.

Among the defeated opposition candidates were Joe Clark, future prime minister, in Calgary-South and Grant Notley, future NDP leader and father of Rachel Notley, in Edmonton-Norwood.

The 10th opposition MLA elected was Clarence Copithorne, an Independent who won in Banff-Cochrane.

Shaken by the results, Manning ordered an extensive post-mortem on the campaign to understand what had happened. He wanted his successor to know how to temper “small-c conservative principles with the social conscience of prairie populism”, the recipe that had worked for him so well since he became premier in 1943.

But a generational change in politics was just around the corner. Manning’s successor, Harry Strom, would go down to defeat in 1971 — and usher in the PC dynasty that started with Peter Lougheed.

1968 Alberta Social Credit leadership

Social Credit tries to turn a new leaf

December 6, 1968

The Alberta Social Credit League, which presided over one of Canada’s longest-tenured governments, was a bit of an oddity.

It was borne out of the desperation of the Great Depression, when an evangelical radio preacher named William Aberhart adopted an oddball monetary theory as his political platform and led Social Credit to an unexpected victory in the 1935 provincial election.

Aberhart’s time in office was cut short by death and Social Credit’s theories weren’t implemented — they tended to be unconstitutional — but his replacement, Ernest Manning, was able to adapt the Social Credit platform to Alberta’s political climate. During the Socreds’ time in office, Alberta went from a struggling agrarian province to a booming oil-fueled modern economy. The only problem was that Social Credit wasn’t modernizing as quickly.

Manning’s electoral success is unparalleled in Alberta. He led Social Credit to seven consecutive majority governments. By 1968, he had been premier for 25 years. He won another solid majority in the 1967 provincial election, but the party’s 45% vote share was the lowest ever for Manning. The premier recognized that something needed to change to block the rise of the Progressive Conservatives, now under the dynamic leadership of Peter Lougheed.

A new leader would have to take Social Credit forward. So, at the end of September, Manning announced he would resign as premier and leader of the party. His replacement would be named at a convention held between December 4 and 6, 1968.

The field of candidates was led by Harry Strom, the municipal affairs (and former agriculture) minister. An MLA from southern Alberta since 1955, Strom was one of the few cabinet minister who Manning told first about his retirement plans. Anders Aalborg, one of the heirs-apparent to Manning and one of the other ministers let in on the plan, declined to run. Strom was reluctant to throw his hat into the ring, but was convinced to put his name forward.

Strom’s two main opponents were fellow cabinet ministers. They were the “crisply efficient” Gordon Taylor, the longtime minister of highways and an MLA since 1940, and Raymond Reierson, the education and labour minister and an MLA from northern Alberta first elected in 1952.

Three other candidates also stepped up. There was the attorney general, Edgar Gerhart, also first elected in 1952 but only recently elevated to cabinet. Walter Buck, a dentist and rookie MLA, put his name forward, as did Alfred Hooke, the lands and forest minister and one of the original Social Credit MLAs first elected in 1935.

Despite the wide field, Strom was recognized as the clear front runner. He put forward a detailed policy platform and had the backing of a majority of caucus, several cabinet ministers and a circle of young reformers that included Preston Manning, the son of the premier.

The son had been suggested as a potential replacement for the father, but Ernest Manning thought the 26-year-old Preston wasn’t yet ready for the big job. The involvement of Preston in the Strom campaign and the rumoured support that Ernest Manning and the establishment of the party was giving Strom rankled with the other contestants.

While there was little broader enthusiasm for the leadership contest outside of party circles, the three-day convention at the Jubilee Auditorium was a raucous affair for the 1,700 voting delegates — and something quite unusual for a party that had never held a leadership race before (Manning was chosen by caucus in 1943).

According to The Globe and Mail, on the first day of the convention a group of “teen-age girls were in the basement of the auditorium rehearsing a ditty entitled ‘It’s Gerhart All the Way’ to the tune of ‘Jingle Bells’”, in preparation of the rallies and speeches scheduled for the second day. John Barr, writing in Alberta Premiers of the 20th Century, paints a vivid picture of what that second day on the convention floor was like:

“A giant red and white Ray Reierson billboard had been parked next to the front door, and in the midst of the rotunda a rock band was thumping it out for Ed Gerhart. Incredulous convention delegates — small-town hardware merchants with steel-rimmed glasses, schoolmarms from Rocky Mountain House, and wind-burned farmers from Mundare — circled the bandstand like a group of villagers inspecting a crashed UFO. Inside the auditorium itself, barely audible, a German oompah band was trying to get a snake-dance going.”

The Edmonton correspondent for The Globe and Mail wrote that “Social Credit has always had a rather stuffy, high collared, Sunday-go-to-meeting image in Alberta but the leadership candidates will have changed that even if they don’t do much to change the kind of Government. Never has so much liquor been in evidence at any Social Credit gathering and never have the conventions been so noisy or colourful.”

Taylor organized his campaign team from a camp that was set up on the floor of the auditorium as a nod to the camp grounds his department built along Alberta’s highways. Reierson, whose portfolio included Alberta Government Telephones, had phones at his booth which played pre-recorded messages from the candidate, ending with a whispered “this message will self-destruct in five seconds”.

The speeches resulted in a little drama when Hooke, who had thrown his hat into the ring only a week before, closed his with an endorsement of Reierson — an attempt to build some momentum for someone else to take on Strom, who had by far the most well-oiled campaign.

On the day of the vote, the party organizers rehearsed the process by asking delegates to choose they favourite hockey team. They wanted things to go smoothly.

The first ballot played out as predicted, with Strom nearing but not obtaining a majority. He had 48% support of delegates, putting him well ahead of Taylor and Reierson, who had 17% and 15%, respectively. Buck finished fourth with 11%, followed by Gerhart and Hooke at 8% and 2%.

Hooke, who had already withdrawn when he endorsed Reierson, was automatically removed from the ballot. Gerhart also withdrew his name. Buck didn’t want to bow out, but Reierson made the decision to throw his support to Taylor, who was best positioned to block Strom (even if unlikely). Reierson’s attempt to announce his withdrawal and endorsement of Taylor, however, was blocked by party president Orvis Kennedy. Only after a shoving and shouting match did Reierson get to the stage.

It didn’t make much of a difference — though Taylor did indeed pick up a lot of support on the second ballot. By a greater than three-to-one margin, Taylor gained more votes than Strom on that second ballot. But Strom didn’t need many more votes to win, and prevailed on the second ballot with 55% to Taylor’s 36%.

On paper, Strom was taking over a party in pretty good shape. The Socreds controlled a commanding majority in the legislature and had done so for over 30 years. But the Social Credit League was a creaking old machine ill-prepared for modern political campaigns. It would turn out that the Socreds needed more than just a change at the top to keep up.

1971 Alberta Liberal leadership

Third time’s the charm for Bob Russell

March 13, 1971

Since the rise of Social Credit in the 1930s, the Alberta Liberals had been relegated to the political wilderness — lucky to win a seat or two. By 1971, the one glimmer of a potential rebirth was now long behind them. That was the 1955 election when, under the leadership of James Harper Prowse, the Liberals had been able to put a small scare into the Socreds with 31% of the vote and 15 seats.

But their wandering in the wilderness had continued after that, with just two seats in 1963 and three seats in 1967. In that campaign, the party had been reduced to 11% support as Peter Lougheed and the Progressive Conservatives leap-frogged the Liberals to become Social Credit’s chief rival.

Things were falling apart for the Alberta Liberals. Adrian Berry had resigned his leadership in 1966 just months after he had won it, and Michael Maccagno had to step in as interim leader and take the party into the 1967 campaign. He then resigned his provincial seat to run (unsuccessfully) for the Pierre Trudeau Liberals in 1968 and his replacement, John Lowery, was forced to quit in 1970 when Liberals were horrified to hear he had been negotiating an alliance or potential merger with the Socreds.

That meant when the Liberals, seatless since 1969 after their last MLA in the legislature defected to the PCs, gathered to choose their next leader, he would be their sixth in seven years.

Perhaps, after so much disruption, the Liberals were looking for a familiar face. They had one in Robert Russell, a former president of the party and two-time leadership candidate. Still young at 40, the advertising executive from St. Albert had finished a narrow second to Berry in 1966 and a less-narrow third to Lowery in 1969. Would he finally get his shot in his third run at the leadership of a disintegrating party?

The sorry state of affairs the Alberta Liberals found themselves in was reflected by the opponents Russell had to face. Two, Rod Woodcock and John Day, were students in their 20s, while Arthur Yates, 52, had to give up his day job as a foreman at a silver mine in the Northwest Territories to take a run at the leadership.

The three were complete unknowns, making Russell a star candidate by comparison.

Only 324 delegates cast a ballot, but Russell was the overwhelming favourite. He won 69% of the vote on the first ballot, with Woodcock coming a distant second with 16%.

Writing in the Calgary Herald, Don Sellar reported that “most delegates, as well as his three opponents, appeared satisfied with the choice they made at a rather dull, one-day convention”.

It would prove to be a rare victory for Russell. In addition to two past leadership defeats, Russell had also failed to win himself a seat in the 1967 election. He’d fail again in the next provincial election, held in August 1971.

At the convention, he promised delegates he wouldn’t “charge around the province” to name token candidates. He was true to his word, running a slate of just 20 candidates in Alberta’s 65 ridings (Woodcock and Yates among them) in 1971. The Liberals did not elect a single one of them and captured just 1% of the vote. Russell, running in St. Albert, was the top performer with just 15%.

Undaunted, Russell would try to get a seat again in a byelection in 1973. His defeat there finally spelled the end of his provincial political career, though he would twice more try (and fail) to win a seat in the House of Commons in 1984 and 2000.

Being a Liberal in Alberta hasn’t been easy for about a century, but it seems it was especially hard for Bob Russell.

1974 Alberta Liberal leadership

Alberta Liberals choose Taylor

March 2, 1974

Alberta has been a tough place for Liberals for, well, a pretty long time. The Alberta Liberals haven’t won an election there for over a century. And, judging by recent election results in the province, they could be in the wilderness for another century.

But on this day 48 years ago, the Liberals chose a leader they hoped would get them back to the promised land, a leader who would turn out to be the only Alberta Liberal who would take the party into four election campaigns.

The 1971 provincial election was a watershed moment in Alberta, as it ushered in the Progressive Conservatives and ended the decades-long Social Credit dynasty. For the Liberals, though, it was a disaster. The party ran a small slate of candidates and managed just 1% of the vote, failing to win a single seat for the first time in the party’s history.

Bob Russell, the leader, resigned after yet another failed attempt win himself a seat in a byelection, finishing with just 6% of the votes in Calgary-Foothills in 1973.

Despite this, the Liberals were still confident that, with a dynamic new leader, they could replace the spiralling Social Credit Party as the chief opposition to Peter Lougheed’s PCs.

The 1974 Alberta Liberal leadership contest had just two candidates.

There was Calgary-based oil executive Nick Taylor, an outspoken 17-year veteran of party politics. Taylor was a 46-year-old father of nine and someone seen as a bit of a “renegade” within the party.

The other candidate was John Borger, a petroleum and engineering consultant from Edmonton, who also happened to be a former football player for the Calgary Stampeders.

According to the Edmonton Journal, while Taylor served “stomach-warming fuel” at his suite at the convention in Edmonton, Borger “doesn’t drink or smoke. He proudly serves only coffee and cookies at his receptions.”

In addition to style, it was the two candidates’ positions on collaboration with the Liberal Party of Canada that distinguished them. Taylor wanted more separation between the provincial and federal wings, saying that a Robert Stanfield-led PC victory in the upcoming federal election would be helpful, since “then I’m rid of the albatross of having to explain every asinine move Ottawa makes.”

Borger wanted a closer relationship with the two parties with an eye toward electing both provincial and federal Liberals in Alberta. He didn’t want to be a spokesman for Pierre Trudeau in the province, but instead be a “representative from Alberta in the councils of the national party.”

When the votes were counted, Taylor emerged as the victor with 366 votes to 293 for Borger. Another 78 delegates — more than the gap that separated Taylor and Borger — abstained.

Of course, Taylor was taking over a struggling party with no representation in the legislature. Personally wealthy, the party would have to lean on Taylor’s own resources for support.

But he was still realistic, telling reporters after his victory that after the next election he “wouldn’t be unhappy with 70 Tories in the government and five of us on the other side at first.”

Even that modest ambition, though, turned out to be beyond his capabilities. In the 1975 election, the Liberals were again shutout and won only 5% of the vote. That improved slightly to 6% in 1979 and dropped back again to 2% in 1982.

The 1986 election, though, turned out to be the turning point for Taylor and the Liberals. The party won four seats — including Taylor’s riding of Westlock-Sturgeon — and 12% of the vote, placing them as the third party in the legislature behind Don Getty’s governing PCs and Ray Martin’s New Democrats.

Before long, though, Taylor would face a leadership challenge and was replaced by Edmonton mayor Laurence Decore. In 1993, Decore would lead the Liberals the closest to power they have ever been since their 1917 election win, returning the party to the role of the official opposition.

Staying on as an MLA for a few more terms, Taylor would later be named to the Senate by Jean Chrétien. He passed away in 2020. (Dave Cournoyer of Daveberta.ca has a good retrospective here.)

The Alberta Liberal Party that Taylor led for nearly 15 years is now a shadow of its former self, once again shutout of the legislature and coming off an election in which it earned only 1% of ballots cast. It could use another Nick Taylor.

1979 Alberta election

Lougheed scores 74 in ‘79

March 14, 1979

In 1979, Alberta was due for an election, even though its outcome was in little doubt.

Peter Lougheed’s Progressive Conservatives had been in office since 1971, facing little in terms of opposition after winning 69 of 75 seats in the 1975 Alberta election.

In seeking a third term, Lougheed ran on the slogan “Now, more than ever”, asking Albertans to give him a solid mandate to fight the federal government’s designs on Alberta’s oil and gas resources. The campaign was centred around what to do with the billions in revenues filling the Heritage Savings Trust Fund, with Lougheed arguing for prudence to prepare Alberta for the day when oil revenues would dry up.

He warned against the opposition’s reckless spending plans. But whether there should be an opposition at all was perhaps more of an election issue than what the opposition intended to do if it formed government, something no one thought likely.

While publicly hoping for inroads or even an upset, the opposition parties had few realistic chances of defeating the Lougheed PCs. In fact, there were some concerns that Lougheed would sweep all 79 seats on offer.

There were two main opposition parties. Social Credit was still the official opposition, though in its last stages of life. Bob Clark was its leader, after he had finished second to Werner Schmidt in the party’s 1973 leadership race. An MLA since 1960 and a former Socred cabinet minister, this would be Clark’s first campaign as party leader and the party would focus on Calgary and southern Alberta.

For Grant Notley (father of Rachel), this would be his third election as leader of the NDP. Running under the slogan “Send them a message”, Notley was hoping to emerge from the campaign as no longer the party’s sole MLA, which he had been since 1971. His party’s best chances were in the north and in Edmonton.

The Liberals had some limited expectations of a breakthrough after they made some small gains under Nick Taylor in the 1975 election. The Liberals would run a full slate and wage a provincewide campaign, but would not be a major factor, ending with just 6% of the vote and zero seats (again).

As expected, the PCs with their fully-funded war chest won a big victory. The party captured 74 seats, a gain of five from 1975 (four seats had been added to the map). Lougheed’s share of the vote dropped five points to 57%, but the PCs were able to sweep both Calgary and Edmonton again. The party also experienced a bit of rejuvenation, as nearly half of the outgoing caucus didn’t run for re-election.

Social Credit retained its official opposition status, winning the same four seats it had at dissolution: three rural seats in the south and a suburban seat near Edmonton. Its share of the vote increased two points to 20%, what would out to be a last hurrah for Social Credit.

Notley would return to the legislature as its only New Democrat, winning his seat in the northwest of the province. The party’s vote share increased three points to 16% and the NDP finished second in nearly all of Edmonton’s ridings. But it couldn’t finish first in any of them. “I’m too old to cry,” said Notley, “but it hurts too much to laugh.”

The 1979 election would be the last in which Social Credit, that colossus that governed Alberta from 1935 to 1971, would play a major role. It would fall apart before the next election, failing to run a full slate and falling short of even 1% of ballots cast.

Lougheed would stick around to fight the Pierre Trudeau Liberals (along with his minuscule domestic opposition) for a few more years, leading the Progressive Conservatives to an even bigger majority victory in 1982, his last election as leader. That campaign would also prove to be Notley’s last, as he led the NDP past the flailing Social Credit to finally form the official opposition — with two seats.

1982 Alberta election

Lougheed’s last dominating victory

November 2, 1982

By 1982, the province of Alberta was already deep into its fourth political dynasty. The Progressive Conservatives had been in power since 1971, the turning point election that saw Social Credit’s long 36-year run in power come to an end.

In the decade that followed his victory, Lougheed coupled Alberta’s booming economic growth due to the expansion of the oil and gas industry with fights with the federal government led by Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals to produce huge majority wins. Under Lougheed, the PCs captured 69 of 75 seats in the 1975 election and 74 of 79 seats in 1979.

In the years running up to the 1982 election, Lougheed took part in the negotiations to repatriate Canada’s constitution and went to war against the federal government’s National Energy Program, which tried to centralize control over the country’s energy industry and oil prices — and cost Alberta billions in revenues.

The economy was starting to slow in the early 1980s and the NEP was despised in the province. Disputes with the government in Ottawa gave rise to separatism in Alberta and the emergence of the Western Canada Concept. This party shook Alberta politics when it scored a victory in a February 1982 byelection in the rural riding of Olds-Didsbury. Gordon Kesler, the WCC candidate, took away a seat that had previously been held by Social Credit.

When Lougheed launched the election in 1982, well ahead of the end of his term in office, he took aim at Kesler and the WCC, arguing that voting for a separatist party to stick it to Ottawa would only lead to disruption and chaos in Alberta.

But he still had a delicate balancing act to perform — he couldn’t go after the federal government as he might have in the past and risk pushing votes to the WCC.

Instead, the campaign largely focused on provincial issues. The PCs waged a relatively low-key campaign, with Lougheed turning down debates with opposition leaders and PC candidates keeping away from all-party forums. Even big rallies were shelved in order to avoid them being disrupted by small, but vocal, anti-government protesters.

Still, Lougheed faced little real opposition. Only two other parties ran a full (or nearly full) slate of candidates: the Western Canada Concept, and the New Democrats under Grant Notley (father of Rachel Notley, the current Alberta NDP leader).

Notley was the NDP’s only MLA at dissolution, but despite leading the party to just that single seat in the 1979 election Notley was nevertheless taking the NDP into its fourth election with him as leader.

The Liberals, under Nicholas Taylor since 1974, had been struggling for years under the shadow of the unpopular Trudeau government and didn’t run a candidate in a majority of ridings. Neither did the once mighty Social Credit, which was riven by internal feuding and on its way to oblivion.

But with 74 of 79 seats in the previous election, it seemed that the PCs had nowhere to go but down. The controversies and scandals that had piled up after 11 years in office had taken a bit of a toll and the party was expecting some losses. Unnamed observers cited by The Globe and Mail posited that the opposition parties might even be able to win as many as 18 to 25 seats, if the NDP made inroads in Edmonton and the WCC picked up enough of the Socred vote in southern Alberta.

Instead, in an election that featured considerably higher turnout than in 1979, the PCs won the biggest election victory they would ever win. The PCs picked up one seat, finishing with 75, and 62.3% of the province wide vote. That was up nearly five percentage points from three years earlier.

The PCs made two seat gains — they lost a seat to Ray Martin of the NDP in Edmonton — and one of those gains was Olds-Didsbury, the seat where Gordon Kesler and the WCC had made their byelection breakthrough.

While the NDP’s two seats and 18.8% of the vote might not have met the lofty expectations of some, it was still enough for Notley to become the leader of the opposition. The last time the party had accomplished that was under the old CCF banner.

Social Credit was wiped off the map, taking less than 1% of the vote. Two former Socred MLAs, Walter Buck and Raymond Speaker, decided to run as Independents and were successfully re-elected.

The Western Canada Concept was shut out of the seat count, but the party still captured 12% of the vote. This remains the best performance by any Western separatist party.

The Liberals were also shut out, but Taylor was philosophical on election night, recognizing the PC advantage and that “none of the kings and sheiks of the Middle East have been thrown out of power and as long as you have nature’s goodies to give out, you look pretty good to the electorate.”

While the pinnacle of their electoral careers, the 1982 election would be the last campaigns for both Lougheed and Notley. In 1984, still only 45 years old, Notley died in a plane crash near Slave Lake. Ray Martin, the party’s only other MLA, took over and led the NDP to a breakthrough and 16 seats in 1986.

Lougheed had stepped away by then. After the 1982 election, the Alberta premier would stay on for three more years until resigning in 1985 and being replaced by Don Getty. With more than 14 years in the job, Lougheed remains second on the list of longest-serving Alberta premiers — after Ernest Manning, the master of the political dynasty Lougheed’s PCs had put to an end.

1994 Alberta Liberal leadership

Dial ‘1’ for the next Alberta Liberal leader

November 12, 1994

1993 was a good year for Liberals. Even Alberta Liberals.

But it wasn’t as good as they hoped it would be. Under Laurence Decore, the Liberals came the closest they have ever been to forming government in Alberta since they last lost power in 1921. They won 40% of the vote and elected 32 MLAs, but Ralph Klein nevertheless continued the Progressive Conservative string of victories in the province.

For Decore, a former mayor of Edmonton, this second defeat took its toll. The party had been prepared to compromise and move to the centre to contend for government, but it was feeling ornery after failing to win. Decore’s caucus was disgruntled, and so were members of the Alberta Liberal Party. He achieved just 68% support for his leadership at a convention in 1994.

When Decore announced he would resign later that year, most saw Grant Mitchell as the heir apparent. Just 42 years old and an Edmonton MLA first elected in 1986, Mitchell had finished second to Decore in the 1988 leadership race. He was the party establishment’s choice, a Liberal’s Liberal, and the first to get into the contest.

Second to take the plunge was Sine Chadi, who was not a Liberal’s Liberal. A successful businessman, he had been elected for the first time in an Edmonton riding only the year before. Brash and abrasive, Chadi had little support in caucus. “It’s going to be a lot of hard work but we’re prepared to do it,” he said. “I’m not going to let Grant get away with it. The hell with that.”

Two MLAs from Edmonton, however, did not seem like the solution for the Liberals’ electoral woes. They swept Edmonton in the 1993 election but won only three seats in Calgary, Klein’s fiefdom. A breakthrough in that city in the next election would be absolutely essential if the Liberals were going to win.

Enter Gary Dickson, a Calgary MLA elected in a 1993 byelection. He said he didn’t want to be a regional candidate, but he also knew that the Liberals needed to do better in the city and southern Alberta. His would be a respected, policy-focused campaign — “quiet, determined and reflective” according to the Edmonton Journal — but he didn’t have the everyman appeal to go up against Klein.

Adam Germain might, though. Elected in Fort McMurray in 1993, Germain was seen as a serious contender for the leadership. He could broaden the Liberals’ appeal outside of the two big cities. He had good support from caucus and had a plain way of speaking that would match up well against the PC premier.

To these four contestants was added Tom Sindlinger, a former PC MLA who was not seen as a serious candidate. Others, like Nancy Betkowski (a Tory who lost to Klein in the last leadership) and Calgary mayor Al Duerr opted out.

Their candidacies might have added to what was a dull summer campaign. “It’s a cure for insomnia”, quipped one political scientist. Debates were organized across the province, some decently attended. Those held in Grande Prairie and Fahler, however, attracted just 25 curious Liberals.

It was not the dynamic race the Alberta Liberals had been hoping for. Fewer than 20,000 registered to vote in the leadership in a process that was lacking in rigour.

But by November it appeared to be coming down to two candidates: Chadi and Mitchell. The editorial writers of the Edmonton Journal were not impressed by Chadi, writing that “when Chadi is pressed on what his policies are, he appears not to have any. What he has are right-wing beliefs, strongly expressed.”

By comparison, “Mitchell is blessed with political skill, intellectual gifts and ambition. He’s a balanced-budget Liberal, but a Liberal to the core.”

If the race wasn’t exciting, maybe the voting process would be. The Liberals marched into the 1990s with a new voting method, what they called a ‘televote’. For a $10 registration fee, members would be able to cast their ballot over the telephone. No waiting in hot, smoky convention halls. Just pick up the phone, cast your ballot, and get on with your day!

The “It’s-Your-Call” system was touted in the media as the modern way to run a leadership contest. It would be settled in in two quick 45-second phone calls, all managed by Halifax-based MT&T Technologies for the low-low sum of $100,000.

It sounded so simple. In the morning, members would dial the hotline, enter in their personal identification number and punch in their preferred candidate. If none of the candidates reached 50% in the first round of voting, they’d simply call the hotline again around noon and rank the top three candidates from the first round.

“The beauty of it is that it will only take five minutes after the polls close for us to know the winner, not the two or three hours you would have to wait in previous conventions,” a party spokesperson confidently predicted.

Sure, “the Halifax-based company did experience a breakdown during Nova Scotia’s 1992 Liberal leadership,” admitted the Calgary Herald. “But it has had two successful votes since and is confident the Alberta vote will go off without a hitch.”

Anybody looking to experience the excitement in person could head down to the Max Bell Centre in Calgary. They’d still have to vote by phone on site, but that was part of the fun. It would all be over before that day’s CFL playoff game would begin.

Of course, the system crashed at around 9:20 AM. Voting was suspended for 40 minutes and then extended for two hours. The results from the first round were announced, but proved to be incorrect. The phone lines went down in Fort McMurray, hobbling Germain’s campaign. Proxy ballots cast too late went uncounted when the party organizers hastily set an arbitrary deadline. Members lost their PINs, and those who hadn’t lost them struggled to correctly enter the 20-digit numbers into their phone.

“Long gaps in the MT&T program left people confused,” recounted one report. “On the second ballot, some hung up after a pre-recorded candidate’s voice said ‘Thank you for voting for me,’ before the program progressed to the point where they [had to push] the pound key three times to validate their second and third choices.”

Of the 20,000 or so members eligible to vote, only 11,000 navigated the telephone system to get their preference registered on the first ballot.

Chadi, whose proxy ballots were the ones that largely went uncounted, under-performed expectations, as did Germain. Mitchell placed first on the first ballot with 43.6%, followed by Chadi at 34.3% and Germain at just 15.1%. Dickson and Sindlinger brought up the rear with 6.4% and 0.6%, respectively, and were eliminated.

When the second ballot was tallied (some members who hadn’t followed the day’s events tried to call to cast that ballot while the extended first round of voting was still ongoing, further clogging up the lines) the number of votes cast dropped by over 1,900. Mitchell, Chadi and Germain all had fewer individual votes than on the first ballot.

But Mitchell was still ahead, 45.5% to 39.6% for Chadi. Germain was stuck at 15% and was eliminated from the preferential ballot. On the third and final count, Mitchell received three of Germain’s votes for every one that went Chadi’s way, and he emerged as the winner with 56.5% support.

The 200 or so delegates on site broke into cheers and Mitchell promised that the Liberals would form the next government. But the chatter on the convention floor was darker. Chadi threatened to challenge the results in the courts and the representative of MT&T Technologies was forced to defend his company’s poor performance.

“It’s been a disaster,” said party president Brian Dunphy.

“Would I recommend this process again?” Mitchell rhetorically asked himself.

“Nope.“

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections Alberta and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• Alexander Cameron Rutherford: A Gentleman of Strathcona, by D.R. Babcock

• Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century, edited by Bradford J. Rennie

• John E. Brownlee: A Biography, by Franklin Foster

• The Good Steward: The Ernest C. Manning Story, by Brian Brennan

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

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1867 Canadian federal election

Canada’s first election

August 7 to September 20, 1867

When Confederation became reality on July 1, 1867, there were many things to get done. For starters, Canada had only four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Recalcitrant colonies such as Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland would have to be wooed. A railway would have to be built to link central and eastern Canada with the west before those settlements could be brought into the Union. The sparsely-populated and under-developed collection of British territories lying in the shadow of the American colossus to the south, itself self-confident and powerful after the end of the Civil War, would have to be turned into a country.

But first — an election.

As the main architect of Confederation, John A. Macdonald was invited to form Canada’s first government. Once sworn in, Macdonald shortly sent Canadians to the polls for the first time in a national election. But not all at the same time.

With no standardized election laws, campaigns were held in each of the four provinces according to their pre-Confederation electoral regulations. Who could vote varied from province to province, but it was largely limited to property-holding men. In Ontario, for example, it’s been estimated that only 16.5% of the population was eligible to vote.

How Canadians voted also varied. In Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, voting was done openly in public, often with a show of hands. Only New Brunswick had a secret ballot. Nova Scotia held elections in all ridings on the same day, while the other three held them on different days. The result was that voting took place at different times between August 7 and September 20, 1867.

Macdonald held many advantages. As leader of the Liberal-Conservative Party (as it was then called as a nod to the cross-party coalition of Liberals and Conservatives that worked together to bring about Confederation), Macdonald grouped together most of the pro-Confederation forces across the country. It was a more properly-organized party than the one on the other side of the aisle. The government’s powers of patronage, which Macdonald held and freely used, helped a great deal.

In Quebec, the Bleus were aligned with Macdonald while in Ontario he had the support of John Sandfield Macdonald, a Liberal member of his coalition. Rejected by other Liberals as little better than a traitor, the two Macdonalds hunted “in pairs”, splitting Ontario’s provincial and federal ridings between them to prevent John A. Macdonald’s Conservatives from having to face John Sandfield Macdonald’s “Coalition Reformers”. If both parties had interested candidates in a particular riding, they’d encourage one to run for provincial office and the other to stand for the federal campaign.

(Of course, running for both was an option. The first premiers of Quebec and Ontario were also sitting MPs.)

In Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, where elections could be held on different dates, Macdonald ensured that the more reliably Conservative seats voted first, in order to build some momentum that could be carried forward into less friendly parts of the country. Where voting was held over two days, the Conservatives could use bribery and threats to get out their vote on the second day when they found they were trailing after the first day of polling.

The Liberals weren’t above those tactics, but they were far more disorganized and had fewer resources at their disposal. They also had no official leader, George Brown being the de facto head of the Ontario Liberals, Antoine-Aimé Dorion the leader of the Rouges in Quebec. The Liberals (or Reformers, as they were often called) brought together those forces who had opposed Confederation, but were now largely reconciled to try to make it work.

Opposition to Confederation was strongest in Nova Scotia, where Joseph Howe led a slate of Anti-Confederate candidates. Mostly Liberals, the Antis didn’t want to try to make Confederation work. But they were hardly a united bunch. Some wanted to repeal Confederation entirely, while others wanted to amend it. Another group wanted Nova Scotia to deny that the Dominion existed, and refuse to send MPs to Ottawa.

The Antis were not incapable of overly-heated rhetoric. In one speech, Howe said that if “the British forces were withdrawn … and this issue were left to be tried out between the Canadians and ourselves, I would take every son I have and die on the frontier, before I would submit to this outrage.”

Violence was never far below the surface. If politics can seem nasty in the 21st century, it could be downright dangerous in the 19th. Alexander Mackenzie, a future prime minister and one of the top Liberals in Ontario, nearly fell into the hands of an angry mob while on the hustings. Mackenzie was prevented from speaking at a rally in Plympton and, when he tried to depart, the crowd blocked him from leaving and attempted to overturn his carriage and pull Mackenzie and the man he was travelling with into the crowd. When they finally got away, a high-speed horse-and-wagon chase followed, with Mackenzie’s pursuers “yelling and howling”, according to the Sarnia Observer, until Mackenzie’s carriage managed to escape.

No election was held at all in the Quebec riding of Kamouraska when a riot broke out on voting day, fought with “stones, cordwood and axe-handles”, according to author Norman Ward. “When I was dragged away,” recalled the returning officer, “through the yelling and vociferating mob, I am not conscious that I was struck, but in my agitated state I may have been struck without noticing it … and from my feelings next morning, at the back of my head, I am convinced that I had a few blows.”

There was little doubt that, with all of the incumbent government’s advantages, Macdonald’s Liberal-Conservatives would win. The party captured 100 seats (according to the Library of Parliament, though tallies differ from source to source), winning 49 in Ontario and 47 in Quebec, but just four in the Maritimes.

The Liberals won 62 seats, including 33 in Ontario — largely in the western portion of the province where they were strongest. George Brown, however, was not among the Ontario MPs elected and the long-time leader of the Reformers refused to stand in another constituency where voting had yet to take place when his defeat was announced at the end of August. The Rouges won 17 seats in Quebec and 12 of 15 in New Brunswick, where the Conservatives won the other three.

The Anti-Confederate vote in Nova Scotia was strong, with Howe being one of 17 Antis elected in the province. Only one Conservative, future prime minister Charles Tupper, withstood the Anti-Confederation wave.

(Alfred Jones, elected in Halifax, is listed as a Labour candidate by the Library of Parliament. Also, the record books for 1867 do not assign a party affiliation to dozens of defeated candidates, hence the large share of the vote awarded to “unknown” in the chart above.)

Macdonald was dismissive of the Anti-Confederate victory, calling it “a small cloud of opposition no bigger than a man’s hand.” He had a point. Within a few years, he would co-opt much of the party — including Howe, who joined Macdonald’s cabinet once the British government refused to reconsider Canadian Confederation.

It would take some time before Canada’s elections became a little more modern. The secret ballot and single-day elections would have to wait until Mackenzie’s Liberals came to power in 1874, largely in reaction to Macdonald’s under-handed campaign tactics. But Canada had its first election in the books.

1874 Canadian federal election

John A.’s only defeat

January 22, 1874

For nearly all of the last half of the 19th century, John A. Macdonald dominated Canadian politics. With the exception of a brief interlude, Macdonald was prime minister from Confederation in 1867 to his death in 1891.

But that brief exception nearly ended his career prematurely.

After winning Canada’s first election, Macdonald had a rougher go in 1872. He was facing opposition in Ontario over his handling of the economy and relations with the United States, and discontent in the West with the slow development of the transcontinental railway.

His desperation was such that he could not turn down a huge influx of cash from Hugh Allan, who just happened to be negotiating with the government for the rights to build the Pacific railway.

Facing a stiff fight in his Kingston riding, Macdonald needed money. In an act of political self-destruction, he sent off and signed a telegram to Allan’s lawyer:

“Immediate private. I must have another ten thousand. Will be the last time of calling. Do not fail me. Answer today.”

Three days later, the reply came back in the affirmative.

In all, Allan would contribute $350,000 to the Conservatives’ re-election efforts, an enormous sum by the standards of the day (and enough to turn heads even now). That money was sprinkled across the country in ways that violated election laws at the time.

With Allan’s help, Macdonald narrowly secured re-election, but it wasn’t long before the nitty-gritty details of what would become the Pacific Scandal started leaking out. By the end of 1873, the telegram (and others) had been re-printed in the press and Macdonald’s premiership was over. He resigned. His replacement was the Liberal leader, Alexander Mackenzie.

Like Macdonald, Mackenzie was a Scottish immigrant. A solid, uncharismatic, morally upright and rigid stonemason from Sarnia, Mackenzie was determined to run a clean administration. After setting up his government, he dissolved parliament and called an election for January 22, 1874.

Though it wasn’t written into law yet, Mackenzie went ahead with one of the reforms he meant to enact to clean up politics by holding elections across the country on the same day. That wasn’t the practice in 1867 or 1872. Macdonald had used this to his advantage, scheduling elections in safe ridings earlier in order to build up some momentum for more difficult contests later. By the time Mackenzie’s time in office was over, he’d bring in other election reforms like a secret ballot and an expanded franchise.

Mackenzie didn’t need to abuse the electoral system to win in 1874. The Pacific Scandal was enough to tar Macdonald’s Conservatives and make them unelectable.

The Liberals secured 131 seats, a gain of 38 from the 1872 election. Their share of the vote jumped five points, while the Conservatives lost 38 seats and nine percentage points. (The political affiliation of candidates that got about 24% of the vote is unknown, according to the Library of Parliament’s website.)

The Liberals did very well in the Maritimes and won more than two-thirds of the seats up for grabs in Ontario. The Liberals even won a slight majority of seats in Quebec, a province that was normally far friendlier to the Catholic Church-backed bleus than the rouges in the 19th century.

In a note to one of his newly-elected Liberal MPs, Mackenzie was exultant. “What a slaughter,” he wrote. “The old corruptionists are fairly stupefied by our success.”

The Conservatives still held on to some of their seats in Ontario and Quebec and won in British Columbia, in part because Mackenzie had criticized the “impossible terms of union” that brought B.C. into Confederation. He wasn’t keen on Macdonald’s expensive railway policy, hoping to use waterways as much as possible between Georgian Bay and the Rockies to save money instead.

Mackenzie’s administration would prove to be short-lived, as it struggled through a global economic depression in the 1870s. Mackenzie was a micro-manager, taking on the huge public works portfolio himself in order to ensure it was kept clean. He wasn’t willing to play the same patronage game that Macdonald had mastered, meaning no Liberal network of grateful office-holders was established.

Macdonald considered retirement, but instead embarked on a new campaign with renewed energy, pushing the protectionist National Policy that would become the keystone policy of the Conservative Party for the next few decades. Like Mackenzie King, who was in opposition from 1930-35 and is the only prime minister to serve longer than him, Macdonald would benefit by being out-of-office for the worst of a depression. He’d be re-elected in 1878 and would never lose an election again.

1904 Canadian federal election

Laurier wins his third consecutive election

November 3, 1904

Already eight years into his time as prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier was at the height of his power when he called the 1904 federal election. He had already beaten Charles Tupper twice (in 1896 and 1900) and the 1904 election marked what would be the first of four contests Laurier would fight against Conservative leader Robert Borden.

The turn of the century was a time of rapid economic growth in Canada and a boom in immigration that settled the West. Tensions between English and French Canadians had died down under Laurier and all seemed well in the land to the (white, male) voters eligible to cast a ballot.

The Liberals were rewarded with what would be their biggest victory under Laurier and, with the exception of the 1940 election, the last time the party would capture a majority of ballots cast. The Liberals took just under 51% of the vote and won 137 of the 214 seats up for grabs, the equivalent of winning about 216 seats in today’s 338-seat House of Commons. They swept Nova Scotia, Borden’s home province, and dominated both Quebec and Western Canada.

Only in Ontario and P.E.I. did the Liberals fail to win the most seats.

The Conservatives captured around 46% of the vote and won 75 seats. But, despite the defeat, they’d stick with Borden. And they’d stick with him again even after he lost a second time in 1908. That patience would pay off when he would finally bring the Conservatives back to power in 1911.

1911 Canadian federal election

The reciprocity election that defeated Wilfrid Laurier

September 21, 1911

Wilfrid Laurier was the giant of Canadian politics during the first decade of the 20th century, easily winning re-election three times after coming to power in 1896. The country was prosperous and growing, becoming more urban and industrialized and attracting immigrants who helped boost Canada’s population from 5.4 million to 7.2 million between 1901 and 1911 — a rate of growth the country has never since matched.

Nearing 70 years old in 1911 but still carrying himself with the dignity and sense of fairness that earned him respect from both English and French Canadians, Laurier had governed the country for 15 years and had led the Liberal Party for more than two decades. He had lost his first election as leader in 1891 on the issue of freer trade with the United States. John A. Macdonald, in his last campaign before his death, wrapped himself in the Union Jack and his long-standing National Policy of protective tariffs and carried the country one last time on the slogan of “The Old Flag, The Old Policy, The Old Leader.”

Twenty years later, though, Laurier thought the time was ripe for his Liberals to finally achieve their goal of free trade with the U.S., especially since President William Howard Taft seemed amenable to a deal. Envoys were sent to Washington, D.C. and came back with an agreement.

When W.S. Fielding, Laurier’s finance minister, announced its details in the House of Commons, the Conservatives on the opposition benches were gob smacked. While they expected something had been worked out between Fielding and the Americans, they had no idea of its scope: free trade for agricultural products and protective tariffs for most manufactured goods. It would open up the huge U.S. market for Canadian farmers in the West while protecting the industrial interests of Central Canada.

Robert Borden, leader of the Conservative opposition since 1901, initially thought this meant another defeat was on the horizon. Contrary to modern practice, the Conservatives had stuck with Borden despite two consecutive elections defeats under him in 1904 and 1908. His hold on the party was shaky, but he had survived. This deal would sink him, perhaps for the last time.

Fellow Conservatives around the country, however, weren’t so pessimistic. Reciprocity had defeated the Liberals in 1891 and it could do so again. Manufacturers and financiers in Toronto and Montreal were ready to fight to protect their interests, and would fund a nationwide campaign to denounce reciprocity with the United States. Conservative premiers in British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario were ready to go to bat for Borden to finally defeat the Liberals.

For opponents to freer trade, which included a ‘Toronto 18’ of business leaders and Liberals who publicly spoke out against the deal, Laurier’s gamble had given them a golden opportunity. Cheaper goods and bigger markets might seem appealing, they claimed, but they would destroy Canadian producers. Worse, a closer relationship with the United States would inevitably lead to political union and annexation. Reciprocity meant turning away from the British Empire when it most needed Canada.

War clouds were gathering over Europe as an increasingly belligerent Germany threw its weight around international affairs. Wanting its own place in the sun and greater dominance on the Continent, Germany had embarked on a naval arms race with Great Britain, then the world’s foremost naval power. Britain needed to keep its advantage — and maybe Canada could help.

Borden and other imperialists wanted Canada to make a direct contribution to the British treasury, sending money to build warships for the Royal Navy. But Laurier wanted Canada to maintain some level of independence and proposed instead his Naval Service Act, which called for the construction of a small Canadian force (dubbed a ‘tin-pot navy’ by opponents) instead. The Conservatives believed when the Empire called Canada should only say “ready, aye, ready”. What Laurier proposed smacked of anti-British treason.

For French-Canadian nationalists in Quebec, however, it was just the opposite. Henri Bourassa, nationalist firebrand and editor of Le Devoir, argued that the creation of a navy was only the first step toward conscription to fight in British wars. While Laurier would be accused of being a traitor to the Empire in English Canada, he would also be accused of being a traitor to his ‘race’ in French Canada.

Suddenly, things were looking up for Borden and the Conservatives. They had the backing of powerful, well-funded interests and a patriotic appeal to make to the people. Borden also gave his acquiescence to a parallel campaign in Quebec, led by his Quebec lieutenant Frederick Monk and Bourassa, against the Liberals over the naval issue.

Laurier denounced the ‘unholy alliance’ between Borden and Bourassa. Frustrated that he couldn’t get his reciprocity legislation through the House of Commons (the closure mechanism that can shut down debate in the House today didn’t exist at the time), he decided to take the question to the people and called an election for September 21, 1911 — less than three years after the previous election of 1908.

Laurier had some reason to be confident. He had seen off the Conservatives four times before. He was still widely respected, even revered, and the slogan of “Laurier and Larger Markets”, though perhaps lacking an emotional appeal, would speak to voters’ logic. If that wasn’t enough, Laurier had the assistance of provincial Liberal governments in most provinces and the assured support of voters in the Prairies, whose farmers had always clamoured for access to the American market.

But Laurier’s old charm was starting to wear off by 1911 and he and his Liberal government were showing their age. The cabinet had hardly changed since 1896 and Laurier’s old-style, classic liberalism was starting to appear out of date as Canada modernized and government intervention, even by Conservative governments, was becoming more popular.

Against his atrophying political machine, particularly in Ontario, Laurier faced skilled Conservative premiers in Richard McBride in British Columbia, Rodmond Roblin in Manitoba and James Whitney in Ontario, who all put their political organizations (and some times their civil servants) to work to elect Borden. Even Laurier’s Quebec base was threated by Bourassa and Monk, and Borden accordingly kept a wide berth of the province, visiting only once on his way to tour the Maritimes.

The election, which Laurier hoped to have decided on the issue of an expanding economy thanks to access to the huge American market, became an emotional appeal to patriotism. Even Rudyard Kipling was drafted to aid the anti-reciprocity campaign, writing in Conservative-friendly newspapers that “it is her own soul that Canada risks today.”

The Liberals weren’t helped when the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Champ Clark, stated that he longed to see the day “when the American flag will float over every square foot of the British North American possessions, clear to the North Pole,” but the claims of Laurier’s limited free trade leading, first, to complete free trade and, second, to annexation by the United States were dishonest at best, outright lies at worst. At a time when pro-Empire and anti-American sentiment was high, they were used to devastating political effect and casted Laurier’s plan as a betrayal of the British and a surrender to the Americans.

The Conservatives emerged with 135 seats, an increase of 49 over their performance in the 1908 election. Laurier and the Liberals were defeated.

The Conservatives made inroads in the Maritimes with 16 of 35 seats and a breakthrough in Quebec with 28 seats, up from just 12 in the previous election, thanks to the efforts of Bourassa and Monk. Sealing the Liberals’ fate was Ontario. Whitney’s political machine helped deliver 73 of 86 seats to the Conservatives (a gain of 25), while Roblin secured eight of 10 seats in Manitoba and McBride swept all six of B.C.’s seats for Borden.

(Conservative figures here include Independent Conservatives, Liberal-Conservatives and Nationalists who ran with the blessing or acquiescence of the Conservatives. The lone Labour MP was trade unionist Alphonse Verville, who supported the Liberals and ran without opposition from that party. However, he was initially elected to the House by defeating a Liberal candidate in a Montreal byelection in 1906.)

The Conservatives won just over 50% of the vote as Liberal support fell 3.5 points to 45.8%. Laurier captured just 85 seats, a loss of 48 from 1908. The party had lost ground in Quebec but still held on to 36 seats in the province, while reciprocity helped the Liberals carry 15 of 17 seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Among the defeated were Fielding and Mackenzie King, a future prime minister. Among the elected were future Conservative prime ministers R.B. Bennett in Alberta and Arthur Meighen in Manitoba.

It was a soaring victory for Borden and the Conservatives and a painful defeat for Laurier. He had gauged his political future on a long-cherished dream of free trade was was accused of betraying both his own countrymen and Canada’s British connection.

“I am branded in Quebec as a traitor to the French,” he said while on the hustings, “and in Ontario as a traitor to the English. In Quebec, I am branded as a jingo and in Ontario as a separatist. In Quebec, I am attacked as an imperialist and in Ontario as an anti-imperialist. I am neither. I am Canadian.”

Borden’s calculated move to sidle up to Quebec nationalists proved short-sighted. Not needing them after winning such an enormous majority, he sidelined them and quickly lost their support. In short order, Bourassa and his nationalists would turn on Borden. As with John Diefenbaker and Brian Mulroney in later years, Borden’s attempt to draw Quebec nationalists into his coalition would eventually collapse.

His spurning of free trade also angered Western farmers, who felt disrespected and unrepresented by Central Canada. They would find that voice in the rise of the Progressive Party which, along with Quebec’s fierce opposition to the Conservatives after they brought in conscription during the First World War, led to the party’s catastrophic defeat in 1921.

But in 1911, that was all in the future. Borden’s victory would spell the end of reciprocity for nearly another eight decades and would give him the burden of leading the country through the First World War. That next election, perhaps Canada’s ugliest, would prove to be the last showdown between Borden and Laurier.

1938 Conservative leadership

A job looking for a man

July 7, 1938

Poor Robert Manion.

The Conservatives, through their various iterations, have had a number of leaders who never became prime minister. The last few might one day be forgotten, but that hasn’t happened just yet. Robert Stanfield has an airport named after him and John Bracken, in addition to being premier of Manitoba for decades, was responsible for bolting the word “Progressive” to “Conservative”, a legacy that still echoes in premiers’ offices from Winnipeg to Halifax.

But Robert Manion? If any past Conservative leader elicits a shrug, it’s him.

Manion’s rise to the leadership of the Conservative Party (known as the National Conservative Party at the time) occurred in 1938 in the shadow of another looming world war and that of an outgoing giant in the party.

R.B. Bennett had led the Conservatives since 1927, leading them to victory in 1930 and having the misfortune of governing Canada through the toughest days of the Great Depression. Accordingly, Bennett’s government was defeated in 1935 and, by 1938, it was time for Bennett to step aside and retire to an estate in England.

The Conservatives held their convention between July 5 and 7, 1938 in Ottawa. It would feature a few final speeches by Bennett, who was still seriously considering staying on as leader. Former Ontario premier Howard Ferguson was one of the big proponents for a Bennett comeback, but it was only when former prime minister Arthur Meighen, who also speechified at the convention, talked him out of it that Bennett finally admitted his political career was over.

“To have declared myself a candidate to succeed myself, at the eleventh hour,” he wrote in a letter after the convention, “would have been rather dishonourable.”

It would have been unfair to those candidates who had declared themselves under the assumption that R.B. was leaving. First among these, and the odds-on favourite to win, was Robert Manion.

A physician, Irish Roman Catholic and MP for the northern Ontario riding of Fort William until his defeat in 1935, Manion had been a cabinet minister in both Meighen’s and Bennett’s governments and had finished fourth in the 1927 convention. A veteran of the First World War who was liked within the party, the “white-haired, clean-cut” Manion had his biggest support base in Quebec. He was a Roman Catholic married to a French Canadian, qualities that promised success for Conservatives in Quebec and discomfort for elements within the party that weren’t too friendly to Roman Catholics or French Canadians, particularly when it came to their questionable attachment to the British Empire.

Among those opposed to Manion was Meighen, who still held influence within the party. Meighen was instead backing Murdoch MacPherson of Saskatchewan.

MacPherson, “a youngish man of force and vigour from the Prairies”, had been a cabinet minister in Saskatchewan’s one-term Conservative government. He was seen as a serious underdog until he gave a good speech at the convention, catapulting himself into contention.

Also backing MacPherson was John Diefenbaker, then the leader of the seatless Saskatchewan Conservative Party. Diefenbaker would eventually have designs on the national leadership himself, but for now he was complaining about the national party’s lack of support for his recent provincial campaign, guilting the chairman of the convention to send him $125 to cover his travel expenses to Ottawa. Diefenbaker also talked a Regina supporter into paying for his railway tickets for him and his wife, something Diefenbaker declined to mention when he accepted the $125.

In addition to Manion and MacPherson, there were three other candidates, all Toronto-area MPs: Joe Harris, Earl Lawson and Denton Massey. They were considered long-shots and fell out of contention as soon as MacPherson had taken the stage.

It was a tumultuous convention, as the Quebec delegates (flush with victory after Maurice Duplessis’s win in 1936) challenged the party’s position on defense that put it lockstep behind the British. There were also divisions between the left and right wings of the party.

“God help you because of the reaction of this party,” said W.D. Herridge on stage, after he was booed and heckled for putting forward progressive economic policies that the convention rejected. He warned that without adopting this approach, “the pages of history will record this as the day of [the party’s] funeral.”

When the voting was finally held, Bennett, Meighen and Ferguson were nowhere to be seen. Douglas R. Oliver of The Globe and Mail put it thusly: “the big guns which boomed in convention and outside convention, yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, but never a boom today.”

Though MacPherson had tightened the betting odds, on the first ballot it was Manion who emerged as the eventual choice of the party. He had 726 votes, just 60 short of what was needed for an outright victory. MacPherson trailed with 475 and the three southern Ontarians were further back.

Lawson was eliminated and threw his weight behind MacPherson. Neither Harris nor Massey stepped aside, but the bulk of their delegates went elsewhere. MacPherson gained the most votes on the second ballot, pushing his share up 173 votes to 648, but Manion earned enough new support (104) to win with 830.

He had been the favourite all along, even if no one seemed all that excited about the prospect. Oliver called the convention “the tale of a job that went looking for a man”, and the Conservatives had their man in Manion.

Manion had no seat in the House of Commons, but would contest and win a byelection in November 1938. He would eventually lead the Conservatives into the wartime 1940 federal election, pitching himself and his party as a National Government to mimic Robert Borden’s Union Government that had attracted Manion to the party in the first place.

It didn’t work. The Conservatives did no better than the trouncing they had received in 1935. Manion went down to personal defeat in his riding. Mackenzie King won the greatest victory he would as prime minister. By the next election, the war was (all but) over, Manion was dead and the National Conservatives had become the Progressive Conservatives. Not until 1957 and the leadership of John Diefenbaker, his $125 long spent, would the party be back in power.

1956 Progressive Conservative leadership

Dief becomes the Chief

December 14, 1956

The Progressive Conservatives were starting to feel like maybe they had a little wind in their sails.

After two decades on the opposition benches, they had staggered the Liberals with a bruising fight over C.D. Howe’s controversial TransCanada pipeline project. With an election just a year away, the PCs’ prospects were suddenly looking up in 1956.

They still faced serious challenges, however. The Liberals had been in office since 1935. Louis St-Laurent, who had taken over from Mackenzie King in 1948, seemed to be in cruise control as a benevolent chairman of the board. After leading the country out of the Great Depression, through the Second World War and into its postwar economic boom, the Liberals were more of a Canadian institution than a mere political party.

When Canadians had last gone to the polls in 1953, they had rubber-stamped St-Laurent’s government by awarding the Liberals 48% of the vote and 169 seats. The PCs under former Ontario premier George Drew managed just 51 seats and 31% of the vote. Even if the Tories were smelling a little blood in the water in 1956, defeating the Liberals still seemed unlikely with Gallup awarding the governing party between 47% and 54% in polls conducted that year, compared to just 28% to 34% for the PCs.

Plans for the final sprint toward the election expected to be called in 1957 had to be put on hold, however, when Drew resigned the leadership. His health had deteriorated and he had no choice but to step aside.

Everyone knew who his replacement would probably be: John Diefenbaker, 61, the bombastic and theatrical partisan performer who had assailed the Liberals in the House of Commons since being first elected in 1940. A former leader of the Saskatchewan Conservatives, Diefenbaker was, by now, a perennial candidate with a national profile. He had finished a distant second to Drew in the 1948 leadership contest. He had finished an even more distant third to John Bracken back in 1942. It would finally be Diefenbaker’s time.

That is, unless his determined opponents within the party could stop him.

An “Old Guard” of Tories who had run the party for decades didn’t quite like Diefenbaker, a somewhat awkward, unpredictable and grudge-holding Prairie populist. Diefenbaker was a proponent of “One Canada” and of unhyphenated Canadians, a position that was at odds with the PCs’ traditional nationalist allies in Quebec. Someone needed to run as the anti-Diefenbaker candidate.

But it was hard to find someone willing to do it. The Old Guard was looking increasingly old and and out-of-touch with the modern PC Party. Diefenbaker had allies in provincial capitals in Winnipeg, Toronto, Fredericton and Halifax — important establishment figures like Leslie Frost and Hugh John Flemming and future stars like Duff Roblin and Robert Stanfield. Diefenbaker had the backing of nearly all of the PC caucus (save a few of the front-benchers). Potential rivals were approached but they declined, leaving the unenviable task to Donald Fleming.

Fleming, a bilingual Toronto MP who had finished third in the 1948 leadership contest, emerged as Diefenbaker’s chief rival. While Diefenbaker had the support of the West, Fleming had the backing of Quebec. But he had little more than that.

Also throwing his hat into the ring was Davie Fulton, the youngest candidate of the three at just 40 years old. Fulton represented a riding in British Columbia and was a supporter of Diefenbaker. He was just hoping to make a name for himself for a future run. Plus, he was a Roman Catholic — and some elements within the party believed a Catholic leader would tank them in parts of Ontario and the Maritimes.

Fulton recognized he wouldn’t win this race. Political observers, the press gallery and most of the PC Party agreed that Fulton wouldn’t win — and neither would Fleming. A Gallup poll of PC voters showed 55% support for Diefenbaker. Fleming had just 14%.

Diefenbaker’s position as the likely winner was further solidified with his performance during the international crises that distracted Canadians throughout the fall of 1956: the Soviet Union’s brutal repression of an uprising in Hungary and the attack on Egypt by Great Britain, France and Israel. While Lester Pearson would earn most of the praise for his involvement in brokering a solution to the Suez Crisis, Diefenbaker used the opportunity to present himself as a responsible national leader of the opposition.

Nevertheless, Diefenbaker’s campaign took no chances. The paranoid vindictiveness that would soon become apparent when Diefenbaker became prime minister in 1957 was reflected in his campaign, which went hard after Fleming despite the inevitable victory.

Attacked as the candidate of the establishment, Fleming found it difficult to garner support. “It became obvious that even those who were not ready to support Diefenbaker were reluctant to show their colours against him,” Fleming later said. “This was based in some cases on the belief that he was bound to win, in others on fear of his reputed vindictiveness. I doubt if they gained anything from their abstention.”

Dalton Camp, a brilliant political strategist who would eventually become Diefenbaker’s nemesis, observed in the Diefenbaker campaign “an undercurrent of malice, a sense of an impending blood-letting, in which the victorious would all avenge the past.”

It wasn’t the only omen of what would come. When PC delegates gathered in Ottawa for the leadership vote, Diefenbaker was sharply criticized by his few Quebec supporters for his decision to have his two nominators be English-speakers from the West and East. Diefenbaker refused to back down. While both Fulton and Fleming made one of their nominators a Quebecer, Diefenbaker didn’t.

It wouldn’t be the last time Diefenbaker would reveal an insensitivity to Quebec — one that would eventually hurt him in the future.

But December 14, 1956 was a day of vindication for Diefenbaker, who had been rejected and spurned so often before.

As expected, Diefenbaker won an emphatic first ballot victory with the support of 774 delegates, or about 60% of ballots cast. Diefenbaker didn’t do well among the Quebec delegates (many of whom walked out of the convention when the results were announced), but those in the West and in Ontario carried the day for him.

Fleming finished with 393 votes (31%), while Fulton came third with 117 (9%).

The polls didn’t improve for the PCs after Diefenbaker’s victory and he would remain an underdog right up until election day, when he scored an upset minority win in 1957 over St-Laurent’s Liberals.

Though Drew won the leadership of the PCs with a little more of the vote in 1948 than Diefenbaker did in 1956, no subsequent candidate for the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives, Canadian Alliance or the modern Conservative Party ever matched Diefenbaker’s big first ballot win — until Pierre Poilievre beat it in 2022.

It isn’t the only parallel that can be drawn between the political careers of these two Conservative leaders, whose take-no-prisoners, partisan street-fighter approaches had their strengths, as well as their weaknesses.

1961 New Democratic Party leadership

Tommy Douglas takes over the new NDP

August 3, 1961

When about 1,800 delegates headed to the Ottawa Coliseum in early August 1961, their task was not only to found a new party but to determine who should lead it.

This new party would be the successor to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, originally founded in the 1932. The CCF was steeped in the Prairie socialism and social gospel that emerged between the world wars, but by the 1960s it was seen as a little dated.

The results of the 1958 election made that clear.

Though the CCF once enjoyed a surge in the polls during the Second World War and had managed to form government in Saskatchewan since 1944, it was unable to make a breakthrough at the federal level. In its last election under M.J. Coldwell, the CCF was reduced to just eight seats when John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservatives won their landslide victory in 1958.

Saskatchewan, the heartland of the CCF, elected only a single CCF MP — and it was Hazen Argue, not M.J. Coldwell.

It punctuated what was already a lively discussion within CCF circles: it was time to create a new party that would unite the western, farmer base of the CCF with the urban energy (and financial resources) of the labour movement. The CCF and the Canadian Labour Congress decided to get the ball rolling in that direction to create this new party of the left for the modern age.

But who would lead it? Some thought it should be David Lewis, an influential behind-the-scenes figure within the CCF. But to prevent the traditionalists in the CCF from believing they were being swamped and taken over by the labour movement in Central and Eastern Canada, Lewis felt it couldn’t be him. It had to be T.C. Douglas, Saskatchewan premier and the CCF’s most successful politician in the country.

Tommy Douglas wasn’t so sure, though. The Saskatchewan CCF had done just fine without close affiliations with the labour movement. Linking itself with unions could cost the CCF its rural support in his home province. Douglas thought the national CCF and the CLC were moving a little too quickly for his taste.

But plans to create the new party — candidates were already starting to contest byelections under the “New Party” banner — went ahead. Coldwell, seatless and aging, couldn’t lead this new party. Hazen Argue had taken over the small rump CCF caucus in the House of Commons and with its backing (but against the wishes of the party organizers) was named the national CCF leader.

So, Douglas had to throw his hat into the ring if it meant blocking Argue who, according to Carl Hamilton, the CCF’s national secretary, “was a totally conscienceless man.”

Writing for The Globe and Mail, Walter Gray called Argue “a restless, aggressive man, [he] always seems to be in a hurry, either on the platform or in a quiet conversation. His suits are rumpled, his thick, black hair brushed carelessly back, his black moustache short and bristled.”

Douglas waited only a month before the founding convention of the new party to announce his intentions to run after he received letters of advice from his Saskatchewan cabinet. All but two had suggested he make the jump to federal politics.

It wasn’t much of a fair fight. At the convention — which narrowly settled on the name “New Democratic Party” over the “New Party”, while “Social Democratic Party” and “Canadian Democratic Party” were less popular — Douglas was the conquering hero from Saskatchewan who had put the CCF into power and proven it could govern responsibly. Argue had his small caucus behind him, but not much else.

When the voting was finished, Douglas had the support of 1,391 delegates to just 380 for Argue, representing 78.5% of ballots cast.

Argue was crushed, but said that “no matter what my role in the years ahead, I shall speak for you, I shall work for you, I shall never let you down.” Six months later, Argue crossed the floor to the Liberals.

While Douglas would not bring the New Democrats to new heights — he never won more than 22 seats, while Coldwell had beaten that mark as leader of the CCF in 1945, 1953 and 1957 — he would leave his mark on federal politics, particularly during the Pearson minority governments.

Argue, meanwhile, has been effectively written out of the history of the New Democratic Party. At NDP headquarters, in the line of portraits of past CCF and NDP leaders one finds M.J. Coldwell and Tommy Douglas next to each other, with no other portrait in between.

1965 Canadian federal election

Pearson fails to win his majority

November 8, 1965

Lester Pearson wasn’t much of a political animal — a brilliant diplomat and a progressive thinker, perhaps. But being prime minister was no fun when it was in a minority parliament in which his hated rival, John Diefenbaker, sat across the aisle.

If there was something that Pearson might have hated more than Diefenbaker (and the feeling was mutual), it might have been campaigning. But the only way to win a majority and be free from the hassle of the Tories and the sanctimonious New Democrats in parliament was to call an election.

On paper (and the polls), a snap election call seemed like a good idea. The Liberals had achieved quite a bit since they had returned to power in 1963, ending Diefenbaker’s tumultuous six-year stint as prime minister. The Canada Pension Plan had been brought in, the country finally got its own flag, national unity was being addressed and a universal healthcare program was on its way.

That was a noble record to run on — and just imagine what more could have been done had Pearson enjoyed a majority in the House of Commons! Plus, Diefenbaker was approaching a decade as leader of the Progressive Conservatives. That party’s internal divisions were well-known and the PCs’ organization was falling apart. Diefenbaker was a polarizing, divisive figure, both inside and outside the party. Better to go while he was still leading the PCs and before he could be replaced by someone more likeable.

So, Pearson finally made the call and set the date for the next election for November 8, 1965. On the ballot would be whether Canada would continue the instability of the last few years — the fault of Diefenbaker and the pesky New Democrats, of course — or if Canadians would back Pearson’s administration and let him set an untroubled course for the next four years.

But there were a few problems with this pitch. Much of the instability of the last few years had been the Liberals’ own fault. Corruption scandals had plagued the Pearson cabinet and many of the central figures were from Quebec. Efforts to smooth-over national unity divisions and recognize the bilingual and “bi-cultural” reality of Canada seemed, to many English Canadians, as pandering.

And Pearson was a reluctant, unenthusiastic campaigner. Not so, Diefenbaker.

Leading his party for a fifth consecutive election campaign, many in the PC ranks considered this to be Diefenbaker’s last ride. His paranoid leadership style and unwillingness to depart had splintered the party, but the campaign focused the minds of Tories and allowed them to put those divisions behind them (at least for now).

In the end, Diefenbaker was always more comfortable in the role of an opposition leader than a prime minister, and he was rejuvenated by the partisan fight. While Pearson spent much of the campaign in Ottawa trying to appear serious and prime ministerial, Diefenbaker was touring the country and speaking to electrified (if aging) crowds. John English, writing in The Worldly Years, said Diefenbaker

“…travelled 36,000 miles and visited 196 towns, villages and hamlets. His train passed through prairie and southern-Ontario towns where tears and cheers came quickly as “Dief the Chief” arrived with hands aloft, standing with [his wife] Olive on the caboose. Not all went well: he jaywalked in Toronto; Conservatives in Taber, Alberta, annoyed him by placing the maple-leaf flag on his car; and in Quebec, when told a young man was “mon fils” [“my son”], greeted the young man with: “Bonjour, Mon-seer Monfils.” But these pratfalls became grist for the legend that the seventy-year-old Diefenbaker was becoming. It was his last hurrah, and a vintage performance.”

Diefenbaker attacked the corruption in Pearson’s cabinet while Tommy Douglas of the NDP warned against giving the Liberals a majority (or, as he put it, a “tranquilizer”). The Liberal campaign had little to excite the electorate. Voters weren’t ready to put Diefenbaker back in office. But they were also uninterested in jumping in line behind Pearson and the Liberals.

The election settled nothing, with the Liberals returned with another minority government, two seats shy of a majority. Only a few ridings across the country changed hands and the net effect was that both the Liberals and the PCs won two more seats than they had captured in 1963. The Liberals’ vote share even dropped, by 1.5 points to 40.2%, far below where the pre-election polls had placed the party.

Quebec had again delivered Pearson his majority, with the PCs winning more seats than the Liberals in the rest of the country. Of the Liberals’ 131 seats, 56 came in Quebec. That was a gain of nine over the last election, but that was due to a drop in support for Social Credit. That party had split between Quebec and the West, with Réal Caouette leading the Ralliement des créditistes in Quebec and Robert Thompson continuing to lead the Social Credit wing in English Canada. Caouette could only retain nine of the 20 seats the Socreds had won in Quebec (under his local leadership) in 1963. Much of the vote he lost went to the New Democrats, with the seats going to the Liberals. But those Liberal gains were offset by losses in Atlantic Canada and the Prairies.

The country was still split, with neither Pearson nor Diefenbaker able to cobble-together a majority for the third consecutive election. The New Democrats had their base, gaining four seats and five percentage points and placing first in British Columbia, while the two wings of Social Credit also took seats and votes off the table in the West and in Quebec.

Something would have to give to break the logjam. Or someone. Among the Liberals’ new recruits in Quebec in the 1965 election was Pierre Trudeau. At the time, few saw him as a potential game-changer for the party. Within three years, he’d be prime minister — and finally win that majority government.

1976 Progressive Conservative leadership

Joe Clark becomes PC leader

February 22, 1976

After three fruitless elections as federal Progressive Conservative leader, Robert Stanfield stepped aside in 1976 and kicked off a leadership race. With Pierre Trudeau’s government now into its third term — and the Liberals in office for over a decade — the prospects looked good for whoever could replace Stanfield in the official opposition leader’s chair.

On February 22, 1976, 5,000 PC delegates made their way to the Ottawa Civic Centre to decide who would take the party forward.

The frontrunner was widely seen as Claude Wagner, a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister. He had a rival from Quebec in Brian Mulroney, who had loads of experience behind the scenes within the PC Party but none as an elected official.

Less flashy was Joe Clark, an MP from Alberta first elected in 1972. He had worked closely with Stanfield and was seen as coming from the Stanfield wing of the party, which made him one of John Diefenbaker’s enemies. Despite having been removed as leader a decade earlier, Diefenbaker still had sway, representing the stout, “One Nation” brand of conservatism in contrast to Stanfield’s more moderate and open-to-Quebec style.

Like Mulroney, Clark was young and had little experience outside of politics. But he was bilingual and a potential compromise candidate for those who did not want to choose between Wagner or Mulroney.

Another big player was PC MP Flora MacDonald, a trailblazer as the first woman viewed as a serious contender for one of the top two political jobs in the country.

Also on the packed ballot was Alberta MP Jack Horner, former Liberal Paul Hellyer, Ontario MP Sinclair Stevens and four other lesser-known MPs.

When the first round ballots were counted, Wagner was indeed on top with 22.5% of the vote, followed by Mulroney with 15%. Clark managed 12%, while Horner and Hellyer were tied at 10% apiece. MacDonald finished with just 9%, well below expectations, and Stevens with 8%.

Along with a couple of lower-placed finishers, Stevens withdrew at this point to put his support behind Clark, who jumped to 23% on the second ballot, just 5.5 points behind Wagner. Mulroney was now third with 18%, Horner in fourth with 12%, MacDonald in fifth with 10% and Hellyer in sixth, dropping to just 5%.

Only three names would remain on the third ballot. MacDonald endorsed Clark, while Horner and Hellyer (as well as Diefenbaker) threw their vote behind Wagner. The camps were splitting up into the moderates behind Clark and the right-wingers backing Wagner.

On that third ballot, Wagner had 43% to 41% for Clark, as Mulroney lost delegates and dropped to 16%. He was eliminated, but unlike all the other contestants would not give an endorsement to either Clark or Wagner.

By a nearly 2:1 margin, Clark picked up the liberated delegates on the fourth and final ballot, capturing 1,187 votes to Wagner’s 1,122 — a margin of just under three percentage points.

Clark, seen as a “darkhorse”, had pulled off the come-from-behind, compromise-candidate victory that would be a path followed by other future leaders like Dalton McGuinty in Ontario or Stéphane Dion for the federal Liberals.

But Clark remained largely unknown, prompting the Toronto Star to headline the next morning’s paper “Joe Who?”

Three years later, though, Clark would eke out a minority victory over Trudeau’s Liberals in the 1979 federal election. His time in office would be short, as he subsequently lost the 1980 election and would face off against Mulroney again in the 1983 leadership race But this time it would be Mulroney who would come from behind — and finish on top.

1984 Canadian federal election

The Mulroney Landslide

September 4, 1984

When John Turner finally fulfilled his lifelong dream to lead the Liberal Party and be Canada’s prime minister, he had an important decision to make.

When should he call the next election?

Turner was sworn-in as prime minister in June 1984, more than four years after Pierre Trudeau’s unlikely comeback win in the 1980 federal election. Time was running out for Turner to send Canadians to the polls, but he had some options. His more cautious advisors recommended he wait until the fall, or maybe even the next spring. After all, he wouldn’t want to interrupt visits to Canada by the Queen and the Pope. He could play the role of statesman for a few months, get Canadians used to the idea of a PM Turner and then call an election when the time was right.

His less cautious advisors, however, thought the time wasn’t going to get any better. The Liberal leadership race had given the party some momentum in the polls — Gallup had the Liberals ahead of the PCs by 11 points that June, a huge reversal from their 22-point deficit in March. Forecasts that the economy was going to take a severe downturn in the fall also worried Turner.

So, hoping to follow in the footsteps of Trudeau’s big victory in 1968 shortly after he had become leader, Turner decided to take the plunge. He visited the Queen in the U.K. and informed her that she would have to postpone her visit. He dissolved parliament and, nine days after becoming prime minister, sent the country to the polls.

It proved to be a serious mistake.

Party organization wasn’t a priority under Pierre Trudeau. It was something he left to his top advisors, and over the years the Liberals’ once formidable electoral machine had gotten rusty. Turner, too, had lost some of his political acumen during his time outside of politics. He replaced Trudeau’s seasoned veterans with his own out-of-practice team. Coming off a disorganized leadership campaign, Turner then embarked on a disorganized election campaign.

By comparison, the Progressive Conservatives under new leader Brian Mulroney were in terrific shape. The PC war chest was as full as that of the Liberals and New Democrats combined. Though their polling lead had disappeared during the Liberal leadership campaign, the party had led in the polls throughout 1982 and 1983 as Trudeau’s popularity plummeted. Whereas the Liberals were still getting their campaign team together and had just 40 candidates nominated, the PCs had more than 200 in place and were guided by Norm Atkins of Ontario’s Big Blue Machine.

The New Democrats had as many candidates nominated as the PCs, but they had lagged in the polls behind the other two parties, dropping to 11% in May and June. A party memo by Gerry Caplan put things in perspective:

A. Disadvantages

1. We are very low in all the national polls.

2. Everyone knows this.

3. Much of the media has lost interest in us and is writing us off.

4. Some say we are irrelevant to the present moment and there is no purpose in people voting for us.

The party was divided on strategy — pitch for government or for survival, take a left-wing or centrist approach on policy — but its leader, Ed Broadbent, was the only one with campaign experience and was respected by voters.

Though the Liberals were the ones who called the election, they appeared to be the least prepared. Turner was exhausted from the leadership contest and barely campaigned over the first few weeks. The party had no platform to present, no political pamphlets or brochures to share. While the PCs and NDP ferried journalists across the country on chartered jets, Turner flew commercial and left the media to fend for themselves to keep up.

Things started badly for the Liberals. Before Trudeau resigned the prime minister’s office, he had left a list of patronage appointments for Turner to make. They were the usual fare — cushy landing spots in diplomatic posts and the Senate for loyal Liberals — and Turner was reluctant to go ahead with them. But he gave his word (in writing) that he would go ahead with the patronage appointments and followed through on that promise, adding a few of his own to the list. The story dominated the first week of the campaign, and ensured that the breath of fresh air that Turner was hoping to give his new Liberal government stunk just as bad as the last one.

The second week was dominated by another faux-pas. Television cameras captured Turner patting the behinds of women, not once, but twice. Again, it made Turner look old-fashioned rather than as an agent of change, and it didn’t help when he defended himself as a “tactile politician. I’m slapping people all over the place. That’s my style.”

Attention then turned to two debates, the first being held in French. This was an important opportunity for Mulroney and the PCs, who hoped to make serious inroads in Quebec.

Mulroney, who grew up in the small town of Baie-Comeau on Quebec’s Côte-Nord, opted to run in the riding of Manicouagan, taking on a Liberal MP who had previously won with huge majorities. The PCs had long struggled in Quebec, but Mulroney had spoken of his desire to get Quebec to sign the constitution and, if necessary, to work with the Parti Québécois government then in power to get it done.

This openness ensured that the PCs got some help from the PQ’s well-oiled organization in Quebec. They were also helped by René Lévesque’s belittling of attempts to create a federal sovereignist party.

The federal Liberals, meanwhile, had gotten so used to dominating the province (they won 74 of 75 seats in Quebec in 1980), that their own electoral readiness was lacking. Liberals were divided between those who supported Turner and those who backed Jean Chrétien in the leadership race. Robert Bourassa, leader of the provincial Liberals and someone who had a testy relationship with Trudeau when he was premier, officially stayed neutral. But, unofficially, the PLQ was also helping the PCs.

Mulroney performed well in the French language debate. He presented himself as a Quebecer and spoke French more naturally and comfortably than Turner, whose fluent French was nevertheless more stilted. (Broadbent lagged well behind the other two). Though there was no ‘knockout punch’ during the debate, it propelled the PCs forward in Quebec as voters in the province saw in Mulroney a ‘favourite son’.

The knockout punch would instead wait for the English language debate.

It came down to the issue of patronage. Turner went into the debate getting contradictory advice — stay out of the fray and look prime ministerial, or go on the attack against Mulroney. As the debate neared its end, Turner took the latter tack, with disastrous consequences.

Patronage was an issue of weakness for Turner, but he nevertheless went after Mulroney on it over a joke the PC leader had made about how, in a similar position, he would have “been in there with my nose in the public trough like the rest of them”.

Mulroney didn’t shy away from the opportunity. He noted how he had apologized for that crack, but Turner did not apologize for his patronage appointments. Turner meekly responded that he had no option.

“You had an option, sir,” Mulroney defiantly responded, “You could have said: ‘I’m not going to do it.’ … You could have done better.”

A Southam News poll conducted before the debate gave the Liberals a two-point lead over the PCs. The next poll conducted in the week after the debate put the PCs ahead by nine points.

Turner’s honeymoon was over. The party’s strong support in pre-campaign polls had been superficial — once Canadians had seen that Turner did not represent change from the unpopular Trudeau government, they reverted to their previous opinions. The Liberals were collapsing. And their campaign hadn’t even started in earnest, as it was only after the debates that the Liberals finally secured a chartered plane and began touring the country. The media dubbed Turner’s plane ‘DerriAir’.

The polls got worse for the Liberals throughout August, as the PC lead grew to 15, 20 and sometimes 30 or more points. Turner had begun the campaign polling better on a personal level than Mulroney, who was seen as slick and inauthentic. By the end of the campaign, Mulroney was polling significantly higher than the incumbent prime minister.

Mulroney and the PCs kept the rest of the campaign on cruise control, hammering home the message of change and of “jobs, jobs, jobs”. The perception that the Liberal campaign was falling apart was not helped when Turner replaced his advisors with Trudeau-era figures.

A leaked internal memo from the NDP’s campaign admitted that the PCs were going to win a majority, “maybe even a huge majority”, and the party began to pitch for the need for some NDP representation to provide an opposition to the PC juggernaut. The New Democrats were bleeding support to the Tories in Western Canada, but they were also attracting disaffected Liberals. There was even hope among some of the more optimistic New Democrats that they could bound ahead of the Liberals into second place. The catastrophic Liberal campaign was opening up opportunities not only for the soaring PCs.

Mulroney and the PCs won a majority — and it was indeed a huge one.

The PCs secured 50% of the vote and 211 seats, the largest caucus ever elected in Canadian history (John Diefenbaker’s win in 1958 was a few seats short, but proportionately represented more of the seats then up for grabs).

The PCs made their most substantial gains in Quebec, where they won 58 seats, up from a single seat in 1980. They also gained 29 in Ontario, 12 in Atlantic Canada and nine in the West, sweeping every seat in Alberta and capturing a majority of the vote in Quebec and all four Atlantic provinces. The PCs took 47% of the vote in British Columbia and 48% in Ontario. It was a truly national victory, as the PCs found themselves with seats in both rural Canada and in every major city.

The Liberals were decimated. Support for the party fell 16 points to just 28%, up to then the worst result the Liberals had ever been dealt. Only 40 seats remained, 17 of them in Quebec, 14 in Ontario, where they suffered serious defeats in Toronto and the southwest, seven in Atlantic Canada and only two in the West — one in Winnipeg, the other Turner’s seat in Vancouver.

Shockingly, the New Democrats had survived the Tory onslaught. The NDP retained 30 seats, just two fewer than they had won in 1980. The party won 13 seats in Ontario, eight in British Columbia, five in Saskatchewan and four in Manitoba. They gained seats from the Liberals in Ontario where, in 1980, they had won only five. But they lost seats to the PCs in rural Manitoba and Saskatchewan, in the B.C. Interior and on Vancouver Island. It ensured that the NDP remained in third place across the country, even if they had more seats than the Liberals west of Quebec.

Would Brian Mulroney’s landslide kick-off a new PC dynasty? Would the Liberals’ catastrophe finally result in the inauguration of a left-right political system that pitted Tories vs. New Democrats?

The next few years would demonstrate that electing a huge caucus comes with its own problems. Brian Mulroney, John Turner and Ed Broadbent would all have one more election in them and the next decade would be among the most tumultuous in Canadian political history. But the re-alignment that seemed to be happening in 1984 didn’t hold. Another re-alignment would have to wait for a new set of leaders.

1993 Canadian federal election

The election that changed everything

October 25, 1993

Heading into 1993, it was clear that Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives were going to have a rough year. But no one would have guessed just how rough things were going to get.

The clock was ticking on Mulroney’s second term as prime minister. Normally, an election would have been held in the fall of 1992, four years after the 1988 election that the PCs had won over the issue of free trade. Instead, a referendum on the Charlottetown Accord was held that October. The defeat of the accord, following a few years after the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, signalled that Canadians were done with constitutional debate — and done with Mulroney.

He and his PC government were incredibly unpopular. The party was polling under 20% and Mulroney’s own approval ratings had dipped to a record-low 12%. Not only had Mulroney spent his last remaining political capital on two futile attempts to bring Quebec into the constitution, but the economy was in the pits, the deficit was soaring and Canadians were smarting at the imposition of the GST.

The PCs had lost a lot of ground to the Liberals, but worse for the party was the splintering of the electoral coalition that had won them their landslide victory in 1984. Buoyed by Western grievances, the government’s support for the Charlottetown Accord and Mulroney’s profligate spending, the Reform Party was making inroads in Western Canada. Led by Preston Manning, son of the former Alberta Social Credit premier Ernest Manning, the populist, conservative Reform Party was eating away at the PCs’ traditional support in the west, as well as in rural Ontario.

In Quebec, the constitutional wrangles had led to the creation of the Bloc Québécois, led by former PC cabinet minister Lucien Bouchard and bringing together a small group of disgruntled PC and Liberal Quebec MPs. With support for sovereignty cresting to 60% in the wake of the failure of Meech, the Bloc was well-positioned to take advantage of the discontent within Quebec. Byelection victories by Reform and the Bloc in 1989 and 1990 indicated that these parties were not just polling mirages.

Faced with no chance of re-election, Mulroney resigned in February 1993. Whoever his replacement would be would have little time to turn the ship around before the election that had to be held in the fall.

Not surprisingly, there were few takers for this job. The big names around the cabinet table — all of whom would find themselves out of work in a few months — withdrew their names from the running, leaving B.C.’s Kim Campbell, a cabinet minister and rising star in the party, as the heir apparent. Jean Charest, a young minister from Quebec, threw his name into the ring to make a race out of it, which he subsequently did. Campbell prevailed, but not by much.

The arrival of a new face at the helm of the government, and the first (and to date only) woman to become prime minister, resulted in a surge in support for the Progressive Conservatives. Suddenly, the party was running even with the Liberals.

Under the leadership of Jean Chrétien, the Liberals were still licking their wounds from the catastrophic defeats of 1984 and 1988. Chrétien wasn’t particularly popular at a personal level — he soon fell behind Campbell in the polls — and lacked support in his home province due to his staunch opposition to the Meech Lake Accord. Quebec had been the backbone of Pierre Trudeau’s election victories, but a breakthrough under Chrétien with the Bloc now on the scene seemed like a longshot. The Liberals would need to beat the PCs in the rest of the country to win.

There was also a new leader at the helm of the New Democrats. The party’s support had risen as the PCs faltered, with polls in the early 1990s showing the NDP competitive with the other parties nationwide. Victories at the provincial level in Ontario in 1990 and in Saskatchewan and British Columbia in 1991 hinted at an orange wave sweeping the country. The new federal leader, Audrey McLaughlin, had made history when she became the first woman to lead a major national party — but by 1993 the NDP was suffering from the unpopularity of those provincial governments, particularly Bob Rae’s in Ontario and Mike Harcourt’s in B.C. The rise of Reform also chipped away at the NDP’s Prairie populist support. Unlike Reform, the NDP had sided with the other parties in favour of the Charlottetown Accord, which was rejected by solid majorities throughout Western Canada.

The election was officially kicked off at the beginning of September, and polls during the first week put the PCs and Liberals tied in the mid-30s in support. Reform and the Bloc had about 10% apiece, with the NDP just below that.

Campbell’s campaign got off to a rough start in her opening remarks and there were to be other gaffes, including the infamous “an election is no time to discuss serious issues” quote (which she did not exactly say).

Meanwhile, the Liberals presented their “Red Book”, a detailed platform document that presented Chrétien and the Liberals as the party with a plan for the future.

By the end of September, the PCs were starting to bleed support to the other parties. They had dropped below 30%, with Reform and the Bloc benefiting most. A five-person debate did not change the trend.

But perhaps accelerating those trends were the ads produced by the Progressive Conservatives that attacked Chrétien, presenting images of the Liberal leader’s face while asking if “this is a prime minister”.

Chrétien, who had a facial deformity due to Bell’s palsy, blasted the ads, saying “it’s true that I speak on one side of my mouth, I’m not a Tory, I don’t speak on both sides of my mouth.” PC candidates apologized for it, as did Campbell, who had the ad pulled.

The wheels were coming off the PC campaign as voters reverted to their pre-Campbell mood. Quebec nationalists had been lost to the Bloc and weren’t coming back. Social conservatives in Western Canada and rural Ontario were flocking to Reform, the PCs’ economic message failing to resonate when the party’s record on the economy was so poor. The NDP was also being squeezed out, bleeding support to Reform in the West and to the Liberals elsewhere.

By the end of the campaign, the polls were showing just how much the PC vote had collapsed. The party was under 20%, running neck-and-neck with Reform. The Bloc had risen to 50% in the polls in Quebec and the Liberals had finally ticked up nationally to the 40% range that was required for a majority government. The years of rage with the Mulroney PCs, the regional grievances of the West and Quebec and Campbell’s poor campaign had all come together to produce one of the most dramatic election nights in Canadian history.

The defeat was like nothing that had ever been seen in Canada — or even in the world of Western democracies. The PCs went from 169 seats and 43% of the vote in 1988 to just 16% and two seats: Jean Charest’s in Sherbrooke and Elsie Wayne’s in Saint John. Only in Atlantic Canada did the PCs manage to clear the bar of 20%.

The Liberals won 177 seats, a gain of 94, and captured 41.3% of the vote. They won 98 of 99 seats in Ontario and 31 of 32 seats in Atlantic Canada, enough to put the party just 19 seats shy of a majority government. Quebec, where the Liberals managed exactly 19 seats, did the rest. Wins in Western Canada, including a plurality of the vote in Saskatchewan, cushioned Chrétien’s majority.

The Bloc managed 49% of the vote in Quebec and won 54 seats, giving it official opposition status and cementing the next few years as ones that would be dominated by national unity issues. In two years, Quebec would hold its second referendum.

Reform, which ran no candidates in Quebec, emerged with 52 seats, all but two of them in the three western-most provinces. Reform won just over half of the vote in Alberta and placed first in British Columbia.

It was there that the NDP suffered most at the hands of the Reform Party, falling 17 seats to just two in the province. The party’s caucus in Saskatchewan was cut in half and all 10 of their seats in Ontario were lost. The NDP was left with just nine seats and 6.9% of the vote.

The political landscape of Canada had been utterly transformed. The PCs ceased to be a major force and would eventual merge itself with (and be largely subsumed into) the Canadian Alliance, the successors to Reform. The presence of the Bloc would forever change the dynamics of elections in Quebec, while the NDP would struggle to regain the footing it once had in Western Canada.

Chrétien would govern for the next 10 years and Bouchard would go on to become Quebec premier after the victory of the NON side in the 1995 referendum. Manning would become official opposition leader after the 1997 election. Leading their respective parties to their worst results ever, however, cost both McLaughlin and Campbell their leaderships.

When talking about modern Canadian politics, the 1993 election is still the main point at which there is a before and an after — and the reverberations of this campaign can still be felt straight through to today.

2000 Canadian federal election

Chrétien catches Day (and Martin) by surprise

November 27, 2000

Sometimes you have to take your opponents by surprise — even when they’re within your own party.

That’s the opportunity Jean Chrétien seized in the fall of 2000, only three years after he (narrowly) won his second majority government in 1997.

In theory, his main opponent sat across the aisle from him in the House of Commons. The Reform Party under Preston Manning had secured that seat in the last election, winning the official opposition role but hardly closing the gap on the Liberals. Reform failed to win a single seat in Ontario in the 1997 election, suggesting to Manning that his party had a long way to go before it could have a hope to form a government of its own.

The division on the right was a problem. The Progressive Conservatives had won only two seats in 1993 and seemed destined for extinction, but Jean Charest resurrected the party with a haul of 20 seats in 1997, blocking the way for Reform to become the true alternative to the Chrétien Liberals.

After the disappointment, Manning embarked on an attempt to create the so-called “United Alternative”, a new party that would subsume the PCs and shake off the Reform brand that had made so few inroads east of Manitoba. Manning and the Reform Party were seen as a Western Canadian party — not a real alternative to the Liberals in whole swathes of Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

The PCs, however, had no intention of being taken over by Reform. But they weren’t in great shape, either. Charest left the party to lead the Quebec Liberals in 1998. His replacement was a blast from the past: Joe Clark, the former prime minister and PC leader. Clark wasn’t about to let his old party die.

So, Manning went ahead with the creation of a new party and a new brand — without the PCs. It would be called the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, or Canadian Alliance for short. The hope was that it would gather beneath its umbrella provincial Tories and entice premiers like Ralph Klein or Mike Harris to take a run for the leadership.

Instead, no big names stepped forward to contest the leadership of the Canadian Alliance. Manning ran for the job himself. His chief opposition was Stockwell Day and the Alberta finance minister’s social conservative networks helped propel him to the leadership, with Day defeating Manning in July 2000.

The Alliance was a new party with a new, untested leader. Chrétien wasn’t going to let that opportunity pass him by. Calling an early election would allow the Liberals to defeat the Alliance before it could gather any steam. It could also head-off the ongoing campaign within the Liberal Party that was striving to replace Chrétien with Paul Martin. A snap election would shut those folks up, keep the Alliance down and give Chrétien a few more years of peace.

The economy was also humming along — Martin had balanced the budget — and unemployment was dropping. The going was about as good as it was going to get, so Chrétien got going.

The election call caught everyone off guard, including the Liberals. But the Liberals were in a better position for a standing start. As the government, the Liberals had more incumbent MPs in place and better fundraising than the upstart Alliance (and certainly the PCs or the NDP).

The Liberals took aim at Day from the start, and he obliged them with a few gaffes. Trying to highlight his more youthful energy, Day arrived at one press conference in a wetsuit on the back of a jet ski. The visuals, though, didn’t quite do the trick and the stunt was ridiculed by the press.

More damaging was a comment from Alliance MP Jason Kenney that was interpreted to mean that the Alliance supported a two-tier healthcare system with parallel private and public systems. Day repeatedly denied this was the Alliance platform, going so far as to hold up a small, handwritten sign during the leaders’ debate that said “No 2-Tier Healthcare”. Again, the stunt landed with a thud.

It was a bit of a lifesaver for the directionless Liberal campaign in an election that had no single issue or even a solid rationale for taking place. But healthcare was a top concern for voters in this election. Not only did the Liberals attack Day over the party’s supposed position on healthcare, but Joe Clark’s PCs and Alexa McDonough’s NDP piled on as well.

But it was a campaign that garnered little interest — and the public opinion polls indicated that Canadians weren’t being moved. The Liberals might have lost a few steps in the early stages of the campaign, but the only effect was to give the PCs a little boost. The Alliance was stuck in the mid-20s in support and the Liberals rarely dipped below 40%. Indeed, the margin between the Liberals and the Alliance never got any smaller than 12 percentage points.

Turnout hit a new low on election day, with just 61% of voters heading to the polls. The result was exactly what Chrétien had hoped — a renewed, larger majority government.

The Liberals won 172 seats, 17 more than in the previous election, and increased their share of the vote by two points to 40.8%, most of that coming from the New Democrats and PCs. The Liberals won 100 seats and 51.5% of the vote in Ontario and gained 10 more seats in Quebec. They also picked up eight in Atlantic Canada, winning back much of the ground they had lost in the 1997 campaign due to the changes the government had made to employment insurance. (They walked some of them back ahead of the 2000 campaign.)

The Canadian Alliance won only 66 seats, just six more than Reform had won in 1997. The party dominated Alberta and won nearly half of the vote in B.C. and Saskatchewan, but secured just two seats and 23.6% of the vote in Ontario. Once again, Ontario formed a brick wall to the party’s ambitions. Despite speaking some French, Day made no inroads in Quebec and the PCs, rather than the Alliance, placed second to the Liberals throughout Atlantic Canada, winning nine of their 12 seats in the region.

The Bloc finished third with 38 seats, enough for a narrow majority in Quebec even if they were beaten in the popular vote by the Liberals in the province. The NDP dropped four seats in Atlantic Canada and three in Saskatchewan, winning just 13.

The inability of the Alliance to breakthrough east of Manitoba and the setback suffered by both the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives gave rise to the view that the Liberals could never be beaten. Chrétien’s government was a “friendly dictatorship”, soon to be replaced by Martin’s “juggernaut”. With division on the right and renewed strength for the Liberals in Quebec, how could the party ever lose again?

2002 Canadian Alliance leadership

Stephen Harper’s first big win

March 20, 2002

Once touted as the great hope of the right, the Stockwell Day bubble popped very quickly during the 2000 federal election campaign.

Gaffe-prone and an easy target for the Liberals for his previously-stated creationist views, Day led the Canadian Alliance — the successor to the Reform Party created by Preston Manning, whom Day defeated for the leadership of the Alliance in 2000 — to another second-place showing. Though the Alliance won 66 seats, more than Reform ever did, he failed to make any significant gains in Ontario.

It wasn’t long after this disappointment that the knives came out for Day. Within a few months, 13 MPs in his caucus called for his resignation and were booted from the party. While about half of them were eventually welcomed back into the fold, the others formed the Democratic Representative Caucus, working in tandem with the Joe Clark-led Progressive Conservatives.

Divided, broke and polling poorly, the Alliance was in rough shape. The internal dissent became too much, and a leadership vote was called in mid-2001, to be held on March 20, 2002. While he was coy at first, Day eventually announced he would stand again for the leadership of the party.

A former cabinet minister in Ralph Klein’s Alberta government, Day had limited support within his own caucus to stay on as leader, and as the campaign heated up he intimated that those who opposed him would have little future ahead of them in the Alliance should he be re-elected.

There were a lot of them, and they looked to a former MP as their saviour.

Stephen Harper had once been the Reform Party’s heir apparent to Preston Manning, and was one of the 52 Reform MPs elected in 1993. But he soon chafed under Manning’s leadership and opted not to run for re-election in 1997. Instead, he became the president of the right-wing, small-government National Citizens Coalition. The job kept him in the spotlight, as did a spot as a pundit on Don Newman’s CBC Politics show.

Seen as a good communicator, a fiscal conservative and someone who could expand the party’s appeal beyond it’s Western, social-conservative base, Harper became the main challenger to Day’s leadership. Much of the pre-existing base of Alliance members backed him, and by the end of the leadership campaign so did about half of the Alliance’s remaining MPs.

Harper spent the campaign making Day’s leadership the ballot box question, in one debate saying that “the party has the choice of picking the current leadership, of reliving the current problems and reliving the events of last summer and, frankly, of being stuck with its current support levels. Or it has the option of picking new leadership and getting back on track.”

Day snapped back that “[many MPs] still wonder why you quit and left the caucus in the lurch and left Preston Manning very vulnerable.”

Harper ruffled some feathers for his criticisms of the direction the Alliance had taken under Day, that it had become viewed as a social conservative party in hock to anti-abortionists and the Christian right. Harper felt that this limited the party’s potential appeal, urging a more libertarian, hands-off approach to these contentious issues.

Though Harper and Day were the two front runners, there were two other candidates in the race: Diane Ablonczy and Grant Hill. Both were Reform MPs from Alberta elected in 1993, and both ran on a ‘unity’ platform, arguing for closer cooperation with the Progressive Conservatives. Both Day and Harper avoided the topic as best they could however, with Harper saying he wouldn’t consider a merger with the PCs while Joe Clark was at the helm.

When the deadline for eligibility to vote passed, the Canadian Alliance’s membership had grown to 123,000 — though that was down sharply from the 205,000 members who had signed up for the leadership contest that selected Day in 2000. With backing from well-organized religious groups, Day was able to sign-up the most new members, perhaps twice as many as Harper’s team managed. But Harper had the backing of most of the 70,000 members who were with the party when the contest had started.

Expectations were high that the leadership would not be settled on the first ballot, requiring a second ballot between the two front runners that would be decided two weeks after the results of the mail-in ballot was announced on March 20. The betting money was on Harper having the advantage if it went to a second ballot, as Day was unlikely to get much support from those who backed Ablonczy or Hill.

But a few weeks before the results were announced, one source within Harper’s team told Brian Laghi of The Globe and Mail that their own tracking had Harper with over 50% support and Day somewhere around 30%. It turned out to be a prescient estimate.

The results were announced at an event in Calgary but rumours quickly leaked out about who had won. It was Stephen Harper, who easily cleared the majority threshold with 55% support among the 88,000 members who cast a ballot. He had big support in the one-member, one-vote race in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, while Day was only able to win in Saskatchewan, Quebec and Prince Edward Island.

That cooperating with the PCs had been shunted aside as a campaign issue was shown by the performance of Ablonczy and Hill, who each took less than 4% of ballots cast.

“You have just voted to move our party forward into the future,” Harper told the convention-goers after his win. “Now I ask you … to join me in rebuilding this party and to bring together all who share our values and our vision: Reformers, like-minded PCs and others, regardless of their previous political affiliation.”

It didn’t sound like Harper was contemplating a merger with the PCs. He called the Canadian Alliance “a permanent political institution [that] is here to stay”.

Stung by the defeat, Day called for party unity within the Alliance under Harper’s leadership. He stayed on as an MP and would later serve in Harper’s cabinet once the Conservatives, the product of the 2003 merger between the Alliance and the PCs then led by Peter MacKay, formed government in 2006.

2003 NDP leadership

Jack Layton wins the NDP leadership

January 25, 2003

In the early years of the 21st century, the best days for the New Democrats seemed to be behind them.

Ed Broadbent had brought the NDP to new heights in the 1980s and, for a brief moment, the party was even leading in the polls nationwide. But the 1990s proved to be tough for the New Democrats. The Liberals under Jean Chrétien enjoyed a big majority in the House of Commons and, with the exception of a small uptick in 1997 under Alexa McDonough, the party’s caucus for much of the Chrétien years could squeeze into a couple of minivans.

Unable to make any headway, McDonough resigned her leadership in June 2002 after securing just 13 seats and 8.5% of the vote in her last election as leader in 2000.

The New Democrats were simply unable to find some space on the evolving political spectrum of Canada at the time. The rise of the Reform Party had squeezed the NDP out of its Western strongholds. The Chrétien Liberals’ dominance of Ontario made that province tough going. The party was still nowhere in Quebec. McDonough had made the NDP relevant in Atlantic Canada, but that was unlikely to outlast her.

The first person to put his name forward to take on the task of moving the party forward was Bill Blaikie, MP for Winnipeg–Transcona since 1979. He had experienced the dizzying highs of the Broadbent years as well as the lows of the Chrétien era. He was well-respected, had strength in Manitoba where the party had formed government in 1999 and was a familiar sort of New Democrat, echoing the social gospel, Prairie populism of past NDP and CCF heroes like Tommy Douglas and M.J. Coldwell.

Policy Options described Blaikie as “a bear of a man: tall, bulky and bearded. He rejects the politics of image-making, and is running for the leadership of the New Democratic Party on the basis of his years in the House of Commons as a representative of the underprivileged, and the underrepresented: a defiant voice of moral indignation and moral values.”

In the weeks that followed, other names came forward.

There was Pierre Ducasse, a Quebec NDP activist who gave the party a glimmer of hope that maybe they could make a breakthrough in Quebec.

Bev Meslo, a feminist from Vancouver, came forward as the candidate of the socialist caucus.

Lorne Nystrom also made a bid, of course. A perennial candidate who finished third in both the 1975 and 1995 NDP leadership contests, Nystrom had been a Saskatchewan MP since 1968 (with the exception of one term after 1993). Fluently bilingual, Nystrom would be the centrist candidate — and often dismissed as yesterday’s man.

Joe Comartin, the MP for Windsor–St. Clair, also jumped into the ring.

But the name that garnered the most attention was probably that of Jack Layton, a well-known Toronto city councillor.

For New Democrats who were looking to the future, Layton held lots of promise. He could reach out to urban progressives in a way someone like Blaikie never could. Born in Quebec and able to speak a rough but disarming French, Layton’s candidacy raised hopes that maybe, one day, the NDP could have some influence in that province. He didn’t have a seat in the House of Commons, that was true, but he knew how to get the media to pay attention to him — the kind of attention the NDP desperately needed. Though identified with the left of the party, Layton carried less of the baggage of the NDP’s historical internecine fighting between principle and pragmatism. Layton pitched both.

It was a persuasive argument for some New Democrats. For others, the glitz and glam sounded a lot like what Stockwell Day brought to the table for the Canadian Alliance, with disastrous consequences.

Layton’s campaign got a big boost when he landed the endorsement of Broadbent in November 2002. It wasn’t an easy call for Broadbent, who sat with Blaikie in parliament throughout the 1980s.

“But in deciding who should be leader of the party,” he said at the news conference announcing his endorsement, “you set aside loyalty, you set aside friendship, and that’s difficult to do, frankly … I had other personal considerations, but the political result was very clear in my mind. Jack, in my view, is the best candidate.”

Though the race had six contestants, it was widely seen as a contest between Layton and Blaikie — the modern vs. the old, the upstart vs. the establishment.

The Globe and Mail’s Kim Lunman contrasted the two:

“Mr. Layton, 52, is a well-known civic politician who recently posed on the cover of Toronto's weekly newsmagazine Now sporting a fake tattoo on his arm emblazoned with the name of his wife, Olivia Chow. Members of the band Barenaked Ladies were among the first group to endorse his candidacy.

“An avid cyclist who plays the piano, Mr. Layton schmoozed party members at martini parties during his campaign. He even tickled the ivories at the Jazz Bassment in Saskatoon, singing: ‘Hit the road Paul [Martin], and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.’

“Mr. Blaikie, 51, has been a familiar face in Parliament since … 1979. At the time, he was a 27-year-old United Church minister. He was told he'd never win a seat and he ignored suggestions that he should shave off his beard. The father of four, married to Brenda Bihun, has continued to keep his facial hair, agreeing to only one makeover tip, from his optometrist: a new pair of eyeglasses.

“Mr. Blaikie also has a musical side. He plays the bagpipes.”

Though the campaign was hardly nasty, Blaikie did criticize Layton’s inexperience and bristled at the comparisons between him and his chief rival.

“I think people's general frustration with the NDP [has] been projected on to me and they're projecting fantasies of something new on to Jack," he said. “I'm not anybody's fantasy. I'm a known commodity.”

The polls and the pundits pegged the race as very close. Blaikie had the caucus behind him, but Layton had Broadbent, more money and had signed up the most members. Talk of an Anybody-But-Layton campaign in the days before the voting suggested it could come down to the wire and members’ second choices.

In the end, though, it wasn’t all that close. The delegates at the National Trade Centre at Exhibition Place in Toronto, about a thousand or so, got a shock when the results of the nearly 44,000 votes were tabulated.

Rather than going to multiple ballots, Layton won on the first with 53.5% support. Blaikie was far back with just 24.7%.

No other candidate hit double-digits. Nystrom took 9.3%, Comartin 7.7%, Ducasse 3.7% and Meslo 1.1%. Layton had won a majority of ballots cast by both party members and labour delegates, whose votes carried extra weight in the count.

It even took the Layton campaign by surprise, as there were reports in the Toronto Star that, prior to the result being announced, Layton’s team was “shuttling ‘Jack’ armbands to the Ducasse and Comartin camps to be at the ready for those supporters who wanted to change sides on a second ballot.”

The scale of his victory, perhaps, made it easier for the contenders to stick together. Despite the blow, Blaikie would run again under Layton and be re-elected in 2004 and 2006 before making the jump to provincial politics. His son, Daniel, is now the NDP MP for Elmwood–Transcona.

Nystrom would run for re-election once more in 2004, but go down to defeat against a little-known Conservative candidate named Andrew Scheer.

Comartin would stick with Layton throughout the rest of his career, being one of the few NDP MPs with long experience in parliament when the party rose to official opposition status in 2011. He retired before the 2015 election.

That sense of timing didn’t belong to Ducasse, though, as he unsuccessfully ran for the NDP in Quebec in 2004, 2006 and 2008 before deciding not to run again in 2011.

That election, the pinnacle of Jack Layton’s political career, was still more than eight years in the future in January 2003. In the short term, Layton would make some modest progress for the New Democrats in the 2004 election, lifting the party to 19 seats, including his own in Toronto–Danforth, and 16% of the vote. The NDP would see more growth in 2006 and again in 2008, when the NDP was back to its strength of the Broadbent era. The party seemed stuck there, though, until the 2011 campaign began. The next few months would prove to have some magic, and tragedy, for Jack Layton and the NDP.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections Canada, the Library of Parliament and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• Dynasties & Interludes: Past and Present in Canadian Electoral Politics, by Lawrence Leduc and Jon H. Pammett

• Turning Points: The Campaigns that Changed Canada, 2004 and Before, by Ray Argyle

• Nation Maker: John A. Macdonald, His Life, Our Times, by Richard Gwyn

• Alexander Mackenzie, by Dale C. Thomson

• Wilfrid Laurier: Quand la politique devient passion, by Réal Bélanger

• Robert Laird Borden: A Biography, Volume 1, by Robert Craig Brown

• In Search of R.B. Bennett, by P.B. Waite

• The Life and Times of Tommy Douglas, by Walter Stewart

• M.J.: The Life and Times of M.J. Coldwell, by Walter Stewart

• Rogue Tory: The Life and Legend of John G. Diefenbaker, by Denis Smith

• The Worldly Years: The Life of Lester Pearson, 1949-1972, by John English

• Réal Caouette: L’homme et le phénomène, by Marcel Huguet

• The Longer I'm Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada, 2006-, by Paul Wells

• Joseph Howe, Volume II: The Briton Becomes Canadian, 1848-1873, by Murray Beck

• The Shawinigan Fox: How Jean Chrétien Defied the Elites and Reshaped Canada, by Bob Plamondon

• The Canadian General Election of 2000, ed. by Jon H. Pammett and Christopher Dornan

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

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1907 British Columbia election

Richard McBride wins again

February 2, 1907

Partisan politics (or, at least, officially partisan politics) was still a novelty in British Columbia when voters went to the polls on February 2, 1907. It was only the second campaign run along party lines after Richard McBride, who became premier in June 1903, announced his government would be a Conservative government, and promptly won an electoral mandate as a B.C. Conservative later that year.

By the end of 1906, McBride was ready to call another election, which he announced on Christmas Eve.

The campaign would be centred around the issue of “Better Terms” for British Columbians in Confederation, along with securing continued economic development for B.C. and increased immigration — white immigration, preferably from Great Britain. At the time, Chinese, Japanese and South Asian Canadians in B.C. could not vote, and both the Conservatives and Liberals were keen to keep it that way.

J. A. Macdonald, the Liberal leader, tried to make hay of the whiff of scandal that surrounded some members of the McBride government, but was unable to make headway.

McBride, touring the province during a notably chilly winter, kept the focus on getting Better Terms, claiming that if the Liberals were elected it would send the message to the provinces in the east that British Columbians weren’t serious about their demands.

The Liberals, of course, said they were for Better Terms, too, but that McBride had mishandled relations with the federal (Liberal) government.

It was an ugly campaign, with charges of dirty tricks coming from both sides, plenty of anti-French and anti-Catholic rhetoric along with fearmongering that either McBride would bring in more Asian labourers or Macdonald would enfranchise Japanese Canadians.

On election day (in which the Conservatives were offering voters the wonder of automobile rides to the polls in Vancouver), McBride won the solid victory he had failed to achieve in 1903.

His party won 49% of the vote and 26 seats, a gain of four seats since the last election. The Liberals dropped to 37% of the vote and 13 seats, while the Socialists and Labour combined for around 13% of the vote and three seats. In all, McBride’s government went from a slim majority of 22 seats in a 42-seat legislature, to a reliable majority of 26.

McBride would win a bigger landslide in 1909 (which would prompt some rumblings that the successful B.C. premier could make a great replacement for the twice-beaten Robert Borden as federal Conservative leader) and his greatest victory in 1912, before stepping down as premier in 1915.

1916 British Columbia election

The defeat of Bowserism

September 14, 1916

The early years of the 20th century were prosperous ones for British Columbia. After coming to power at the head of the Conservatives in 1903, Richard McBride presided over a period of growth and economic development in the province, all the while standing up for ‘Better Terms’ for B.C. from the Liberal government in Ottawa. For his efforts, McBride secured huge election wins in 1909 and 1912.

But by 1915, the McBride government was staggering. Violent labour strikes on Vancouver Island in 1914 had to be put down by the militia and McBride’s Conservatives, scandal-ridden and corrupt, were now leading a province that had been driven deep into debt.

Epitomizing the premier’s grandstanding as well as his profligate recklessness was McBride’s decision to purchase two submarines for British Columbia at the outset of the Great War in order to protect the West Coast from German marauders.

(Yes, for a short time before the federal government reluctantly stepped in, British Columbia had a navy.)

Faced with internal dissent and growing unpopularity, McBride resigned in December 1915 and finally made way for William John Bowser.

Bowser had been McBride’s right-hand man (and eventual rival) in office, acting as premier during McBride’s frequent trips to Ottawa. Bowser was a ruthless politician with a well-oiled political machine in Vancouver that relied on patronage, bribery and “the occasional threat” to deliver big majorities for the Conservative Party. What he didn’t have was McBride’s charisma.

He was dealt an early blow shortly after coming to power when some of his new cabinet appointees were defeated in byelections by the Liberals, a party that had been left seatless in the 1912 provincial election. One of those defeats came at the hands of Liberal leader Harlan Carey Brewster, who ran in the seat vacated by McBride, now the province’s agent-general in London.

Brewster, who had been named leader of the Liberals at a convention in Revelstoke in 1913, supported prohibition and female suffrage, both of which would be put to a referendum in the 1916 election. He pledged aid for the agricultural sector and free land for settlers in B.C.

When the election was finally set for September 14, 1916, Brewster went on the attack against the McBride-Bowser government over its land policies, mismanagement of the over-budget (and questionable) Pacific & Great Eastern Railway and Bowser’s own conflicts of interest.

Brewster had a ready audience in British Columbians who were tired of the Conservative government. According to the Liberal-leaning Globe correspondent in Vancouver,

“Unquestionably much good legislation was passed, but the good things were offset by special “fake” measures, and even vicious precedents which were designed for purposes of political expediency. For instance, good legislation like the prohibition act, the shipbuilding scheme, woman suffrage and the workmen’s compensation act has been more than discounted by the Government’s extravagance in dealing with the Pacific & Great Eastern Railway, and in providing a salary for the office of Agent-General in London larger than that paid to the Lord High Commissioner of Canada.”

Simply put, the election was a change election. The Conservatives had been in power for too long and were seen as incompetent, tyrannical and corrupt. By comparison, Brewster and the Liberals appeared to be eager reformers ready to take over and defeat a premier who might have been able to twist an arm or two but was unable to charm the electorate.

In the words of one Conservative candidate, “unlike Sir Richard McBride, Mr. Bowser was … not versed in all those arts of vote getting of which Sir Richard was a past master.”

The result was a huge victory for the Liberals. From being shutout in 1912, the Liberals won 36 seats and captured 50 per cent of the vote, an increase of nearly 25 percentage points since the previous election. It was, according to the Victoria Times newspaper, a victory over “Bowserism, the party machine and the patronage system.”

The Conservatives were reduced to just nine seats and 40.5% of the vote, down 19 points from 1912. Bowser’s Vancouver machine had finally faltered — the Conservatives won only one of six seats up for grabs in the city and were relegated to ridings largely in the B.C. Interior.

An Independent and Independent Socialist were also elected on Vancouver Island, while the Socialist Party — which took 11% of the vote in 1912 — lost much of its support to the Liberals.

Despite the resounding defeat, Bowser delayed his resignation for another two months in order to wait for all of the soldiers’ votes to come in from overseas, votes that just happened to be overseen by the B.C.’s agent-general in London, Richard McBride.

Those votes didn’t overturn the results (though they did save Bowser in his own seat), but they did overturn the results of the Prohibition referendum. It had been supported by voters in British Columbia, but the soldiers fighting in the trenches voted against it by a margin of four-to-one.

There were, however, accusations of irregularities — including officers buying soldiers’ votes with booze. Brewster, a prohibitionist, struck a commission to investigate the allegations. The commission suggested tossing out those votes, and prohibition went ahead.

Also going ahead was women’s suffrage, which had been supported by about 70% of the (male) voting electorate in the referendum.

For the Conservatives, 1916 proved to be nearly the end of the party. It would only return to power for one term in 1928 before being defeated in the midst of the Great Depression. After playing a minor role in some post-WWII coalitions with the Liberals, the B.C. Conservatives would never get another sniff of power again.

1928 British Columbia election

Prosperity now, Depression later

July 18, 1928

The Roaring Twenties didn’t roar for everyone equally, and that included British Columbians. A depression in the early part of the decade had kept B.C. behind some other jurisdictions, but by the end of the 1920s the province finally appeared to be catching up, with opportunities abounding.

For the governing B.C. Liberal Party, it should have been easy sailing. But their popular leader, John Oliver, died of cancer in 1927 after nearly a decade in office. He was replaced by John Duncan MacLean, the finance minister.

With less than a year as premier under his belt, MacLean set the next election for July 18, 1928. He would run on his record — well, Oliver’s record. During his short time in office, MacLean hadn’t introduced anything new or particularly forward-looking. He pitched reduced taxes, a resolution to the vexing (and costly) Pacific Great Eastern Railway issue and a hard line against the immigration of Chinese and Japanese nationals into B.C. MacLean wanted the proportion of Asian immigrants in his province to be the same as that of Canadians in China and Japan.

But the foundation of his future re-election strategy was the past. The party published a pamphlet entitled What Liberalism Has Done for the Masses, which was little more than a list of things that had been accomplished during the Oliver years. Hoping that continuity would be enough, MacLean kicked off his campaign on June 8 in Abbotsford.

The Conservatives, though, couldn’t get going so quickly. Their leader had to first make his way home from Ottawa.

Simon Fraser Tolmie had been named the leader of the B.C. Conservatives in 1926, taking over from the polarizing figure of William John Bowser (who was so polarizing, in fact, that renegade Conservatives opposed to him ran and won seats under the Provincial Party banner in 1924). Tolmie was a Conservative MP at the time and had been since 1917, with some experience as a minister under both prime ministers Robert Borden and Arthur Meighen.

“Loyal, affable and tactful, Tolmie avoided controversy in his portfolio, leaving the actual day-to-day routine to his deputy,” writes William Rayner in British Columbia’s Premiers in Profile. “The portly, effusive minister preferred to glad-hand his way from county fair to county fair.”

Tolmie didn’t give up his day job when he reluctantly took over the divided B.C. Conservatives, but he did resign his seat when MacLean called the election. He jumped on a train and made his way across the country. It was nearly a week after MacLean’s first speech in Abbotsford that Tolmie launched his campaign in Victoria.

While MacLean promised continuity and stability, Tolmie promised prosperity for all. Unlike the former schoolteacher that was MacLean, Tolmie was a folksy retail politician, who used farm analogies drawn from his experience as a veterinarian and farmer. Under Tolmie and the Conservatives, British Columbia would have a bright future and a bustling economy. Most importantly, it would have change.

There just wasn’t much of substance separating the two offers of the Liberals and Conservatives, beyond a fresh face and a sunnier disposition. The Liberals tried to belittle Tolmie, with Duff Pattullo, a Liberal minister and future premier, saying the Conservatives “were sitting in the shades of Opposition” and so “cannot see the sunshine enjoyed by the great masses of the people of British Columbia.”

The great masses, though, weren’t feeling that warmth for the Liberals. Though MacLean telegrammed campaign workers two days before election day to say that “reports from all over the province indicate a sweeping victory”, other Liberals weren’t so sure. One party organizer warned Mackenzie King, the Liberal prime minister in Ottawa, that he’d be best to stay away from the campaign as the provincial party had become a liability.

The warning was prescient. The Liberals lost 13 seats as support for the Conservatives soared by 24 points to 53.3%, delivering 18 more seats to the party. Tolmie had a majority with 35, the Liberals with just 12.

The Conservatives had broken through into the Lower Mainland, sweeping all six of the seats in Vancouver after they had failed to win a single one in 1924. They repeated their sweep of Victoria, defeated two incumbent candidates from the Independent Labour Party, and won all three of the seats (and most of the votes) that had been won by the Provincial Party in the last campaign.

Only the north, where Pattullo held sway, stuck loyally to the Liberals and MacLean was one of the party stalwarts to go down to defeat.

Tolmie had been elected on a wave of change and a promise of greater prosperity to come — an unfortunately timed pledge to be making in 1928. When the stock market crash came in October 1929, Tolmie’s home-spun wisdom was no match for the ravages of the Great Depression. Public anger and the old divisions within the B.C. Conservatives would do him in, and what was left of his party went down to a catastrophic defeat in 1933. For the B.C. Conservatives, Simon Fraser Tolmie would be the last premier they would ever elect.

1952 British Columbia election

B.C.’s first re-alignment

June 12, 1952

Not every political re-alignment happens in the light of day, with polls forecasting big changes to come in elections to be held months into the future. Some happen quickly and without warning.

Take British Columbia’s re-alignment in 1952, for instance.

Since the province’s inception, only two parties had ever governed it: the Liberals and the Conservatives. And, by 1952, the two parties had even contrived to avoid any of their members sitting on the opposition benches.

After the Liberals won a minority government in the 1941 B.C. election, a coalition was formed between them and the Conservatives. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, predecessor to today’s NDP, had emerged as a real rival to the two old-line parties. Under leader Harold Winch, the CCF had won a third of the vote in 1941 and increased that to 37% and 35% in the 1945 and 1949 elections.

The Liberals and Conservatives, though, had no trouble keeping the socialists at bay thanks to their coalition, winning thumping majorities. But the relationship between the two parties was rarely amical. Herbert Anscomb, leader of the Progressive Conservatives (as they were re-christened) and minister of finance in the coalition government, liked to thumb his nose at the federal Liberals in Ottawa and became increasingly uncooperative with Boss Johnson’s B.C. Liberals. The tensions came to a head in early 1952, and Anscomb was dismissed from cabinet. He took his Conservatives with him, and the coalition was over.

The Liberals had good reason to look ahead to the next election with some confidence. They had won enough seats in 1949 to form a government of their own, and the province was largely in good shape. The economy was picking up, wages were high and unemployment was low. But voters were getting tired of the political games in Victoria that the bickering coalition partners had played over the previous years.

Maybe the CCF would take advantage. Surely it wouldn’t be the oddball Social Credit League that took a miniscule share of the vote in 1949.

But the Socreds were suddenly looking viable, thanks to the support of W.A.C. Bennett.

Bennett was an MLA from the Okanagan and a twice-defeated candidate for the Conservative leadership. Seeing his ambitions blocked within the provincial party, Bennett quit the coalition and sat as an Independent, pondering the launch of his own rival party. In the end, he plumped to join Social Credit, “hook, line and sinker”.

He didn’t have much time for Social Credit’s weird monetary theories, but he did respect the work that Ernest Manning had done in Alberta as leader of a Social Credit government there. Maybe he could hitch his wagon to the movement and take it to power.

His involvement with the party gave it new energy, and membership of the B.C. Social Credit League had grown from about 500 members in 1950 to more than 8,000 in 1952. In his last speech in the legislature before it was dissolved for the 1952 election, Bennett was howled down and heckled by his former coalition colleagues. They particularly didn’t like his prediction that Social Credit would form the next government and that the Liberals and Tories “won’t be back for fifty years”.

While the Socreds’ most well-known and charismatic figure, Bennett was not the party’s leader. He didn’t have the backing of the Alberta Socreds, who held a lot of influence within the B.C. wing of the party. They still wanted to call the shots from Edmonton and provided its provincial off-shoot with funds and campaign expertise. Sensing that the B.C. Socreds needed the help, Bennett withdrew his name from a leadership vote and allowed Ernest Hansell, an Alberta Socred MP, to be named campaign leader. The party leader would be named after the election.

That Hansell, described by a journalist as “a short, middle-aged man, with a loud tie, a mouth that creased down at the corners and a permanent five o’clock shadow”, was only a campaign and not a party leader was attacked by both Johnson and Anscomb, the PC leader calling the B.C. Socreds “the headless brigade from over the mountains”.

It wouldn’t, though, be a major issue for voters. Instead, it was the record of the coalition government that was on trial. Both the Liberals and the PCs tried to take sole credit for anything good they had done and blame the other for anything voters didn’t like, which muddled their messaging. One of those things they didn’t like was the B.C. Hospital Insurance Service, a compulsory health insurance program. Running a big deficit, the BCHIS increased premiums and charged co-insurance fees for hospital stays. The program irritated voters. CCF promised to socialize it. The Socred’s promised to make it non-compulsory.

Another issue was the institution of a new method of voting — a preferential ballot. First pitched by Bennett when he was a Tory MLA, the coalition government adopted the system, asking voters to rank their choices. It was thought that this would work in favour of the Liberals and PCs and avoid a vote-split that could elect the CCF.

But instructions to voters weren’t very clear. The Liberals asked their supporters to rank “1-2 for free enterprise”, not stipulating exactly who #1 or #2 should be. Both the PCs and CCF asked their voters to only rank only their party first and give their second choice to no other party, while the Socreds asked for that first-ballot support but didn’t neglect second choices.

Johnson, Anscomb and Winch waged a campaign against each other, largely ignoring Social Credit. But support for the Socreds, unbeknownst to the established parties, was growing.

David J. Mitchell, writing in W.A.C. Bennett and the Rise of British Columbia, says of the Socred campaign that “most campaign literature came from Alberta and was not directly relevant to British Columbia; however, local Socred brochures were produced, usually simple mimeographs, replete with typographical errors, and so unprofessional looking that they stood in stark contrast to the flash campaign materials of the other parties, which added immensely to the homespun appeal of Social Credit.”

The Socred rallies had a Christian revivalist feel, though the B.C. iteration of the party didn’t lean so heavily toward Christian fundamentalism as did the Alberta version. First and foremost, they promised “free enterprise” and small, clean government, as well as the development of natural resources. That last issue was an important plank for the CCF as well, though Winch wanted more nationalization of British Columbia’s resource sector.

It was only at the end of the campaign that the press and the other parties started to take notice of Social Credit. Johnson and Anscomb attacked them as leaderless and inexperienced, Winch as totalitarian fascists. Hansell had run a low-key campaign and was aided by Premier Manning, who addressed a massive rally. But the real leader of the Socred campaign was Bennett, who toured the Interior and lent his assistance to local candidates.

With such complicated ballots, the counting was slow. When the results of the first count emerged the day after the June 12 voting, the Liberals and PCs were shocked. They were trailing the other parties by a wide margin.

Winch and the CCF had topped the voting, finishing first in 21 ridings. The Socreds were ahead in 14. The Liberals and PCs were ahead in only nine and three seats, respectively. Together, they had won 39 seats in 1949.

Voters were split, though. The CCF had the support of 31% of them, with the Socreds following at 27%, the Liberals at 23.5% and the PCs at 17%. How it would play out was still anyone’s guess, as only five of 48 seats had been settled on the first count. Two of these five were Winch and Bennett, who each secured a majority of the vote in their own ridings. One of them seemed destined to be named premier.

Counters had to re-allocate support according to ranked preference in the 43 other ridings, and the process was long. The second count results were only announced on July 3. It took more than another week for the final result to be known.

On the final count, Social Credit had edged ahead, winning 19 seats to the CCF’s 18. As the ranked ballots were counted, the folly of the coalition parties’ plans became clear. Many of their voters did rank the other party as their second choice, but ultimately the Socreds benefited as the second or third choice of many British Columbians — including CCFers.

The Liberals retained only six seats and the PCs just four, none of them the seats of either Anscomb or Johnson.

Most of the Socreds’ seats were won in the Interior and north, where Bennett had spent much of the campaign, but they also won a handful in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. The CCF won its seats on Vancouver Island, in Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster, as well as in the southern Interior. The Liberals won most of their seats in Victoria, with the PCs winning two of their four in Vancouver. The old parties appeared finished.

On July 15, the Socreds finally got around to choosing their real leader. Hansell, though an Alberta MP, had some notions of becoming B.C. premier, but instead the caucus of 19 MLAs voted en masse for their real leader. W.A.C. Bennett received the votes of 14 MLAs, and was sworn in as premier on August 1, 1952.

Within a year, Bennett would turn his shaky minority into a majority government, and kick-off a long reign of Social Credit rule in British Columbia. From 1952 to 1991, the B.C. Socreds were in power for all but three years. When the last Socred government went down to defeat, it was replaced by the New Democrats — not the Liberals or the Tories.

Bennett’s prediction that the two older parties would be out of government for 50 years turned out to be a good one. He was off by only one year, as the B.C. Liberals’ exile from power ended in 2001, 49 years after the 1952 election. The Conservatives drifted off into irrelevancy. At least, for a time.

1969 B.C. NDP leadership

Berger beats Barrett

April 12, 1969

By early 1969, the Social Credit Party had ruled British Columbia for nearly two decades under the leadership of W.A.C. Bennett, a populist who had successfully brought together the ‘free enterprise’ forces in the province. His last victory, in 1966, marked the fourth consecutive defeat for Robert Strachan, the Scottish-born leader of the B.C. CCF and, later, NDP.

Strachan, more of a centrist than the red-baiting Bennett made him out to be, was leading a divided caucus of New Democrats. He had already seen off a leadership challenge from the left by the young Thomas Berger in 1967. Though it didn’t take him down, the challenge fatally weakened Strachan’s leadership and split the caucus, and he decided to resign as leader in early 1969.

The New Democrats had to get a replacement for Strachan in a hurry. Bennett had already suggested that there would be a campaign in 1969, perhaps as soon as June.

Unsurprisingly, one of the candidates in the running to replace Strachan was Tom Berger. Now 36, this lawyer who specialized in civil rights cases and who had argued in front of the Supreme Court, represented a riding in Vancouver. He was an immediate front runner and the candidate of labour, an increasingly influential presence in the B.C. NDP — and one that was in a near-constant state of warfare with Bennett’s Social Credit government.

The main challenger was a social worker just two years older than Berger, Coquitlam MLA Dave Barrett.

Also in the running were Robert Williams, another 30-something MLA from Vancouver, and John Conway, who at just 25 and a graduate student represented the radical left wing of the party.

The contest, though, was supposed to be primarily between Berger and Barrett. There was some buzz on the Friday before the convention when Strachan, who had worked to keep the unions from becoming too powerful within the NDP, decided to endorse Williams. Suddenly, it appeared there might actually be a third contender who could win it.

Nearly 800 delegates were eligible to vote at the convention, including over a hundred from affiliated trade unions. The results of the first ballot were finally announced late on Saturday night, April 12, 1969.

Berger emerged as the clear leader in the contest, taking just over 46% of the ballots cast. Barrett was far behind at 32%, while Robert Williams took 16.5% of the vote. Conway managed just 6% and was eliminated.

Williams, though, didn’t stick around. He withdrew before the second ballot and threw his support behind Barrett. Strachan went along with him, making it clear the contest was between Berger’s more left-wing vision of the party and Barrett’s more centrist approach.

Williams nearly delivered for Barrett when the results were revealed shortly after midnight. Barrett’s support jumped by 126 votes, representing nearly all of Williams’s delegates. Berger increased by just 47 votes, probably most of them from Conway, but it was just enough. Berger won with 52% of the delegates’ support, beating Barrett by 411 votes to 375.

It was a close result, and Berger tried to paper over the divide.

“It was a good fight, Dave,” he said to his defeated opponent after his victory, “but I’m glad it’s over and we are back on the same side.”

Berger promised New Democrats that the party “is going to govern this province in the 1970s”. He proved prescient. But it wasn’t Berger who would lead the NDP to power for the first time in British Columbia. Bennett had one more victory in him, defeating Berger and the NDP in 1969. That marked the end of Berger’s leadership. But three years later, in 1972 under Dave Barrett, the NDP would finally bring W.A.C. Bennett’s long run in office to an end.

1972 B.C. Liberal leadership

The B.C. Liberals’ chosen one

May 22, 1972

Parties come and parties go in British Columbia’s provincial politics. Once upon a time, the B.C. Liberals dominated on the west coast, and when they faltered the Conservatives would take their place.

That all changed in 1952, when British Columbians rejected both of the older parties and threw their support behind Social Credit and W.A.C. Bennett, who would serve as premier for 20 years.

The B.C. Liberals never got very close to power over those two decades, always winning between two and six seats and maintaining a consistent — but consistently low — level of support between 19% and 24% of ballots cast.

Arthur Laing and Ray Perrault piloted the Liberals through most of those years, but in 1969 the task fell to Pat McGeer. In that election, he led the Liberals to another typical result: five seats, 19% of the popular vote and third-party status in the legislature.

With an election on the horizon in 1972 (W.A.C. Bennett liked to call his elections every three years), there was some grumbling about McGeer’s leadership of the party. A brain researcher, Dr. McGeer decided in May that he couldn’t focus all of his energies on the party and so announced his resignation. His replacement could be chosen at the party convention in Penticton, scheduled to be held less than three weeks later.

One could be forgiven for thinking that the fix was in — that was not long enough to hold a proper leadership race, and McGeer gave a hearty endorsement to David Anderson, the Liberal MP for Esquimalt–Saanich, who just happened to be along side him at his press conference.

An outspoken environmentalist and former officer in the foreign service, Anderson was a 34-year-old first-term MP, elected as a Liberal in the 1968 federal election. He was a backbencher, but had made a name for himself on Vancouver Island for his opposition to a proposed U.S. oil pipeline-tanker route that would run from Alaska down the B.C. coast. He was a thorn in the side of Pierre Trudeau’s government, and it was quipped that the Liberals in Ottawa weren’t sorry to see Anderson try his luck on the other side of the country.

“It is a personality — not a party — that will finally dent the Socred armor here, and Anderson is certainly a personality,” wrote Nick Hills for the Southam News Service. “What has made Mr. Anderson unpopular in Ottawa is that he doesn’t have much time for modesty. He knows he’s good and he acts like he knows he’s good.”

The B.C. Liberals sensed that they needed to shake things up. W.A.C. Bennett and the Socreds were looking tired, but the Liberals had plenty of competition. The NDP had a new leader in Dave Barrett and the Progressive Conservatives, a minor party that ran a single candidate in 1969 and had only two Socred defectors for a caucus, appeared to have some new energy of their own after selecting Derril Warren, younger even than Anderson, as their new leader.

But it wouldn’t be a walk for Anderson. On the same day that McGeer announced his resignation and his endorsement of the Liberal MP, another colourful figure threw his hat into the ring.

Bill Vander Zalm, born in the Netherlands, now mayor of Surrey, had also run for the Trudeau Liberals in 1968 but, unlike Anderson, hadn’t won a seat. If Anderson was the standard-bearer of the left of the B.C. Liberal Party, Vander Zalm would carry the banner of the right. In his convention speech, he targeted the employable who were on welfare and said that drug dealers deserved the lash, while he organized for a “10-girl chorus line parading through the lobby of the convention centre” in Penticton.

There were about 600 attendees at the convention, but it was seen as a foregone conclusion that Anderson, anointed by McGeer as his heir apparent, would prevail.

The result was perhaps not as sweeping as observers expected, but Anderson nevertheless easily beat Vander Zalm, taking 69% of the vote.

The new leader had some challenges ahead of him. While he was well-known in British Columbia for his environmental advocacy, it did give him the veneer of a single-issue candidate. The party was deeply in debt and politically weighed down by the unpopularity of the Trudeau government, which would fall from 16 to just four B.C. seats in the October 1972 federal election.

Bennett, as expected, called an election a few months later. The Socreds would finally go down to defeat in the August vote — but it was the NDP under Dave Barrett that came to power. Anderson led the Liberals to another five-seat election performance and the party’s vote share fell to 16%. It would prove to be the start of a decline for the B.C. Liberals as politics polarized between Social Credit and the New Democrats and the Liberals were squeezed out.

The polarization even swept Bill Vander Zalm along with it. Though he ran as a Liberal under Anderson in 1972, by the next election he was a Socred candidate. In another decade, he’d be a Socred premier. The closest Anderson would get to power was around the federal cabinet — as Jean Chrétien’s minister of the environment.

1973 B.C. Social Credit leadership

Bill Bennett succeeds his father as B.C. Social Credit leader

November 24, 1973

After two decades in office, making him the longest-serving premier in British Columbia’s history, W.A.C. Bennett was defeated in the 1972 provincial election and, for the first time since it became a real political force, the B.C. Social Credit Party was in need of a new leader.

There was a problem, though. Bennett had maintained such a tight, personal control over the government — he served as both premier and finance minister — that he never quite found the time to groom a successor. There was no heir apparent to replace him. In fact, it wasn’t even a given that a replacement for Bennett was of vital importance, as it was an open question whether or not the ‘free enterprise’ forces in B.C. could coalesce around a new party, rather than the somewhat anachronistic Social Credit brand.

But Bennett laid the groundwork for his son to follow in his footsteps, talking about the need for a “young” leader from a new generation to replace him. Before the leadership race could get going, W.A.C. Bennett resigned his South Okanagan seat and his son Bill announced he would run to fill the vacancy. After he won the byelection, this effectively limited the field of potential replacements for W.A.C. Bennett to those with a seat in the legislature, closing the door to outside candidates who might have appreciated the opportunity to run in the former leader’s safe seat.

The good news for Bill Bennett was that his Socred colleagues in the legislature weren’t leadership material — the serious contenders to replace W.A.C. Bennett had been defeated in the 1972 election that brought Dave Barrett’s NDP to power for the first time in B.C. history.

Some 1,500 delegates attended the leadership convention that was held on November 24, 1973 in Vancouver. Many were Bennett supporters, ferried or bussed in from Vancouver Island and the B.C. Interior to ensure a good result for the son of the former premier.

And they got one. On the first ballot, Bill Bennett received 883 votes, beating his nearest rival by a margin of more than 600. His father called in some favours and helped deliver the victory, but Bill Bennett would adamantly try to distance himself from his father’s shadow and, after just three years of NDP government, the Socreds would storm back to power in 1975.

Bill Bennet would win two more elections and serve as premier for nearly 11 years, before he stepped aside and was replaced by Bill Vander Zalm. With the exception of the short Barrett interregnum, the Bennett dynasty governed British Columbia for all but three years from 1952 to 1986.

1979 B.C. Liberal leadership

B.C. Liberals hit rock bottom

February 19, 1979

In the 1972 election, the B.C. New Democrats were able to come to power for the first time thanks, in part, to a division on the right. The Liberals took a big chunk of the vote and the Progressive Conservatives suddenly emerged with nearly 13%. The result was that Social Credit under W.A.C. Bennett lost enough support so that the NDP’s modest gains were more than enough to secure a majority government.

Voters to the right of the NDP learned their lesson, and in 1975 their vote consolidated again behind the Socreds, now under the leadership of Bill Bennett, W.A.C.’s son. The NDP’s vote held steady, but the collapse of the Liberal and PC vote helped put the Socreds back in office.

The PCs, who hadn’t really been a force since the early 1950s, would subsequently drift into irrelevance. The B.C. Liberals, though also reduced to just one seat, had higher hopes of survival.

But the party was on the ropes. The Liberal leader, Gordon Gibson, resigned in 1979 to take up a job in Pierre Trudeau’s PMO. That left the Liberals without a seat in the legislature — and without a leader.

It wasn’t an attractive job. Only two candidates stepped forward to try to take it: Hugh Chesley, a contractor from Aldergrove, B.C., and Jev Tothill, a high school teacher from Duncan. Tothill had previously run for the Liberals on Vancouver Island, but managed only 7% support. In the highly partisan B.C. politics of the time, Tothill pledged more collaboration. “We must move from confrontation to consultation,” he said.

It was a message that resonated with the 400 delegates that attended the party convention. That spirit of collaboration might have contributed to the defeat of a motion that the B.C. Liberals separate themselves from the federal party.

The result was a landslide win for Tothill by a nine-to-one margin over Chesley.

The first task for the new B.C. Liberal leader was to try to find a seat. He had two options: North Vancouver–Seymour had been vacated by a Socred and North Vancouver–Capilano had been vacated by Gibson — a Liberal.

Inexplicably, Tothill opted to run in North Vancouver–Seymour. But the byelection was pre-empted by a general election call in April, and Tothill decided to remain the candidate in his chosen riding.

Across British Columbia, he would be joined by only four other Liberals. With five candidates on the ballot, the Liberals took just 0.5% of the vote provincewide. Tothill finished fourth in North Vancouver–Seymour with just 6.5% of the vote. It was (and would remain) the worst-ever election for the B.C. Liberals. It would take a few more elections for the Liberals to get themselves back into relevancy.

1979 British Columbia election

B.C.’s politics polarizes even more

May 10, 1979

At the end of a whirlwind three years in office, Dave Barrett’s quick-moving, reforming and often unfocused B.C. NDP government went down to defeat at the hands of Social Credit, which had galvanized the right-of-centre vote behind a familiar name: Bill Bennett, son of former premier W.A.C. Bennett.

The Socreds had succeeded in eating into the Progressive Conservatives’ vote and stealing away the right-wingers that were still backing the B.C. Liberals.

Nearly four years later, Bennett aimed to keep his electoral coalition together.

A day after announcing what his government called a “sunshine budget” “crammed with benefits for every taxpayer”, Bennett pre-empted the television and radio networks to make his announcement. He promised the networks it would take five minutes, but it took him 20 minutes to declare that British Columbians would be going to the polls on May 10, 1979.

That set the date just 12 days before the federal election — a coincidence that worked very well for Bennett’s Social Credit Party. The federal campaign would divide the attention and resources the New Democrats and PCs could dedicate to the provincial battle. Bennett’s party had no such complication.

The central plank of Bennett’s campaign would be the giveaway of five shares of the B.C. Resources Investment Corporation, each worth around $60, to every British Columbian. The BCRIC was a holding company that invested in B.C.’s resource industry, and the government encouraged British Columbians to invest some of their own money, too. It would eventually go bust and people would lose a lot of their investments, but in 1979 it didn’t turn out to be the campaign issue Bennett had hoped it would be — especially after Dave Barrett said that the giveaway was irreversible.

Despite his drubbing at the polls in 1975, Barrett was still leader of the B.C. NDP. He hoped to make a comeback.

The New Democrats had learned their lesson, though. While Barrett ran against the Socred record of austerity measures, he also ran against type: he was calmer, more moderate. He admitted his government had made mistakes and had tried to move too far too quickly.

The NDP had went “from the wilderness into power,” Barrett said. “It’s had a taste of power. It doesn’t like the wilderness any more. The party is more realistic. I’m more realistic.”

The move to the centre was part of a broader drift in B.C. politics. The PCs and Liberals had been decimated over the last few elections, and with the Liberals running only a handful of candidates the NDP targeted their remaining voters, especially those that could swing results in the suburbs around Victoria and Vancouver.

Bennett, whose style The Globe and Mail’s John Clarke called “heavy, sometimes inarticulate and generally humorless”, attacked the record of the single-term NDP government, claiming it had ruined the province’s finances and that any future government would be just as radical, despite Barrett’s new approach.

“Don’t be fooled,” Bennett warned. “They haven’t changed their spots; they have just put on a cloak to cover them up.”

“Before the election,” he added, “they act like Groucho Marx; it’s only after the election they act like Karl Marx.”

A key factor deciding Social Credit’s re-election would be the state of the Progressive Conservatives. Party leader Victor Stephens couldn’t gain any traction, instead garnering the most attention when he complained about the lack of support he was getting from Joe Clark’s federal Tories. There were claims the PCs had a secret deal with the Socreds, ensuring the federal party would provide no assistance to the provincial party in exchange for some funding for federal Tory candidates from Social Credit coffers.

One anecdote related to the PC campaign that was reported in the Globe and Mail was how “two Tory candidates decided to ‘come out’ as homosexuals at a Vancouver public meeting after an NDP candidate cracked that he’d ‘rather be gay than Tory’.” In a sign of how things have changed since the 1970s, the reporter used this anecdote as a reflection of how the Tories, rather than the NDP, lacked candidates who were “clear winners”.

As election day approached, the race looked tight. The NDP had run a smooth campaign and set the narrative on most days, but the increased chances of an NDP victory also ensured that reluctant Socred voters would cast a ballot, doing some of Bennett’s work for him. Social Credit also outspent the NDP by more than two-to-one, spending $2.4 million, worth roughly $9.5 million today.

Bill Bennett and the Socreds needed every advantage they could get (and, later on, their campaign would be tarred by charges of ‘dirty tricks’ involving phoney letters to the editor and unaccounted-for slush funds). The party lost four seats but secured a small majority government with 31. The party’s share of the vote dropped slightly to 48.2%, but it was enough.

The New Democrats took 26 seats, with gains in northern B.C., Victoria, Surrey, Coquitlam and Burnaby. With 46% of the vote, the NDP had jumped nearly seven points from 1975 as more than 94% of British Columbians backed one of the two big parties.

The PCs took just 5.1% of the vote and lost their only seat, while the Liberals dropped 0.5 points, with nearly all of their lost support going to the New Democrats.

It was the first time in British Columbia since the turn of the century and the beginning of partisan politics that no Independents or third-party MLAs won a seat. B.C.’s politics had polarized in a way that wouldn’t change until the final collapse of the country’s last Social Credit government in 1991.

1986 B.C. Social Credit leadership

A flamboyant premier for B.C.

July 30, 1986

When Bill Bennett announced he would resign the B.C. premiership and leadership of the governing Social Credit Party, it came as a complete surprise. Even his cabinet was taken unawares — they were meeting in Victoria when Bennett made his announcement at a news conference in Vancouver.

Bennett had governed the province for just over 10 years by 1986. The B.C. Socreds had only ever been led by a Bennett for more than three decades, going back to when Bennett’s father, W.A.C. Bennett, became Socred leader and B.C. premier in 1952. The younger Bennett felt that it was finally time for renewal within the party, and that he wouldn’t make the same mistake as his father did by staying on for too long.

The surprise announcement kicked off something the Socreds hadn’t experienced before in British Columbia: a seriously contentious leadership race (Bill Bennett easily succeeded his father in the previous contest in 1973).

The list of contenders grew and grew until 12 names were on the ballot.

There were four frontrunners, the most well-known being Bill Vander Zalm.

Few media descriptions of him failed to use the word “flamboyant”. A Dutch immigrant, Vander Zalm had made a fortune in the gardening industry and had a varied political career behind him. He had been mayor of Surrey, a B.C. Liberal leadership hopeful, Socred MLA, cabinet minister and a failed Vancouver mayoral candidate.

“Stories about Vander Zalm abound,” wrote Tim Harper in the Toronto Star. “The man whom Vancouver mayor Mike Harcourt once called the ‘minister of miseducation and human misery’ is best known for his war on welfare here when he implied that anyone who was not working was lazy. He greeted René Lévesque’s election by saying that he would be glad to see Quebec out of Canada. Later, he called Lévesque ‘a frog.’”

Vander Zalm appealed to the populist grassroots of the party, drawing support from across the province.

Also drawing support from the party’s old guard was Grace McCarthy, a long-time Socred stalwart first elected in the W.A.C. Bennett years. A former party president, a cabinet minister and an MLA with significant backing in the Lower Mainland, McCarthy had a lot of favours to call on after her years of working in the party trenches.

If Vander Zalm and McCarthy were the two populists, the two Smiths (unrelated) represented the establishment.

Brian Smith, the attorney general and a Victoria MLA since 1979, had a clean record as a cabinet minister — something that couldn’t be said for everyone around that table.

Bud Smith, principal secretary to Bill Bennett until he left his post to run for the Social Credit nomination in his native Kamloops, was pitched as the ‘renewal’ candidate. Just 40 and without experience as an elected official, others in the party quickly grew to resent his candidacy, particularly those in cabinet. He was dismissed as a Yuppie who needed help from easterners to run his campaign. Like Brian Smith, Bud Smith was receiving help from organizers from the Ontario Tories, and was generally supported by federal PCs.

There were eight other candidates in the running, though none were considered anything but longshots.

There was Jim Nielsen, a Richmond MLA and cabinet minister best known for showing up at the legislature with a black eye inflicted upon him by the husband of his mistress.

There was Stephen Rogers, who had resigned from cabinet after pleading guilty to failing to disclose all his investments. He was eventually cleared, but Bennett had continued to treat him as persona non grata.

There were low-profile Socreds like John Reynolds, Cliff Michael and Bill Ritchie, sitting PC MP Robert Wenman, Mel Couvelier, the mayor of Saanich, and a young Kim Campbell who warned delegates at the convention, in a dig at Vander Zalm, that “it is fashionable to speak of leaders in terms of their charisma. But charisma without substance is a dangerous thing.”

The contest was a classic fight between the grassroot populists and the professional establishment types. The Smiths got help from Ontario’s Big Blue Machine, while Vander Zalm toured delegate-selection meetings in an antique red fire truck. There were other divisions, too, such as between the ins and the outs of cabinet, or between the dyed-in-the-wool provincial Socreds and the federal Tories. In most of these divides, it was between Vander Zalm and McCarthy on one side and the two Smiths on the other.

When the results of the first round of voting in Whistler were announced, it was clear that this was a race favouring the populists. Vander Zalm finished well ahead with 28% support, followed by McCarthy at 19%, Bud Smith at 16% and Brian Smith at 15%. No other candidate got more than 4%, with Kim Campbell finishing last. She was eliminated, but Rogers, Wenman, Michael, Ritchie and Couvelier dropped out, too.

Support for Reynolds and Nielsen dropped on the second ballot, as Vander Zalm got the lion’s share of support from those who had dropped off. But McCarthy wasn’t growing enough — there was lots of sympathy for her within the party, but she wasn’t seen as a potential premier. The anybody-but-Bud campaign was also having an impact, as Bud Smith picked up only 17 new votes to Brian Smith’s 59. Bud had fallen from third to fourth.

The most dramatic movement of the convention then occurred when Bud Smith threw his support to Bill Vander Zalm. It was expected that the two Smiths would coalesce, but instead Bud Smith went to Vander Zalm, saying he was the best hope for renewal within the party.

The move solidified Vander Zalm’s lead as he grew from 36% to 49% of delegates’ votes. McCarthy had entirely run out of steam, and fell to third place behind Brian Smith, who jumped from 20% to 27%, ahead of McCarthy’s 24%.

As expected, most of McCarthy’s delegates went to Vander Zalm on the final ballot. The fellow populist increased his vote by 176 to Smith’s 112, and Vander Zalm won after 10 hours of voting with 64% support.

The win represented a swing of B.C. Social Credit back to the old days of W.A.C. Bennett and the Socreds’ somewhat undefinable brand of free enterprise conservative populism. A win by either of the Smiths would have continued the process of the party becoming a more professional, conventionally-conservative organization that Bill Bennett had begun.

Perhaps accordingly, Vander Zalm was not Bennett’s choice — though he made nice at the convention. But at the transitional meeting that was supposed to take place between Bennett and Vander Zalm shortly afterwards, Vander Zalm didn’t show up, sending instead a member of his campaign team.

It was the start of a tumultuous time for the Socreds in British Columbia. Vander Zalm would win an election he called later in 1986, but his time as premier would be relatively short. Beset by various scandals and controversies, Vander Zalm would resign before the end of his first full term. His successor, Rita Johnston, had the honour of being Canada’s first female provincial premier — an honour not given to Grace McCarthy in 1986. Johnston would lead the Socreds to defeat in 1991, and the party would virtually cease to exist not long after that.

2005 British Columbia election

Back to normal in B.C. politics

May 17, 2005

The two-party system that had developed in British Columbia in the 1970s and 1980s between Social Credit and the New Democrats collapsed in 1991, when the Liberals replaced the Socreds as the main alternative to the right of the NDP. Groping about for a new system in 1996, the NDP and Liberals had to fight off two new upstarts in the Reform Party and the Progressive Democratic Alliance.

Then, in 2001, B.C. nearly ended up with a one-party system.

In that cataclysmic election for the governing New Democrats, the party then under Ujjal Dosanjh was reduced to just two seats. The B.C. Liberals under Gordon Campbell came to power for the first time in more than half a century, winning 77 of 79 seats on offer.

What seemed like the makings of a new political dynasty faltered out of the gates. The Liberals cut personal income tax immediately after coming to power, but the reduction in government revenues led to swingeing service cuts and hated user fees. Campbell’s own image took a beating when he was arrested for drunk driving in Hawaii a few years into his mandate.

Things were going badly for the Liberals, who were at times even trailing the NDP in the polls. But the economy was improving and British Columbians were feeling more upbeat. By the time the 2005 election approached — the first in Canada to be held according to fixed-date legislation — the Liberals had re-established a seven-to-nine point lead over the New Democrats, now under the leadership of former school board chair Carole James.

The Liberals would run on their record of economic growth (“B.C. is Back” was the slogan) and their notion of a coming ‘Golden Decade’ for the province, their platform effectively being the budget that had been presented earlier in the year. Hoping to mollify those who saw Campbell as a heartless neo-conservative, the Liberals intended to run more toward the centre, promising to spend on healthcare and education.

The New Democrats, adopting the slogan of “Everyone Matters”, went on the offensive against the Liberals’ record of cuts. But the NDP, too, was moderating itself. James promised to balance the budget and implement no new taxes.

As an incumbent government with a lead in the polls, the Liberals ran a low-key campaign with few daily events, in contrast to the frenetic pace of the James campaign. They tried to tie the NDP to labour organizations, stoking fears that an NDP victory would be swiftly followed by a teachers’ strike, as James had pledge to give teachers that right back.

The front runners campaign wasn’t going as well as the Liberals would have liked, however. In a debate in which Campbell, James and Green leader Adriane Carr participated, James was seen to have been a strong performer.

By the end of the campaign, the NDP had closed the gap somewhat. At the outset, talk had been that the NDP could win 20 or 25 seats, maybe not enough to secure James’ leadership of the party. With days to go, talk had moved to the NDP winning 30 or more seats — maybe even government.

Also on the ballot was a referendum on electoral reform, asking British Columbians whether they wanted to switch from first-past-the-post to a single-transferable vote. While a majority (58%) ended up voting for it, that had fallen just short of the 60% threshold that had been set for implementing the change.

The result showed the re-emergence of B.C.’s two-party system, with the Liberals and NDP finishing within just a few points of each other. After such a landslide in 2001, the Liberals were inevitably going to lose a lot of seats — and they did. The party captured 46, down 31 from the 2001 election, and saw their share of the vote drop by 11.8 points to 45.8%.

But Campbell had been re-elected, the first B.C. premier to win two consecutive elections in 22 years. A lot of his colleagues around the cabinet table, however, went down to defeat.

The NDP went from just two seats to 33, gaining 19.9 percentage points to finish with 41.5%. The New Democrats made significant gains on Vancouver Island and in and around the city of Vancouver, and also made some pick-ups in the Interior. But places like Richmond, Burnaby, the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan and the North stuck with Campbell’s Liberals.

The Greens saw their vote drop three points as they finished with 9.2%. The party finished second in only a single riding, but showed some strength along the Georgia Strait where Carr was running (and was defeated).

Still, the two-party system had been re-established — and it would be tough to get unstuck. Each party’s vote and seat numbers would hardly change in 2009 and 2013. Only in 2017, when a few more seats flipped and the Greens held the balance of power, would things change again in B.C. politics.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections B.C. and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• British Columbia’s Premiers in Profile: The Good, The Bad and The Transient by William Rayner

• Boundless Optimism: Richard McBride’s British Columbia by Patricia E. Roy

• Duff Pattullo of British Columbia by Robin Fisher

• W.A.C. Bennett and the Rise of British Columbia by David J. Mitchell

• The Art of the Impossible: Dave Barrett and the NDP in Power, 1972-1975 by Geoff Meggs and Rod Mickleburgh

• Bill Bennett: A Mandarin’s View by Bob Plecas

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

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1867 Nova Scotia election

Nova Scotia votes against the Union

September 18, 1867

A few months after the establishment of Canada, voters in one province showed that, had it been put to a referendum, they would have soundly rejected the new country.

New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were at the centre of opposition to Confederation. The two smaller British colonies were unsure about joining the two bigger ones — Ontario and Quebec, then known as Canada West and Canada East. New Brunswick settled matters in an election in 1866 and Nova Scotia was brought into the union through the work of Charles Tupper, then leader of the pre-Confederation government.

But despite getting Confederation passed through Nova Scotia’s legislature, opposition was still strong. Tupper hoped to make the jump to national politics and handed over the administration of the new province to Hiram Blanchard, who would lead pro-Confederation forces (largely made-up of Conservatives) into the provincial election campaign against the Anti-Confederates (largely made up of Liberals, or Reformers, as they were also called at the time).

The federal and provincial elections took place in Nova Scotia on the same day on September 18, 1867. The provincial and federal campaigns were fought over the same issue: Nova Scotia’s place in Confederation.

The Anti-Confederates were led by the firebrand Joseph Howe, who had campaigned against Nova Scotia’s joining Canada and had travelled to the United Kingdom to make the case. When he was away, leadership of local opposition to Confederation fell to William Annand, who called the union “hateful and obnoxious”.

Tupper ran for the House of Commons in Cumberland, perhaps sensing that he would be unlikely to win a provincial campaign. Annand put his name on the ballot against him. Howe, not wanting to risk a defeat to Tupper, ran in Hants — again for federal office. But the campaign was a duel between Tupper and Howe, and the two met each other on the campaign trail throughout the summer.

It didn’t matter much that Tupper, Howe and Annand were all fighting for federal office — it was impossible to separate the national debate from the local provincial campaign. In fact, when it was all over, the next premier in Halifax would prove to have run for a seat in Ottawa.

The fiercely anti-Confederation Morning Chronicle set the stakes in stark terms on election day, and predicted victory:

“To-day the people of Nova Scotia will decide whether they are or are not, as they have been represented, too ignorant and prejudiced to govern themselves … Looking forward to this day we have always maintained that it would witness an overwhelming defeat of the slanderers of the people, and now that it has arrived we feel more confident than ever … Once again we fearlessly repeat that a victory such as no party ever gained will be ours to-day. But we must work to render it as brilliant as possible.”

(Note, there is some inconsistency in Elections Nova Scotia’s own sources regarding vote totals. But a 60-40 split seems reasonable. The Anti-Confederates also won a few seats by acclamation.)

As was the case federally, where the Anti-Confederates swept all but one seat (Tupper’s), the provincial campaign ended in a landslide victory for the Antis. They won 36 of 38 seats. Only in Cumberland, where Henry Gesner Pineo rode Tupper’s federal coattails to win election, and in Inverness, where Hiram Blanchard squeaked in by 54 votes, did the Anti-Confederates fail to win every seat.

“Thank God,” wrote the Morning Chronicle on September 19, “Nova Scotia has shown herself worthy of being a free country.”

Annand lost his match-up with Tupper in Cumberland, but no matter. He was named to the Legislative Council (the provincial version of the Senate that was then in existence) and would be Nova Scotia’s premier once Blanchard’s government was defeated in the legislature.

The people of Nova Scotia had spoken — and they had voted against the Union. Howe once again took their arguments to London, but British politicians were uninterested. They had wanted to get British North America off their hands in the first place and didn’t want to take it back.

Howe would eventually give up and join John A. Macdonald’s government. Annand wouldn’t move on, however, and tried to see Howe defeated in the byelection following Howe’s appointment to cabinet. He was unsuccessful in seeing his old ally beaten, but his fight for “provincial rights” wasn’t over.

1874 Nova Scotia election

“They promise … generally, to behave themselves”

December 17, 1874

Nova Scotia’s entry into Confederation was largely opposed by Nova Scotians. They elected nearly a full slate of anti-Confederation MPs in the 1867 federal election and elected a similarly-separatist government in that year’s provincial election. While Joseph Howe was their “tribune” at the national level, William Annand held down the fort for the anti-Confederates locally and formed Nova Scotia’s first provincial government.

Annand was no Howe, and he could do little to stop the deal Howe struck with John A. Macdonald’s Conservative government in Ottawa. The British Parliament was, after all, disinterested in the notion of Nova Scotia secession, and Howe was able to secure some better terms for the province in exchange for joining Macdonald’s government — the ultimate betrayal for Annand.

But Annand was wily enough to know to go where the wind was blowing.

He kept up the fight, or at least the pretense of it, as long as he could, using the language of the anti-Confederates while striving to defend Nova Scotia’s autonomy within the Dominion. In 1871, he went to the polls under the banner of the ‘Nova Scotia Party’.

But Annand and the anti-Confederates were really aligned with the Liberals, and the opportunistic Annand became far more collaborative with the federal government once Alexander Mackenzie’s Liberals took over at the end of 1873. No longer talking about separation, Annand started to talk about the benefits of a closer relationship with the federal government. A railway from New Glasgow to the Strait of Canso, which could eventually make its way through to Cape Breton, was promised — with the help, of course, of Dominion money.

The Conservative opposition, led by Simon Hugh Holmes, were hampered by the fall of Macdonald’s government. The stench of the Pacific Scandal wafted all the way down to the east coast, undermining some of the Conservatives own promises about railway-building.

For The Globe’s correspondent in Halifax, the “most noticeable feature of the whole scene is the absence of well-defined and legitimate local issues. Side issues there are without number, but there are few, if any, measures within the sphere of Provincial legislation upon which the public are asked to speak.”

For Annand and the Liberals, their main proposal was the railway. They also promised to “introduce a Bill for the trial of controverted elections by Judges; to improve the ballot law; and, generally, to behave themselves. As for the Opposition, what there is of it, it promises everything in general and nothing in particular.”

It was a rather tepid report from the Liberal-leaning Globe. But the paper’s Halifax correspondent, who signed himself simply as ‘BLUENOSE.’, had his finger on the pulse.

“Looking over the whole Province,” he said, “I am led to think that the Government will be sustained by a small majority of pronounced men which will subsequently be increased by the aid of Independents.”

The fiercely Conservative British Colonist in Halifax was far more bullish on its party’s chances. “It is now quite certain,—as certain as any future event can be,—that the Government will be very soundly beaten,” it proclaimed on the eve of the vote. “They know it; they can hardly muster the face to deny it.”

BLUENOSE turned to be far closer to the mark. While the Liberals lost four seats compared to the 1871 election, the party nevertheless captured 20 seats — a small majority in the legislature of 38. (Annand didn’t occupy one of those seats, however, as he governed from the Legislative Council, the equivalent of a provincial Senate.)

The Conservatives won 11 seats and seven Independents, most of which backed the Liberals, were also elected. The British Colonist was reluctant to accept the results, claiming for days afterwards that the government had actually been defeated. In reality, the Liberals swept the south shore and Halifax, while the Conservatives were strongest in Pictou and the counties along the Bay of Fundy, but not enough to topple Annand — yet.

The danger in campaigning on a specific promise largely dependent on another order of government became quickly apparent to Annand. The Dominion government announced that it wasn’t interested in financing the railway to the Canso Strait if it wasn’t going to be extended into the coal mines of Cape Breton. The provincial government couldn’t find a private proponent to build the railway extension and the project collapsed. Faced with the failure of his campaign promise, Annand would be out as premier before the end of 1875 and the Liberals out of office entirely the next time they’d go to the polls.

1894 Nova Scotia election

Fielding returned for the last time

March 8-15, 1894

Provincial and federal politics have never been completely separate — and in Nova Scotia in the 1880s and 1890s the links between the two could be decisive.

At the time, Canadian unity was not about Quebec or (the not-yet-existing) Alberta, but rather the province of Nova Scotia. It had never been entirely keen on joining Confederation and in the 1880s Nova Scotians indirectly voted to leave.

That happened under the leadership of William Stevens Fielding, who entered politics in 1882 and became premier in 1884. That job came with the responsibility of being the provincial treasurer, and Fielding dedicated himself to fixing Nova Scotia’s finances. The biggest problem he saw was the inadequate deal the province had with the Dominion government. Most of Nova Scotia’s revenues came via the federal subsidy — and it wasn’t enough.

In 1886, Fielding led his Liberals into an election campaign on the issue of secession and won a big majority. But the issue soon ran out of steam when Fielding couldn’t convince his fellow Maritime premiers to join a “Maritime Union”, and the British (who still had the final say) were even less enamoured with the idea. Losses suffered by the federal Liberals in Nova Scotia in the 1887 election definitively put secession on the back burner.

Fielding only mentioned it in passing in 1890, when he won another big majority government. By 1894, Fielding had reconciled himself with the rest of the country and became an active participant in federal politics, attending the 1893 National Liberal Convention and solidifying himself as the leader of Liberal forces, both provincial and Dominion, in Nova Scotia.

Instead of separation, Fielding looked at developing Nova Scotia’s industries and invested heavily in the development of the coal mines in Cape Breton — a move that would eventually give Nova Scotia the revenues it was lacking from Ottawa.

The campaign in 1894 was dubbed “the most bitter ever held in this Province” by the correspondent of the Globe, claiming that while the parties had “signed a written agreement not to supply liquor or money … it has been discovered that during the last 48 hours immense quantities of liquor were sent into the country districts and money was freely used both there and in the city.”

Against Fielding was Charles Cahan, who had taken over as leader of the Conservative (or Liberal-Conservative, as it was interchangeably called at the time) opposition after his predecessor, William MacKay, lost the 1890 election and his own seat.

Cahan and the Conservatives tried to tie provincial and federal politics together during the campaign. In 1891, Fielding and the Liberals had campaigned with Wilfrid Laurier against John A. Macdonald’s National Policy of tariffs, a policy that was popular in parts of Nova Scotia, particularly in Cape Breton where freer trade would have a negative impact on the coal trade. In that federal election, the Conservatives under Macdonald won three-quarters of Nova Scotia’s seats.

But in 1894, John A. Macdonald was dead and the Conservatives couldn’t turn the tide against Fielding.

The Liberals were re-elected, winning 26 seats and losing only two compared to the 1890 election. The Conservatives finished with 12 seats, up two, while each party’s share of the province wide vote was virtually identical to what it had been in 1890: 51.5% for the Liberals and 45.7% for the Conservatives.

“The Liberals of Halifax held a mass meeting in the Lyceum to-night,” reported the Globe, “from the stage of which the returns were announced as received by telegraph operators. The building was packed, hundreds blocking the streets leading to the Lyceum and being unable to obtain admission.”

The Liberals gained a few seats from the Conservatives, including in Cumberland, Guysborough and in Shelburne, where Cahan went down to defeat. MacKay, however, managed to get back into the Legislative Assembly and would replace Cahan as Conservative leader once again.

Liberal losses, though, included two in Cape Breton and two in Inverness — a sign of the continued popularity of the National Policy and the lack of inroads Fielding was able to make despite his investments in the coal industry.

Fielding would make the final break with provincial politics and his opposition to Confederation in 1896, when he joined several other Liberal premiers in making the jump to federal politics as a member of Wilfrid Laurier’s first cabinet. But the Liberal dynasty would long outlast him — the Conservatives would remain on the opposition benches in Nova Scotia for another three decades.

1901 Nova Scotia election

An Opposition of Two

October 2, 1901

When George Henry Murray called an election in Nova Scotia for October 2, 1901, he had every right to expect that he’d win again. His Liberals had been in office for nearly 20 years. He himself had won a solid majority victory in 1897, shortly after he replaced W.S. Fielding as premier of the province, by winning 35 of 38 seats.

The Liberals under Wilfrid Laurier had ousted the Conservatives from national office in 1896 and the benefits of the Liberal connection between Halifax and Ottawa were clear. Fielding still held a great degree of sway in Nova Scotia after joining Laurier’s new cabinet, and the friendly atmosphere helped liberate $617,000 from Dominion coffers to finance the construction of new branch railways in the province, money that the former Conservative government had refused to share.

Murray, who would prove to be one of the most electorally successful party leaders in Canadian history, was not a particularly dynamic or skilled politician. But he inherited a strong party organization from Fielding and he kept his government rather clean — at least by the standards of the time. Murray was seen as an honest, friendly and cautious leader who didn’t rock the boat or hesitate to speak to the man in the street.

Against Murray in the 1901 election were the Conservatives (or Liberal-Conservatives, as they were also known) under Charles Smith Wilcox, who unexpectedly found himself leader of the party after the Conservatives were reduced to just three seats in the legislature in 1897. But he grew into the job, emerging as a strident critic of the Liberals on a few key files. When he died in 1909, he was described as “courteous in debate, considerate of the opinions of others and moderate in the presentation of his views.”

Against the juggernaut Liberals, Wilcox and the Conservatives would try their best. At a convention in July ahead of the October election, the Conservatives charged the Liberals “with making use of money, patronage and other corrupting influences to hold themselves in power” and questioned their management of the roads, the railways and the public finances of Nova Scotia. They also got some help from Robert Borden, leader of the national Conservative Party, who participated at the nominating convention in Halifax and campaigned for the Wilcox Conservatives during the election.

The Liberals got some help from Fielding, of course, but they had an easy case to make. It was their party that got the railway money from Ottawa. It was their party that had doubled the government’s revenues since 1882 and had made it possible for Nova Scotia to invest in things like infrastructure and education. Their policies had “been intelligent and progressive, and well adapted to the development of the great resources of the Province”, according to Murray.

The Conservatives tried to make the case for change — a tough sell in a province that would prove to be only halfway through a 43-year span of Liberal government. They reminded Nova Scotians that Murray had argued that no government should be kept in power for too long when he was campaigning against the federal Conservatives in 1896. Surely the same logic should apply to the Liberals’ long stint in office in Nova Scotia.

Voters didn’t buy it. The result was a lopsided victory for Murray’s Liberals. The party captured 36 seats, leaving just two for the Conservatives: one in Pictou and one in Cumberland. The Liberals swept everything else, including Hants where Wilcox went down to defeat.

In trying to explain the landslide Liberal win, the Liberal-friendly Globe ventured “it would appear that the Government had a record which could not be seriously attacked, and that the Opposition, while it presented an elaborate programme to the electors, was unable to concentrate public attention upon any one issue.”

The second of what would be Murray’s six consecutive majority victories did not bring the Liberal leader much happiness. He suffered a nervous breakdown after the election that was described as “gloominess, depression, want of confidence in himself.” He spent most of the next year’s legislative session in the United States for treatment, but he’d be back to his winning ways before long — though he’d never again repeat his feat of limiting his opposition to just two.

1920 Nova Scotia election

A Nova Scotia dynasty rolls on

July 27, 1920

Remember when Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives were first elected in 1984? Now, imagine that government was still in power today — and about to be re-elected.

That’s what the situation was like in Nova Scotia in 1920 when George H. Murray sent the province to the polls.

His Nova Scotia Liberals had been in power since 1882 and Murray himself had been in office since 1896. With that uninterrupted record of winning, perhaps it is not surprising that few thought Murray’s Liberals were in any danger in 1920.

But the 1920s were a topsy-turvy time in Canadian politics. The First World War had shattered the old systems that kept different classes in their places and only two parties anywhere close to government.

Farmers were unhappy with the status quo and starting their own parties throughout the country. The United Farmers had already taken power in Ontario. It would not be the only place where the two old parties were shoved aside.

Labour groups were becoming restless. The Winnipeg General Strike had taken place only the year before. The Independent Labour Party was starting to make inroads. In Nova Scotia, the coal miners in Cape Breton wanted change.

And, for the first time, women were voting.

It made for an unpredictable time in Canadian politics. Could that tumult upset the apple cart in staid Liberal Nova Scotia?

Murray didn’t think so, and on June 29, 1920 he called an election that would be held on July 27.

The premier made the case to voters that Nova Scotia was in pretty good shape. The legislature was running well and the government had put into place measures to ease the return of Great War veterans into civilian life. Highways were being built, the Nova Scotia Power Commission had been created and benefits had been increased for widows and children.

Trying to prevent farmers from drifting away from the Liberal Party, Murray claimed “it can be said, without possibility of contradiction, that the farmers of Nova Scotia have never made any request of the Government which has not received a generous response. Every effort has been made to encourage an increased production.”

The Conservatives under W.L. Hall didn’t buy it. Their support largely came in rural areas of the province, and Hall charged that the Liberals had “deliberately set a date in the busiest season of the farmers and fishermen, hoping to prevent their active participation in the campaign.”

If the farmers stayed home, he thought, the Liberals would be re-elected.

Hall said that the Liberals hadn’t done as much as they could have during their 38 years of government and that theirs wasn’t nearly the “progressive” government that Murray claimed to run.

The Liberals were also under attack from Labour, who said their priority was to provide the “proper shelter, food and clothing” for people so that “workers should be emancipated from the position of serfdom they occupy at present.” Labour was also for more direct democracy through referendums and proportional representation.

The party had its best chances in Cape Breton, where workers were disappointed that the Murray government hadn’t enacted an eight-hour day.

As was the case in other parts of Canada, the United Farmers and the Independent Labour Party co-operated in the Nova Scotia campaign, strategically running candidates where they would not get in each other’s way.

But with all these voices calling for the end of Liberal rule, the campaign was still, in the words of The Globe, “the quietest Provincial election campaign in the history of Nova Scotia” and, according to the 1920 edition of The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs, “there were no scandals to give the contest a flavour which had been too common in past Canadian elections.”

Despite a drop in support, the result was another big win for Murray. The Liberals won 29 seats, only one fewer than in the 1916 provincial election. The Liberals defeated Conservative candidates in Kings and Queens counties and swept all five of the Halifax seats. In Cumberland and Cape Breton, however, the rise of Labour and the Farmers cost the Liberals.

The Farmers would win the second-most seats in the election with six. Their strength was concentrated in the neighbouring counties of Cumberland, Colchester and Hants. They also won a seat in Antigonish.

Labour won a seat in Cumberland, too, while four of its five seats came in Cape Breton around Sydney.

Combined, the Farmers and Labour won about 32% of the vote, more than the Conservatives whose support collapsed by nearly half to just 23%. The party held on to only three seats: two in Richmond and one in Yarmouth.

Hall, who went down to personal defeat in his riding, blamed the party’s loss on “the brief period at our disposal for organization, and the remarkably short notice we had that an election was pending.”

The Liberal-friendly Globe saw the result as a warning to the Conservatives in Ottawa, saying “it is another notice to Mr. Meighen and his office-holding Administration of the fate which awaits them when the electors of the Dominion come to the polls.”

In the end, The Globe wasn’t wrong. The rise of Labour and the United Farmers in Nova Scotia came largely at the expense of the Conservatives. The disintegration of the two-party system that began after the First World War would fell Arthur Meighen’s Conservatives in the 1921 federal election. When that vote was over, the Conservatives would find themselves in third — and shut out in Nova Scotia.

1933 Nova Scotia election

August 22, 1933

This instalment of the #EveryElectionProject was not from The Weekly Writ, but a longer form article. You can access it below:

The Writ

"We have too much politics in Nova Scotia"

This is the first article of the #EveryElectionProject, my Sisyphean attempt to write about every election that has ever taken place in Canada. With this series I hope to share with you my passion for history and explore the elections that have brought us to where we are today…

Read more

5 years ago · 9 likes · Éric Grenier

1956 Nova Scotia election

“In with the new” in Nova Scotia

October 30, 1956

By 1956, the Nova Scotia Liberals had governed the province for eight of the previous 74 years and had been in power for 23 years straight, nearly all of that under Premier Angus L. Macdonald.

Known as Angus L., the premier had dominated Nova Scotia politics ever since he had ousted the Conservatives from office in the midst of the Depression. Not even a brief stint in Mackenzie King’s cabinet during the Second World War could keep him away from provincial politics long — he resigned as premier to take the post and took the premier’s chair back once the war was won.

But Macdonald died in 1954, leaving the Nova Scotia Liberals without their iconic father figure at the helm. By then, his government was also starting to show its age, with many of his best ministers long retired.

The party didn’t help matters when Henry Hicks won a divisive leadership race that pitted Protestants and Catholics against each other. Harold Connolly, an Irish Catholic MLA, couldn’t grow his support from one ballot to the next as non-Catholic members went elsewhere. They finally settled on Hicks, but Connolly and Catholic Liberals couldn’t be reconciled with the party.

The split added to the difficulties of the Liberals’ organization heading into the 1956 election campaign. The party was still formidable, but the machinery had also atrophied after so many years of easy victories.

The last few, however, had been a bit tougher than in the past. The Progressive Conservatives, entirely shutout of the legislature in the 1945 election, were progressively increasing their representation under Robert Stanfield. The scion of a wealthy Nova Scotia family, Stanfield could dedicate his time and ample resources to the PCs. Under him, the party won eight seats in 1949 and 13 in 1953. It was building up its strength and momentum.

Both Hicks and Stanfield were relatively young politicians for the time — just 41 and 42 years old, respectively. But this would be Stanfield’s third campaign as party leader. Hicks was the rookie, and going into it he said he had “moderate confidence” that he’d win.

Though the province was doing well, there were questions whether it was falling behind the rest of the country as Canada’s post-war economy expanded. There were concerns that Nova Scotia wasn’t even leading the Maritime provinces anymore and had fallen behind New Brunswick — which had switched over to the Tories in 1952.

“Nova Scotia is walking backward into the future,” Stanfield argued, pitching greater economic development for the province.

But there wasn’t much separating the Liberals from the Tories in Nova Scotia. Both competed in promising to pave as many highways as possible, but the two parties were separated more by partisan, tribal loyalties than they were by policy. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation under Michael MacDonald differed more significantly, of course, but was only running a small slate of candidates, primarily in Nova Scotia’s industrial centres.

The election proved to be a close one, with the PCs taking 48.6% of the vote to the Liberals’ 48.2%. But Nova Scotians were ready for something new after nearly a quarter century of Liberal rule.

The seat results were not as tight, as the PCs won 24 to the Liberals’ 18. Hicks and the Liberals lost five seats compared to the last election, while the PCs picked up 12 — including some of the new seats that re-distribution had created.

Two regions in particular helped push the PCs to office. Citing “labour unrest” as the reason for their success, the PCs won five seats on Cape Breton, entirely around industrial Sydney. They also won all three seats in Pictou County. In 1953, the PCs had not won a single seat in either Pictou or Cape Breton.

The victory would prove to be the first of four for Stanfield, who increased his majority in each of the next three elections. His winning ways made him a national star within the Progressive Conservative Party and, when John Diefenbaker was forced out as national leader in 1967, the party faithful turned to Stanfield — just the kind of steady, serious and experienced leader the country seemed to be ready for after years of unstable minority rule in Ottawa.

But Stanfield was no longer new. And he didn’t shine as brightly as the Liberals’ star, Pierre Trudeau. He was new and interesting. Stanfield, by 1968, was not.

1971 Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leadership

Nova Scotia Tories turn to the right

March 6, 1971

After a long period of stability, the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservatives experienced a few whirlwind years of change between 1967 and 1971.

Robert Stanfield took over the leadership of the Nova Scotia PC Party in 1948, only a few years after a disastrous 1945 campaign that saw it shutout of the legislature. Stanfield rebuilt the provincial party, growing its vote share and caucus until finally returning it to power in 1956. For the next decade, he continued the PCs’ upward trajectory until he decamped to Ottawa to take on the national PC Party. His replacement, G.I. Smith, took his place unopposed.

But then the PCs were dealt a narrow defeat in the October 1970 election, and two weeks later Smith suffered a heart attack while on vacation in Bermuda. Advised by his doctors to quit politics, Smith resigned the PC leadership. The search was on for another leader — and yet another new direction.

The names bandied about at the leadership contest’s outset didn’t materialize: former finance minister Tom McKeough, PC MP Pat Nowlan and well-known broadcaster and businessman Finlay MacDonald all decided not to run.

The three candidates who stepped into the vacuum were all under 40 and each proposed new directions for the party.

Gerald Doucet, the youngest of the three at 33 years old, was first elected as an MLA in Cape Breton in 1963. An Acadian, he served as minister of education and represented the progressive wing of the Progressive Conservative Party.

John Buchanan, the oldest at 39, represented a riding in Halifax that he won in 1967. After the dust settled following the 1970 campaign, he was the only PC MLA left standing in the city. Last serving as fisheries minister and, like Doucet, originally from Cape Breton, Buchanan was the first to announce his candidacy. He was seen to represent the conservative wing of the Progressive Conservative Party.

What both Doucet and Buchanan had against them, however, was their record as part of the Smith government that had just been defeated. That was not the case for Roland (Rollie) Thornhill, the 35-year-old mayor of Dartmouth. Originally from Newfoundland, Thornhill was seen as a potential contender from the start, in part because he didn’t carry any of the baggage of the previous government. He was also a compromise candidate, neither on the left or right wings of the party.

While the divisions between left and right might have created a dynamic campaign full of ideas and ideological clashes, instead it was a quiet, amicable affair needing “considerably more zest if it [was] to catch sizeable public attention”, according to Lyndon Watkins writing in the Globe and Mail.

Just under 3,000 delegates and observers attended the convention on March 5-6, 1971, which was addressed by Stanfield on the Friday before the voting.

Doucet’s speech to the delegates on Saturday didn’t land well. According to Watkins, “his speech contained more memorable phrases, but he delivered it in too forceful a manner. There was not sufficient modulation in this tone. ‘He sounded almost like Hitler to me,’ one delegate remarked.”

In contrast, Buchanan delivered a “low-key address”, pledging to make the Nova Scotia PCs “a people’s party to meet the challenge of the ‘70s.”

On the first ballot, Doucet emerged as the leader with 38% of the vote. But that proved not to be enough — Buchanan was second at 33% and Thornhill finished a strong third with 29%.

(There is a 10-vote discrepancy in reports from the Canadian Press and the Globe and Mail. I have used CP’s reported tally in the chart above.)

As soon as the results were announced, Thornhill walked over to Buchanan’s side of the hall. Most of his supporters followed him, voting for Buchanan over Doucet on the second ballot by a margin of nearly two-to-one.

Buchanan’s victory on that second ballot, with 53% to Doucet’s 47%, was interpreted as the members in the Halifax-Dartmouth area flexing their muscle. It also suggests that had Thornhill finished in second, he probably would have been able to roll-up Buchanan’s vote and beat Doucet.

In his victory speech, Buchanan promised to bring economic prosperity to Nova Scotia and so halt the flow of young people leaving the province.

“We must continue to have confidence in ourselves and in our capacity to shape our own destiny,” he said. “We must not become so dependent upon the central government that we become merely a colony of Ottawa, administered by the bureaucracy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jean Marchand [one of Trudeau’s Quebec ministers].”

By the end of the decade, Buchanan would return the PCs to power, where they would remain until the early 1990s. When it was Buchanan’s turn to step aside, Thornhill (still relatively young 20 years later) ran for the leadership again. And, again, it was a near-run thing. Out of nearly 2,300 votes cast, Thornhill fell just 143 votes short of beating Donald Cameron and becoming premier.

1980 Nova Scotia NDP leadership

McDonough blazes trail in Nova Scotia

November 16, 1980

Never underestimate the drama of small parties.

In 1980, the Nova Scotia New Democrats qualified as one of those. Under Jeremy Akerman, the NDP had made progress by winning two seats in the 1970 Nova Scotia election and three seats in 1974, but were still only at four seats after the 1978 election.

That last result did not meet Akerman’s hopes, and after 12 years, limited success and disagreements with the party executive, Akerman decided to call it quits.

Three candidates emerged to replace him: Cape Breton North MLA Len Arsenault, Cape Breton Centre MLA Buddy MacEachern and two-time federal NDP candidate in Halifax, Alexa McDonough.

With Akerman out, what they were vying to take over was a party in turmoil.

The Nova Scotia NDP was a shaky coalition of the blue collar labour wing based in Cape Breton and the white collar professional (largely academic) wing of the party based in the rest of the province, particularly in Halifax.

Bitter over Akerman’s departure, maverick Cape Breton Nova MLA Paul MacEwen railed against his own party, claiming “Trostskyist elements” had taken over and that the NDP executive was “a bunch of ayatollahs”.

Sick of his outbursts, the party moved to expel him as a member of the NDP. But MacEwen was able to stay on as a member of the NDP caucus when Akerman and MacEachern voted to keep him in. Arsenault voted to boot him out.

Hoping to settle the matter at the leadership convention — which Akerman, now no longer a sitting MLA, refused to attend — the party passed a resolution saying that any caucus member would have to be a member of the party, effectively expelling MacEwen for good. This caused members of the United Mine Workers Union and the United Steel Workers to march out of the hall, followed by MacEachern.

Once tempers had mellowed, the party tried to put on a brave face of unity. In his speech to the convention, MacEachern said “I know the Liberals and Tories are watching the convention on television and rubbing their hands with glee, saying ‘They’re going to tear themselves apart.’ Well let me tell them, there has been no blood spilled here.”

MacEachern was on the losing side of the debate, as the party had decided it was done with MacEwen, who was threatening of forming his own NDP. But it wasn’t Arsenault who emerged as the vehicle of the anti-MacEwen, anti-Akerman vote. It was McDonough, the 36-year-old research assistant and former social worker.

When the ballots were counted, it wasn’t even close. McDonough finished with 237 votes from a party looking to move on. Arsenault was well behind with 42, just one more than MacEachern.

The Nova Scotia New Democrats had just made history. McDonough was the first female leader of a major political party in Canada (there had been others, like Thérèse Casgrain, who led minor parties before her).

It was such a novel concept, that some newspapers weren’t quite sure how to handle it. In the Southam News papers, the headline was “Woman to lead Nova Scotia NDP”, as if she was of another species.

Brian Butters, a correspondent for Southam News, betrayed the sexism of the time when he opened his article with “Nova Scotia's New Democratic Party has decided Alexa McDonough is more than just a pretty face.”

In McDonough’s first election as leader in 1981, her party would drop to just a single seat. But that seat was McDonough’s in Halifax, giving the NDP its first seat outside of Cape Breton — ever. (Paul MacEwen, the thorn in the side of the NDP, was re-elected as an Independent.) The party also captured 18% of the vote, the best it had ever done or would ever do until 1998. By then, McDonough had moved up in the world as leader of the federal New Democratic Party.

1991 Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leadership

Cameron wins an uncoveted title

February 9, 1991

As the last decade of the 20th century dawned, the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservatives had little to look forward to. Under the leadership of John Buchanan since 1971, the PCs had come to power in 1978 and won re-election three more times. In the last of that series, however, the PCs were starting to falter — Buchanan limped over the finish line in 1988 with 28 seats in the 52-seat legislature.

A couple of years later, his government was drowning in scandal amid RCMP investigations and allegations of cronyism and corruption that touched both Buchanan and his cabinet. The party had just lost a byelection in Cape Breton badly and, wanting an out, Buchanan found one. In a case of game recognizing game, Brian Mulroney, himself polling in the low-teens, appointed Buchanan to the Senate.

The surprise move left the Nova Scotia PCs without much of an idea of where to turn next. Buchanan’s government had been a relatively quiet one with few cabinet ministers setting themselves apart from the pack.

But over the next few months, the list of candidates was formed. Tom McInnis, the MLA for Halifax Eastern Shore since 1978, was the early front runner. As the attorney general, McInnis had some profile and experience in other cabinet portfolios. Seen as a bit of a maverick, McInnis campaigned with the slogan “Reason to Believe” and, at the outset, he was the betting favourite.

His main challenger appeared to be Roland Thornhill, the former mayor of Dartmouth and the MLA for Dartmouth South since 1974. Thornhill was a veteran of the party, having lost to Buchanan in the 1971 leadership contest. He had held a series of cabinet portfolios, most recently tourism. At first, it seemed like Thornhill would have to sit out the race — the RCMP was investigating him over an alleged deal he made with banks to settle his debts after he was appointed to cabinet.

Thornhill, though, didn’t care and he launched his campaign anyway. The investigation dogged him throughout, but he cast himself as the victim. He was the favourite of the long-standing members and closely aligned with Buchanan.

Also in the running was Donald Cameron, the MLA for Pictou East since 1974 and the industry minister. A dairy farmer in his mid-40s, Cameron was a confrontational, blunt and hot-tempered Tory. A good friend of Mulroney, he also had strong support from caucus.

Rounding out the list was an outsider: Clair Callaghan, the former head of the Technical University of Nova Scotia and a failed PC candidate in 1988. That defeat, though, meant Callaghan had none of the baggage of Buchanan’s government. While that might have been attractive to members eying the PCs’ awful polls, Callaghan’s campaign never gained much traction.

But even the insiders tried to make themselves out as outsiders, as both Cameron and McInnis attempted to distance themselves from the former premier. They both promised to clean up government and get rid of patronage, though Cameron’s pitch was weakened when a media report alleged a friend had received a lucrative government contract in his riding.

The prize the four men were fighting over wasn’t a glittering one. Kevin Cox, writing from The Globe and Mail’s Atlantic Bureau, wrote this up as the PC leadership job description:

Must be skilled in resuscitation techniques as well as renovating and house cleaning. Should stand up well under intense media and RCMP scrutiny. A scandal-free record helpful but hardly essential. This position will appeal to those willing to face a challenge: to restore public confidence in a patronage-tainted government now subject to an RCMP investigation, a slim hold on power and only 14 per cent of public support. Salary: about $97,000 per annum. Could be short-term employment.

PC delegates gathered on February 9, 1991 in a Halifax hockey rink to cast their ballots. Though no one knew for certain, the expected first ballot finish was Thornhill, McInnis, Cameron and Callaghan. It didn’t quite end up that way.

Perhaps weighed down by the RCMP’s ongoing investigation, Thornhill under-performed — as did McInnis. Cameron finished first with 754 votes, followed closely by Thornhill with 736, McInnis with 680 and Callaghan with 178.

Callaghan dropped off but it didn’t settle matters. The largest number of Callaghan’s supporters went to McInnis, who gained 82 votes. But he was stuck in third with 762, still 13 votes behind Thornhill. Cameron, with 801, was again on top.

With McInnis eliminated, most of his delegates went over to Cameron, who was promising the same hard line against past patronage. Cameron jumped 400 votes to 1,201, with Thornhill gaining just 283 votes and finishing second with 1,058.

The delegates’ were right to trust their gut — Thornhill would be charged by the RCMP later that month. Those charges would eventually be dismissed, but a Thornhill premiership would have been a tumultuous one.

Not that it mattered. Cameron would continue to lead the PCs for another two years until their inevitable defeat. Facing election in 1993 at the last possible moment, the PCs dropped to just nine seats, the party’s worst showing since 1945. Cameron held his own seat of Pictou East, but resigned as PC leader shortly after losing the premier’s office.

Short-term employment, indeed.

1997 Nova Scotia Liberal leadership

Nova Scotia Liberals choose MacLellan

July 12, 1997

It was a bad time to be a Nova Scotia Liberal.

When John Savage led the party to victory in the 1993 election, he took over a province facing numerous challenges. Four years later, after years of unpopular austerity and cuts, the Nova Scotia Liberals were third in the polls. With even his own party wanting him out, Savage had little choice but to step aside and kick-off a leadership race to name his replacement.

The date was set for July 12. But before that vote could happen, Jean Chrétien called the 1997 federal election. His party was able to narrowly secure another majority government, but that wasn’t with the help of Nova Scotia. The federal Liberals had swept the province in 1993. In 1997, the Liberals were shut out, losing all 11 seats to Jean Charest’s Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats under Nova Scotia’s own Alexa McDonough.

So the race to replace John Savage was not a particularly upbeat campaign, to say the least.

There were two front runners for the post.

The first was Bernie Boudreau, a Cape Breton MLA first elected in 1988. He had held the finance and health portfolios in Savage’s cabinet. He was the first to throw his hat in the ring and had a majority of the Nova Scotia Liberal caucus behind him.

That, however, wasn’t exactly a good thing. Boudreau had been the face of the government’s drive to balance the budget and its closure of hospitals. He was the party establishment candidate and the defender of the unpopular Savage government. There was little appetite for that, both inside and outside the Liberal Party.

His main opponent was an outsider to provincial politics. Russell MacLellan, 57, was still well-known in Nova Scotia’s political circles as he had been a Cape Breton MP since 1979. Though he never held a cabinet portfolio, he had been a parliamentary secretary to various federal ministers.

There was also Roseanne Skoke, another former MP. She had been elected in 1993 in the riding of Central Nova but had lost her nomination bid to be the Liberal candidate again in 1997. Lastly, there was Bruce Holland, a Halifax-area MLA elected in 1993.

Both Skoke and Holland were sharp critics of the Savage government.

“We’ve run the province with an autocratic, arrogant attitude and as a result we angered everyone in the province and people just don’t feel good,” Holland said at the final of 10 leadership debates.

One of the biggest concerns in the race was about patronage appointments — not that they were given out, but rather that they weren’t. As premier, Savage promised not to make the kind of patronage appointments that his PC predecessors had done. That didn’t go over very well in Liberal circles.

“The elites in the party received their patronage appointments and our grassroots workers didn’t,” explained Skoke. “Political patronage is inherent in the political party system and it is imperative that we recognize and reward the faithful of this party. That is something the Savage government failed to do.”

While MacLellan was also critical of the Liberal government, he didn’t go as hard as Skoke or Holland. He ran a relatively low-key campaign, keeping his proposals vague and promising to listen to the grassroots of the party. His was a front runner’s campaign — or, at least, one of two front runners — and he nearly cruised to a first ballot victory.

MacLellan earned 4,978 votes on the first ballot, finishing with just under 49% of the vote. Boudreau was second with around 32% of the vote, while Skoke captured 17% and Holland finished with a little less than 3%.

It was clear that MacLellan was going to win, and to solidify that victory Holland endorsed the former Cape Breton MP. On the second ballot, MacLellan grew his total by 561 votes, seemingly taking from both Holland and Skoke, who saw her vote drop, and won with 56% on the second ballot. Boudreau finished with just 32%.

“We’re sending a message tonight that we’re back in business,” MacLellan told the crowd after his victory.

In some ways, he was right. Liberal support had tanked in the polls, but by the 1998 Nova Scotia election MacLellan was able to win a minority government, tying the NDP in seats and earning a mere 3,000 more votes than the New Democrats across the province. MacLellan remained in power with the support of the PCs until 1999, when his government was brought down and his party defeated in that year’s election.

The Liberals finally fell to that third spot, where they would remain for the next 10 years.

1999 Nova Scotia election

The doctor is in

July 27, 1999

In 1998, the governing Nova Scotia Liberals under Russell MacLellan held on by the slimmest of margins. The party won 19 seats, tying them with the NDP. It was only with the support of the Progressive Conservatives, who finished third with 14 seats, that MacLellan was able to keep his job as premier, a role he took over from John Savage only the year before.

It wasn’t the greatest recipe for a stable minority government. Sure enough, little more than a year after the 1998 provincial election, MacLellan’s government collapsed.

That collapse occurred when the PCs could no longer prop up the Liberals. The province’s health care system was in dire shape. While the budget showed a small $1.5 million surplus, the Liberals also planned to borrow $600 million over the next three years to pay for some new investments in health care. The PCs had expected a balanced budget, not increased deficits, and so pulled the plug. Along with the NDP, the PCs voted against the government and an election was set for July 27, 1999.

The cast of characters was a re-run of the 1998 campaign. MacLellan would lead the Liberals again, as would the NDP’s Robert Chisholm. John Hamm, a rural family doctor who became PC leader in 1995, would be the relative veteran of the three.

The campaign pitted balanced budgets vs. health care, a complicated debate in a province crippled by $9 billion in debt, a serious lack of physicians and nurses and too much outdated equipment in the health care sector that needed to be replaced. The MacLellan government had a record of spending with little to show for results. The NDP had a reputation for demanding even more spending. Hamm and the PCs promised balanced budgets (and a tax cut), but the memory of the austerity years under former PC premier John Buchanan weighed heavily on Nova Scotians.

The polls suggested it would be another tight, three-way contest. At the outset, though, it seemed like the fight was primarily between MacLellan and Chisholm.

It wasn’t a great match up for MacLellan — he wasn’t particularly dynamic on camera, especially compared to the young and energetic Chisholm. Hamm was much more low key, but there was an earnestness about him.

The summer was unseasonably warm, which made for a sweaty campaign. Despite having brought the government down, the Tories and New Democrats seemed unprepared and were slow to get their candidates nominated. MacLellan and Chisholm hit the road in campaign vans; Hamm used an RV.

The turning point of the election might have been the leaders debate. It was an acrimonious affair between MacLellan and Chisholm, with the Liberal leader uncharacteristically going on the attack. It was a pitched battle between the two that left Hamm on the sidelines — wading into the fray just wasn’t in his character. The post-debate pundits pegged Hamm as the loser because of his lack of presence, but in an ugly fight between the Liberals and NDP, his calm, quiet demeanour was just what Nova Scotians were looking for in a leader.

With the Liberals faltering, the contest was becoming one between the PCs and NDP — just the kind of thing that could bleed even more Liberal support over to the Tories. Chisholm’s campaign was going well. He cast himself as a prudent spender with more pragmatic plans for health care reform than the deficit-spending Liberals, and New Democrats from across the country were making their way to Nova Scotia to pitch in to try to elect the province’s first NDP government.

Chisholm’s campaign hit a speed bump, though, when it was leaked that he had a drunk-driving conviction from 22 years earlier. While that alone might not have been the biggest bombshell, it contradicted what Chisholm himself had said at the campaign’s outset, when a newspaper asked all the leaders a series of personal questions, including whether they had ever been convicted of a crime. Chisholm said he hadn’t.

As election day approached, confident predictions of who would come out ahead were few and far between. Another minority government seemed likely in this three-way race, but forecasting the outcome of a sleepy summer campaign seemed unwise.

That the PCs emerged victorious was a bit of a surprise — that they got a majority was a shock.

The Progressive Conservatives captured 30 seats, more than double what they had won in the 1998 campaign the year before, and saw their popular vote jump nine points to 39.2%. All but three of the 12 seats the Liberals had won on the mainland in 1998 flipped to the PCs. The Tories even made gains in Halifax, including the downtown riding of Halifax-Citadel.

But it was a close-run thing — the four seats that gave Hamm his majority government were decided by little more than 200 votes altogether. The winner in Shelburne had to be decided by a random draw when recounts left the PC and Liberal candidates tied with 3,206 votes apiece.

Though the PCs had won seats in every part of the province, their gains on Cape Breton were limited: just a single seat turned blue. Liberal losses in Halifax and in rural Nova Scotia were mitigated by gains at the expense of the NDP in and around Sydney, where MacLellan’s government had invested significant funds in the city’s struggling steel mill. The result was that the Liberals and NDP ended in a tie once again, but this time with just 11 seats apiece. The New Democrats edged the Liberals out in provincewide support by a few hundred votes.

Both Chisholm and MacLellan said they’d stay on as leaders on election night, but they’d both be gone by the following year.

Flushed with victory, Hamm thanked all of those who had backed his political career in the past, saying “they are the reasons why, in six short years, to my own surprise, I have gone from being a shy rookie MLA to standing before you as premier-elect.” Hamm would stay in the job for another six years, with one more election — resulting in a return to unstable minority government — ahead of him.

2004 Nova Scotia Liberal leadership

MacKenzie defeats Mann

October 23, 2004

When Danny Graham announced he was stepping down as leader of the Nova Scotia Liberals due to the health challenges his wife was facing, his party had been out of power for five years. Like their federal cousins, the Nova Scotia Liberals came to office in 1993 at a low point for Progressive Conservative parties from coast to coast. But the Liberals quickly became unpopular themselves after imposing austerity on the province and were reduced to the barest of minorities in 1998. A year later, the Liberals were voted out entirely.

Graham took over the Liberals in their weakened state and could do little to help the party in the 2003 provincial election, when they finished third behind the New Democrats with just 31.5% of the vote and 12 seats. John Hamm’s PCs secured a minority.

That did mean that an election could be held at any point — and that the third party in the legislature held one of the keys to bringing the government down. Whoever took over the Liberal leadership could be put to the test very soon.

Only two candidates, however, stepped forward and stayed in the race through to its completion on October 23, 2004. One was Richie Mann, a former Liberal cabinet minister from Cape Breton who had left politics before the 1998 election. He was the experienced insider in the race.

The other was Francis MacKenzie, the inexperienced outsider. MacKenzie, a Halifax-based business executive (also originally from Cape Breton), had never held elected office before. He knew his way around a leadership contest, however, as he had run for the leadership in 2002. He finished second to Graham with about a third of ballots cast. Now he was back.

But there wasn’t much enthusiasm for the race within the party. The Nova Scotia Liberals used a one-member, one-vote system without any weighting applied to the province’s ridings. When the votes were tallied and the result announced at the party’s convention in Halifax, only some 7,500 had bothered to cast a ballot — and reportedly half of them were cast by Cape Bretoners.

Turnout was down from about 11,500 in 2002, with roughly one-third of eligible voters participating. The result was a clear win for MacKenzie, who captured 68% of the vote to Mann’s 32%.

“Wow. Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone,” said MacKenzie after he was named the winner. “It takes my breath. It’s quite an honour here, and it’s quite a moment for me.”

MacKenzie wouldn’t have much luck as leader of the Liberals. While he would keep his party competitive in the polls in Nova Scotia’s three-way race over the next few years, support for the party collapsed in the 2006 election and the Liberals lost seats and vote share as Darrell Dexter’s NDP solidified its position as the PCs’ main opponent. It would take two more elections (and one more leader) before the Nova Scotia Liberals would get themselves back into power.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections Nova Scotia and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• Joseph Howe, Volume II: The Briton Becomes Canadian, 1848-1873 by Murray Beck

• The Man from Halifax: Sir John Thompson, Prime Minister by P.B. Waite

• Sir Charles Tupper: Fighting Doctor to Father of Confederation by Jock and Janet Murray

• Robert Laird Borden: A Biography, Volume 1 by Robert Craig Brown

• Angus L. Macdonald: A Provincial Liberal by T. Stephen Henderson

• Robert Stanfield’s Canada: Perspectives of the Best Prime Minister We Never Had by Richard Clippingdale

• Nova Scotia Politics, 1945-2020: From Macdonald to MacNeil by Graham Steele

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

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1878 Quebec election

The ‘coup d’état’

May 1, 1878

The relationship between the premier and lieutenant-governor of Quebec was tense in 1878. On the one side there was Charles Boucher de Boucherville, the patrician Conservative premier. On the other there was Luc Letellier de Saint-Just, the Liberal lieutenant-governor who chafed at his — technically, at least — non-partisan role.

Letellier had been appointed to the post by Alexander Mackenzie, the Liberal prime minister in Ottawa, who was sorry to let go of one of his top ministers. The Conservatives in Quebec didn’t like Letellier and disrespected him at every opportunity, refusing invitations to Spencer Wood, his official residence, and printing proclamations under his name that he never signed.

But it was a mutual dislike. Letellier wasn’t above descending into the political fray and the Conservatives didn’t see him as the neutral representative of the Crown that he was supposed to be.

When the Conservatives brought forward legislation that would compel municipal governments to contribute to the cash-strapped provincial government’s railway building plan, Letellier decided he had seen enough. Citing this overreach, as well as the general mismanagement he saw in Boucherville’s government, he dismissed the premier, inviting him to name his successor. When Boucherville refused, Letellier asked the leader of the Quebec Liberals to form a government.

That put Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotibinière in a delicate position. No less patrician than Boucherville — they were both old-fashioned seigneurs — Joly didn’t have anything close to a majority in the Legislative Assembly. So, a dissolution was requested and the province went to the polls.

Joly promised to bring Quebec’s finances into order, ending the corrupt practices of the previous Conservative government. The Conservatives, with future premier Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau leading the charge on the hustings as the prime spokesperson, railed against Letellier’s undemocratic coup d’état: “silence the voice of Spencer Wood,” he intoned, “and let the mighty voice of the people speak.”

Even many Liberals were squeamish about what Letellier had done, including Prime Minister Mackenzie. “We have always as Liberals fought against this,” he told one of his ministers. “The elevation of our friends [in Quebec] with a wrong principle to defend would be a very doubtful advantage.”

Likely agreeing with Mackenzie, Joly and the Liberals made the campaign about the record of the Conservatives, who they deemed the “taxationists”. Friendly newspapers (which were all partisan at the time) tried to made the case to readers.

“The eventful hour approaches,” wrote the editorialists of Quebec City’s Morning Chronicle, “which must settle the contest between the ins and the outs; between Mr. Joly and Mr. DeBoucherville; between the friends of retrenchment, economy and the honest administration of our public affairs, and the venal supporters of the late regime of dishonesty, reckless extravagance, taxation, illegality, pillage of the public chest and eventual bankruptcy.”

Perhaps sensing that the Conservatives had a weakness on this score, their friends tried to deflect. The campaign was not about the record of the government, claimed the Montreal Gazette, but about the outrageous actions of Letellier and the Liberals.

“We make a last call upon such of our Conservative friends … who may feel disposed to abstain, or to vote for the Joly Government in this election, to think better of such a resolution; and for two reasons,” argued the Gazette. “The first reason is that by so doing, they will be helping the Mackenzie Government … There is another reason. This election has nothing to do with Mr. DeBoucherville … The true and only issue of these elections is to endorse or disapprove of M. Letellier. Parliament decided that the people had to decide this constitutional question, and until was decided all other questions are in abeyance. Let our friends reflect on these simple truths, and we trust that not one of them will give his influence towards the infliction of Rouge-ism on this city and Province.”

The result showed a split down the middle in Quebec and one of the province’s closest elections ever. The Conservatives saw their seat haul cut by a quarter down to just 32 and their share of the vote drop by 1.5 points to 49.5%. The Liberals made significant gains, largely in and around Quebec City, jumping 12 seats to 31 and nearly nine percentage points to 47.5%.

But Joly did not win a plurality of seats — the Conservatives still had the most seats in the assembly and their newspapers cautiously proclaimed a narrow victory. Two Independents held the balance of power, and considering they were Independent Conservatives, presumably they would side with Boucherville.

They didn’t. The two Independents backed Joly and the Liberals formed what would be their first elected government in the history of the province. But a one-seat majority was no majority at all, and it wouldn’t be long before Joly lost the confidence of the legislature in late 1879. When that happened, the lieutenant-governor did not hesitate to ask Chapleau to form a government rather than go back to the polls and there was no scandal — because that lieutenant-governor was no longer Letellier. It was former Conservative MP Théodore Robitaille who instead had the good fortune of being named Letellier’s replacement shortly after John A. Macdonald’s Conservatives were calling the shots again in Ottawa.

1892 Quebec election

Mercier shown the door

March 8, 1892

Here’s a question for you: who was Quebec’s first nationalist premier?

François Legault is only the latest iteration. Maybe you’re thinking it must be a premier from the Quiet Revolution — perhaps René Lévesque or Jean Lesage. Earlier than that? Could it be Maurice Duplessis, who combined Quebec nationalism with fervent Roman Catholicism?

Nope, you have to go back even further to the end of the 19th century to the days of Honoré Mercier.

In the 1880s, Quebec was in a state of nationalist effervescence. Not Québécois nationalism, though, as that didn’t quite exist yet, but French Canadian nationalism, with Quebec as the homeland of the country’s Catholic, French-speaking population, including everyone from Acadians in the Maritimes to the Métis in the west.

The execution of Louis Riel, who was adopted by French Canadians as one of their own (and Riel himself had complicated and shifting views about his own identity), in 1885 further fanned those flames of nationalism. Mercier, who had started the Parti national as a third way that was neither Liberal nor Conservative — though it ended up being subsumed into the Liberal Party — was able to capitalize on this and ride it to power in Quebec in 1887 as head of a coalition that included Conservatives who opposed John A. Macdonald’s decision to hang Riel.

Mercier was re-elected in 1890 and was greatly popular within Quebec and French-speaking circles outside the province for his muscular and populist French-Canadian nationalism. But his fall from grace was swift. In 1891, Mercier was taken down by scandal involving the construction of the Baie des Chaleurs Railway on the Gaspé Peninsula, when reports emerged that public money had been funneled through the local contractor back into Liberal coffers.

Mercier would eventually be personally exonerated, but the damage had been done. He was dismissed by the lieutenant-governor, who then called on the Conservatives to form a government — despite not holding a majority in the legislature.

Charles Boucher de Boucherville, who was sitting in the Senate in Ottawa at the time, was called upon to lead that Conservative government. While Mercier and the Liberals tried to raise a hue and cry about this undemocratic move, Boucherville took the title of premier in December 1891 and immediately asked the lieutenant-governor for a dissolution, calling for new elections to be held on March 8, 1892.

Boucherville, a legislator for more than 30 years stretching back to before Confederation, had previously served as Quebec premier from 1874 to 1878, during which time he modernized Quebec’s election laws by ending the practice of holding votes on different days and instituting the secret ballot. His time in office came to an end when he, too, was dismissed by the lieutenant-governor, but the Senate had proven a comfortable landing place.

The election went badly for Mercier and the Liberals and voters showed little concern about the interference of a partisan lieutenant-governor. The stench of political corruption was so strong that Wilfrid Laurier, the leader of the federal Liberal Party, kept himself out of the campaigning (with the exception of one visit to Quebec City nearly two months before voting day).

The result was a rejection of the once-popular Mercier, as his Liberals lost 22 seats and held onto only 21. Their share of the vote, at nearly 44%, held firm. But the Conservatives gained seven points and picked up 28 more seats, giving them a commanding majority with 51 in the Legislative Assembly.

Mercier resigned shortly after the election, denouncing the charges that had been laid against him. Félix-Gabriel Marchand, who as speaker during Mercier’s government had kept himself largely above the partisan fray, would take his place as Liberal leader.

But Boucherville’s second stint as premier also proved to be short. When Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau, a long-time and hated rival in the Conservative Party, was appointed the new lieutenant-governor, Boucherville refused to serve under him and resigned before the end of 1892.

It’s a reminder of just how long it has been since anyone cared that much about who was the lieutenant-governor of Quebec.

1912 Quebec election

Gouin extends the dynasty

May 15, 1912

Quebec was changing in the early 20th century, but its political stripes weren’t. The province was a Liberal bastion, would remain so for decades, and Lomer Gouin was one of the cornerstones of that early dynasty for the Quebec Liberals.

In the 19th century, the Conservatives and Liberals exchanged power back and forth. The influence of the Roman Catholic Church was strong, and the Conservative Party, those stalwarts of tradition and order, were the preferred option of the clergy. The Liberals were suspiciously too radical for the church, but could be swept to power on a wave of French Canadian nationalism — as occurred under Honoré Mercier after the hanging of Louis Riel by John A. Macdonald’s Conservative government in 1885.

But once Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals come to power in Ottawa, les Rouges were becoming more acceptable in the province and, after Mercier’s government was defeated in 1892 over corruption, the Liberals came back to power in 1897. They were re-elected in 1900 and 1904.

The following year, Simon-Napoléon Parent resigned and Lomer Gouin was sworn in as leader of the Quebec Liberals and premier. In 1908, he led the Liberals to another big win — the party’s fourth consecutive victory.

By 1912, however, the context had changed. Laurier and the Liberals had been defeated in Ottawa by Robert Borden’s Conservatives. They received help in Quebec from Henri Bourassa and his Nationalists, who aligned themselves with the Borden Conservatives against the policies of Laurier and Gouin. But the flirtation between Borden and Bourassa proved short-lived, and the Nationalists were losing steam already by 1912.

Nevertheless, the Quebec Liberals were still in good shape heading toward that year’s election. According to the Canadian Annual Review, “there was general prosperity, no pronounced agitation visible in the Province as to any particular subject, a dearth of discontent, and severe depression amongst the Nationalists. The Premier’s personal record was of the highest, the political career of his Cabinet since March 20, 1905, had been very largely peaceful, the policy pursued had been constructive and financial conditions excellent.”

The federal election having been held only a few months earlier, Gouin successfully attempted to remove federal issues from the provincial campaign. He didn’t want to run on or against Laurier’s or Borden’s controversial naval policies, or be weighed down by the policy of reciprocity with the United States that had driven Laurier to defeat in 1911. Reciprocity, Gouin told a crowd, “has nothing to do with the issue that will be decided on May 15.”

Instead, he wanted to run on his government’s record. And the record was largely good, with significant railway and road building, (relatively) progressive labour legislation, the annexation of Ungava in the north, a reduction of French Canadian emigration to the south and an expansion of the education system.

The franchise had been extended to nearly all men over the age of 21 and voters could no longer vote multiple times in as many ridings as they owned property.

Industrialization was running at full tilt, encouraging the further development of Quebec’s natural resources and hydro-electricity production. Investment, however, was largely coming from English Canadians and Americans.

This was a focus of criticism from Bourassa and the Quebec Conservative leader, Joseph-Mathias Tellier. A long-time MLA, Tellier accused the Liberals of mismanagement and of prioritizing foreign financial interests over Quebec “colonists”, who were trying to settle the under-developed regions of the province in places like Abitibi and the Gaspésie.

But the wind had gone out of the sails of the Conservatives and the Nationalists, particularly after Bourassa opted not to run for re-election, leaving Armand Lavergne as the only remaining Ligue nationaliste candidate on the ballot (in two ridings, still allowed at the time).

The Liberals prevailed, winning 63 seats in the expanded Legislative Assembly. Their share of the popular vote, 53.5%, was unchanged from Gouin’s first victory in 1908, and the Liberals successfully chased the Conservatives out of nearly all their seats south of Montreal and in the Eastern Townships, exchanging them for a few ridings north of the St. Lawrence.

It was an endorsement of the Liberal record of industrial development in Quebec and a setback for the Conservatives in Ottawa. His victory got people talking about what future might still be in store for Lomer Gouin, as the federal Liberals looked to the post-Laurier era that they assumed was about to start.

“His signal success in this week’s fight has given Canadian Liberalism just the encouragement it needed and at a good time,” wrote the Montreal Herald. “The Opposition at Ottawa will fight harder and more cheerfully and with more effect for the next couple of years because of him. How natural the question, “Why not Sir Lomer?” when Liberals think of the day when the wearer of the white plumes must take his resting time.”

But there would be no change coming. Laurier would remain leader of the federal Liberal Party until his death in 1919, and Gouin would stay on as premier until 1920. And the Quebec Liberals? Their dynasty would keep winning until 1936.

1931 Quebec election

Taschereau defeats a ‘bit of a rascal’

August 24, 1931

In 1931, Quebec was the last bastion of the Liberal Party.

After the defeat of Mackenzie King’s government in 1930 and the fall of Walter Lea’s Liberals in Prince Edward Island in early August 1931, only in Quebec did the Liberals still form government under Louis-Alexandre Taschereau.

The party was well-ensconced in Quebec after more than three decades in office. But the Great Depression was taking down governments left and right — and it looked like Taschereau’s would be next.

But you don’t stay in power for so long without learning a few tricks. In 1931, Taschereau employed a strategy that can still work today: if you can’t get the people to vote for you, just make sure they vote against the other guy.

The Quebec Liberals were on the ropes as the 1931 election approached. The province had been hit hard by the stock market crash, the collapse of demand for Quebec’s products and the drought in Western Canada.

The boom of the 1920s had been dependent upon external investment capital, world demand for Quebec’s forest and mineral resources, and the prosperity of western Canadian farmers, whose exports of wheat through the ports of Montreal and Quebec City and whose purchase of goods manufactured in Quebec were responsible for tens of thousands of jobs.”

With the ingredients for Quebec’s success under Taschereau wiped away by the depression, the province was struggling. The Liberals had run a lean administration so the province’s debt burden was low, but municipalities had few resources to cover the demands for relief for its desperate residents and couldn’t afford to pay for its share of R.B. Bennett’s federal relief program.

Buffeted by economic headwinds, Taschereau also faced a lively opposition.

The Conservatives were on the upswing after Bennett’s election victory in 1930, which included 24 seats from Quebec. These had been largely won in ridings where agriculture, and particular dairy production, was king after Bennett promised protective dairy tariffs to Quebec’s farmers.

This was a big problem for Taschereau, as his Liberals depended on (and dominated) Quebec’s rural ridings, whereas the Conservatives were more competitive in Montreal.

The Conservatives also had a new leader in Camillien Houde, who had taken over from Arthur Sauvé in 1929. A rabble-rousing orator and mayor of Montreal, he took over a party that was getting its act together with two newspapers newly being published and new offices being opened in both Montreal and Quebec City. A bit of a demagogue, Houde had no trouble linking Taschereau’s close relationship with the province’s powerful business interests to Quebec’s economic problems and crushing unemployment.

Houde was certainly a different character than the well-bred Taschereau. He was, in the words of author P.B. Waite, “a more charismatic but rougher man of the people [than Sauvé], an engaging rogue who looked like and sometimes acted like an all-in wrestler”

Taschereau had little regard for a man he called a “nonentity” and “the chief of a group of bobolinks, little birds that eat what they can when the horses have passed.” But he did respect his oratory talents and recognized that he could not compete with them. During the campaign, he would instead lean on some of his lieutenants to carry the Liberal message across the province, including Adélard Godbout, his future successor.

Godbout campaigned hard in the Gaspésie and Bas-Saint-Laurent regions, key parts of the province for the Liberals. At the time, these two regions were home to 10 of Quebec’s 90 seats. Today, they represent just six of 125. The Liberals held all the seats in the area and wanted to keep them, and accordingly Taschereau launched his campaign in Matane with Godbout by his side.

Godbout would be the chief spokesperson for the Liberals’ fight to keep the farmer vote on their side — Godbout was one of them and a credible voice on the issue. Houde, though, was going after them as well, campaigning on farm loans and receiving the backing of the influential Union catholique des cultivateurs, a big association representing farmers.

Feeling that he was losing the fight on the issue, Godbout begged Taschereau to match Houde’s pledge. But Taschereau wouldn’t budge, saying “I’d prefer to be defeated at the polls rather than expose our province to bankruptcy.”

But the Liberals couldn’t afford to lose their most important constituency. High unemployment in the cities likely meant they couldn’t make any inroads among the working class. And the prevailing view in Quebec at the time was that further development of the agricultural sector and the settlement of more of Quebec’s un-tilled land was the way out of the depression.

In addition to the aid from his lieutenants, Taschereau also got significant support from the federal Liberals. Though King wasn’t always on side with Taschereau on every issue, he recognized that the Liberals needed a win in Quebec. C.G. (Chubby) Power, a Quebec Liberal MP, was accordingly given the task of running the Quebec Liberal campaign.

He felt he faced an uphill battle and, two or three weeks into it, still thought he was on the losing side. Houde was attracting big crowds, but he was more of a spectacle than anything else, one commentator saying he was “an excellent clown but a poor politician.”

Perhaps sensing that the tide was beginning to turn, Houde’s promises became more and more reckless, his attacks against Taschereau more vindictive and personal. It was turning people off. The Liberals compounded matters by going after Houde’s record in the mayor’s office in Montreal, asking how he could run a province if he couldn’t run a city?

Against Houde’s increasingly radical proposals, Taschereau pledged “to avoid foolish and unrealizable promises; they won’t solve anything.” He nevertheless opened the spending taps on various relief projects during the campaign thanks to an influx of federal dollars — dollars that the Bennett government left to the provinces to decide how to spend. As the Conservatives ran six of nine provinces, that didn’t seem like a bad idea. During an election campaign in Liberal Quebec, it worked against Houde.

Also problematic was Bennett’s growing unpopularity. Power ordered Liberal candidates to talk about nothing other than “unemployment, butter and Bennett”. Taschereau gladly gave the spotlight to Liberal MPs at rallies in order to make the campaign about Bennett’s hated government rather than his own.

It was a smart tactic. While the mood for change had been strong in 1930, by 1931 the kind of change proposed by Houde seemed dangerous. Better the steady hand of Taschereau than another Bennett.

The result was a huge Liberal landslide — something that seemed unimaginable in the months before the election.

The Liberals won 79 seats, gaining five in a legislature that had grown by five seats since the 1927 election. Taschereau and the Liberals captured nearly 55% of the vote, a remarkable result for an incumbent government during the Great Depression.

The Liberals won nearly all of the rural ridings in the province, including a sweep in Godbout’s bailiwick of the Gaspésie and Bas-Saint-Laurent.

With 43.5% of the vote, Houde led the Conservatives to their best vote share since the party had been booted from office in 1897. His farm loan promises netted him more votes in rural constituencies, but it was not enough to deliver seats. The Conservatives only managed to win a single seat in Quebec City, one in Hull, a few ridings around Montreal and on the island itself.

None of them, though, were seats being contested by Camillien Houde. He went down to personal defeat.

Avoiding defeat by just a few dozen votes, though, was Maurice Duplessis in Trois-Rivières. With a little help from Taschereau.

The Liberal candidate in Trois-Rivières, sensing Duplessis as beatable, requested more funds for his campaign. But Taschereau suggested to Power that they refrain from giving their candidate a boost. The goal was to beat Houde, who Taschereau viewed as “a bit of a rascal and a vulgar fellow”. Better to have him defeated and be replaced as Conservative leader by someone like Duplessis, who Taschereau viewed as a man from “a good family” and a much more acceptable leader of the opposition than that scoundrel Houde.

He’d come to regret that.

1933 Quebec Conservative leadership

Duplessis becomes Conservative leader

October 4, 1933

Over the first decades of the 20th century, Quebec was a Liberal province. The party had come to power in 1897 and by the early 1930s it was still there.

The Conservative opposition had some hope that under firebrand Camillien Houde they could topple the Liberal dynasty in 1931, but Houde went down to defeat against the patrician Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, who deemed Houde “a bit of a rascal.”

While Houde suffered personal defeat, the Conservatives did manage to elect a small opposition caucus — including Maurice Duplessis, who had been singled out by no less than Taschereau as a potential successor to Houde and one that he would much prefer to see in the job.

Houde stayed on as Conservative leader despite not having a seat in the Legislative Assembly, but his caucus was restless. Open revolt occurred when he named an anglophone MLA as his parliamentary leader. The choice was rejected by other Conservative MLAs who instead chose Duplessis to lead them in the assembly. Having completely lost his sway over his caucus, Houde resigned.

Duplessis, first elected in Trois-Rivières in the 1927 election, was not the unanimous choice. Houde opposed him, as did a few MLAs. But the bulk of caucus backed him and there was expectation that they would forego the formality of a convention in order to give Duplessis the permanent job. But with a disunited party, Duplessis wanted to solidify his leadership with a convention — though, as the date for the convention approached, it seemed likely that Duplessis would be acclaimed anyway.

Not so. In a surprise move, Conservative MP Onésime Gagnon put his name forward as a challenger to Duplessis. It was a reversal for Gagnon, who only a few weeks earlier had invited Conservatives to rally behind Duplessis.

But Gagnon was preaching unity, which the Conservative Party did not have in Quebec at the time. Ever since the conscription crisis in 1917, the federal and provincial wings of the Conservatives were divided. Gagnon wanted to see closer ties between the two parties and for Quebec Conservatives to get solidly behind R.B. Bennett’s government in Ottawa. There was talk of third parties being formed in Quebec that would split the anti-Liberal vote and ensure another win for Taschereau.

Despite being a member of Bennett’s caucus in Ottawa, Gagnon had little support from his fellow MPs. They wanted to keep the peace between Duplessis and the federal party, and Gagnon had to dismiss reports that he was being pressed to withdraw by his colleagues, saying “I am in the contest to the finish.”

The convention was held in Sherbrooke and featured speeches by supporters of both Duplessis and Gagnon, as well as an address by the two contenders. Gagnon stressed unity, while Duplessis dismissed the notion that the party was disunited — and spelled out how he was more concerned with provincial than federal affairs.

The betting money was on an easy Duplessis win, but Gagnon put up more of a fight. Duplessis won a solid majority of 61% of the 550 delegates who voted, but Gagnon’s 39% was better than most had expected.

According to the correspondent for the Montreal Gazette, “the fight over, the great gathering broke in a tumult of applause. The rancor which has been engendered was forgotten and Mr. Duplessis and Mr. Gagnon came together on the platform with a hearty grip of the hand, and an exchange of mutual goodwill that told of their years of sincere friendship.”

Gagnon would return to Ottawa and suffer defeat, as most Conservatives did, in the 1935 federal election. Duplessis, too, would fail to dislodge the Quebec Liberals in the 1935 provincial election as a third party, the Action libérale nationale, split the vote. But Gagnon would make good on his promise of friendship to Duplessis, running under the new Union nationale banner in 1936 and sitting in Duplessis’s cabinets until he was rewarded with a posting to the lieutenant-governor’s job in 1958.

1936 Quebec election

Maurice Duplessis gets his first taste of power

August 17, 1936

For the first third of the 20th century, Quebec was Liberal. Federally, provincially — it didn’t matter. The province was reliably painted red.

But things were starting to sour for the provincial Liberals in the 1930s.

By 1936, Quebec had been governed by the Liberals for 39 years. The party had racked up 11 consecutive election victories since 1897, with the last four coming under the leadership of Louis-Alexandre Taschereau.

Though governed by a French Canadian, Quebec’s nationalism was still in its infancy. The finance ministry was traditionally given to an anglophone and the industrialization of the province was being undertaken by anglophone and American industrialists. The Catholic Church still held much sway and women were still barred from voting.

Throughout the long reigns of Taschereau and his predecessor, Lomer Gouin, the Liberals had nevertheless dragged Quebec into the industrial revolution. But new movements in the province were agitating for change — including within the Quebec Liberal Party.

Taschereau almost went down to defeat in 1935 when the opposition parties teamed up against him. From just 11 opposition members in 1931, Quebecers elected 42 in 1935. They were a mix of Conservatives (Quebec’s traditional party of opposition now under Maurice Duplessis) and, ominously for Taschereau, members of the Action Libérale Nationale.

The ALN was formed by disgruntled Quebec Liberals under the leadership of Paul Gouin, son of the former premier. They were primarily made up of younger members of the party who felt sidelined by the old-fashioned establishment. They were nationalist, had the backing of the clergy and agreed with the Conservatives to divvy up the electoral map between them. It nearly worked.

But Duplessis was a canny politician. Despite his Conservatives winning fewer seats than the ALN in 1935, he out-maneuvered the disorganized and divided leaders of the ALN. Eventually, he lured most of the ALN caucus to unite behind his Conservatives and form a new party: the Union Nationale.

Shaken by the results of the 1935 election, Taschereau tried to rejuvenate his cabinet with some younger ministers and promised to bring in measures like old age pensions and farm loans.

That his government was still in office at all was remarkable — other governments saddled by the Depression, including the Conservative government in Ottawa, had gone down to defeat. Responding to Duplessis’s claim in the legislature that Taschereau’s diminished government would soon be replaced, Taschereau said “we have had elections. You are still there and we are here. Strong governments, the [R.B.] Bennett government included, have disappeared. We alone survive.”

Nevertheless, the Liberals were in a tough spot. The economy was still stagnant, unemployment was still staggeringly high and the government’s revenues were too low to provide significant relief to Quebecers.

In the legislature, the Union Nationale filibustered and obstructed, preventing the Liberals from passing a budget. Then, in the public accounts committee, Duplessis leveled charge after charge of corruption against Taschereau’s government.

Day by day the evidence mounted … No single revelation was serious enough to excite or even surprise public opinion. It was the enormity, the pervasiveness, and the brazenness of abuse which first staggered, then enraged the people of Quebec. In the midst of unprecedented poverty and suffering, while leaders preached the virtues of self-reliance, family responsibility, private charity and ‘fiscal responsibility’, this behaviour was regarded as positively obscene.”

Duplessis spared no one — including members of Taschereau’s own family. For Taschereau, this was a step too far. He considered himself a gentleman, a seigneur, a representative of Quebec’s old aristocracy. To use such crass tactics was just not on.

Taschereau knew his time was up and he wouldn’t have his name or his family dragged through the mud any longer. It was recognized throughout the party that they needed a fresh face to give the Liberals a chance. So, Taschereau visited the lieutenant-governor, requested a dissolution and named his replacement: Adélard Godbout.

One of the stars of the last years of Taschereau’s government, Godbout was a good speaker with strong support in the rural parts of the province, particularly in eastern Quebec where he operated a farm and had taught agronomics before entering politics.

Godbout immediately tried to distance himself from the tainted Taschereau government, naming a new cabinet and presenting himself as the leader of a new, younger (he was 44) Liberal Party. There was certainly a contrast with the aged Taschereau. Godbout was not the patrician aristocrat his predecessor was. He was the descendant of humble farmers and, when in Quebec City during sittings of the legislature, he didn’t have a mansion on the Grande Allée to go home to like Taschereau did. He rented.

But Godbout could not make this distinction matter to voters. The Great Depression was attributed to the greed of heartless big industrialists and ‘trusts’ that held Quebecers back. These interests were seen (not entirely inaccurately) as being tied to the Liberals.

Duplessis, meanwhile, ran on cleaning up the administration. His prosecution of the Liberals in committee had given him tremendous publicity and cast him as the defender of the people.

Godbout and the Liberals knew they were the underdogs. Godbout, too, claimed he would run a clean administration and investigate any wrongdoings by the previous Liberal government. He took to the radio to present his platform, which including the electrification of rural areas and other measures to support agriculture. The party made nods in the direction of the ALN’s priorities in hopes of attracting the remnants of that party who had not gone over to the Union Nationale. But this campaign had little success. Nor did the assistance of the federal Liberal Party, which had won 60 of Quebec’s 65 seats in the 1935 federal election.

Duplessis just had the momentum on his side. There was a deep desire for change and he was the vehicle for it. Younger voters were behind him. The independent press was behind him. The Union Nationale held huge rallies, including one on August 12 at the Delorimier Stadium in Montreal, home of the Montreal Royals. The stadium’s 24,000 seats were packed and thousands more crowded the baseball field to hear Duplessis speak. Those who couldn’t get inside listened to him over loudspeakers outside the stadium.

The result was a landslide victory for the Union Nationale, which won 76 seats, an increase of 34 over the number of seats won by the Conservatives and ALN in 1935. The Liberals were reduced to just 14 seats.

Support for the UN was 56.9%, up nearly nine points from the combined performance of its predecessor parties. No party has since hit that level of support in a Quebec election.

The Liberals dropped more than seven points to just 39.4%. Godbout (by 20 votes) and five of his ministers went down to defeat. The Liberals were reduced to just three seats on the island of Montreal and eight in the surrounding countryside, with three more spread out in the Outaouais, Quebec City and the Bas-Saint-Laurent.

Duplessis’s victory ended 39 years of Liberal government, but the defeat wasn’t blamed on Godbout and he stayed on as leader. Duplessis’s first term as premier would prove short, as he called an early election in 1939 to challenge Mackenzie King’s prosecution of the Second World War. With the energetic support of the federal Liberal Party, this time Godbout was swept back into office.

It would provide Quebec with a short bout of progressive government (women finally got the vote and Godbout nationalized part of Quebec’s electricity system, among other achievements) before Duplessis and the Union Nationale returned to power in 1944. That election would kick-off his 16 years of nationalist, clergy-backed government that, in response, helped spark the Quiet Revolution.

1958 Quebec Liberal leadership

L’équipe du tonnerre gets its leader

May 31, 1958

It was a dark time for the Quebec Liberals. Since their defeat 14 years earlier in 1944 at the hands of Maurice Duplessis and his Union Nationale, the Liberals were doomed to opposition against a domineering and dominating — some said despotic — Duplessis government.

Unable to dislodge the UN in 1952 and 1956, Georges-Émile Lapalme was facing challenges from within his own Liberal Party. He called for a convention to be held in the spring of 1958 where he would put his own name forward for re-election as leader, but by the end of April he had decided he would not be in the running after all.

That’s because some names had already stepped forward, and Lapalme feared that the Liberals would be further weakened, and perhaps replaced, if the party went through a divisive leadership contest.

There was serious concern within Quebec Liberals ranks in the late 1950s that they would be supplanted by a new party. After failing to put up much of a fight against the Union Nationale, other groups were agitating for a third option. Jean Drapeau, former mayor of Montreal, was widely rumoured to be considering to take his Civic Action League into the provincial sphere. There were also musings from people within the intellectual left-wing press, including one Pierre Elliott Trudeau, that a new progressive movement should spring up to challenge the Liberals as the alternative to Duplessis.

The intention of Jean Lesage to run might have been the clincher for Lapalme. Lesage, who served as minister of northern affairs and natural resources in Louis St-Laurent’s federal cabinet, was one of the few Liberal MPs to survive the Diefenbaker landslide of March 1958. Still the MP for Montmagny–L’Islet, just east of Quebec City, Lesage was the immediate favourite to replace Lapalme. He accordingly adopted the theme of unity for his leadership campaign.

He faced two main challengers. One was René Hamel, the MLA for Saint-Maurice and a frequent target of Premier Duplessis, who represented the neighbouring riding of Trois-Rivières. Hamel was respected within the party as he had served as Lapalme’s replacement as leader when he was away due to ill-health. As the only candidate with a seat in the Legislative Assembly (as it would be called until 1968), Hamel ran as the safe choice.

Paul Gérin-Lajoie, a Montreal lawyer and constitutional expert who had acted as legal counsel on two royal commissions, offered a fresh face and a new direction. A decade younger than his rivals, Gérin-Lajoie focused on education in his campaign.

A fourth candidate was Aimé Fautaux, a Montreal dentist and brother of a former lieutenant-government. But he was largely unknown and didn’t mount a serious campaign.

Lapalme said he wouldn’t back any candidate, but he admitted that most of his organizers had gotten behind Lesage. He was seen as the front runner who might win on the first ballot, but would lose if had to go to multiple ballots.

On the Thursday and Friday nights before the Saturday leadership vote on May 31, 1958, the three main contenders were at the Château Frontenac in Quebec City to greet delegates arriving by train from Montreal. According to Pierre Laporte, writing in Le Devoir, their booths were “garnished” by “very pretty dames et demoiselles who distributed signs with the pictures of the candidates while discretely inviting them to vote for one or another candidate.”

There was some 1,800 delegates who attended the first night at the Agriculture Building on the exhibition grounds and upwards of 4,000 on the second night. Speaking on the Friday, Lapalme appealed for unity within the party and warned against anyone thinking of stating a new movement.

Louis St-Laurent was on the platform when the results were announced after 8 PM — and it was a landslide. Lesage took 72.2% of the 873 ballots cast, with Gérin-Lajoie finishing a distant second at 16.6% and Hamel third with 11.1%. Fauteux earned a single vote.

Making his way to the platform, Lesage was greeted by a five-minute standing ovation. In his speech, he once again hit on the issue of unity.

“Unity has been and will remain my objective,” he said. “I feel that it is absolutely essential to achieve victory over the dictatorship which for too long has dominated our province without any regard for freedom or justice.”

Speaking of those who were thinking of starting up their own movements, Lesage said that “if they intend to set up new political parties outside the existing ones they will be playing into the hands of the Union Nationale and will accomplish nothing except to keep Mr. Duplessis and his supporters in office.”

Unity of a sort was achieved that night when Gérin-Lajoie, seconded by Hamel, moved to make Lesage’s win unanimous.

Lesage was still without a seat, but he declined to run in the byelection scheduled just a few weeks later in the riding of Matane. A UN stronghold, Lesage called the byelection call a trap set by Duplessis to try to embarrass the new Liberal leader. He’d stay on the sidelines and wait until the the Quebec election of 1960 when he and his équipe du tonnerre would storm the Legislative Assembly, kicking off the Quiet Revolution that would change the course of the province’s history.

1962 Quebec election

Maîtres chez nous, maintenant

November 14, 1962

The 1960 election is rightly seen as a watershed in Quebec politics. Kickstarting the Quiet Revolution, the election saw the end of the Union Nationale government and its replacement with Jean Lesage’s reforming Liberals, hellbent on modernizing Quebec’s society and economy after decades of stagnation.

Only two years later, however, Lesage went back to the polls — this time to seek a mandate for what would be another transformative plan for Quebec’s economy.

The first two years of the Lesage government came with significant change to Quebec — public health insurance, reforms to education, the creation of new ministries and the appointment of a delegation to Paris.

But a divisive debate was emerging within the Quebec Liberal caucus over whether to nationalize the electricity system in the province. Hydro-Québec had been created decades before, but 11 private electricity companies still existed across Quebec. This led to higher electricity rates for some regions, a non-standardized system and small regional companies that didn’t have the capital to invest in new projects. Natural resources minister René Lévesque, a former journalist and star candidate for the Liberals in 1960, spearheaded a plan to nationalize all of the remaining electricity companies in Quebec.

Not everyone within cabinet agreed. Lévesque was on the verge of resigning from the government over the issue until Lesage decided he would support nationalization — and bring it to the people to seek a new mandate, as it had not been included in the Liberals’ 1960 platform.

Adopting the slogan “Maîtres chez nous”, the Liberals promised that nationalization would give them the “keys to the kingdom” and ensure the “economic emancipation” of French Canadians and secure prosperity for the province. In launching the campaign only two years into his four-year mandate, Lesage said the contest would be a fight between the people and the electricity trusts.

The early call also caught the opposition unprepared. The Union Nationale was not ready for an early election. It was still smarting and regrouping after its defeat in 1960, which ended 16 years of UN rule, much of it under the autocratic Maurice Duplessis.

Daniel Johnson (Sr., his son Daniel would later become premier as a Liberal) had only been leader since 1961, when he won a bitter leadership race against Jean-Jacques Bertrand. Divisions within the party between the older-style unionistes and the advocates for a more modern approach still rankled, and the Liberals had managed to eat some of the UN’s lunch by adopting the same sort of nationalist, autonomist stance that had been a hallmark of the Duplessis years — though without the UN’s appeals to tradition and the Roman Catholic Church.

Johnson wasn’t opposed to nationalization exactly (some within the party were adamantly against, others strongly in favour). He proposed the nationalization of two small regional companies and a referendum on nationalizing the rest, but it wasn’t the main plank of the UN platform. Instead, Johnson focused on pocketbook issues such as an increase to the minimum wage and attacked the Liberals’ tax increases. “Votez pour le bon sens” was their slogan.

(Interestingly, the 2025 federal election had shades of the 1962 campaign in Quebec, as Mark Carney appropriated “maîtres chez nous” for his campaign while Pierre Poilievre appealed to Quebecers to vote for “le gros bon sens”.)

The Union Nationale tried to tap into some of the discontent rural Quebecers had with a Liberal government perceived as urban and elite. Johnson chased after the voters who had supported the Créditistes in the 1962 federal election, adopting some of their language and touring their strongholds. Réal Caouette, the Quebec leader of Social Credit, did not oblige with an endorsement, however.

As the campaign wore on, it became clear that nationalization was not the main priority of voters. The Liberals also had to defend against charges that it was the first step toward socialism. The UN and its allies called Lévesque “Castro” and referred to the Liberal government as the Lévesque-Lesage government, making sure to put the name of his firebrand natural resources minister first.

The UN had taken some of the air out of the Liberals’ nationalization balloon by not ruling it out themselves. Many voters felt that, one way or another, nationalization would happen eventually. The Liberals broadened their pitch accordingly, focusing more on the overall record and program of the Liberal government — which was popular.

The last weeks of the campaign had two key moments, both of which played in the Liberals’ favour. One was the first televised leaders debate in Canadian history, pitting Jean Lesage against Daniel Johnson.

Hoping to learn a few things from John F. Kennedy’s presidential victory in 1960, some members of Lesage’s team travelled to Washington, D.C. for tips. Kennedy’s staff, according to Time Magazine, had four: “Do not shave before 5 p.m., eat only a light supper, bask six minutes under a sun lamp, wear no makeup.”

Lesage was more polished and prepared than Johnson and was seen to be the victor of the smoke-filled debate (both participants, as well as the moderator, took drags from their cigarettes between speaking).

The second key event might have sealed the deal for the Liberals. The Union Nationale was notorious for corruption and under-handed tactics during campaigns. So, when 4,000 forged voting slips were discovered at Montreal’s Windsor Station (thanks to an anonymous tip to police) in bags addressed to UN organizers in two Montreal ridings, it only reminded many Quebecers of why they had voted the UN out in the first place. A few UN officials were arrested and the party claimed that they had been framed. The trial would take place after the election, but the damage was already done.

The Liberals won another majority government, increasing their majority from 51 seats in 1960 to 63 seats in 1962, with most of their gains coming in Montreal and in the surrounding suburbs. The party’s share of the vote jumped five points to 56.4%. Lesage (and Lévesque) had his mandate for nationalization.

But the Union Nationale nevertheless formed a robust opposition with 31 seats and 42.2% of the vote. They even flipped a few ridings, particularly in some of the rural areas of the province that would have benefited most from the lower electricity rates nationalization would bring in.

Post-election studies suggested that nationalization might not have been the election-winning issue that Lesage had hoped. While it was the focus of attention by the media and the Lesage campaign, there were more indications that the Liberals had been re-elected simply because they were a popular government with a record that voters supported. Polling suggested that the Liberals handily won the vote of Quebecers who supported nationalization, but they also easily won the vote of those who were unsure about it.

In the end, the Liberals’ base of younger, middle class and urban voters carried the day for the party. The Quebec that wanted modernization backed the Liberals, while studies showed that the UN base came from the traditional, religious, rural and working class segments of the population. These voters and the Union Nationale would have one last hurrah in 1966 before fading away for good, but after the decades of the so-called “Grande Noirceur” voters were ready to get behind the vision for a modern, secular Quebec.

1970 Quebec Liberal leadership

The Quebec Liberals choose a technocrat

January 17, 1970

The political winds were shifting in Quebec at the end of the 1960s. The Union Nationale had returned to power under Daniel Johnson in 1966, but his death two years later foreshadowed the impending fate of the party. Jean-Jacques Bertrand, by all accounts a decent-enough man but a bad politician, could not fill the shoes left empty by Johnson.

There was turmoil on the opposition benches, too. The leadership of Jean Lesage, who engineered the Liberals’ historic victory in 1960, was under serious strain following his defeat in 1966. The party had split over the issue of Quebec’s independence, with René Lévesque, once a star cabinet minister in the Lesage government, leaving to form what would eventually become the Parti Québécois in 1968. By the end of the next year, the pressure on Lesage to go was too great, and he resigned the leadership in 1969.

But who would replace him? Two of Lesage’s old cabinet ministers were clearly interested in the job. There was Pierre Laporte, the MNA for Chambly and the house leader in the National Assembly. There was also Claude Wagner, a Montreal MNA and the former justice minister.

Both in their 40s, the two were nevertheless seen as a holdover from the Lesage years. There was an appetite for something new, something modern, and the party’s establishment recognized the need for a third option on the ballot, even going so far as to commission a Chicago-based polling firm to gauge Quebecers’ opinions on who the ideal leader would be.

The person they described — young, educated, focused on economic development and competent administration — sounded a lot like Robert Bourassa. Just 36 years old, Bourassa was first elected in a Montreal riding in the 1966 election. Seen as an “intellectual” (his black-rimmed glasses completed the look), Bourassa was an ambitious and rising figure within the Quebec Liberal Party, even if he wasn’t nearly as well known as either Wagner or Laporte. But he had the party’s establishment behind him, the tacit endorsement of Lesage himself and plenty of financial resources — his wife’s family was one of the richest in Quebec.

Bourassa’s campaign was professional, organized and well-funded. It could afford to send out mailers to all 70,000 members of the party (the other candidates didn’t get their hands on the list) to gauge his support and send Bourassa around the province, meeting party members and delegates. When the convention, held at the Colisée de Québec, approached, his team reserved 2,000 hotel and motel rooms across Quebec City. They secured school buses to shuttle their supporters to and from the convention grounds, covering the fines that were meted out when the school buses got on the highways prohibited for these kinds of vehicles. Airtime on the local television station was booked to show continuous footage of Bourassa’s tour of the province, and his team in the Colisée was equipped with binoculars and radios to keep an eye on delegates and communicate with one another.

Wagner and Laporte felt that the campaign was being rigged against them. But they were also unable to drum up much support. Rumours of Laporte’s relationship with an organized crime boss limited his appeal. Wagner’s tough law-and-order message resonated in rural areas and among those who wanted to take a firm approach to the terrorist bombings of the FLQ, but turned off the youthful elements that were flooding into the party thanks to Bourassa.

Bourassa kept his message focused on the economy. He wasn’t a great orator with flair. He didn’t attack the other candidates or spend much of his time discussing Quebec’s place within Canada. For him, it was all about economic growth, and how economic growth would reduce Quebec’s social tensions and help solve its problems. After the tumultuous years of the Quiet Revolution and then the Union Nationale’s difficult relationship with the federal government (its slogan in 1966 was “Égalité ou indépendence”), a technocratic, economy-focused administration sounded good to a lot of Quebec Liberals — and, it would turn out, Quebecers in general.

The outcome was a solid first-ballot victory for Bourassa. Hal Winter, writing in the Montreal Gazette, described how the announcement of the results unfolded:

Throughout the early evening, the supporters of all three candidates kept up their continuous cheering and chanting, with the Wagner supporters leading the way.

The final round of the drama, which took [3.5] hours from the start of the voting until the results were announced by convention organizers, closed at 8:15 p.m.

“Pierre Laporte — 288 votes.”

The announcement was greeted by the faintest ripple of polite applause.

Then came the words: “Claude Wagner — 455…”

A deafening yell arose from the Bourassa corner, where the mounting tension was apparent on the faces of backers…

The cheering grew frenzied when it was calculated that Mr. Bourassa had topped Mr. Wagner by a crashing 388 votes and Mr. Laporte by 555.

As Mr. Bourassa, accompanied by his wife Andree and his son Francois [sic], sat stunned under the hail of handshakes and congratulations, organizer Jean Prieur leaped into the air, unable to repress his triumph. And veteran campaigner Alcide Courcy, tough-minded chief organizer of the Liberal Party, openly wept.

Bourassa wouldn’t get much time to savour his victory. The Union Nationale was approaching the four-year mark in office and Bertrand sent Quebecers to the polls in April.

The result was a sweeping victory for the Quebec Liberals and their young leader, though primarily due to the Parti Québécois (and the Créditistes) eating away at the Union Nationale’s support, rather than the win being attributable to a move toward the Liberals. Wagner would not be among the 72 Liberals elected, though, as he stepped away from politics (briefly, he’d later be elected as a PC MP and would vie for that party’s leadership in 1976). Laporte would be a member of Bourassa’s first cabinet but the year would end on a sombre note, with the October Crisis and the execution of Laporte by the FLQ.

In January 1970, that was all yet to come. With his victory in the Liberal leadership race, Robert Bourassa had taken the first step toward his long-held dream: to become the premier of Quebec.

1976 Quebec election

“Quelque chose comme un grande peuple”

November 15, 1976

It was an electoral victory that shocked nearly everyone in the country — including René Lévesque, the man who led the Parti Québécois to government for the first time in 1976. But, in retrospect, the PQ’s decisive defeat of Robert Bourassa’s Liberals was perhaps not so surprising after all.

Bourassa and the Liberals had been in office since 1970, when the party defeated the re-animated corpse of the Union Nationale, itself then led by an incumbent premier who, for the third time in the UN’s history, had to step into the shoes of a recently-deceased leader.

That election marked the arrival of the PQ on the provincial scene. Though it finished fourth in seats, the PQ placed second in the provincewide vote. Catching his opponents unprepared, Bourassa secured a huge majority government in the early 1973 election. The PQ finished second in both seats and votes that time, but the Liberals’ scale of victory was so great that the PQ formed the official opposition with only six MNAs, Lévesque not among them. Surrounding the rump opposition were 102 Liberals on the governing benches.

Three years later, Bourassa was contemplating another early election call. A few factors pointed in the Liberals’ favour. The péquistes were, as had often been the case, fighting amongst themselves. Montreal had just hosted the Olympics and the huge Baie-James hydroelectric project was still underway. Relations with the federal government of Pierre Trudeau were testy — the prime minister had dismissively called Bourassa a “hot dog eater”, referring to an awkward Maclean’s magazine cover featuring a posed photo of Bourassa having a hot dog for lunch — and Trudeau was openly discussing the possibility of repatriating the constitution without the approval of the provinces. Bourassa felt that could be an issue he could fight a campaign over, contrasting his defense of Quebec’s constitutional demands against the PQ’s reckless drive for independence.

But it was a risk. Bourassa was no longer very popular in his province. The polls were giving the PQ a sizable lead. The economy wasn’t great, unemployment was high. The Baie-James project, as important as it would be for Quebec’s future prosperity, was hugely over budget and the site of violent labour unrest. The Official Languages Act, better known as Bill 22, had angered anglophones and left many francophones unsatisfied. And the stench of corruption wafted around the Quebec Liberal Party.

The PQ had also adopted a new approach.

Recognizing that Quebecers were wary of the PQ’s sovereignty-association plan, the Parti Québécois abandoned its promise to start the process toward independence merely after the election of a PQ government. It instead pledged to hold a referendum. Lévesque talked less about sovereignty and more about the Liberals’ corruption, the PQ’s plans for progressive social legislation and reform of political financing. While the Liberals adopted the unimaginative slogan “non aux séparatistes” (“no to the separatists”), the PQ campaigned on “on a besoin d’un vrai gouvernement” (“we need a true/real government”).

Once the campaign got underway, it was clear that the Liberals were in trouble and that their efforts to make the election about the PQ’s separatism weren’t working. During a radio debate between Lévesque and Bourassa, the Liberal leader’s attempts to turn the discussion onto sovereignty were unsuccessful as Lévesque tore into the Liberals’ shady record on fundraising. Opinion appeared to be turning against Bourassa and a poll conducted two weeks before election day gave the PQ a lead of 12 points.

Lévesque and the Parti Québécois were cautious, though, having been disappointed in the previous two elections. While crowds in areas that had never before backed the PQ were greeting Lévesque (who, with strong grassroots fundraising, could finally afford to fly in a plane around the province), Liberal candidates kept their distance from Bourassa. The wind was blowing strongly against the Liberals, and the last-minute attempts to ratchet up fears of separation had little impact.

Even though Lévesque wouldn’t let any of his close associates talk seriously of victory and Bourassa kept up appearances, hoping to save as much of the furniture as possible, it was clear by the campaign’s end that the PQ had a real shot at government.

The scale of the PQ’s victory surprised many, Lévesque included. The party went from six MNAs to 71, jumping 11 points to 41.4% of the vote. Lévesque, after two previous failed attempts, finally won his own seat, one of many the PQ won in the suburbs around the island of Montreal. The French-speaking parts of the city went to the PQ as well, as did the Côte-Nord, the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, the Bas-Saint-Laurent and most of the Mauricie, Abitibi and around Quebec City.

At the PQ’s victory rally in the Paul-Sauvé Arena, Lévesque had to improvise his speech — he had written two ahead of election day, but a victory speech wasn’t one of them. “On n'est pas un petit peuple, on est peut-être quelque chose comme un grand peuple,” (“we’re not a small people, we’re maybe something like a great people”) Lévesque shouted to the delirious crowd.

More breathtaking than the PQ’s gains were the Liberals’ losses. The party dropped 76 seats and 21 points, falling to just 26 MNAs and 33.8% of the vote. Half of the Liberals’ remaining seats were in Montreal and Laval, and the Liberals were lucky even to win those heavily-anglophone ridings. Some voters upset with Bill 22 voted instead for the Union Nationale in what proved to be a short-lived revival of the party. The UN won 11 seats, primarily in the Eastern Townships and the Centre-du-Québec, but also one on the West Island, where William Shaw was elected in Pointe-Claire.

Also elected was Camil Samson, leader of the Crédististes, in Rouyn-Noranda, and Fabien Roy, a former Socred booted from the party, who won in Beauce-Sud under the breakaway Parti national populaire banner.

Headlines the next day carried the message from Trudeau that Lévesque had won a mandate to govern, not to separate, a message that was echoed by Joe Clark and Ed Broadbent, national leaders of the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats. Many editorialists in the province had a similar read of the results, tying the PQ’s victory to a rejection of the Liberals, not a rejection of Canada.

Bourassa resigned as leader of the Quebec Liberals (though he would be back). The Union Nationale and Créditistes also disappeared from the political landscape over the next few years, with only the PQ and Liberals winning seats in the next election.

Lévesque and the Parti Québécois would focus on governing for the next few years, putting off the referendum on sovereignty-association until May 1980, when 60% of Quebecers voted for sticking with Canada. But Lévesque’s plan to emphasize governance over independence in 1976 proved its mettle when it was invoked again in the 1981 election. Taking a referendum off the table entirely, the PQ won its biggest electoral victory ever.

1981 Quebec election

René Lévesque re-elected after referendum defeat

April 13, 1981

The election of a Parti Québécois government in 1976 was a watershed moment for Quebec, in some ways the culmination of the Quiet Revolution and in many ways changing the course of the province’s political history.

But after the rejection of the sovereignty-association option put forward by René Lévesque’s government in 1980, the PQ appeared to be adrift. With independence now off the table for the foreseeable future, what was the raison d’être of the PQ?

With the main project of the PQ’s first mandate ending in failure, Lévesque delayed the calling of the next election into 1981 — approaching the five-year term limit. Speculation that an election call was imminent was rife from the start of the year, and on the night of March 12, 1981, Lévesque announced to the National Assembly that it had been dissolved, and an election would finally be held on April 13.

From the outset, Lévesque promised that another referendum would not be held in a second PQ mandate, but many people believed that his party would not be given that chance anyway — especially those within the Quebec Liberal Party.

Now led by Claude Ryan since 1978, the Liberals were confident that victory would be a mere formality. They had won all 11 byelections held since 1976, picking up seats from the governing PQ but also the faltering Union Nationale.

That former hegemon of Quebec politics was a shadow of its former self, now under the leadership of Roch LaSalle, a Progressive Conservative MP. Support for the UN had collapsed when it was removed from office for the last time in 1970 and the party had nearly slipped away entirely after failing to win a seat in 1973. It managed a minor comeback in 1976 with 11 seats.

It was quickly apparent, though, that the Union Nationale was not going to be able to do nearly as well again. Polls put its support in single-digits, as Quebec’s politics evolved into the two-party system pitting the sovereigntist Parti Québécois against the federalist Liberals, a dynamic that would define the province’s politics throughout the 1980s, 1990s and into the 2000s.

Despite the victory of the NON side in the 1980 referendum with 60% of the vote, the PQ did have some successes to point to during its first term in office. The province’s economy was out-performing Ontario’s and the PQ had provided a relatively clean administration.

The Charter of the French Language, better known as Bill 101, was certainly divisive and controversial, but was popular among francophones. The PQ had brought in public automobile insurance and instituted new political financing laws that were well ahead of its time, banning corporate donations and limiting donations by individuals decades before other jurisdictions in Canada.

The PQ took this record to voters with good effect. Writing later in his autobiography, Lévesque said: “Of the seven election campaigns that I’ve been through, this one was by far the easiest … People were visibly happy to see us. Did this warmth hide something like an intention to console us? Maybe a wave of remorse had installed itself in many hearts after the sad [referendum] night of 20 May 1980.”

Ryan’s Liberals, arrogant and overconfident, waged a front runner’s campaign. But the bubble burst when a couple of mid-campaign polls showed the Liberals trailing the PQ by a significant margin — and on track for defeat.

The Liberal leader’s style was not going over well with voters. David Thomas of Maclean’s painted a vivid portrait.

His craggy head pokes through the doorway and scans the dining room like an aged tortoise hungry for an inattentive fly. Then, gnarled hand cocked for action, Claude Ryan strikes at the nearest table where surprised lunchers suddenly must shift from picking the bones of a barbecued chicken to grasping the candidate’s insistent claws. There’s no band, but from a cassette recorder slung over the shoulder of an accompanying aide crackles the tinny Liberal campaign theme which even Ryan’s chief communications adviser, Gilles Liboiron, admits “has a depressing effect on audiences.”

As the campaign turned for his party, Ryan undermined his own credibility when he announced some spending promises after previously criticizing the PQ for its deficit spending.

The campaign ended as a mirror image of how it had begun, with the PQ confidently cruising to victory and the Liberals desperately trying to avoid defeat. But the tables would not turn.

For a moment, though, it appeared that the Union Nationale, of all parties, had returned from the dead. With strikes impacting coverage of election night by Radio-Canada, all eyes were turned to TVA and Radio-Québec, who had teamed up to use a new computer system to report the election results.

It was a mistake.

Claude Ryan was reported to be barely registering a pulse in his own riding as the Union Nationale stormed ahead. A Marxist-Leninist candidate was leading in Montreal and another was declared elected in Quebec City, while UN candidates throughout the province were running in first.

It took a long time before the TV presenters realized something was going wrong (though that didn’t stop them from first trying to explain the surprising turn of events). Lévesque writes that he had given up on the French-language channels and had to turn to English-language media to find out he had, in fact, won.

The PQ took 80 seats, nine more than the party had captured in 1976 (the electoral map had increased from 110 to 122 ridings). Support for the party was up six percentage points to 49%, which still ranks as the best election performance of the party in its history.

The PQ won eastern Montreal, most of Laval and the suburbs north and south of the metropolis, captured all but one seat in Quebec City and gained seats from the Union Nationale in central Quebec.

The Liberals were also up in both seats and support, gaining 16 seats and 12 points to end with 42 seats and 46% of the vote. That three-point gap between them and the PQ was much smaller than the polls had indicated, but the inefficiency of the Liberal vote meant the party had only about half as many seats as the PQ.

The Liberals swept the West Island, but most of their seats elsewhere in the province were limited to the Outaouais and the Eastern Townships. Ryan would resign the leadership and be replaced by Robert Bourassa, returning as Liberal leader after governing the province from 1970 to 1976.

LaSalle and the Union Nationale, in the end, did not win a single seat and took only 4% of the vote. This would effectively be the end of Maurice Duplessis’s old party for good, and LaSalle would return to federal politics.

The election victory would be a last high point for Lévesque, as his second term in office was tumultuous. The economy took a turn for the worse, unemployment surged and there was significant labour strife in the province. Lévesque would be out-manoeuvred (or betrayed, depending on your point of view) by Pierre Trudeau and the provincial premiers in the repatriation of the constitution, a document that still does not have Quebec’s signature.

The arrival of Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government led Lévesque to pursue a more collaborative approach with Ottawa (the so-called beau risque) that cleaved the Parti Québécois in two, divisions that led to Lévesque’s resignation as premier and PQ leader in 1985. The party would be swept out of office later that year by Bourassa in one of the Liberals’ biggest victories of the modern era.

A far cry from the PQ’s heights, and Liberal lows, of 1981.

1998 Quebec election

Bouchard wins — and loses

November 30, 1998

In retrospect, the Quebec election of 1998 was perhaps one of the most important in the modern history of the province. It effectively closed the door on another referendum campaign and set the province on its current course, where issues related to language, culture and the economy have been more important than the old battles between sovereigntists and federalists.

But that was yet to come. In 1998, emotions were still raw.

The preceding decade had been a tumultuous one. The province had been at the centre of the constitutional negotiations that led to the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, whose failures briefly pushed support for independence to over 60%. Then, the federal landscape of Quebec’s politics was transformed with the creation of the Bloc Québécois and its rise to official opposition status in 1993.

The Parti Québécois’s election victory in 1994 put Quebec on course for the 1995 referendum on independence, which the NON forces won with just 50.6% support. The result cost Quebec its premier, as Jacques Parizeau resigned in favour of Bloc leader Lucien Bouchard, who took over in 1996.

When Parizeau had faltered as head of the OUI forces in the early stages of the referendum campaign, Bouchard stepped in to shore up their fortunes. His near-death experience with a bout of flesh-eating disease that cost him his leg, and his leadership during the ice storm, had given him almost mythical status in Quebec by 1998.

With Bouchard’s pledge to put Quebec back on the path to another referendum, the beleaguered Quebec Liberals were searching for a savior that could save the party — and Canada.

They thought they had their saviour in Jean Charest, then leader of the Progressive Conservatives in Ottawa.

Though the PCs were still reeling from their thrashing in 1993, Charest had been building up his resume. He was a key player in the NON side of the 1995 referendum and had led the PCs back to some respectability with 20 seats, including five in Quebec, in the 1997 election. He was reluctant to give up on his dreams of becoming prime minister, but Charest was finally convinced to make the leap to the provincial sphere as head of the Quebec Liberals.

It wasn’t an easy jump for a Tory who had spent over a decade fighting federal Liberals, but the Quebec Liberals were an awkward coalition of federalists that included Liberals, Conservatives, anglophones and francophones, united in their opposition to the Parti Québécois and its independence project.

Bouchard and Charest had plenty of history as key Quebec members of Brian Mulroney’s cabinet, and Bouchard did not hesitate to question Charest’s Quebec bonafides. He claimed that a vote for Charest, the former PC leader, would be a vote for Jean Chrétien, the Liberal prime minister who was deeply unpopular in nationalist circles. But the arrival of Charest had the effect Quebec Liberals were hoping for, pushing the party into the lead in provincial polls.

Bouchard had adopted an ambiguous position on another referendum, promising one would be held once “winning conditions” were met. With polls showing Quebecers against holding another referendum so soon after the last one, this was a risky position for Bouchard to take. But he, too, was leading a shaky coalition of sovereigntists united around the idea of independence.

Charest adopted an ambitious platform of tax cuts and laissez-faire economics that pushed the Liberals to the right, earning him comparisons to Mike Harris and his “Common Sense Revolution” in Ontario. He argued that the sovereignty debate was holding Quebec back and preventing the province from attracting investment.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1998, polls gave the Quebec Liberals around 50% support. Once the campaign started, though, the polls tightened. The Liberals weren’t helped when comments made by Chrétien suggested that the door for reforms to Quebec’s constitutional status within Canada was shut.

The campaign featured lots of debate over policy, whether it be on the economy or health care, where cuts made by the PQ made them vulnerable. But the close race in the polls masked Bouchard’s biggest advantage — his 20-point lead among francophones.

With the trends looking worse for the Liberals in the final stretch, the party turned its focus away from policy and toward the spectre of another referendum, emblazoning the slogan “No More Referendums” on their campaign bus. It looked like an act of desperation, as polls put the Liberals five points back across the province — the kind of gap that would produce a crushing PQ majority. But it might have worked.

The results demonstrated just how polarizing the referendum question still was. Little changed from the last election in 1994. The Parti Québécois won again, but it was not the resounding victory Bouchard hoped would kick-start another drive for independence.

The PQ won 76 seats, one fewer than they had in 1994. Their popular support fell 1.8 points to 42.9%, putting them just behind the Liberals. With a concentration of support in anglophone ridings, Charest was able to win the Liberals the most votes with 43.5% but the party nevertheless finished with only 48 seats, a gain of one.

Just a few seats changed hands, the Liberals flipping Anjou in Montreal, Limoilou in Quebec City and Bonaventure on the Gaspé Peninsula, along with the riding of Sherbrooke, which Charest himself wrested away from the PQ.

The PQ, meanwhile, flipped the Liberal seats of Bertrand (Laurentides), Frontenac (Eastern Townships) and the Îles-de-la-Madeleine riding.

The results were far better than expected for the Liberals, whose crushing defeat was widely predicted and so would end Charest’s political career. Instead, he won a seat in the National Assembly and a moral victory in topping the province wide vote, a feat that halted Bouchard’s plans for another referendum.

One of the other surprises of the night was the performance of Mario Dumont’s Action Démocratique du Québec, a conservative nationalist party that pushed for greater autonomy, but not independence, for Quebec. Dumont won just a single seat again (his own), but by providing a middle way he increased his party’s share of the vote by 5.8 points to nearly 12%. He wouldn’t be sitting on the opposition benches by himself for much longer.

What was supposed to be an important step towards the birth of an independent Quebec turned out instead to be the last step for Bouchard, who would resign as premier before the next election. Charest would win that vote in 2003 and Dumont would emerge as the new leader of the official opposition in 2007, signaling the first swing Quebec’s nationalists would have away from the old “national question” to the issues surrounding identity that dominated Quebec’s nationalist politics for the next 15 years.

2008 Quebec election

Jean Charest gambles and wins

December 8, 2008

After four years in office, the Quebec Liberals under Jean Charest were reduced to a slim minority government in 2007 as Mario Dumont’s Action Démocratique du Québec made big inroads at the expense of both the Liberals and the Parti Québécois under André Boisclair.

But it wasn’t long before support for the inexperienced ADQ tanked. As the Liberals moved back into the lead in the polls, Charest claimed he needed “two hands on the wheel” in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis and pulled the plug on his minority government less than 20 months into its second mandate.

Though the ADQ was the incumbent official opposition, the Liberals’ primary opponent was once again the PQ, now under the leadership of former cabinet minister Pauline Marois.

By the end of the campaign, the main issue wasn’t what was happening in Quebec, but rather what was happening in Ottawa. When Stéphane Dion, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe teamed up to try to bring down Stephen Harper’s government, the Conservatives went hard against the coalition of “socialists and separatists”. The rhetoric sparked a blowback in Quebec, where some voters were put-off by the attacks on the democratically-elected Bloc Québécois MPs.

It might have helped boost the PQ a little in the last days, but it also made the case for Charest about the necessity of having a stable majority government in Quebec City to avoid Ottawa-style shenanigans. When the results came in, Charest got what he asked for.

The Liberals picked up 18 seats, winning 66 with 42% of the vote, a gain of nine points since Charest’s 2007 performance. But the Parti Québécois also rebounded, gaining 15 seats to finish with 51 and 35% of ballots cast. Both Charest and Marois would stay on as leaders, facing off once more in 2012.

But Dumont was a casualty. He was re-elected in his Rivière-du-Loup riding, of course, but his party dropped 34 seats, ending with just seven and 16% of the vote. Dumont, who had spent years as the party’s sole MNA since its creation in 1994, resigned on election night.

While the election might have seemed like the return of the two traditional political rivals in Quebec, it actually turned out to be an election that led to the rise of two other parties.

With the resignation of Dumont, the ADQ became directionless. This left an opening for a former PQ cabinet minister named François Legault to start his own centre-right party, the Coalition Avenir Québec, into which the ADQ dissolved itself.

And 2008 marked the first seat win for a small left-wing party, Québec Solidaire.

Over a decade later, the Quebec Liberals were struggling for relevancy outside of its traditional anglophone base as the CAQ gobbled up its francophone vote, while the Parti Québécois was desperately trying to avoid being supplanted by Québec Solidaire.

It’s the kind of thing that would have seemed unthinkable in 2008.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections Quebec, the National Assembly and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• Quebec Before Duplessis: The Political Career of Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, by Bernard L. Vigod

• Godbout, by Jean-Guy Genest

• La Révolution dans l’ordre: Une histoire du duplessisme, by Jonathan Livernois

• Attendez que je me rappelle…, by René Lévesque

• Honoré Mercier et son temps, Tome 1 by Robert Rumilly

• Lomer Gouin: Entre liberalisme et nationalisme, by Mathieu Pontbriand

• Robert Bourassa, by Georges-Hébert Germain

• René Lévesque: Un homme et son rêve, by Pierre Godin

• Patrician Liberal: The Public and Private Life of Sir Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, by J.I. Little

• Alexander Mackenzie: Clear Grit, by Dale C. Thomson

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

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1905 Saskatchewan election

Saskatchewan’s first election

December 13, 1905

When the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were created by Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberal government in 1905, it was a foregone conclusion that a Liberal would be appointed Alberta’s first premier. It wasn’t so obvious who would be the first premier of Saskatchewan.

Frederick Haultain had been the premier of the Northwest Territories (which included modern Alberta and Saskatchewan at the time) since 1897. But he had been at odds with the Laurier government when it came to drawing up the new map in Western Canada. He wanted one gigantic province called Buffalo to be created, and he wanted this province to have greater provincial powers related to resources and education than Laurier was ready to provide.

Worst of all, though, was that Haultain was a Conservative.

Though he tried to administer the territory in a non-partisan way, he had aligned himself with the federal Tories on a number of occasions. That was enough to tip the balance in favour of a Liberal. That would be Walter Scott, an MP who had been chosen to lead the Saskatchewan Liberals into their first provincial election campaign.

“The new Premier was a prominent Western Liberal,” according to The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs for 1905, “a member of Parliament for Assiniboia since 1900; a journalist by profession and only 38 years of age; and President of a Company owning the Regina Leader and the Moose Jaw Times. Personally, he was a man of capacity and had been recognized for some years as a coming politician.”

He didn’t have the experience or the reputation of Haultain, though. Sticking to his non-partisanship, Haultain formed the Provincial Rights Party. What Haultain saw as a party fighting for respect for the constitution Scott termed a “party of agitation and law suits.”

Both the Liberals and the Provincial Rights Party adopted similar planks in their platform related to the ownership of public utilities and the building of railroads and schools. But Haultain’s platform also included demands for full provincial autonomy equal to that of other provinces. To do so, Haultain would take the Dominion government to “the highest Court of the Empire."

“The issues involved are so momentous to the future well-being of the country,” stated the Provincial Rights Party platform, “that it would be unpatriotic and detrimental to the future advancement of the Province and country to entrust their decision to the result of a contest on Dominion party lines.”

Newly installed as premier in September, Scott set up his government and delayed the election until after Alberta went to the polls (the fault of the harvest, of course). The Liberals’ sweeping victory in that province helped build momentum for the party in Saskatchewan, and in the meantime Scott used the opportunity to tour the province by train and buggy, delivering speeches.

The Liberals had much working in favour, including a good slate of speakers, an effective organization, federal patronage and that “everybody was feeling satisfied over the bountiful harvest and good times.”

Scott made his ministers run in difficult ridings in order to help tip the balance in the Liberals’ favour, and attacked Haultain and the Provincial Rights Party as more concerned with litigation and constitutional matters than improving the lives of Saskatchewan people. The Liberals, according to their slogan, were for “Peace, Progress and Prosperity.”

The legislation that had created Saskatchewan, Scott argued, was “not only passably good, but abundantly good; that is to say they are practically wise, constitutionally sound, and financially, especially, favourable.”

And while Scott had obtained promises from Laurier that the Canadian Northern Railway would continue to Regina and that the federal government recognized its responsibility in building a railroad to Hudson’s Bay, Haultain, according to the Liberals, was in the pocket of the hated Canadian Pacific Railway, which had been exempted from paying taxes to the local government.

Against this barrage, Haultain had less to work with. He didn’t have the same roster of prominent speakers and his organization was not nearly as strong, though he did point to Liberals running as Provincial Rights candidates as proof of his non-partisanship.

A divisive issue on the campaign trail was the existence of separate denominational schools, and that the Autonomy Act that created the province had mandated they be allowed in Saskatchewan. Haultain, while not explicitly coming out against separate (and predominantly Roman Catholic) schools, said that it should be up to Saskatchewan, not Ottawa, to decide how its educational system should work.

That got him support from Protestants and Orangemen, but not Archbishop Langevin of St. Boniface, whose territory included the new province. He endorsed Scott and attacked Haultain. In a tit-for-tat exchange of public letters, Haultain charged that “the Educational Clauses of the Autonomy Bill are the result of a conspiracy, conceived at Ottawa, against the rights and liberties of the Province and now being aided and abetted by Mr. Walter Scott and his political associates”

The result of the campaign was tight, with the Liberals winning 52.3% of the vote against 47.5% for the Provincial Rights Party. The seat results were more lopsided, however, with Haultain’s party winning nearly all of its nine seats in the southeastern corner of Saskatchewan. The Liberals won most of the rest.

Though 17 Liberals were declared elected, one of those victories was rescinded after the fact. Peter Tyerman was declared the winner in the riding of Prince Albert, beating the Provincial Rights candidate Samuel Donaldson by 93 votes. But there was a problem — 151 of Tyerman’s votes had come from three poll divisions, all of which delivered zero voters for Donaldson. A subsequent investigation found that those votes were “bogus”, as “there was not sufficient (if any) persons entitled to vote at said Polls Nos. 24, 25 and 26, to offset the majority of the valid votes cast at the election for Mr. Donaldson in the polls which were validly held.” Two years after Donaldson had won, he was able to take his seat in the legislature.

The Liberals lamented that Haultain and his supports had tried to “arouse class and religious prejudice” during the campaign — not a wild claim when one of the slogans became “Haultain or Langevin”. The Conservatives blamed corruption and “the misuse of naturalization papers”.

Haultain would stay on to try to lead the Provincial Rights Party to power in future elections, but when he failed and resigned so did the pretense of non-partisanship. Once Haultain was gone, the Provincial Rights Party became the Saskatchewan Conservative Party, to the shock of no one.

The 1905 election would be the first of Scott’s three victories as leader of the Liberals, and the first of a string of Liberal victories that would see the party govern Saskatchewan for nearly all of its first four decades as a province.

1908 Saskatchewan election

Walter Scott goes 2-0

August 14, 1908

Early elections in Saskatchewan and Alberta were relatively easy ones for the Liberals to win. Voters in those new provinces had never had a government of any other hue. Being an incumbent with no predecessor had its perks.

Walter Scott was one of those Liberals in Saskatchewan. Appointed the first premier while Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals ruled in Ottawa, Scott won the first election in 1905 with ease. As the province continued to develop and grow, things were going well enough that Scott called his second election ahead of schedule, dissolving the legislature on July 20, 1908.

The province had grown so much that the legislature had increased in size from 25 to 41 seats. It was one of the reasons used to justify the early election call. Another reason, which Scott denied, was that Laurier was planning an election for later in 1908, and wanted to gauge public opinion in Western Canada.

One of those making that charge was Frederick Haultain, still leader of the Provincial Rights Party. Leading what was the Conservative Party in all but name, Haultain had run the territorial administration before the creation of the province. In 1905, he was a man with a governing record. By 1908, he was just an opposition leader.

But “his work during a period in Opposition had retained the respect of the public,” according to the Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs, “his reputation for honesty and high character was general, his faculty of speech excellent, with just that touch of humour which goes far in a politician.”

On the other hand, “Scott was a shrewd and aggressive politician, thoroughly versed in Western ways and political conditions, a man of the people, personally popular, and in close touch with the powers at Ottawa.”

Scott went to the people with a program for more support for the agricultural sector, free textbooks for students and the continued extension of railway lines and the province’s telephone network. He was pitched as “the man who does things”, a Liberal who could work closely with Laurier’s government in Ottawa to deliver for Saskatchewan.

The premier also wasn’t afraid to throw a little mud.

In Regina, he attacked the Provincial Rights candidate H.W. Laird. “I make the absolute charge the Mr. Laird was a grafter when he was in the [municipal] Council;” he said, “and let him take me to Court, I will prove the charge.”

Laird did, taking Scott to court over charges of libel. He staked his local campaign on winning the case, saying he would resign if Scott’s charges were later proven to be true. The trial was held only after the election. It was all moot, anyway — Laird lost his bid for a seat, as well as the libel suit.

Both Scott and Haultain mounted extensive speaking tours across the province. The Provincial Rights leader admitted he couldn’t get the same deal out of Laurier as Scott could, but suggested that Saskatchewan voters would be smart to put his party in power in case Robert Borden’s Conservatives formed government after the next federal election.

Haultain was also big on railway development, wanting to build a government-owned railway to Hudson’s Bay with the help of Alberta and Manitoba. He also promised “no direct Provincial taxation except on corporations and railway earnings and on speculators’ lands in unorganized districts”, and was far more supportive of government ownership of things like telephones and grain elevators than Scott’s Liberals.

The message to voters from the Provincial Rights Party was a simple one, as laid out by the Regina Standard: “Vote for Haultain and the Hudson’s Bay Railway—to be built as a Western enterprise and paid out of our natural wealth. A vote for Scott means that a private company will own the road, but the people will pay for it.”

It was a message that was having some resonance amongst voters, and the Liberals were nervous they might lose a few seats.

The expanded legislature masked what were some Liberal losses. Though the party won 27 seats, an increase of 11 over the last election, they dropped 1.5 points in popular support and saw two key cabinet ministers, William Motherwell and James Calder, go down to defeat in their own ridings.

(They’d find their way back to the legislature when two successful Saskatchewan Liberals resigned their seats to run for Laurier’s Liberals later that year.)

The Provincial Rights Party saw a small increase in its vote to 48% and won five more seats, finishing with 14. Three of their gains came at the expense of Liberals in the northeast, along with rural ridings north and south of Regina.

But another majority government for Scott and the Liberals meant the end for Haultain and the so-called Provincial Rights Party. It adopted the Conservative name after Haultain stepped down as leader, though it didn’t improve its electoral record. The Liberals would keep winning in Saskatchewan for another 20 years.

1917 Saskatchewan election

Passing the torch in Saskatchewan

June 26, 1917

Over the first few years of Saskatchewan’s history, the Liberal Party under Premier Walter Scott was a dominant force, steering the province through its initial growing pains.

In Saskatchewan Premiers of the 20th Century, Ted Regehr wrote that “while careful not to get ahead of public sentiment, Scott took pride in the passage of socially progressive but controversial legislation on issues such as temperance, votes for women, property rights of wives and widows, and improvements in the province’s educational system. That approach had been endorsed by the voters in three successive elections.”

Scott and the Liberals started to encounter some resistance as the Great War was raging in Europe. There were charges of corruption against his government and agitation against separate schools in Saskatchewan, particularly in the context of a conflict where the enemies were Germany and Austria-Hungary, whose emigrants had come in large numbers to the Prairies before the outbreak of the war.

The premier’s health was also in delicate shape. Scott, the province’s first premier in 1905, finally decided to resign in 1916. He was replaced by William Martin, a Saskatchewan Liberal MP.

Martin effectively nullified some of the challenges facing his new government. A Presbyterian, Martin was less confrontational on the schools issue and swiftly expelled those Liberals MLAs accused of corrupt practices in a series of royal commissions that otherwise exonerated Scott and members of his cabinet.

The Saskatchewan Liberals, whose slate of candidates in 1917 would include a majority of farmers, had also taken precautions that protected them from the rise of agrarian populist parties in other parts of Canada. Adopting farmer-friendly policies, the Liberals in Saskatchewan co-opted the farmers’ movements. The Non-Partisan League ran a few candidates in the campaign but would make little headway. While Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario would soon elect farmers’ governments, Saskatchewan wouldn’t. Its farmers were already in the halls of power.

Once the writs were dropped for a short 24-day campaign, Martin and his top cabinet ministers toured the province, extolling their government’s record and progressive policies and accusing the Conservatives of trying to foment ethnic strife in the midst of a war.

They were not entirely wrong about that — the Conservatives advocated for English-only education and received the support of organizations like the Orange Order and the National British Citizenship League, which called for “protection of British rights against the encroachments upon the same by aggressive aliens”.

But the Conservatives had largely alienated the immigrant vote and was ineffective at appealing to the mass of the province’s farmers. Even the Regina Post and Saskatoon Star, two Conservative-affiliated newspapers, endorsed the Liberals. They did, however, suggest that Conservative leader Wellington Willoughby was a good man to be premier — but that he could wait another five years.

The complicated dynamics of the vote were neatly summed up in the Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs for 1917:

The parties at home were trying to hold, in one case, or not to antagonize too strongly, in the other, a large foreign vote; the Farmers, closely organized as Grain Growers’ Associations, etc., were sure of their strength and pretty generally were for the Government which had given them much good legislation; the Non-Partisan League appealed, however, as an American and independent organization to American farmers, of whom there were many, and was not very friendly with the Grain Growers; there was no Reciprocity issue as in 1912 and the Conservatives, therefore, had a better chance with the farmers; the Soldiers’ vote at home and abroad was expected to go largely Conservative on the Education and Alien issues and the alleged injury of not allowing those at the Front to vote at the same time and for candidates in their home constituencies; the Woman vote was an unknown element which refused to take sides and every effort was made by both parties to win it — with the advantage to the Government which had given women the vote.

There was some criticism from the Conservatives that the Liberals had decided to give soldiers fighting overseas their own representation in the legislature, rather than having the votes counted in their home constituencies, for their own partisan advantage. But the results of the election were clear enough that it likely made little difference.

The Liberals’ share of the vote was virtually unchanged from 1912 at just under 57%, but the drop in the Conservative vote of nearly six points, coupled with an increase in the size of the legislature, resulted in a boost in the Liberal caucus from 45 to 51 seats.

The Conservatives managed to win just seven seats on 36% of the vote, two of their wins coming in the urban seats of Saskatoon and Moose Jaw, then of similar size. Regina, the biggest city in the province, was won by the Liberals.

Three non-partisan soldier representatives were elected later that year.

After the results were in, the Conservatives blamed the so-called “foreign” vote, particularly those cast by women, claiming that had the soldier vote been cast for candidates in their own home constituencies the margin between the Liberals and Conservatives would have been far narrower. It was a debatable claim, as the Liberals received nearly 40,000 more votes than the Conservatives and only 30,000 soldiers serving in Europe were eligible to vote. Not all of them would have backed the Conservatives, as the Liberals were not opposed to conscription — an issue that would become more important in the federal election held later that year.

The Liberals had won another election, kept the agrarian populist and immigrant votes largely to themselves and neutralized the Conservatives’ appeal to nativism. That strategy would serve them well for another decade, but the seeds of a future Conservative victory in Saskatchewan had been planted.

1934 Saskatchewan election

Saskatchewan’s Conservative experiment ends abruptly

June 19, 1934

Saskatchewan’s first experience with Conservative government was a short one and, for the party’s future prospects, ill-timed.

From the province’s entry into Confederation, the Liberals were dominant. They were the party of the established farmers, the linguistic minorities and the new arrivals.

They had also become the party of James Gardiner. First sworn-in as premier in 1926, Gardiner was a party man, head of the so-called ‘Machine’ that won election after election for the Liberals. He was an astute political strategist, seeing the rise of farmers’ movements elsewhere in Western Canada and heading them off. Alberta had been taken over by the United Farmers and Manitoba had a Progressive government, but Saskatchewan remained staunchly Liberal throughout the 1920s.

But the Liberal dynasty came to an end in 1929, when Gardiner’s Liberals were reduced to a minority government. J.T.M. Anderson had managed to rally the anti-Liberal opposition behind his Conservatives, teaming up with Progressives and Independents to form a coalition government — which he termed a ‘Co-operative Government’ — after the election.

Anderson also tapped into a strain of xenophobia that was gaining more traction in Saskatchewan, fomented by the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan. As there weren’t many racial minorities for the KKK to target in the province, their ire was instead aimed at francophones, Catholics and immigrants from eastern Europe.

The Conservatives rode this wave, pledging to end sectarian-religious and minority-language schools and reducing immigration from outside Great Britain. The Liberals retained the Catholic and immigrant vote in 1929, but the more established Protestant communities of British or Scandinavian extraction swung to the Tories.

The early years of the Co-operative government dealt swiftly with these issues, ending sectarian schools and working with R.B. Bennett’s Conservative government in Ottawa to align their immigration policies.

But then the dual disasters of the depression and drought struck Saskatchewan.

Before long, emigration from Saskatchewan was the greater issue than immigration to the province. The population had grown from 758,000 in 1921 to 922,000 in 1931, but it fall back below 900,000 by the time of the next census in 1941. Markets and crops dried up and farmers had no option but to seek relief from government, whose spending on supports for Saskatchewan’s struggling population quickly equated to nearly all the government’s other expenditures.

Anderson and the Saskatchewan Conservatives were no better able to deal with the Depression than governments in the rest of the country, including the increasingly unpopular Bennett government in Ottawa. Anderson was also faced with internal dissension, as his co-operation with Progressives and Independents angered some members of the party. David Johnstone, the party’s president, slammed the door on Anderson and he and his ‘True Blues’ became ardent critics of the Conservatives, eventually endorsing the Gardiner Liberals as the lesser of two evils.

Another new challenger had risen in the form of the Farmer-Labour Party, created in 1932 with the fusion of the Saskatchewan Section of the United Farmers of Canada and M.J. Coldwell’s Independent Labour Party. Coldwell would lead the new faction — which included two of the Progressive MLAs backing the Anderson government — and it would join the new Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in short order, changing its name to the CCF in time for the next election.

Anderson waited until the end of his constitutionally-permitted five-year term before finally dissolving the legislature on May 25 and setting the election date for June 19, 1934. This time, the Conservatives would put up a common front. Most of the Independents elected in 1934 would run as Conservatives, as would a few of the Progressives. That party didn’t put up any candidates, with only the Liberals, Conservatives and Farmer-Labour putting up a full or nearly-full slate.

Anderson ran on his government’s record, hardly an enviable task in the midst of the Great Depression. The Conservatives had not been hard-hearted and had tried to provide relief to the population, but the province had been ravaged and the Anderson and Bennett governments were the scapegoats.

Their campaign was also not nearly as an energetic or focused as that of Gardiner’s, who took aim at both the Conservatives and Farmer-Labour, which Anderson largely ignored.

“The C.C.F. will take your earnings,” one Liberal attack went. “The Conservatives will spend your earnings. The Liberals will increase your earnings.”

Gardiner pulled out all the stops, ensuring that Saskatchewan Liberal MPs made the trip back home to campaign, even though the House was sitting at the time. Coldwell could only be a part-time Farmer-Labour leader — the school where he served as principal didn’t give him leave, so he could campaign only on weekends — but he did get a boost from J.S. Woodsworth, the leader of the national CCF, who addressed a rally in Saskatoon a few days before the vote.

The headwinds were just too strong against Anderson. His support of Co-operative Government meant he never made serious efforts to develop partisan riding associations across the province, leaving the Conservatives in worse shape than even the newly-formed Farmer-Labour Party. That flirtation with Progressives and Independents made him no friends with the beleaguered national Conservative organization, but Anderson’s party affiliation with the unpopular government in Ottawa gained him no favours in downtrodden Saskatchewan. Though those within the party still predicted re-election by the end of the campaign, Anderson and the Conservatives were doomed.

They were completely run out of the legislature. Their vote dropped by only 10 percentage points to 27% but it cost them all of their seats. No Conservative or former Independent or Progressive who ran under Anderson’s banner was re-elected.

The Liberals saw their support increase by only two points to 48%, but it was enough to win them 49 seats on election day (the legislature had been reduced in size to save money). The Liberals increased their tally to 50 after a deferred election in Athabasca between two Liberal candidates — no other party bothered to put up their own man.

Farmer-Labour formed the official opposition with five seats, taking 24% of ballots cast. All five of them, however, were in the rural parts of the province, with four of them along the western border with Alberta. Coldwell failed to win a seat in Regina, a loss he credited to “Booze, Boodle and Bigotry”.

Farmer-Labour was, after all, more Farmer than Labour. It was the Conservatives, not the FLP, that finished behind the Liberals in the two-member urban districts in Regina, Saskatoon and Moose Jaw. The cities and nearly all of rural Saskatchewan was swept by the Liberals.

“Gardiner listened to the results at the farm, and when victory was certain flew to Regina,” wrote Norman Ward and David Smith in Jimmy Gardiner: Relentless Liberal. “There he was met by cheering crowds who lined the streets as a motorcade, complete with pipe band, took him to the legislative building.”

The Liberal dynasty had returned to Saskatchewan, and the result was seen as a good omen for Mackenzie King’s federal Liberals as it coincided with a victory by the provincial party in Ontario on the very same day. Done-in by the Depression, the Conservatives were on their way out. They wouldn’t be back in office in Saskatchewan for nearly 50 years.

1938 Saskatchewan election

Patterson wins, the CCF arrives

June 8, 1938

The 1930s were a time of tumult in Canadian politics, as the Great Depression upended governments and new political movements were on the rise. In Saskatchewan, the election of 1938 pitted the Liberal government of W.J. Patterson against two of those new movements — and a future prime minister.

Though Patterson was only heading to the polls for the first time as premier and Saskatchewan Liberal leader, the province had been governed by his party for 28 of the 33 previous years since Saskatchewan was created in 1905.

That sole exception was the 1929-1934 interregnum of James Anderson, itself the product of a tumultuous election when the Conservatives reduced the Liberals to a minority (with a little help from the Ku Klux Klan). Anderson was then able to govern in a coalition with Independent and Progressive members of the legislature, and was shortly rewarded for his efforts with the a stock market collapse and a drought.

The Conservatives were swept out of power in 1934 (literally, they didn’t win a single seat) and James Gardiner returned to the premier’s office. He didn’t stay long, however, as he made the jump to federal politics to join Mackenzie King’s cabinet in 1935.

Patterson, the minister of natural resources (and telephones), was chosen as his replacement by caucus in part because his chief opponent, T.C. Davis, decided to vote for Patterson rather than himself, and lost by a single vote.

In many ways, though, Gardiner remained the force behind the Saskatchewan Liberal Party. Patterson, an unflashy politician, left the organization of the party to another minister, C.M. Dunn, under the watchful eye of Gardiner, who would also hit the hustings and campaign for his former provincial party.

Against the Liberals were arrayed a motley crew of opposition parties, the foremost being the new Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, whose members had waged the last campaign under a Farmer-Labour banner (and would eventually become the modern NDP).

With just five seats, the CCF formed a small but effective official opposition under George Williams, who ran the party almost single-handedly. There were divisions within the CCF, however, as Williams did not see eye-to-eye with either M.J. Coldwell or Tommy Douglas, the party’s two Saskatchewan MPs in Ottawa. There was also indecision on how to move forward against the Liberals, with the CCF negotiating with both the Conservatives and Social Credit about where to run candidates. In the end, the CCF ran just 31 in Saskatchewan’s 52 ridings.

Social Credit was still a newish phenomenon in 1938, though it had been in power for three years in the neighbouring province of Alberta under the erratic William Aberhart.

Based on a monetary theory developed by a British author that was not entirely understood by the evangelical preacher and new premier of Alberta, Social Credit imagined a monetary system that would ensure the amount of money in circulation would equal the value of everything being produced. It was a theory that didn’t quite make sense and Aberhart’s interpretation of it led to provincial legislation being disallowed by the federal government and the distribution of government credit derided as “funny money”.

While the shine was starting to wear off Social Credit in Alberta by 1938, the party was still a force to be reckoned with and Aberhart looked to Saskatchewan as his next conquest. Resources were poured into the province from Alberta and the Socred campaign in Saskatchewan was run from Edmonton, with Aberhart’s No. 2 (and future premier) Ernest Manning put in charge of organizing it.

Aberhart spent a week in Saskatchewan speaking to enormous crowds and railing against “the money power” and “financial tyranny”. In all, the Socreds put up 40 candidates in Saskatchewan approved by the party in Alberta.

Finally, there were the Conservatives, now under the leadership of Prince Albert lawyer and future prime minister John Diefenbaker. Broke and seatless, Diefenbaker could do nothing more than run 24 candidates and wage a campaign that was largely ignored. He complained about the Liberals’ machine politics and patronage, saying that “government inspectors … are so thick they have been ordered to wear a distinctive ribbon in their lapels so they will not go around asking each other for their vote.”

In the end, the fight was primarily between Patterson’s Liberals and the two upstarts. The governing party warned against the dangers of Social Credit’s crackpot theories and the creeping socialism of the CCF.

After nearly a decade of suffering, the province was not quite in the mood for more uncertainty. It was still reeling from drought and the Depression, with half of the provincial budget in 1935-35 going to relief.

The weather improved in early 1938 and the prospects were good that the drought was coming to an end. Patterson promised to continue relief payments while continuing to invest in the education system, the highway network and various medical programs.

Patterson and friendly editorialists cast the fight as one between a steady, stable and reliable Liberal administration and an array of new parties pushing new, untested and dangerous ideas, none of which could form a government without the help of one or more of the other parties. In short, a Liberal defeat was a recipe for instability and recklessness just when Saskatchewan was getting back on its feet.

Though the Liberal majority was reduced, Patterson’s pitch worked. The Liberals captured 45% of the vote, down three points from 1934, and won 38 seats. That was down 12 seats from the last election, but the Liberals nevertheless nearly swept the rural ridings in the west and the southeast while winning the two-member urban ridings in Regina, Saskatoon and Moose Jaw.

The CCF captured 19% of the vote, down five points from the Farmer-Labor performance of 1934, but gained five seats. It took on the role of the official opposition once again, winning nearly all of its seats in the rural east of the province.

Social Credit failed to make a breakthrough, winning 16% of the vote and just two seats, though one of them was Melville, the seat of Liberal organizer Dunn.

Two “Unity” candidates — an odd amalgamation from various parties, including the CCF, Conservatives who were opposed to the Liberals — were also elected, while Diefenbaker’s party was shut out again, its vote dropping 15 points to just 12%. Undaunted, Diefenbaker would look to federal politics for his future.

Patterson celebrated the victory, saying “an invasion from an adjoining province has been repelled and a sane, business-like constructive program has been chosen in preference to theoretical and theatrical proposals.”

Social Credit would not gain a beachhead in Saskatchewan. But the Liberals would soon meet their Waterloo. When the province next headed to the polls in 1944, Patterson would go down to defeat at the hands of the CCF, now under Tommy Douglas. The 1938 election would be the last the Liberals would win in Saskatchewan for another 26 years.

1967 Saskatchewan election

Ross Thatcher wins again

October 11, 1967

A political dynasty went by the wayside in the 1964 election as Ross Thatcher’s Liberals took power in Saskatchewan, ending the 20-year reign of the CCF. After two decades of North America’s first socialist government, Thatcher promised to make Saskatchewan “the greatest private enterprise province in Canada”.

But Thatcher, a former CCFer himself, knew the electoral limits of his appeal to slay socialism and so he promised to maintain the ground-breaking Medicare system that had been introduced by Tommy Douglas’s government and brought to fruition by his successor, Woodrow Lloyd.

A little over three years after Thatcher’s upset win, the Saskatchewan economy was buzzing. Unemployment was at rock-bottom levels. In 1966, Saskatchewan no longer qualified for equalization payments and became a “have” province, buoyed in part by the explosion of the potash industry. Though the Liberals’ short term in office was not responsible for all of these positive changes, Thatcher was more than happy to take full credit for Saskatchewan’s success.

And to try to capitalize on it. There were warnings of a recession looming, so Thatcher decided to go back to the polls while the going was good. He said that “a new mandate is needed … to assure potential investors in Saskatchewan of a political climate which is essential to encourage continuation of our private enterprise progress.”

The Liberals presented an unambitious program, promising little more than “sound government” and “down to earth common sense” in its administration of Saskatchewan. Thatcher also renewed his call to Socreds and Conservatives to continue backing the Liberals to keep the CCF out, as they had done in 1964.

That party’s name was in the process of changing, but Woodrow Lloyd was still at the helm. The federal New Democrats had been formed in 1961 and were being led by Douglas, but the CCF brand still had a lot of mythical power in agricultural Saskatchewan, where the labour movement had less sway. The old name would finally disappear shortly after the election, but in 1967 it was still the CCF-NDP.

The party’s platform was far more ambitious than the Liberals’, and Lloyd and the CCF-NDP criticized the government for selling out the province to outsiders and corporations — arguing “that we put people first, and that we make things, production and dollars serve the people.”

Lloyd made a play for younger voters, pitching significant investment in post-secondary education. He also had a renewed organization behind him, as he had spent the last three years getting the party into better shape and attracting new candidates, including a young Roy Romanow.

But the going would be tough for the CCF-NDP, especially as the Progressive Conservatives under Martin Pederson were fading away as a serious contender. Both opposition parties got help from their federal cousins, but while Lloyd got a visit from Douglas, Pederson did not get to share a platform with Robert Stanfield or former prime minister John Diefenbaker.

The Canadian Annual Review for 1967 felt “the campaign was slow and all but devoid of issues and incidents”, but it did have its dark side, according to Dennis Gruending in his biography of future premier Allan Blakeney, who was an CCF-NDP MLA seeking re-election in 1967:

“The campaign became nasty, with the NDP’s newspaper, The Commonwealth, calling Thatcher a tyrant. He took the bait, waving the newspaper at rallies and shouting, neck veins bulging, that the socialists were running a campaign of malice, hatred, and fear. There was also an NDP whisper campaign on the doorsteps which accused Thatcher, a diabetic who periodically had to be hospitalized, of being an alcoholic.”

But the bottom line was that things seemed to be going pretty good in Saskatchewan. The economy was diversifying, incomes were up and unemployment was down. There was little need to turf a one-term government that appeared to be performing well. And while there was a certain charisma to Thatcher, Lloyd was more of a thinker, organizer and policy wonk — not the type to inspire a wave of enthusiasm in the CCF-NDP’s favour.

It turned out to be a close election, just as it had been in 1964, with support for both the Liberals and CCF-NDP increasing. The Liberals finished on top with 45.6% of the vote to the CCF-NDP’s 44.4%. But thanks in part to a new electoral map designed during the Liberals’ time in office, the governing party increased its seat total by three to 35. The CCF-NDP fell two seats to 24.

The Liberals’ edge over the CCF-NDP was felt primarily in the rural ridings of southern Saskatchewan, but the party was also able to win a few seats in Regina and Saskatoon.

Pederson and the PCs, however, were wiped out as their vote was cut nearly in half.

Lloyd decided to stay on as leader even though he had lost his second consecutive election. Internal divisions would eventually lead to his resignation a few years later ahead of the 1971 campaign.

That would prove to be a tough one for Thatcher the Liberals. Shortly after winning an election on a message of continued prosperity for Saskatchewan, the Liberals brought in an austerity program in anticipation of the economic troubles that would hit the province — troubles that would catch up to and ultimately defeat Thatcher’s Liberals in the next election.

1970 Saskatchewan Progressive Conservative leadership

The Saskatchewan PCs reject separatism

February 28, 1970

John Diefenbaker liked to joke that, in his younger days, the only thing protecting Conservatives in Saskatchewan were the game laws.

Of course, that was no longer the case once Diefenbaker became leader of the federal Progressive Conservatives. Under him, the party swept or nearly swept the province in every election between 1958 and 1965.

But it was still tough to be a provincial Tory in Saskatchewan. The party hadn’t governed since the Great Depression (when, to its shame, one of its important allies was the Ku Klux Klan) and failed to win a single seat from 1934 to 1960.

Diefenbaker’s success, however, was beginning to rub off on the provincial PCs — at least a little. The party underwent a small revival under Martin Pederson when, in the 1964 election, Pederson finally won a seat for the PCs and lifted them to 19% of the vote. Any hope that Pederson could lead the PCs back to respectability were dashed, however, when they were shut out again in 1967 and lost nearly half their vote share. Saskatchewan was a two-party province, and it was Ross Thatcher’s Liberal Party, in government since 1964, that got the votes on the centre-right.

In 1968, Pederson gave up and the PCs went without a permanent leader for nearly two years. It wasn’t a much sought-after job.

A leadership convention was finally called for February 28, 1970. But it was hardly much of a race — or a convention.

As described by Dick Spencer in Singing the Blues: The Conservatives in Saskatchewan, it was an “odd-ball convention [that] was a small, distracted mix of federal and provincial Tories, Social Credit remnants and disaffected Liberals”.

There were only two candidates. The favourite was Ed Nasserden. He was first elected as a PC MP in the Diefenbaker wave of 1958 for the riding of Rosthern, and held the seat for the Tories until his defeat in 1968.

His rival for the job was Marlin (Marlyn or even Martin, spellings differ in newspapers) Clary, a businessman from Leader.

According to The Phoenix, “Mr. Nasserden’s program and policy recommendations were more conservative and traditional than those offered by Mr. Clary.”

That’s because Clary was a separatist. Telling Saskatchewan Tories that the voices of Western Canadians could not be heard in a parliament that had more seats for Toronto and Montreal, he wanted to see economic separation for B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. That didn’t have to mean political separation (though it wasn’t clear how it couldn’t), but Clary was trying to take the party in a very different direction than was Nasserden.

Robert Stanfield, leader of the federal Progressive Conservatives, didn’t like what he was hearing. Speaking at a banquet held after the convention was over, Stanfield told the crowd of Saskatchewan PCs he was “alarmed to hear how popular the talk of Western separatism has become”. Blaming Pierre Trudeau for fomenting this Western separatism, Stanfield argued that separation would be as bad for the West as it would be for Quebec.

How the 250 delegates voted was not made public, but Nasserden was announced as the winner. Stanfield might have been a little spooked by what he saw at the convention, but Progressive Conservatives would nevertheless not become the Parti Québécois of the Prairies.

Still, Nasserden had a big task ahead of him to make the PCs the main centre-right option for Saskatchewan voters. He thought that merging with Social Credit (which had captured less than 1% of the vote in each of the last two elections) would make that easier, and a negotiation with the Socred leader was worked out. Nasserden hoped his merger could be replicated at the national level.

His scheme fell apart — as did his hopes of making the PCs a viable party again. With a small slate of candidates, Nasserden led the PCs to only 2% of the vote in the 1971 election that brought the New Democrats back to power.

The Tories wouldn’t stay marginal forever, though. Nasserden’s successor, Richard Collver, would lead the Tories back to official opposition status before the end of the decade and Grant Devine would take them back to power in 1982. For a brief moment, though, the Saskatchewan PCs were close to tying themselves to a truly marginal idea: Western separatism.

1970 Saskatchewan NDP leadership

Blakeney defeats Romanow

July 4, 1970

Tommy Douglas is widely remembered as the father of Canada’s universal health care system after first introducing it in Saskatchewan. But it was actually his successor, Woodrow Lloyd, who turned the proposal into law, navigating it through the legislature and facing down the province’s striking doctors.

Lloyd got little thanks for his efforts. When he took his CCF government to the polls in 1964 (the Saskatchewan CCF had not yet followed the national party in adopting the New Democratic moniker), Lloyd went down to defeat against Ross Thatcher’s Liberals. Lloyd just wasn’t the firebrand and charismatic Prairie populist that Douglas was, and he followed up his defeat in 1964 with another in 1967.

Patience with Lloyd within the Saskatchewan NDP (as it was now finally known) had run out in 1970. In the federal convention the year before, Lloyd had voted in favour of a motion put forward by the Waffle that reflected the group’s socialist, radical views, greatly influenced by the anti-Vietnam War politics of American youth.

The motion didn’t pass, but the Waffle was starting to have a big influence within the national party — and the Saskatchewan wing, too. Members of the ‘Old Left’ and more pragmatic centrist wings of the party were not happy, and after a contentious caucus meeting in March 1970 Lloyd offered his resignation.

That put Allan Blakeney in an odd position.

Blakeney had long been a loyal supporter of Lloyd and had been deeply involved in the Medicare file as minister of health. Minutes were not kept, but Blakeney does not appear to have spoken out in defense of Lloyd at the caucus meeting, and the distaste he felt at how Lloyd was forced to resign led him to hesitate to run to replace his old colleague.

But Blakeney had always had his eye on the leadership and he was the first to announce. He had the experience to be leader. Though just 44, he had been a Regina MLA since 1960 and had been named to cabinet by Douglas before he had left provincial politics to take over the federal NDP.

After about a month, another candidate stepped forward: Roy Romanow. Just 30 (though he told the newspapers he was a few years older), Romanow had been first elected in Saskatoon in the 1967 election and was seen as a bright rising star within the Saskatchewan NDP. But he was also seen as representing the centre or centre-right of the party.

“[Romanow’s] campaign was modelled on the new era of television politics in the United States,” writes Dennis Gruending in his biography of Allan Blakeney, Promises to Keep. “He was photogenic, and had an easy way with people. There was a glitz and excitement to his campaign that Blakeney couldn’t match.”

With neither Blakeney nor Romanow being a spokesperson for the left, it was inevitable that other candidates from that side of the party would emerge. There was Don Mitchell, even younger than Romanow, who stepped forward as the unofficial candidate of the Waffle group, pitching public ownership of Saskatchewan’s farmland with a so-called “Land Bank”. There was also George Taylor, a venerable standard-bearer of the Old Left and the Regina Manifesto and a veteran of the international brigades of the Spanish Civil War. Taylor was there to avenge Lloyd’s defenestration.

While Blakeney put the emphasis on experience and Romanow on style, Mitchell focused on policy in the series of town hall debates that took place during the campaign. He might have pulled Blakeney and Romanow further to the left than they would have liked — the two eventually said his Land Bank idea wasn’t so bad after all — but the contest was always going to be between Blakeney and Romanow, between the establishment of the party and a new modern direction.

Some 1,600 people gathered at the Regina Armouries for the vote. The Waffle vs. Establishment battles continued in the contest for party president, and the win by the Establishment boded well for Blakeney. It was a shock, then, when Romanow narrowly emerged as the front runner on the first ballot with 35.3% of delegates’ votes to 33.6% for Blakeney. Mitchell took 22% and Taylor dropped off after taking 9.2% of the vote.

On the second round, Taylor’s votes split nearly evenly between the three other candidates, though Mitchell garnered more than either Blakeney or Romanow. The gap was closed between the leading candidates, and Mitchell dropped off after the second ballot.

Romanow had spoken out against the Waffle and Blakeney was also seen as opposed to the movement, so Mitchell decided to abstain on the final ballot. Taylor, though, tried to gather the old guard of the left behind Blakeney. While a big chunk of Mitchell’s supporters indeed abstained, Blakeney got more than three votes for every vote gained by Romanow on the final ballot, and emerged with a narrow win: 53.8% to 46.2%.

With a little guidance from Douglas, who suggested that his turn would come later (and it would), Romanow urged the convention to make the decision unanimous. Allan Blakeney would be the next leader of the Saskatchewan NDP — and return the party to power in 1971.

1971 Saskatchewan Liberal leadership

A ‘pint-sized’ leader for the Saskatchewan Liberals

December 11, 1971

The year 1971 was one of tremendous change for the Saskatchewan Liberals. The party had formed government in 1964 (the first Liberal government in Saskatchewan since the Second World War) but had been run out of office by Allan Blakeney’s New Democrats in the June 1971 election. Ross Thatcher, the firebrand leader of the Saskatchewan Liberals, had signalled he would step down after the defeat but the timeline for the race to replace him was accelerated when, only a month after the election, he died unexpectedly in his home.

Though reduced to just 15 seats in the 60-seat legislature and facing at least one full term on the opposition benches, the Liberal Party wasn’t in such bad condition. The Liberals still managed to captured 43% of the vote in the 1971 provincial election, their finances were in decent shape and they had 41,000 members.

Three candidates stepped forward to fill Thatcher’s shoes. Dave Steuart, an MLA for Prince Albert since 1962 (and former mayor of the city) was a cabinet minister in the Thatcher government who had held a series of important portfolios — including health, natural resources and finance. He was also the acting House leader in the legislature.

Cy MacDonald, a Regina MLA since 1964 and another Thatcher cabinet minister, hailed from the more conservative wing of the party. In his early 40s, he was “tall, athletic and sport[ed] a brushcut”, giving him a youthful image. He banked his campaign on appealing to younger voters, a key demographic in Saskatchewan after the voting age had been dropped to 18 in time for the 1971 election.

Finally, the outsider candidate was George Leith. First elected in 1964, Leith was defeated in the election and was the only candidate without a seat. Like MacDonald, he looked to younger voters to give him an edge, though he was a few years older than MacDonald.

Steuart was widely recognized as the front runner. After all, he had been the major figure in the Thatcher government (after Thatcher himself) and was a skilled and tireless campaigner, called “a pint-sized and crusty political veteran” by the Regina correspondent of the Canadian Press. (He was also called “bantam-sized” by the height-obsessed CP.)

The convention at the Saskatoon Centennial Auditorium attracted about 2,000 attendees. One two-hour session, led by Otto Laing, the only Liberal MP in Saskatchewan, tackled the thorny issue of the provincial party’s relationship with the federal party. Pierre Trudeau was no help to the Saskatchewan Liberals, even at the height of Trudeaumania — the federal Liberals took less than 30% of the vote in Saskatchewan in 1968, making it their worst province. Party members were also concerned about a lack of communication between the party’s central organization and the grassroots. (Twas ever thus.)

Steuart solidified his position as the favourite with a stirring speech at the convention, promising to reconnect with the grassroots and imploring members to “Stop tearing the party apart … stop doing the work of the NDP … We must close ranks and build for the future.”

Steuart very nearly won on the first ballot, taking 46% of the 870 votes cast by delegates. MacDonald finished second with 34%, while Leith brought up the rear with 20%.

Leith was automatically dropped from the ballot and his supporters went in bulk over to Steuart. Roughly three-quarters of Leith’s backers cast their vote for Steuart on the second ballot, propelling him to a solid win with 63% support.

“We’ll tell Little Allan that the Liberal Party is on the march again,” the diminutive Steuart promised his NDP opponent. “We’re coming and we’re coming strong.”

Instead, the Liberals would continue to falter. Steuart would lead the party to 15 seats again in the 1975 election, but the Liberals’ share of the popular vote would drop 11 points to just 32%. That wasn’t good enough for Steuart, who resigned shortly after that election, but those 15 seats would turn out to be only one fewer seat than the Saskatchewan Liberals have won — in all elections combined — ever since.

1982 Saskatchewan election

A Devine wind sweeps Saskatchewan

April 26, 1982

You could forgive Saskatchewan’s premier, Allan Blakeney, for thinking his odds of winning an election in 1982 were good.

After long being a have-not province, Saskatchewan’s economy was finally booming. Growth was the highest in the country. Unemployment was lower than anywhere else. Resource revenues were pouring into government coffers, allowing it to run balanced budget after balanced budget.

Blakeney had also just played a key role on the national stage in the constitutional negotiations, earning respect across the country.

But if the Saskatchewan New Democrats had been a little more in touch with the mood of the people, they might have realized that the odds of re-election were, in fact, not so good at all.

Blakeney and the NDP had been in power in Saskatchewan since 1971. The province was seen as an NDP stronghold. With the exception of the Liberal government of Ross Thatcher, in office from 1964 to 1974, no one else had governed Saskatchewan since Tommy Douglas’s upset victory as leader of the CCF in 1944.

The political landscape was shifting in Saskatchewan, however. The Liberals had collapsed as a force and it was the Progressive Conservatives who were emerging as the chief rival to the NDP. Achieving government, though, seemed like a long-shot. No Conservative had governed Saskatchewan since 1934.

When Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals announced they would end the Crowsnest Pass freight rate on grain shipments, thereby increasing grain growers’ costs, Blakeney thought he had a winning issue. His government railed against the decision and sent pamphlets to voters across the province. The NDP could play an anti-Ottawa, Western-grievance card as well as anyone else.

On March 29, after announcing another balanced budget that increased spending on social programs but did not reduce taxes, Blakeney set April 26, 1982 as the date for the next election. Before he did that, though, his government brought in legislation prohibiting strikes of essential workers during the campaign in response to a work stoppage by CUPE hospital staff.

While it was meant to avoid any discontent on the part of voters, it had the effect of seriously hurting the NDP’s support among the key labour electorate that was also an important source of volunteers and campaign organizers. Instead of backing Blakeney, CUPE protesters appeared at Blakeney’s events.

The NDP planned to run on its record of a strong economy and governing competency, adopting the “Tested and Trusted” slogan in order to contrast Blakeney’s experience with that of the 37-year-old PC leader, Grant Devine.

An economics professor, Devine had never won anything before he prevailed in the 1979 Saskatchewan PC leadership contest. In fact, he’d lose one more time in 1980, when he failed to secure a seat in the legislature in a byelection.

But Devine proved to be a strong campaigner. With a slogan of “There’s so much more we can be”, Devine made lots of costly promises, starting with getting rid of the provincial tax on gasoline, which he announced on the first day of the campaign.

That set the tone. More promises followed, including a cap on mortgages set at interest rates of 13.25% — the Saskatchewan government would cover anything above that. He also promised to phase out the PST and reduce the income tax, promises that would severely reduce the government’s revenues. But for voters who were worried about sky-high interest rates and felt Blakeney’s government was overly focused on balancing the budget, these promises resonated.

The NDP had miscalculated. The Crowsnest rate wasn’t a good issue. It was seen as out of the province’s hands, a federal issue, and in any case all of the parties were just as against Trudeau’s move as Blakeney was. Even Ralph Goodale, the former Liberal MP and leader of the Saskatchewan Liberals, had come out against it.

As the momentum shifted, Blakeney turned his focus on Devine’s platform, arguing that all of these tax cuts would inevitably lead to program cuts. But when that failed to move the dial, Blakeney tried to match Devine’s largesse with promises of his own.

The result was a huge landslide PC victory that surprised even the Tories. The early returns were so good for Devine that a PC government was called in less than 30 minutes.

Devine and the PCs won 55 seats, a swing of over 35 seats in the expanded legislature, taking 54.1% of the vote, a gain of 16 points over the PCs’ performance in 1978.

In that election, the New Democrats had swept Saskatoon and won all but one seat in Regina. This time, it was the PCs who swept Saskatoon and won all but two seats in Regina, an enormous swing that reduced the NDP to just a handful of seats in the rural areas, where the PCs also made significant gains.

The New Democrats won just nine seats and 37.6% of the vote. Up to that point, it was the worst result in the history of the NDP since before the CCF came to power in 1944. It cut a swathe through Blakeney’s cabinet, taking even future premier Roy Romanow down with it.

The slide of the Saskatchewan Liberals continued. They had been shutout in 1978 and were shutout again in 1982, but their 4.6% of the vote marked the first time the party had hit single-digits. They barely finished ahead of the separatist Western Canada Concept, which had hoped to repeat the success of its Alberta equivalent that had just won a byelection in that province. It took 3.3%.

Blakeney, who held on in his own seat, would stay on as NDP leader and improve the party’s position in a rematch in 1986. He’d step aside after that, making way for Romanow.

For the PCs, 1982 would rank as their best result ever. But the costly promises made by Devine during that campaign would leave a legacy of huge deficits during his two terms in office, contributing to the eventual demise of the Tories in the 1990s. The remnants of the party would go on to form the Saskatchewan Party that looks as unbeatable in the province today as Allan Blakeney’s New Democrats seemed to be at the start of 1982.

2013 Saskatchewan NDP leadership

Cam Broten becomes Saskatchewan NDP leader

March 9, 2013

Being opposition leader in Saskatchewan has been a thankless and perilous task over the last few years. Not since 2007 have the Saskatchewan New Democrats had a leader who contested more than a single election, a trend that will continue after Ryan Meili announced last month he’d be stepping down.

In 2013, though, there wasn’t a trend — just one unlucky leader in Dwain Lingenfelter, defeated in 2011. The future didn’t look particularly bright, though, with Brad Wall still enormously popular at the time. But nothing lasts forever, right?

So, with a vacancy at the top of the Saskatchewan NDP, the race was on. And it would turn out to be a pretty demanding one, as candidates faced off in more than a dozen debates throughout the fall of 2012 and the winter of 2013.

For most of the contest, there were four candidates. All under the age of 40, it marked what some called a generational shift for the party.

The (admittedly small) caucus was lining up between two of their colleagues: Saskatoon MLA Cam Broten and Regina MLA Trent Wotherspoon. Also on the ballot was Erin Weir (a future NDP MP) and Meili, who had finished second to Lingenfelter in the 2009 leadership contest and was seen as the candidate furthest to the left.

Weir, however, withdrew from the race in February and threw his support behind Meili, leaving the ballot to just Meili and his relatively centrist opponents, Broten and Wotherspoon.

Despite caucus backing the other two, it was Meili who came out on top on the first ballot with 39%, followed by Broten at 33.5% and Wotherspoon at 24%.

With Wotherspoon being eliminated, his support swung toward Broten by a margin of about 3:2, propelling him to 50.3% of the vote against 49.7% for Meili. Just 44 votes out of the more than 8,000 cast separated Broten and Meili.

Broten would go on to lead the New Democrats into the 2016 provincial election with little hope of victory. I recall that campaign fondly as I was covering it closely for the CBC, travelling to Regina to take part in the election night television special. What I remember most was a pronunciation tip I got from a local colleague: “Broten is your bro, not your bra.”

When it was over, he wasn’t even that — he was defeated in his riding of Saskatoon Westview, memorably losing on the final polling box to be counted. The party captured just 10 seats, one more than in 2011 but on an expanded map that contained three more seats.

Broten’s resignation would result in a re-match of sorts in the 2018 Saskatchewan NDP leadership, as Meili and Wotherspoon faced each other again. Third time was the charm for Meili, as he won the honour to lead the party into the 2020 election — and, unlike Lingenfelter and Broten before him, retain his seat. It wasn’t enough, though, and the Saskatchewan NDP will select his replacement in June in the hopes that, this time, they might land on a winner.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections Saskatchewan and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• Saskatchewan Premiers of the Twentieth Century, edited by Gordon L. Barnhart

• Jimmy Gardiner: Relentless Liberal, by Norman Ward

• The Life and Political Times of Tommy Douglas, by Walter Stewart

• M.J.: The Life and Times of M.J. Coldwell, by Walter Stewart

• Rogue Tory: The Life and Legend of John G. Diefenbaker, by Denis Smith

• Promises to Keep: A Political Biography of Allan Blakeney, by Dennis Gruending

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

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1925 New Brunswick election

The province’s first Acadian premier goes down to defeat

August 10, 1925

New Brunswick’s economy was depressed, the government was indebted and unemployment in the province was high. But the previous election had been held five years ago. Like it or not, Premier Pierre-Jean Veniot had to send New Brunswickers to the polls in 1925.

Though parties weren’t officially recognized at the time, Veniot was a Liberal. He was also New Brunswick’s first Acadian premier, taking over from Walter Foster when he resigned in 1923.

On July 17, with the clock running out on the legislature, Veniot set the date for the next election: August 10, 1925.

The biggest issue in the campaign was the Liberal government’s huge hydro-electricity project at Grand Falls. Veniot had always intended on making this publicly-funded project the ballot box issue, stating in 1924 that “we feel the people should have a final voice in the matter before we undertake the real work of development.”

But Veniot grew impatient, and in 1925 his government got the ball rolling on the project, passing legislation that tripled New Brunswick’s borrowing power for the project to nearly $13 million — a huge sum for a province with an annual budget of just $4.1 million at the time.

The opposition cried foul on Veniot’s flip-flop. Shortly before the campaign began, the Conservatives chose John B.M. Baxter, federal MP for Saint John, to lead the party. He would, in the words of the Conservative-friendly Moncton Times, end “the orgy of extravagance” that had occurred under the Liberals.

Baxter charged that the Veniot government was not providing nearly enough details about the feasibility of the project, especially considering its gargantuan cost. The Liberals were rushing into it for no reason — why not wait until the election was over and the people had spoken?

“Are we going to stand,” wondered Conservative candidate Leonard P.D. Tilley, “for another $15,000,000 liability jumped upon us in the last moments of a dying Government? I think the people of this Province, both Liberal and Conservative, will cry, ‘Halt’.”

The Liberals countered that the Conservatives were in hock to the big interests of the lumber and paper industries that dominated New Brunswick. The depression had hit them hard and half of the province’s saw mills had closed. They wanted reduced power rates from the Grand Falls project, but the Liberals would not give them everything they wanted.

As the campaign unfolded, Liberal-leaning newspapers pushed the narrative that Veniot was fighting for the little guy against the heartless logger barons. On the stump, the premier deplored “the brazen attempts to steal away the people’s interest.”

A side issue in the Saint John area was the Liberal government’s introduction of the compulsory pasteurization of milk, a measure that would reduce deaths from tainted milk. The Conservatives, however, attacked the measure, wanting to make people free to purchase what they termed “pure milk” and pledging to “cut out all fads and fancies” in the Department of Health. The Liberals’ health minister defended the policy on the basis that it would save lives.

But something that might have had an even bigger impact on the results was the strain of anti-French bigotry in some quarters of anglophone New Brunswick. The Acadian, Catholic and French-speaking population in the province formed a big minority, but a minority nonetheless. The English Protestant majority in the south was not particularly receptive to the idea of an Acadian premier.

While Baxter himself didn’t attack Veniot’s heritage — he even attempted speaking French to audiences in the north — there was an undeniable “whispering campaign” that passed along the message that ‘a vote for Veniot is a vote for the Pope of Rome’. There were allegations that the Ku Klux Klan, which was an active player in Canadian elections in the 1920s, was involved in trying to influence voters as well.

As Arthur T. Doyle puts it:

“It was one of the great campaigns in New Brunswick’s stormy political history: the posters, the cartoons, the exhaustive canvassing, the countless meetings, the ginger ale and ice cream picnics, the rallies, the oratory, and the endless handshakings. The leaders took full advantage of the fashionable automobile and the modern highway network to criss-cross the province attending massive rallies. Probably no other two New Brunswick politicians had achieved so much exposure in a single campaign … In many small towns they attracted audiences of over 1,000, and in the cities, the crowds sometimes exceeded 2,000 … For the political parties, it was almost certainly the most expensive election ever. While the Liberals said the lumber companies financed the Conservative campaign, the Conservatives said the Grand Falls contractors financed the Liberals. They were probably both right.1

Turnout was strong on election day. After the votes were all cast crowds of hundreds gathered outside newspaper offices to await the results. As the numbers rolled in, they were announced over megaphone and written on blackboards in the windows of the offices.

The result was a big victory for John Baxter and the Conservatives, who won 37 seats — an increase of 24 since the 1920 election. The Liberals dropped 13 seats, winning only 11. The United Farmers (who had burst onto the scene in 1920) were wiped out, including the three who ran as supporters of the Liberal government in Carleton county.

While the debate over the Grand Falls project might have dominated the campaign, the map hinted at the linguistic divide that might have been just as decisive.

The only seats the Liberals won came in the counties of Madawaska, Victoria, Gloucester and Kent — areas with big French-speaking Acadian populations. The Conservatives swept the southern anglophone ridings, defeating incumbent Liberal MLAs in places like Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John.

Veniot held on as leader only until 1926, when he made a successful jump to federal politics with Mackenzie King’s Liberals.

Baxter’s Conservatives, meanwhile, would be re-elected in 1930 and the Grand Falls project would be completed in 1931 — after it was sold to a private company.

But, like many Great Depression-era governments, the Conservatives would be turfed in the subsequent election in 1935 by the Liberals under Allison Dysart, a leader who would inspire the political career of Louis Robichaud who, in 1960, became New Brunswick’s first Acadian premier with an electoral mandate of his own.

1932 New Brunswick Liberal leadership

Twice interim, Dysart made permanent leader of the NB Liberals

October 5, 1932

On a fall day in 1932, some 600 Liberals made their way to the Fredericton Opera House to attend their provincial party’s convention. At issue was who would lead the New Brunswick Liberals into the next election — and potentially back into power.

“The majority of the Liberal delegates arrived in the capital by auto,” reported the Fredericton Daily Mail, and “the convention which began shortly after two o’clock was one of the most enthusiastic ever held in this city.”

New Brunswick, like the rest of Canada, was in the grips of the Great Depression. The challenge had sparked rumours that the Liberals would enter into a coalition with the governing Conservatives. It was something those gathered at the convention strongly and clearly opposed.

The goal was to kick the Conservatives out of office, regaining what the Liberals had lost in 1925. At the convention, a wire from Mackenzie King was read to the delegates, in which the Liberal opposition leader in Ottawa called for a “Liberal united determination to win back New Brunswick.”

The choice for leader came down to two men. There was John B. McNair, a lawyer from Fredericton who had long been active in party circles. But the favourite was Allison Dysart, the party’s acting leader in the Legislative Assembly.

Dysart had sat in the assembly as the member for Kent since 1917 and had even been interim leader before. After the Liberals’ defeat in 1925, Dysart took over leadership duties after the resignation of Peter Veniot. But as the 1930 provincial election approached, the party urged Dysart to step side. He was a Catholic, after all, and Veniot’s Catholicism (and Acadian heritage) was blamed for the party’s defeat.

The change to a Protestant leader didn’t have the desired outcome, and the Liberals (as well as leader Wendell Jones in his own riding) were defeated in 1930. Leaderless on the opposition benches, Dysart took over the job once again.

This time, though, Liberal delegates were set on keeping Dysart in his post for good and, according to the Moncton Transcript, Dysart prevailed by 459 votes to 97 for McNair.

In his victory speech, Dysart “levelled a barrage of vituperation against the expenditures of the present [Conservative] government,” according to the Daily Mail. As a consolation prize, McNair was elected as president of the party.

An editorial in the Daily Mail welcomed Dysart’s victory.

“From east, west, north and south came sturdy delegates determined to square the account by restoring Mr. Dysart to the position from which he was cruelly ousted just prior to the election of 1930, lop away the mouldering branches and make some effort to restore the old party to the position, which it held in New Brunswick before it fell upon evil days, largely as the result of kindergarten leadership.”

Dysart would eventually lead the Liberals to a sweeping victory in 1935. Among those appointed to his cabinet would be John B. McNair, the new attorney general. While Dysart would only govern New Brunswick until 1940, McNair would step in and continue the Liberal run in power for another 12 years.

Little did those delegates know that the two men they chose from in 1932 would govern the province for most of the next two decades.

1944 New Brunswick election

McNair bucks the national trend

August 28, 1944

Mackenzie King’s Liberals were in some trouble in 1943 and 1944. The war was dragging on, conscription was dividing the country and people were looking ahead to change in a post-war order. Polls — a new addition to the political landscape in Canada — suggested support for the Liberals had dropped to the low-30s. The newly-christened Progressive Conservatives weren’t far behind, and nipping at their heels was the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.

Provincial Liberal governments were dropping like flies. Ontario ushered in a PC government in 1943. Then the CCF came to power in Saskatchewan and the Union Nationale ousted the Liberals in Quebec in 1944.

Would John B. McNair’s Liberals in New Brunswick be next?

The 1944 election in New Brunswick would be McNair’s first as Liberal leader. He had taken over from Allison Dysart in 1940, shortly after Dysart had won re-election the year before. McNair had spent the next few years running a wartime government, delivering surplus after surplus.

But the King Liberals risked dragging down the New Brunswick wing of the party. So, when McNair dissolved the legislature and set the date for the next election for August 28, 1944, he endeavoured to make the campaign about provincial issues, not federal ones.

The PCs wouldn’t have it. Hugh Mackay, who was named leader after the party’s 1939 defeat, was a wealthy lumber baron who married into a New Brunswick political family. He hoped to capitalize on discontent with Mackenzie King’s Liberals, saying “it is quite impossible to discuss Provincial affairs and ignore Federal.”

The Liberals did their best anyway. McNair touted his government’s record, its investments in pensions and support for mothers, as well as the work done to pave the province’s roads and improve New Brunswick’s infrastructure.

A correspondent for The Globe and Mail provided national readers with a brief description of each of the leaders. McNair was “bright-eyed, alert, youthful, he is sometimes reserved and sometimes a glad-hander”, while “big, rugged, “Buff” Mackay is as much at home in the woods of his native Province as he is on St. James St[reet]”.

But it wasn’t just the two-party race New Brunswickers were used to. Running candidates across the province for the first time was the New Brunswick wing of the CCF, led by J.A. Mugridge, a “tall, tweedy man with a quiet drawl.” An electrician and trade unionist running in Saint John, Mugridge and the CCF faced some serious challenges in the province despite the party’s national surge in the polls. The CCF’s organization was still small, and Saint John’s newspapers refused to publish any of the party’s pre-campaign ads. Help from the central HQ of the CCF, including a visit by national leader M.J. Coldwell, gained the CCF some attention, but not much support.

Despite some worries in Liberal circles, in the end New Brunswickers gave McNair a renewed vote of confidence. The party picked up seven seats, including all four in York County where McNair put his name forward. He had been defeated in York County in 1939, but this time he was one of the top four finishers. (At the time, each county elected multiple MLAs.)

The PCs were reduced to 12 seats, all but three of them in and around Saint John. The other three came in Carleton County.

“The people of the province are evidently satisfied with the present government,” said Mackay in a post-election statement, “so all I can say is good luck to them.”

The CCF finished second in Madawaska County and had strong showings in Saint John and Moncton, but otherwise made few inroads. It was a fact that was noted in national media as the CCF was otherwise making progress in the polls and in provincial elections across the country.

Mackenzie King and the federal Liberals breathed a sigh of relief when the New Brunswick returns came in. They tried to spin the results as a signal that things were turning around for the party. And maybe they were. When King sent the country to the polls the following June, the Liberals suffered some losses but nevertheless held on to power — with the help of a few extra seats from New Brunswick.

1970 New Brunswick election

Louis Robichaud gives it one last try

October 26, 1970

Jean Lesage and the Quebec Liberals came to power in 1960, an event that marks the start of the Quiet Revolution that transformed the province. That same year, Louis Robichaud and the New Brunswick Liberals kicked off a revolution of their own.

Robichaud was the first Acadian premier in New Brunswick to win an electoral mandate of his own and over the next 10 years he would reform the province, giving the French-speaking Acadian minority more say in governance and greater equality with the English-speaking majority.

He would win re-election in 1963 and 1967. In his third term in office, he brought forward the Official Languages Act that would divide the province but eventually get passed unanimously in 1969.

It exhausted a government that was already running out of steam. Robichaud, too, was losing his enthusiasm for the job that he won when he was only 34 years old. He had hoped to step aside and hand the leadership over to someone else, but the delays in getting the Official Languages Act passed and a hoped-for judicial appointment from Ottawa that never came kept him in the premier’s chair.

By the end of the summer of 1970, Robichaud just wanted to get the next election done so that he could win it and pass the job over to someone else who could have time to reboot the Liberals. He had also called a couple of byelections that the Liberals risked losing — better to avoid those painful defeats, call a general election and hope to catch the Progressive Conservative opposition by surprise.

The PCs, though, were ready. Now under Richard Hatfield, just 39 and “a modern, liberal-minded Conservative”, according to a Southam News correspondent, Hatfield had his party’s platform out before even the Liberals did. The Liberals didn’t even get their platform out to the newspapers in time to fill the adspace the party had purchased — the blank news pages that resulted gave Hatfield something to point to as the Liberal platform.

Hatfield’s strategy was to argue that after a decade of bewildering reform, New Brunswickers needed a change of government that would calm things down and get the province’s finances back in order.

There were few major issues during the campaign, but two would have some electoral repercussions in Moncton. Anglophones in the city were hoping to send their children to bilingual schools in order for them to learn French, but Acadians were worried that it would only accelerate the assimilation of their community into the English-speaking majority.

The Robichaud government was also put on the backfoot by a proposal made by two British experts hired by the Liberals to recommend reforms to the healthcare system. The experts suggested amalgamating the two hospitals in Moncton into a single hospital, something that neither anglophones nor francophones supported and which made a mockery of the government’s on-going construction of a new French-language hospital.

These issues went by the wayside, though, when the kidnapping of James Cross and Pierre Laporte by the FLQ gripped the nation. The October Crisis distracted voters, heightened English-French tensions and took Robichaud out of the province when he attended Laporte’s funeral in Montreal. Robichaud also now found himself guarded by officers of the RCMP that kept him at a distance from voters, and one rally had to be cancelled when a bomb threat was called in.

Hatfield, though running a good campaign that included touring the province by helicopter and reaching out to Acadians in their own language (or, at least, attempting to), was still seen as the underdog when October 26, 1970 approached. Observers thought the election would be close but that Robichaud and the Liberals would eke out another win.

Instead, Robichaud was handed a narrow defeat as the province split along linguistic lines.

Reversing the results of the 1967 election, the PCs won 32 seats and the Liberals won 26 seats, with both parties capturing 48.5% of the vote. The Liberals, though, ran up bigger majorities in the francophone north than the PCs did in the anglophone south, and so found themselves behind by a few seats.

Only a handful changed colours. In 1970, New Brunswick still had ridings that elected multiple candidates and the PCs were able to gain all three of the seats in Moncton. They also picked up the seat in Edmundston, where Robichaud hadn’t cashiered a minister involved in scandal, and two in Sunbury, where the soldiers at Gagetown had been deployed to patrol the streets of Montreal.

With the exception of a single seat in both Queens and Saint John, the Liberals were pushed back to the northern and eastern edges of the province where Acadian francophones were the majority.

Robichaud, commenting on results, recognized that “the people decided they wanted a change”, while Hatfield said he would govern for all New Brunswickers, regardless of region or language. Robichaud would eventually get that call from Ottawa when he was made a senator in 1973, while Hatfield would continue to govern until the historic defeat of the PCs in 1987, when the party did not win a single seat.

1982 New Brunswick election

Richard Hatfield’s last majority

October 12, 1982

The 1978 election in New Brunswick was a near-death experience for premier Richard Hatfield and his Progressive Conservatives. In Hatfield’s attempt to win a third consecutive term in office for his scandal-plagued government, he was nearly toppled by Joseph Daigle and the Liberals. Only two seats separated the two parties.

The Parti Acadien, which advocated for the rights of New Brunswick’s French-speaking Acadians (and ultimately a separate province), emerged as a force in the election, taking 12% of the vote where it ran candidates and nearly electing one MLA.

Acadians had traditionally backed the New Brunswick Liberals, acting as a solid base for that party and a ceiling for the Progressive Conservatives. The PCs needed to win southern, anglophone New Brunswick in order to form government, while the Liberals could afford to only split the south.

But with the rise of the Parti Acadien signaling that the Liberals no longer had a monopoly on the Acadian electorate, Hatfield and his francophone lieutenant, Jean-Maurice Simard, spied an opportunity.

Hatfield’s government launched a charm offensive in the north, investing huge sums of money on infrastructure projects and new schools and hospitals, as well as creating autonomous French-speaking school districts and a bilingual public service, bringing in the controversial Bill 88 which recognized the equality of the two linguistic communities.

While welcomed by Acadians, these efforts did not go over particularly well with English-speakers in southern New Brunswick. Nor was Hatfield’s PC caucus entirely behind him.

But it also split the Liberals, as Daigle flip-flopped on Bill 88 and shook the confidence of his MLAs, who eventually voted by a margin of 23 to three to remove him as leader. His replacement was 41-year-old lawyer Douglas Young, who represented a riding in the north.

The Parti Acadien, too, faced its own internal divisions, such as what position it should take over Quebec’s 1980 referendum. The Hatfield PCs decided to take advantage of the divisions plaguing their opponents. They would conduct two entirely separate campaigns, one led by Hatfield in English in the south and the other led by Simard in French in the north.

When Hatfield officially began the campaign in early September 1982, he pledged to protect the province from the effects of the recession that was hurting the country. He would exercise restraint but would not cut services. At the outset, he enjoyed a small lead in the polls over the Liberals, despite New Brunswick’s difficult economic situation, high unemployment and struggling forest industry.

Though Young was also critical of his federal cousins, Hatfield tried to tie Young and the New Brunswick Liberals to prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who was unpopular at the time. He also reminded voters of the role — exaggerated or otherwise — Young played in engineering Daigle’s downfall. Such disloyal ambition could not be trusted in the premier’s office.

In the north, Simard took a different tack, emphasizing the steps the PCs had already taken to empower the Acadian population and promising to implement much of the platform that had been the Parti Acadien’s.

The dual nature of the campaign proved divisive within the PC Party, but it proved effective among the electorate — who largely existed in two distinct media and political ecosystems.

It was a campaign dominated by pricey promises from the PCs and Liberals, including such measures as mortgage assistance, help for small businesses, job creation programs and universal kindergarten. What’s more, the platforms put forward by the PCs and Liberals were similar, making it difficult for voters to draw a distinction between the two.

They weren’t the only parties in the field. The Parti Acadien ran a reduced number of candidates in the north. The New Democrats, now under school teacher George Little, ran a more professional campaign than they had in 1978, with nearly a full slate of candidates and help from organizers with experience electing the NDP in British Columbia.

The campaign was considered a close one heading into election day, but the result was the biggest majority Hatfield would ever win.

The Progressive Conservatives won 39 seats, flipping a number of seats from red to blue in areas with significant Acadian populations. The PCs were up nine seats from the 1978 election, gaining three percentage points to finish with 47.4% of the vote.

The Liberals lost a lot of ground in northern New Brunswick as well as a few seats in the south, dropping 10 seats to just 18 and three points to 41.3% of the vote.

The New Democrats successfully won Tantramar, where they had finished a close second in 1978. Little was defeated in his own riding, but he did lead the NDP to their first seat victory ever.

Support for the Parti Acadien collapsed to just 0.9% and no candidate placed better than third. It would be the last election contested by the party.

Michael Harris, writing in The Globe and Mail, took a dim view of the campaign that had unfolded:

“For much of the campaign Mr. Hatfield and Mr. Young traded insults. The Premier accused Mr. Young of being disloyal to Mr. Daigle in leading the caucus revolt that ousted the former Liberal leader; Mr. Young characterized Mr. Hatfield as the head of a corrupt administration in bed with the federal Liberals. In the cut and thrust of what was often a nasty exchange, Mr. Hatfield emerged the clear winner.”

But Hatfield couldn’t keep up his high-wire act forever. Scandals continued to plague his government and the divisions he fostered in the 1982 campaign eventually ripped the PCs apart. In the 1987 election, Hatfield would finally go to defeat when Frank McKenna and the Liberals won a clean sweep of all 58 of New Brunswick’s ridings.

1995 New Brunswick election

McKenna wins again as PCs re-emerge from wilderness

September 11, 1995

It seemed that New Brunswick politics was heading in a new direction after the 1991 election. Frank McKenna’s Liberals had won another big victory — not as big as when they won every seat in 1987 — but the second-place party was not their traditional foes, the Progressive Conservatives. Instead, it was the Confederation of Regions Party that formed the official opposition with eight seats and 21% of the vote.

COR grew out of anger over New Brunswick’s bilingualism policies. Some unilingual anglophones felt that they were being excluded from job opportunities to placate the province’s francophone Acadians, and so elevated the grassroots, populist COR past the Tories, who were still reeling from the shattering 1987 defeat of then-premier Richard Hatfield.

But, somewhat inevitably, COR spent the years after its 1991 breakthrough in a downward spiral. Its membership believed in the role of the grassroots, and chafed at attempts by party leader Danny Cameron to provide top-down direction. Eventually, tensions between the party membership, the party’s executive, its caucus and its leader reached a boiling point and Cameron’s leadership was put to a review. He lost it and was replaced by firebrand Brent Taylor, who in turn was rejected by the COR’s caucus, who did not recognize him as their leader in the legislature.

The turmoil didn’t end there. Taylor was removed as leader by the party’s executive and Cameron ran the show until he quit for good and was replaced by Gary Ewart, who himself resigned after a few weeks when he couldn’t establish control over the party and the caucus. The interim leadership went to MLA Greg Hargrove, but the damage had long been done. Infighting within the party, as well as its inability to make good on any of their anti-bilingualism policies — equality between the two linguistic communities was enshrined in the constitution on COR’s watch — had whittled down their support to single-digits.

It provided an opportunity for the resurgence of the Progressive Conservatives. Under Dennis Cochrane, the party was doing a better job of providing an opposition in the legislature than the disorganized, bickering COR crew were able to do. The PCs were able to win back some of the voters they had lost to COR and moved into second place in the polls.

But as the 1995 election approached, Cochrane resigned the leadership and was replaced by Bernard Valcourt, a former cabinet minister in Brian Mulroney’s government. He was a pugnacious politician and tried to open the door to former COR members and MLAs, saying they could be part of his team if they adhered to the PC platform. A francophone New Brunswicker, he had the credibility to make an outreach like that to former COR supporters that might have alienated Acadians had an anglophone like Cochrane attempted it.

But the PCs were still trying to rebuild from their shellacking over the previous two elections. They had little money and the party organization was still in a rougher shape than that of the Liberals. Valcourt’s appeal in his home region around Edmundston was strong, but he was a harder sell in the south. His own advisors suggested he be kept out of the party’s few English-language advertisements.

Frank McKenna, by comparison, was looking golden. His party had been able to attract support from COR voters who had moved on from the bilingualism issue and saw in the Liberal premier a fiscal conservative they could swallow a lot easier than Valcourt.

Since 1987, the Liberals had been running an effective government — cutting spending and balancing budgets but also increasing job growth in New Brunswick. The provincial Liberals were a well-funded, well-organized and well-oiled machine that would have been a formidable opponent even if its rivals weren’t so weak. Before the writ dropped, some pundits were saying that another 1987-style sweep wasn’t out of the question for McKenna.

The memories of Richard Hatfield were partly to blame. His term in office had ended with personal scandal and tumult. It wasn’t hard to do better than that. Even Hargrove recognized this, saying “you know, Richard, after he left and McKenna went in, all he had to do was go to work at eight in the morning and he’s a hero.”

No one doubted that the Liberals would win another big majority. The Liberals didn’t sweep, however, instead winning 48 of 55 seats (the legislature had been reduced from 58). The Liberals took 52% of the vote, up 4.5 points from 1991, winning every seat in Fredericton and Moncton and taking rural districts across both anglophone and francophone New Brunswick — including every seat that had been won by the Confederation of Regions in their breakthrough campaign.

The PCs won three seats in Madawaska County, including Valcourt’s in Edmundston, and another in the Acadian Peninsula. They won two other seats in anglophone ridings, including one just outside of Saint John. That city also re-elected Elizabeth Weir, the leader of the NDP. Her party was competitive in only one other riding — the one next door to hers.

While COR still held on to 7% of the vote, they lost all of their seats and finished (a distant) second in only two ridings. The party was over. It would fall to less than 1% of the vote in the next election and then disappear altogether.

The unbeatable Liberals? They’d be fine as long as Frank McKenna was at the helm. But he wouldn’t stay forever.

1997 New Brunswick Progressive Conservative leadership

Bernard Lord bridges the divide

October 18, 1997

It had been a tough 10 years for the New Brunswick PCs.

The nightmare started in 1987, when Richard Hatfield’s Tories were swept out of every riding in the province by Frank McKenna’s Liberals. Over the next few years, their support was further gutted by the rise of the anti-bilingualism Confederation of Regions party, which managed to finish second in the 1991 election. As the COR started to fall apart, the PCs picked up some of the pieces. But in 1995, now under the leadership of former Conservative MP Bernard Valcourt, the PCs were only able to regain semi-respectability with six seats and official opposition status once again.

The PCs had expected they would be able to regain more of the support they had lost to the COR. Valcourt, a francophone Acadian, didn’t seem to have much appeal in the anglophone south, where the PCs captured just two seats. Valcourt managed only a little over 60% in the leadership vote that followed his defeat and he resigned, excoriating some of the PC caucus members who didn’t support him along the way.

The party was at a crossroads. Hatfield had brought them to power by bridging the divide between francophones and anglophones. But the results of the 1987 election and the rise of COR in 1991 demonstrated how that had come at a great price. Some elements in the party felt that the PCs needed to be led by an anglophone again to have any shot at rebuilding. Others felt they needed someone who could appeal to both communities without alienating either one.

Whoever would win the leadership would be up against a big challenge. McKenna’s Liberals seemed invincible and over the preceding decade the PCs had been a party riven with internal divisions. The slate of candidates who emerged reflected the job’s limited appeal.

There was Cleveland Allaby, a lawyer from Fredericton who had failed to win a seat for the PCs in the 1997 federal election. Margaret-Ann Blaney, a Newfoundlander and another failed former federal candidate, also put her name forward.

The two frontrunners, though, took very different approaches to the leadership contest.

Norm Betts was a business professor at the University of New Brunswick. His campaign kept its focus on a first ballot victory, making little effort to reach out to his opponents.

And there was Bernard Lord. He was 31 when he launched his bid and turned 32 just a few weeks before the contest came to a close. Lord had very limited political experience, having lost his own bid to win a seat in the 1995 provincial election. But he had something that no other candidate had — something that made him seem like the ideal candidate to lead a party like the New Brunswick PCs.

In a province still divided by language, Lord was able to pass between the two communities with ease. His father was an anglophone New Brunswicker who married a French-speaking Québécoise from the Lac-Saint-Jean region. Lord grew up in bilingual Moncton and learned to speak French and English without an accent. In the anglophone south, Lord could pass as an English New Brunswicker. In the francophone north, he could pass as an Acadian (even if he was actually half-Québécois). Neither side of the linguistic divide would have to compromise.

His youth, too, could be seen as an asset. Louis Robichaud, Richard Hatfield and Frank McKenna all became premiers before the age of 40. Clearly, New Brunswickers weren’t averse to electing young premiers.

While Betts focused on his campaign, Lord reached out to the others. It would pay off on the convention floor.

The main event was held in the Aitken Centre in Fredericton and four other satellite voting locations were organized across the province. For Betts, the strategy was to win it on the first ballot on the strength of his anglophone base in the south. For Lord, the strategy was to get the race to multiple ballots, in hope that his campaign could roll up the votes going to Allaby and Blaney.

On that first ballot, it was clear which strategy was going to be the winning one. Lord emerged on top with 36.6% of the 3,800 ballots cast, with Betts finishing a close second with 32.2%. Allaby and Blaney were well behind at 17.4% and 13.9%, respectively.

Finishing last, Blaney was eliminated. Allaby could have stayed on, but he decided to withdraw after seeing how far behind he had placed. At this point, both Blaney and Allaby went over to Lord’s camp, the three candidates standing on chairs in front of the stage to show convention-goers that the three were united.

The number of votes in the second round dropped by about 600, but of those that did stick around for that second ballot it was Lord who won the lion’s share of Allaby’s and Blaney’s vote. His total jumped by 440, Betts by 190, a margin of roughly two-to-one. Lord’s ability to build consensus — an important skill in New Brunswick politics — had helped him win victory.

It still seemed like a return to government was a distant prospect. The Liberals had won eight times as many seats as the PCs in the previous election. But the Tories had a leader with real potential to replicate Hatfield’s winning formula and, two years later, Lord would lead the PCs to their biggest electoral victory — ever.

1999 New Brunswick election

The bell tolls for the New Brunswick Liberals

June 7, 1999

You can’t go anywhere but down after a perfect sweep.

That’s what happened to the New Brunswick Liberals in the 1987 election when the party went 58-for-58, ousting (and humiliating) Richard Hatfield’s PCs.

Under Frank McKenna, the Liberals lost a few seats in 1991 and held their own in 1995. But by 1999, McKenna was gone and the Liberals had been in power for more than a decade.

It was up to Camille Thériault, McKenna’s replacement as party leader and premier, to keep the Liberals afloat. The polls augured well for his party, so Thériault set the date for his first test with voters for June 7, 1999.

But Thériault was not exactly a household name in New Brunswick. Despite being in McKenna’s cabinet, the former premier was not one for sharing the spotlight. It levelled the playing field somewhat for the new leader of the Progressive Conservatives, a young lawyer from Moncton named Bernard Lord.

Perfectly bilingual and equally at ease among anglophones and francophones, Lord was trying to have the party move on from the divisive debate over bilingualism. It had contributed to Hatfield’s collapse in 1987 and the rise of the anti-bilingualism Confederation of Regions to official opposition status in 1991. The grassroots, populist outfit couldn’t keep itself together, though, and by 1995 it had fallen back significantly in popularity.

By 1999 it was a spent force, and Lord went about bringing former COR supporters back into the fold. His stance for official bilingualism in New Brunswick with an emphasis on “fairness and justice” made both Acadians and COR voters feel at home in Lord’s PC Party.

While there were some grumblings within PC ranks over welcoming the COR elements that had abandoned the party, the Liberals made a misstep when they tried to make an issue of it. It was an attempt to shore-up their own francophone base as well as to divide the PCs in two, but their efforts received some blowback from a population that had grown tired of division over language.

A bigger problem for the Liberals, though, might have been a highway toll.

During McKenna’s tenure, the Liberals had signed a contract with a private company to build a much-needed highway between Moncton and Fredericton. News that it would be a tolled highway outraged locals. Lord promised to re-negotiate the contract and get rid of the tolls, but Thériault refused to budge and his campaign events would be greeted by angry protestors.

The issue fit perfectly with Lord’s overall focus on the bane of high taxes under the Liberal government. Thériault tried to make the campaign instead about the economy and health care, and criticized the PC plan to scrap the tolls and cut personal income taxes as fiscally irresponsible.

There were some weaknesses in the Liberal strategy, though. Thériault wouldn’t explicitly distance himself from his predecessor, but he tried to present a more compassionate approach than the one under McKenna, which included austerity measures that closed schools — much resented in the Acadian Peninsula — and cuts to hospital beds.

The Liberals might have also gotten complacent and lazy. Robert Pichette, an Acadian columnist writing in the Globe and Mail, said the Liberal campaign’s “slogans are as trite as their posters are amateurish; in fact, their entire campaign so far looks as if it were devised by rank amateurs.”

When mid-campaign polls suggested the Liberal walk had turned into a competitive race, suddenly Bernard Lord and the PCs looked like a legitimate alternative to voters who had previously been concerned with making sure their MLA was sitting on the government benches. Accordingly, the Liberals and Thériault sharpened their attacks against Lord — perhaps too little, too late, and the attacks also reinforced the PCs’ standing as a potential government.

Expectations were that it would still be pretty close. Instead, the PCs won a huge majority of 44 seats with 53% of the vote, a gain of 38 seats and 22 points since the previous election in 1995.

And it wasn’t just the southern English-speaking parts of New Brunswick that backed the Tories. The PCs gained five seats in northern New Brunswick and swept the eight seats in the Moncton area, in addition to sweeping Fredericton, gaining five seats in and around Miramichi and 10 more in the south.

The seats along the toll highway? They all went PC.

“Our province has voted for change,” Lord told the cheering crowd at his victory rally. “Today New Brunswickers forged a new beginning for a new century.”

The Liberals were reduced to just 37% of the vote, winning seven seats in the francophone regions in the north and east and a few more in the west.

The New Democrats under Elizabeth Weir retained her seat of Saint John Harbour, but otherwise the NDP was only competitive in two other ridings across the province. The Confederation of Regions all but disappeared, failing to register even 5% support in any riding in New Brunswick.

For the next few election cycles, New Brunswick’s political map would not be so riven by linguistic divides as it had been before. But the re-alignment achieved first by Hatfield and then by Lord would be short-lived. Not much more than a decade after Lord’s 1999 breakthrough, New Brunswick would revert to its Liberal-north and Tory-south divide — and another party critical of official bilingualism, the People’s Alliance, would re-emerge. It, too, would be re-integrated into the Progressive Conservatives, though without the same linguistic sensitivity as under Bernard Lord.

2006 New Brunswick election

Bernard Lord’s career ends early

September 18, 2006

Once upon a time, the next great leader of the Conservative Party was going to be Bernard Lord. His name was routinely thrown about as a potential contender for the party leadership. Maybe he’d run against Stephen Harper in 2003. Maybe he’d run to replace Stephen Harper when he eventually stepped down.

Lord had all the ingredients for a successful federal run. He was young. He was bilingual. He was moderate. He was a winner. He had taken the New Brunswick Progressive Conservatives from a state of shambles back to power and seemed destined to repeat his provincial success at the federal level.

It didn’t quite turn out that way. Lord’s string of success nearly came to a screeching halt when he eked out a majority of one seat in the 2003 provincial election. His opportunity to run federally came and went shortly thereafter when he did not put his name forward to lead the newly-merged Conservatives. He had a shaky legislative majority to worry about.

The PCs’ razor-thin majority became even thinner after the 2003 vote, which had produced 28 PCs, 26 Liberals and one New Democrat. When Elizabeth Weir, the leader of the NDP since 1988, resigned her Saint John seat, the Liberals picked it up. Both the PCs and Liberals lost MLAs who sat as Independents, depriving Lord of his majority. It was an untenable situation, and when one of Lord’s MLAs informed the premier that he would be stepping down to take a job in the private sector, Lord pulled the plug on his government. Otherwise, he’d risk losing the subsequent byelection and his plurality in the legislature.

Plus, the polls were looking better.

Lord’s main opponent in the campaign was the same person who had given him a scare in 2003. Shawn Graham, another young leader in a province that has liked young premiers, had done surprisingly well when he led his Liberals to near-victory.

The New Democrats had always been a party of one under Weir. When she went, so did the NDP’s only seat in the legislature. Allison Brewer took over the leadership of the seatless party and settled on a Fredericton riding as her hope for a win. She’d even get some help during the campaign with visits from federal leader Jack Layton and former federal leader Alexa McDonough. It wouldn’t do much good.

The campaign was instead a two-horse race — and two similar horses at that. Brewer quipped that Graham and Lord would save money if they just campaigned in the same bus. The two parties’ platforms were similar and their positions on the most-pressing issues were similar. The two leaders were even of a similar age. Lord complained that Graham had stolen much of his platform, calling it a “Shawny come lately” situation.

Five debates, three in English and two in French, did not settle matters, with no clear winner seen across them. But they served to emphasise the two-party contest, as the unilingual Brewer was excluded from the French language debates.

The campaign was seen as a late-summer, sleepy affair. There wasn’t much that differentiated the two main parties from each other and nothing emerged as the ballot box issue. It was a tight contest between change and continuation — and not much else.

The result reflected the lack of a decisive issue or a stark difference between the options on offer. Once again, only a few seats and a few votes separated the two parties — but this time the Liberals came out on top.

Graham secured 29 seats for his party, a gain of three over the 2003 election. The PCs dropped two seats and won 26, with the New Democrats being shutout. (They’d fail to finish second in any riding.) But while the Liberals won three more seats, they won less of the popular vote: 47.1% to 47.5% for the Tories. The Liberals, with gains in the urban centres of Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John to compensate for the losses of a couple of rural ridings in the anglophone south, had a slightly more efficient vote on a new map that was marginally favourable to the party.

It was by the thinnest of margins, but the Liberals had put an end to Bernard Lord’s impressive political career. Graham’s government would prove to be the first in what would be a string of one-term governments in a province that had been notorious for its electoral stability. Lord’s name would continue to be bandied about as a potential candidate for the federal Conservatives, but, after 2006, the once Great Right Hope would stay on the sidelines for good.

2010 New Brunswick election

New Brunswick’s first one-and-done government

September 27, 2010

When Shawn Graham’s Liberals narrowly defeated Bernard Lord’s Progressive Conservatives in the 2006 New Brunswick election, they came into office aiming to be just as transformative for the province as the earlier Liberal governments of Louis Robichaud and Frank McKenna.

Their agenda was ambitious — but that ambition very quickly became seen as recklessness. The Liberals attempted to reform post-secondary education and eliminate early French immersion, were taken to court over the restructuring of New Brunswick’s health system and they tried to cut some ferry services. These were projects that were floated and opposed and usually abandoned.

But New Brunswick needed some boldness. The provincial budget was in a deficit approaching $1 billion and the debt had grown to nearly $8 billion. One of New Brunswick’s troubled entities was NB Power, the electricity utility, and so Graham came up with a novel idea: why not sell it to Quebec?

It wasn’t long after Graham and Quebec premier Jean Charest announced the plan to sell most of NB Power to Hydro-Québec before a very vocal and widespread opposition to the notion made itself known. The government’s own polling suggested the idea was a big loser.

The credibility of the Liberal government had been shot through, and the plan was kiboshed. While the Liberals’ polling numbers improved after Graham backtracked, New Brunswickers had grown tired and untrusting of the government and its young, energetic leader.

After Lord’s defeat, the Progressive Conservatives selected David Alward, one of Lord’s cabinet ministers, as their new leader. Unflashy though he was, his relative dullness appealed to voters who wanted some peace and tranquility after the tumultuous Graham years.

When the 2010 campaign kicked off, the Liberals held a narrow lead in the polls over the PCs. It was going to be a tight affair, and neither party wanted to own-up to New Brunswickers about the dire straits the province’s economy was in. The towering debt and deficit would have to be dealt with post-election in one way or the other, but neither the Liberals now the PCs came forward with a solid plan about what they would do. Instead, the two parties made upwards of 600 promises, many of them costly, including a free laptop for all students (Liberals) or a power-rate freeze (PCs). When asked, both Alward and Graham would duck and dodge any question about whether they would cut spending or raise taxes.

The Liberals and PCs weren’t the only parties in the field. The New Democrats, without a seat in the legislature since losing their only holding in a 2005 byelection, were under the leadership of Roger Duguay, a priest from northern New Brunswick that gave the party more credibility among Acadians than it had had for a long time.

But the NDP, despite its limited electoral success, was a relatively ‘old’ party compared to two other new entrants. The 2010 election marked the first foray into provincial elections for the New Brunswick Greens, under the leadership of (former Liberal) Jack MacDougall. On the right, a new populist outfit that grew out of the grassroots opposition to the Liberal government also ran a small slate of candidates. It was the People’s Alliance of New Brunswick, under Kris Austin. Despite the lack of a seat in the legislature at dissolution, the leaders of the NDP, Greens and People’s Alliance were invited to the debates — reducing the focus on the fight between Alward and Graham.

Graham tried to ask New Brunswickers for another chance, saying in one of the debates that “when you have to lead you have to make difficult decisions. I know I'm not perfect. We've learned a lot and we can and will do better."

But voters appeared ready to do something they had never done before in New Brunswick’s history since the adoption of partisan politics in 1935: defeat a one-term government. By the campaign’s end, the PCs held a significant lead in the polls.

The results were even worse than the Liberals had feared. The PCs stormed to a big majority government, winning 42 seats and taking 48.8% of the vote. Their share of the vote had jumped by only 1.3 points since 2006, but the Liberals’ slide gave the PCs a big advantage.

Graham’s party lost 16 seats, falling to just 13 and 34.5% of the vote, down 12.7 points. Up to then, that was the lowest share of the vote the New Brunswick Liberals had ever received in an election.

The Liberals lost all their seats in Fredericton and Saint John and, with the exception of Charlotte-The Isles in the southwest, were limited to seats in Moncton and on the eastern shore of the province.

It was the rise in support for the NDP (10.4%, up 5.3 points) and the new vote won by the Greens (4.5%) that sapped the Liberals’ chances, particularly in Fredericton and Saint John. The PC vote didn’t increase much in those two cities, but the loss of Liberal support put the PCs ahead. In the rest of rural, anglophone New Brunswick, however, the PC vote surged.

The NDP did not win a seat, though they put up strong campaigns in two Saint John ridings and in the northeast, where Duguay came up just 1,300 votes short of winning his Tracadie-Sheila riding. The Greens had some respectable showings in the southeast and in Fredericton but were shutout — as was the People’s Alliance, which finished no better than third in just two ridings. Austin, however, took about 20% of the vote in his own riding. The Greens and People’s Alliance would have a role to play in New Brunswick’s politics, but not just yet.

Graham became the first New Brunswick premier to lead his party to victory in one election and go down to defeat in the next. But he wouldn’t be the last. The prize that David Alward won was not so glittering, and New Brunswick’s problems would soon make Alward the second New Brunswick premier to get just one term in office.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections New Brunswick and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• Front Benches and Back Rooms, by Arthur T. Doyle

• Louis Robichaud: La révolution acadienne, by Michel Cormier

• The Right Fight: Bernard Lord and the Conservative Dilemma, by Jacques Poitras

• Richard Hatfield: The Seventeen Year Saga, by Richard Starr

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

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1878 Manitoba election

Canada’s first Indigenous premier

December 18, 1878

In 2023, Wab Kinew became the first First Nations premier of a Canadian province. He wasn’t the first Indigenous premier, however. That title belongs to another Manitoban: John Norquay.

(The Manitoba legislature has passed a bill to recognize Louis Riel as the first honourary premier of Manitoba, though he didn’t hold that title in an official capacity when Manitoba became a province.)

Norquay, an English-speaking Métis, became premier in October 1878 after the resignation of Robert Davis. Though Norquay at first faced off against Davis as leader of the opposition, he was brought into the Davis government as a cabinet minister. When he replaced him for the top job, Norquay became not only the first Indigenous premier in Canadian history, but the first Manitoba premier to actually be born in the province.

Though Norquay had some loose ties to John A. Macdonald and the national Conservative Party, partisan politics hadn’t quite yet taken root in Manitoba. In place of partisanship there was factionalism, largely based on race and language. There were the French, the English and the old settlers, “many of whom,” as described by G.A. Friesen in Manitoba Premiers of the 19th and 20th Centuries, “were of mixed [Indigenous] and European fur trade descent and others the descendants of Lord Selkirk’s 1812 Settlement”. Balancing the interests of the various factions was paramount in a province that was quickly changing — transforming from a place where those who spoke English and French were roughly balanced and where the Métis constituted a large portion of the population, into one that looked more and more like Ontario — white, English-speaking and Protestant.

As an English-speaker, Norquay was a good bridge between some of these groups. But he primarily derived his support from the French-speaking and “old settler” factions.

The election of 1878, called shortly after Norquay became premier, was a very local affair. There were only around 8,700 eligible voters, though that was nearly double the voting population of the previous election in 1874. It meant that local names and loyalties mattered most, but as the province grew, debates about how best to develop Manitoba’s economy became a part of political campaigning in the province as well.

Officially non-partisan, Norquay and his government supporters were broadly seen as Conservatives up against a Liberal opposition — not a bad association to have in an election held a few months after Macdonald’s Conservatives returned to power in Ottawa, sweeping Manitoba in the process.

Norquay, along with many of his supporters, were re-elected in the 1878 provincial election. Norquay won in St. Andrews South, taking 69 votes to 58 for his opponent. The election was a victory for the incumbent government, partisan or otherwise. His supporters held a majority in the small 24-seat legislature and Norquay would remain in his post until 1887.

1896 Manitoba election

Thomas Greenway sends a message to Ottawa

January 15, 1896

Elections in the late 19th century in Canada were often decided over the things that defined the country’s divisions at the time: language and religion.

This was the case of the Manitoba provincial election of 1896.

Since 1888, the province had been governed by Thomas Greenway and his Liberals. The Conservatives were a defeated and depleted force in the legislature. Instead, Greenway’s chief opponents — or political punching bags — were the Conservatives in Ottawa.

Upon joining Confederation in 1870, Manitoba had two separate, publicly-funded school systems: one was Catholic and predominantly French, while the other was Protestant and English.

That made sense in 1870, but by the late 1880s the population of Manitoba was overwhelming English-speaking, thanks in large part to an influx of Ontarians who wanted Manitoba to be a lot more like Ontario.

Knowing a popular policy when he saw one, in 1890 Greenway abolished the separate school system and made the French language no longer an official language of government. The new non-sectarian (though still Christian) school system would effectively get rid of French-language education in Manitoba.

There was pressure on John A. Macdonald’s federal government to disallow the legislation, as Macdonald still counted on support from francophones in Quebec. Instead, Macdonald decided to let this issue be decided by the courts — and it went through the various stages of appeals for a few years.

But by the mid-1890s, a ruling came down saying that it was up to the federal government to act. The Conservatives, now under Mackenzie Bowell, dragged their feat until introducing remedial legislation (which split the party in two and eventually contributed to Bowell’s fall).

This was great news for Greenway, who needed an issue to focus a re-election campaign around. He refused to follow the remedial legislation and Bowell gave Greenway six months to figure out a solution. The Manitoba premier took that time to prepare for a campaign, and dissolved the legislature on December 20, 1895, setting an election for January 15, 1896.

Greenway denounced the “menacing attitude assumed by the Dominion Government” as an attack on provincial autonomy and went on the hustings with little to fear from the local opposition.

The 1896 Manitoba election was a one-issue election. The combination of a popular policy (minority rights weren’t exactly vote-getters) and an anti-Ottawa campaign delivered a big landslide to Greenway’s Liberals.

His party won 32 seats (nine of them by acclamation) and 50% of the vote, leaving just five seats and 40% to the Conservatives, two seats to the Patrons of Industry (a farmers’ group) and one Independent.

Political affiliations were fluid at the time, but this represented a gain of five seats for the governing party since the 1892 election.

Despite the rebuke from voters, Bowell still pressed ahead to find a way out. But Greenway and the federal Liberals did everything they could to delay action until a federal election would be forced later in the year.

That 1896 federal election, fought over the Manitoba Schools Question outside of the province (inside, the provincial election had decided things), brought Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals to power. Shortly thereafter, Laurier and Greenway settled on a compromise which allowed some Catholic and French-language education where numbers warranted. The question wasn’t entirely settled for Manitoba’s francophones, who continued to fight for their rights, but it would no longer be the political football that it was in the 1890s.

1903 Manitoba election

Rodmond Roblin is re-elected

July 20, 1903

Manitoba’s first election in the 20th century confirmed the province’s swing to Conservative politics — and the still potent power of patronage.

When the province went to the polls in 1903, Rodmond Roblin was a familiar face in Manitoba politics. He had been first elected as a Liberal in 1888 but had broken with the party over the government’s railway and French-language policies, and was promptly given the leadership of the opposition Conservatives. Roblin would hold that job until 1899, when he decided to step aside to make room for a political celebrity.

That celebrity was Hugh John Macdonald, son of the late former prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald. The son led the Manitoba Conservatives to victory in an election that year, narrowly beating out Thomas Greenway and the Liberals.

Macdonald, though, didn’t stick around for long — the siren song of the Dominion politics that had made his father famous came calling. So, Roblin stepped up again to take Macdonald’s place and became premier in 1900.

He navigated his first years in the job well, dealing with the controversial issue of prohibition by putting it to a referendum, which failed to pass, and by making significant progress on railway development in Manitoba. By building railways that provided competition to the dominant Canadian Pacific Railway, Roblin was able to provide relief to Manitoba’s farmers when the CPR was forced to lower its freight rates to stay in business.

Combined with new taxes that targeted corporations and railways, this solidified the farmer voters for the Roblin Conservatives. When Roblin sent the province (or, at least, its male residents) to the polls on July 20, 1903, at stake was not only his fledgling government, but the only Conservative government in the country at the time.

“A fluent speaker, and decidedly picturesque in his expressions,” according to The Globe, Roblin spoke at 10 meetings in two weeks, defending the government’s record and taking the fight to the opposition Liberals.

The Manitoba Liberals in 1903 were still led by Greenway, who had run the party for more than two decades and had served as premier from 1888 to 1899. A clever, opportunistic politician driven by expediency rather than ideology, Greenway had won his last victory in the Manitoba election of 1896.

At the time, Greenway had gone to war with the Conservative government in Ottawa over the issue of separate schools in Manitoba. It was a hot issue enflamed by the religious, linguistic and (to use the term of the time) racial divides separating French and English that defined Canada’s turn-of-the-century politics.

The wedge issue got Greenway re-elected in 1896, but when he settled it with the new Liberal government under Wilfrid Laurier, Greenway had robbed himself of an election-winner. After he lost in 1899, he also lost interest in provincial politics, hoping instead to land a cushy federal post. Though he was offered a Senate seat by Laurier, he was persuaded to stay in Winnipeg to keep the Manitoba Liberal Party together. He had a few good first years in opposition before problems with his own personal health and finances made him lose his focus and enthusiasm for the work.

Still, knowing that Roblin’s government was popular, Greenway tried to undermine it’s achievements with charges of corruption. He was helped in this by the Liberal-friendly Free Press, whose editor, John Dafoe, was charged with libel and arrested when his newspaper made allegations against the Conservatives.

These allegations surrounded a public works project that had started under the previous Liberal government. It was charged that the Conservatives demanded payments to the party from the person the Liberals had awarded the contract to, otherwise invoices would not get paid.

In a political move that is just as common in the 21st century as it was in 1903, Roblin turned the attack on the Liberals, denying the allegations and instead charging them of corruption, claiming the Greenway government gave out contracts to friends for work that was never done.

This sort of political patronage was common in Canadian politics at the time, and Roblin’s Conservatives were among the best at it. Their finely-tuned patronage machine would ensure that Roblin would stay in power for years to come. The charges of corruption didn’t stick this time, or at least they didn’t make the Conservatives look any worse than the Liberals.

“Election day opened with rain,” wrote a correspondent in Winnipeg for The Globe, “but it was not heavy enough to make the country roads too heavy for residents at outlying polls to get to their booths. In this city the vote was very heavy, a full half polled before the noon hour.”

The result was a big Conservative victory. Including votes for Independent Conservative and Liberal-Conservative candidates, who ran under that affiliation in ridings where the Conservatives didn’t have a candidate under their banner, Roblin took 50.6% of ballots cast and won 31 seats. It was a gain of just 0.8 percentage points but this produced eight seat gains over Hugh John Macdonald’s 1899 performance.

The Liberals dropped eight seats and nearly five percentage points, winning nine seats and 44.6% of the vote. Independent candidates, who included Labour and Prohibitionists, increased their share by four points to 4.8%, but did not elect anyone.

The Conservatives won in most of the rural regions as well as all three of the ridings in Winnipeg. The Liberals took only four seats around Winnipeg, three in the west of the province and two in the south, including Greenway’s seat. Roblin, for his part, won his Dufferin riding with the biggest margin of any candidate.

According to The Telegram, Roblin won because “the Government has been businesslike in its administration, and has brought the financial affairs of the Province into splendid condition and, even more important, it has shown itself to be progressive and energetic in the public interest and has grappled with great problems, such as that of transportation, not only fearlessly but successfully.”

After the election, Greenway finally made the jump to federal politics when he ran and won for the Laurier Liberals in the 1904 federal election. Roblin would remain as premier until 1915, when the years of patronage finally caught up to him and his party. He faced charges of corruption (of which he would eventually be acquitted when the jury was split), but the stink of patronage politics stuck to the Manitoba Conservatives. After Roblin’s departure, Manitoba shifted to the rule of anti-patronage Progressives. The Conservatives wouldn’t form government again in the province until 1958.

1910 Manitoba election

Rodmond Roblin and the joys (and risks) of patronage

July 11, 1910

Rodmond Roblin had been premier of Manitoba for a decade by 1910. Turn-of-the-century Canada was a good time to be in power. It made it much easier to stay in power.

The Conservative administration under Roblin had done a lot to build up the infrastructure of the young province. And building infrastructure — roads, railways and the like — meant giving out lots of contracts and government jobs. The Conservatives were good at doing that, too.

Winning elections when you have have all the power of patronage isn’t that difficult, and Roblin had secured a third consecutive victory for the Conservatives in 1907, defeating Liberal leader Edward Brown in the process. Brown even went down to defeat in his own riding.

The Manitoba Conservatives had a strong base in the rural areas of the province. But its farmers were becoming increasingly politically active. The Grain Growers Association, which would eventually evolve into the Progressive and United Farmer parties that would come to power in several provinces after the First World War, had lots of sway. The Grain Growers objected to the monopolies that private grain companies enjoyed, and they lobbied the Roblin government to setup publicly-owned grain elevators in order to undercut those companies.

Though the provincial government was limited in what it could do due to federal (or Dominion, as it was then called) jurisdiction, Roblin set something up for the farmers as a way to keep them on board. He also introduced some labour-friendly legislation regarding workmen’s compensation to shore up the Conservatives’ support in Winnipeg.

Roblin couldn’t take his re-election for granted because the Liberals were finally starting to get their act together. At a convention in early 1910, Tobias C. Norris, a farmer, auctioneer and MLA for a rural riding in the southwestern corner of Manitoba, was acclaimed as Brown’s replacement. Norris had already been doing the work in the legislature as House leader, and his skills in the auction house translated nicely to politics. He was a compelling speaker with a sense of humour, and the farmers had come to know him from the auction circuit.

Spying an opportunity, the Liberals under Norris began cultivating various populist and reformist elements who were opposed to the Roblin Conservatives — such as the temperance movement, women suffragettes and those opposed to the province’s contentious bilingual education system.

But Norris had a few disadvantages. Roblin wasn’t going to give him time to get comfortable as leader, and Norris was also being dragged down by the Liberal government in Ottawa. Wilfrid Laurier, now prime minister for 14 years, wasn’t very popular in Manitoba anymore. After winning 10 seats in the province in 1904, the Laurier Liberals were reduced to just two in 1908. One of the sticking points was the government’s feet-dragging on extending Manitoba’s borders northwards to the same latitude that had been awarded to Saskatchewan and Alberta when they became provinces in 1905.

Roblin knew a good election issue when he saw one. When he kicked off the 1910 election campaign in Carman and began his own tour of the province, he hammered home the boundary issue as the one voters should punish the Liberals over. That wasn’t all he had, though, as he could boast of the publicly-owned telephone system, the grain elevators and his party’s record of surpluses and spending.

The Conservatives tried to tie Norris to Laurier as much as possible. Robert Rogers, one of the leaders in Roblin’s government, charged that “there is a strong army of paid officials of the Dominion Government going up and down this country trying to defeat the will of the people.”

Norris countered that a Liberal government in Manitoba would settle the boundary issue quickly with their Liberal counterparts in Ottawa. And for every charge of Dominion corruption, the Liberals matched it with a corruption charge against the Conservatives. They also managed to secure the sought-after endorsement of the influential Grain Growers’ Guide.

The campaign, as was often the case in this era, could get feisty. Roblin’s Liberal opponent in his riding of Dufferin, W.F. Osborne, repeatedly accused Roblin of various corrupt acts. In one of their joint meetings, Osborne claimed that Roblin approached him on the platform and said “Osborne, you’ve got to cut out these personalities or I’ll skin you alive and make you eat mud.”

Roblin strenuously denied making the threats.

Despite the lively campaign, the results were much the same as they had been in 1907. The Conservatives won 28 seats and 50.8% of the vote, nearly matching exactly what they had accomplished three years ago. The Liberals won 13 seats (again), but saw their vote share drop by about four points to 44.2%. Still, Norris and the Liberals were satisfied with the progress they had made in Winnipeg.

Though the overall seat numbers didn’t change, a quarter of ridings did change hands: the Conservatives picked up five from the Liberals and the Liberals picked up five from the Conservatives.

It was a big victory for the Roblin Conservatives, and they’d have one more in them in 1914. But by then the charges of corruption were starting to stack up and stick to Roblin, particularly when accusations came out that the government had been less than clean in its awarding of contracts to build a new Legislature. Roblin was forced to resign and the lieutenant-governor turned to T.C. Norris to take over as premier.

He’d shortly thereafter secure a majority of his own in 1915 — and, not forgetting the reformists who joined him in 1910, made Manitoba the first province in Canada to give women the right to vote.

Rodmond Roblin’s last ride

July 10, 1914

Manitoba grew tremendously under the leadership of premier Rodmond Roblin. He took up the post in 1900 and, a year later, the census pegged Manitoba’s population at just over 255,000. After Roblin’s Conservatives had been re-elected a third time in 1910, the population of the province had nearly doubled to 461,000.

By 1914, however, Roblin’s grip on the province was growing weaker and the tolerance for the old ways of doing things was waning. Few governments of the day were squeaky clean and Roblin’s government was no exception. His Conservatives weren’t afraid to use public money and public servants for partisan purposes. And, of course, there was an expectation that hefty donations to party coffers would be made by those getting government contracts. Inflating invoices to cover those donations was common practice.

Increasingly, however, voters were tiring of this normalized corruption. They weren’t quite ready to back new parties — it would take the trauma of the First World War to shake voters out of their old habits for good — but they were starting to expect more from their leaders.

The opposition Liberals, reinvigorated under Tobias Norris, vigorously attacked the government’s corruption. A former auctioneer and compelling speaker, Norris had successfully gathered around him opposition elements in the 1910 election — prohibitionists, suffragettes and farmers — and, at a well-attended convention in early 1914, former leader Edward Brown predicted that a Liberal victory was just around the corner and that “the death-throes of the Roblin régime will be spectacular in the extreme”.

In June (in what would prove to be less than two weeks prior to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the event that would spark the outbreak of war in Europe), Roblin dropped the writ on the next provincial election, setting election day for July 10, 1914, nearly four years to the day since his last victory.

According to the Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs, “this contest, which had been going on in some degree for months, was not a satisfactory or pleasant one; as in the case of all Canadian Governments, when in power for many years, there were varied charges of corruption and bitter personalities. Sir Rodmond Roblin, who for 14 years had been Prime Minister was not, at the best, a conciliatory opponent or a courteous fighter; his party enemies accepted the guage [sic] with true Western heartiness and the conflict was almost picturesque in the vehemence displayed.”

The Liberals took aim at the Roblin government’s corruption and presented a few platform priorities of their own: “direct legislation” (referendums) to get the support of the influential Grain Growers’ Association, prohibition, English-language compulsory public schooling and a vote on giving women the vote.

“To me it seems that the most serious problem which our people must face and must decide on July 10th,” Norris wrote in his party’s manifesto, “is whether or not domination of public affairs by machine rule shall continue. The Roblin Government, by reason of its long term in office, has become surrounded by an organized gang of political workers who have grown bold in their manipulation of matters pertaining to elections and patronage. As electors I ask you the plain question. How long do you propose to stand for rule by this machine?”

Education, as ever the case in turn-of-the-century Manitoba politics, was a flashpoint in this campaign. Amendments brought in by education minister G.R. Coldwell, designed to make it easier for the government to takeover Catholic schools, were criticized as opening up the doors again to publicly-funded separate schools — a charge especially taken up by the Protestant Orange Order. The government denied this was the case, but the Liberals hammered away at the issue. Norris even claimed that Roblin had personally invited him to support a return of separate schools, which Roblin denied ever happened.

The Conservatives had to run on their record, and it wasn’t a bad one. The province’s infrastructure had been built up over the preceding years, a new Agricultural College (now part of the University of Manitoba) had been founded and Manitoba’s territory had been extended to Hudson’s Bay. The government had also begun construction on a new legislature building that “would be an honour and a credit to the Province”.

“We come with a policy,” he said, “we come with a record, we come with a faith and hope born of conviction that there is a great future for this Province.”

Roblin took his message across Manitoba and over 20 days made stops in Carman, Miami, Stonewall, Emerson, Dominion City, Transcona, Portage la Prairie, Reston, Souris, Brandon, Ste. Rose, Dauphin, Grand View, Swan River, Gladstone, Birtle, Morden and Roland. He wasn’t alone on the hustings, getting assistance from “Dominion” Conservatives, including the Manitoba caucus and future prime minister Arthur Meighen.

In Transcona, Roblin pilloried the “direct legislation” movement as counter to the British tradition and said “I am strongly opposed to the ‘Banish the Bar’ plank as well as Woman’s Suffrage as I look upon them as unworkable fads and not in accord with the best interests of the people.”

Liberal leader Norris also criss-crossed the province, with visits to Ste. Rose, Roblin, Russell, Roseburn, Minnedosa, Elkhorn, Transcona, Winnipeg, Macgregor, Carberry, St. Pierre, St. James, Oakville, Portage la Prairie, Selkirk, Brandon, Boissevain and Rivers.

These two men weren’t the only figures garnering attention on the campaign trail. Nellie McClung toured Manitoba as well, advocating for woman’s suffrage and prohibition and against the Roblin Conservatives. She closed her campaign by addressing a crowd of 5,000 in Winnipeg on the eve of election day.

“I could not sit down when there was a fight like this on in my Province,” she said at one of her events. “I could not be contented with just doing ordinary little things – punching holes in linen and then sewing them up again … Too many men have one set of virtues for private life and another for public use. That is one reason why I hope to see a rebuke administered to the Government.”

Charges of corruption and vote-buying were made by both the Conservatives and the Liberals against each other, but in the end the Roblin Machine managed one more victory.

(As voters in Winnipeg received two votes to elect two MLAs for each of the city’s three ridings, the chart above shows the ‘equalized’ vote share for each party, as calculated by Elections Manitoba, which counts each vote in Winnipeg as half of one vote.)

The Conservatives saw their majority reduced in an expanded legislature, but nevertheless won 28 seats and just under 48% of the vote. That was a drop in vote share from the previous election, but enough to hold on. The Liberals increased their holdings from 13 to 20 seats and scored 45% of the vote, while one Independent (Fred Dixon, endorsed by both the Liberals and Labour) was elected in Winnipeg.

There was a divide between Winnipeg and the rest of the province — outside of the capital, the Conservatives and Liberals nearly split the vote evenly, 50% to 48%. In Winnipeg, Independent (often Socialists) and Labour candidates managed around 21% of the vote, with the Conservatives winning the plurality with 43%.

Stung by his reduced majority, Roblin blamed the result on the Orange Order’s baseless fearmongering on separate schools. McClung, meanwhile, took a moral victory out of the result.

“We have fought a good fight and we will keep on fighting; nothing can stop us; no man, not even Sir Rodmond Roblin, can hold his foot against the door much longer,” she said. “The machine is broken, the people will rule, and when we say people we mean both men and women.”

She wouldn’t have to wait long for the end of the Roblin government (or for women’s suffrage). Evidence of corruption in the awarding of contracts for the legislative buildings led to Roblin’s resignation less than a year later. In 1915, the Conservatives would finally go down to defeat at the hands of Norris’s Liberals. But that appetite for something different, for something unlike the politics of before, would take a bite out of the Liberals before long, too.

1919 Manitoba Conservative leadership

R.G. Willis becomes Manitoba Conservative leader

November 6, 1919

Politics were in flux after the dislocations caused by the First World War. In Manitoba, the Conservatives had been ousted from office in 1915 despite the presence of Robert Borden’s Union (read: Conservative) government in Ottawa. The Manitoba Tories had been taken down by scandal and corruption, and were being supplanted by organized farmers’ movements.

When the party called a convention to name a new leader in 1919, the Liberals were solidly ensconced in power and the direction the Conservatives would take was still in question. Though a handful of candidates were nominated at the convention held in the Royal Alexandra Hotel in Winnipeg, including Albert Préfontaine, who was leading the Conservative caucus in the legislature, and Agnes Munro (called “Mrs. James Munro” in the newspapers), only two let their names stand for the party’s leadership.

The favourite seemed to be Fawcett Taylor. Born in Manitoba and a former mayor of Portage la Prairie, Taylor had served in the trenches in France and returned home intact and with the rank of major.

His opponent was Richard Gardiner Willis. Born in Ontario, like many others he had made his way to Manitoba in search of better opportunities. By 1919, he had served as mayor of the small town of Boissevain in Manitoba’s southwest, and was dubbed a “well-known farmer” in the Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs.

The “well-attended” convention included five delegates for each of Manitoba’s 49 ridings, along with other non-voting participants. When the votes were counted, Willis emerged as the winner — though by how much was not announced.

His win was seen as a demonstration of the growing strength of organized farmers’ movements in the Prairies. Willis himself seemed to recognize this, saying he had “no doubt that Manitoba’s next Legislature will comprise a great many more farmers than it does at present. There are only seven at present, and I confidently expect that this number will be more than doubled.”

“They may be Conservative, Liberal or Independent Farmers, but they will be farmers first of all.”

According to the Canadian Press, “much enthusiasm was shown and victory at the next election was confidently predicted.”

Those predictions proved optimistic. Not only would Willis lose his own bid to win a seat in the provincial election in 1920, the Conservatives would finish fourth in the legislature — behind the Liberals, Farmers and Labour.

But Willis was on to something. Tobias Norris’s short last term would end in 1922 and the United Farmers of Manitoba, soon to be styled the Progressives, would form a majority government that year. The Conservatives would finish third but, this time, Willis (now just a candidate as the leadership had passed to Taylor) would win himself a seat on the opposition benches — in a legislature full of farmers.

1949 Manitoba election

Coalitionists re-elected

November 10, 1949

There’s been a lot of talk about coalitions lately (originally written on Nov. 10, 2021), as the Liberals and New Democrats have apparently been discussing (informally, they say) some sort of co-operation that could make this minority parliament last. But co-operation is not coalition — if there aren’t NDP cabinet ministers or MPs on the governing benches, it ain’t a coalition.

But coalitions used to be all the rage, at least when wars were raging. After the outbreak of the Second World War, a coalition government was formed in Manitoba that included all parties — the Liberal Progressives, Conservatives, Social Credit and the CCF. But by the 1949 election, only the Liberal Progressives and the Progressive Conservatives (as they were called by then) were still together, as Social Credit had dissolved away and the CCF had left the coalition before the end of the war.

The Liberal Progressives, themselves the result of an alliance between the old Liberal and Progressive parties, were led by Douglas Campbell, who had replaced Stuart Garson as premier when he made the jump to federal politics in 1948. The PCs were under deputy premier Errick Willis. Against them was the CCF under the leadership of Edwin Hansford, mounting his first (and only) campaign as leader.

It was a lopsided affair for the coalition. Campbell’s Liberal Progressives won 38% of the vote, with the PCs taking 12%. With the addition of a few coalition-aligned independent candidates, the total take for the governing side was 57% of the vote and 45 seats, with the Liberal Progressives accounting for 30 of them and the PCs for nine.

The CCF captured 26% of the vote and formed the opposition with seven seats (all of them in Winnipeg), and was joined on that side of the legislature by three Conservatives (who were opposed to the coalition), one independent and one Labor-Progressive (otherwise known as a Communist).

Campbell would go on to govern the province until 1958 but he would do so alone for nearly the whole time, as the PCs finally put an end to the coalition in 1950.

1962 Manitoba election

Duff Roblin secures third term

December 14, 1962

After a long period of rule by the Liberal-Progressives, Duff Roblin and the Progressive Conservatives scored an upset victory in the 1958 Manitoba election, securing a minority government. It was the party’s first victory since 1914 and came hot off the heels of John Diefenbaker’s federal landslide.

With a big and reforming legislative agenda, the PCs gained the support of the CCF in the minority legislature, as Roblin had positioned the party in the centre of Manitoba’s political spectrum — with the Liberal-Progressives to the right and the CCF to the left. When an opportunity presented itself, Roblin dissolved the legislature and won himself a majority government in 1959.

The first years of the Roblin government were focused on investment in the social sector, particularly education. But with Diefenbaker’s PCs reduced to a shaky minority in 1962, the likelihood of a federal election in 1963 seemed high. This might have pushed Roblin to call an early election for December 14, 1962.

Campaigning on a program of economic development — highways, northern development, the Red River Floodway — Roblin’s PCs were in a strong position. The Liberals had shed the ‘Progressive’ moniker and were now under the leadership of Gildas Molgat, someone who would keep the Liberals firmly on the right. The CCF was now the New Democratic Party under Russell Paulley, but the NDP was unable to make a breakthrough in its first campaign.

When the votes were counted, the Progressive Conservatives were returned with 36 seats, matching their total from 1959. Their share of the vote dipped only slightly, falling about a point to 45%. The Liberals gained two seats, winning 13, and increased their share of the vote from 30% to 36%. The NDP, though, fell seven points to 15% and only seven seats. A Social Crediter was also elected.

Roblin would win one more election in 1966 before stepping aside in 1967 to mount a (failed) bid for the federal PC leadership. Two years later, Ed Schreyer would form the first NDP government in Manitoba’s history.

1980 Manitoba Liberal leadership

Lauchlan for the Liberals

November 30, 1980

Being a Liberal in Western Canada was no treat in 1980. In the federal election held that year, Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals managed to get only two MPs elected west of Ontario — and both of those were in Manitoba. One of them was Lloyd Axworthy, who had previously been the one and only provincial Liberal throughout the region.

The Manitoba Liberals had been out of power for over 20 years by 1980 and were just coming off their worst election ever. In 1977, the Liberals under Charles Huband prevailed in only one seat (Axworthy’s) and took 12% of the vote. Huband resigned the next year.

The province, now governed by Sterling Lyon, a deep-blue Progressive Conservative, had become polarized between the right-wing Tories and the left-wing New Democrats, then under Howard Pawley. There was little place for the Manitoba Liberals in such a divided electorate — and with such an unpopular Liberal prime minister in Ottawa.

But the party still needed a leader, and two candidates were in the running by the time the party’s convention was held on November 30, 1980 at the Winnipeg Convention Centre.

The frontrunner was Doug Lauchlan, recently of Calgary. A former United Church minister and president of Mount Royal College, the Manitoba-born Lauchlan had left his job in Alberta to become an aide to Axworthy, who resigned his provincial seat to run for federal office and become Trudeau’s only Western cabinet minister. Lauchlan had tried, and failed, to become a Liberal MP himself, when he was defeated in a Calgary riding in the 1979 election.

But Lauchlan had the backing of the party establishment, particularly those with ties to the federal party.

Against him was Hugh Moran, a realtor from Portage la Prairie who represented the Manitoba Liberals’ dwindling rural base. Leaning into his Irish heritage, Moran’s white-and-green campaign signs featured a shamrock, a striking contrast to Lauchlan’s Liberal red-and-white.

Some 900 delegates and observers attended the convention, and when the ballots were counted Lauchlan won, taking 493 votes to Moran’s 300.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Lauchlan said after his victory. “We’ve had a great launching pad, a magnificent experience here.”

He implored Manitoba Liberals to put their shoulder to the wheel, going out to meet voters and carve themselves a place on the province’s political spectrum.

“What’s that saying on Candid Camera about ‘surprise, you’re on Candid Camera?’” Lauchlan joked. “Well, some day, somebody’s going to knock on your kitchen door for a cup of coffee and it’s going to be me.”

Manitobans did not prove to be too enamoured with Lauchlan’s sense of humour. He led the party into the 1981 election, one that was polarized between Lyon and Pawley. In the end, he did even worse than Huband. With no seats and just 7% of the vote, the results still rank as the lowest point in the history of the Manitoba Liberal Party.

1981 Manitoba election

Howard Pawley leads the NDP back to power

November 17, 1981

After four years in office, the Progressive Conservative government under Sterling Lyon — a confrontational, pugnacious small-government conservative — was becoming increasingly unpopular in Manitoba. Lyon brought in fiscal restraints, fomenting opposition by groups affected by the government’s cuts, and seemed distracted by constitutional debates and “mega-projects”.

The New Democrats, who had governed Manitoba for two terms before the PCs came to power, were re-invigorated under the new leadership of Howard Pawley, who spent his time as opposition leader improving the state of the party’s organization.

Running as a relative moderate against the “neo-conservative'“ Lyon — whose party ran under the somewhat menacing slogan “Don’t Stop Us Now” — Pawley won a big majority with 34 seats, an increase of 11 since the 1977 election. The PCs lost 10 seats, dropping to 23, as the New Democrats won central and northern Winnipeg and rural seats in the north and east, while the PCs were pushed back to southern Winnipeg and the rural southwest.

The provincewide vote, however, was closer than the seat total might have suggested: 47% for the NDP and 44% for the PCs.

The Liberals, under Doug Lauchlan, were shut out and captured just 7% of the vote, which still stands as the Manitoba Liberals’ worst election performance in their history.

The Lyon government also still stands as the only single-term government in Manitoba.

The New Democrats would narrowly win one more election in 1986 under Pawley, but Gary Filmon would return the PCs to power in 1988 and stay there for the next 11 years.

1988 Manitoba NDP leadership

Gary Doer takes over

March 30, 1988

Seven years since being returned to power in 1981, the Manitoba New Democrats under Howard Pawley were struggling by 1988. The party had secured only a tenuous one-seat majority in the 1986 election and were hanging on by a thread following a resignation that left a seat vacant.

When it came time to vote on the NDP’s budget in 1986, disgruntled NDP MLA Jim Walding saw a moment to exact some revenge for what he felt was a snub by his party that kept him out of cabinet — a snub exacerbated when Walding found himself facing a challenge by one of Pawley’s aides for his own riding nomination.

Walding voted against the budget and Pawley’s government was defeated by a margin of 28 to 27.

It was not a good time for an election. Hurt by a big hike in auto insurance rates and Pawley’s support for the unpopular Meech Lake Accord, the New Democrats were trailing in third in the polls behind the second-place Liberals and a rejuvenated Progressive Conservative Party under Gary Filmon, who was taking the PCs into a more centrist direction after the confrontational conservatism of the Sterling Lyon years.

Pawley decided that the NDP’s best chance of survival was if he stepped aside, and when he called an election for April 26 he announced his own resignation and an NDP leadership race that would name his successor on March 30, 1988.

With little time to organize, there were still five candidates that emerged.

Gary Doer, minister of urban affairs and a former president of the Manitoba Government Employees’ Association first elected under the NDP banner in 1986, was the first to declare. He was seen as the front runner and he opened his leadership campaign admitting that the Pawley government had made mistakes.

Though he started out as a long shot, Doer’s main challenger turned out to be Len Harapiak, the minister of agriculture, who was described as “earnest, hard-working, soft spoken and family-oriented” by The Globe and Mail’s correspondent in Winnipeg. Like Doer, Harapiak had been first elected in 1986.

There was also Andy Anstett, attempting a comeback after being defeated in the 1986 election, Conrad Santos, an MLA, and Maureen Hemphill, minister of community services. Hemphill represented the party’s left wing, boasting she was not running “an establishment campaign”.

Doer had the backing of the urban white collar labour vote, and garnered endorsements from the Manitoba Federation of Labour and senior cabinet ministers. From Winnipeg, Doer counted on endorsements from influential New Democrats in Brandon and the rural areas of the province to broaden his appeal.

Harapiak, representing The Pas, had rural and northern support, along with the endorsements of more junior cabinet ministers. Both he and Doer were seen as moderates, but Harapiak had a longer history with the party after having run (and lost) as an NDP candidate on several occasions before his 1986 victory. Doer, by contrast, was seen by some as more of a newcomer.

The convention in Winnipeg included nearly 1,800 delegates, supplemented by satellite voting locations in Dauphin, Swan River, Flin Flon, Thompson and The Pas. Each riding was allowed to have one delegate for every 10 members in the riding, which meant parts of the province with stronger local organizations had more clout.

On the first ballot of voting, Doer emerged on top with 38% of delegates’ votes. Harapiak was not far behind with 33%, followed by Anstett at 19% and Hemphill with 10%. Santos garnered only five votes.

Hemphill backed Anstett for the next ballot of voting, but it didn’t help. Doer picked up 113 delegates, growing his support to 45%. Harapiak picked up 79 delegates and remained within reach of Doer with 38%, while Anstett saw his total drop by 27 delegates to just 18%.

An anyone-but-Doer movement emerged, as both Anstett and Hemphill got behind Harapiak. It almost succeeded, as Doer gained only 91 delegates on the third and final ballot to Harapiak’s 192.

But Doer won by a margin of 21 votes, with 835 delegates against Harapiak’s 814.

Doer had little time to get comfortable as NDP leader, as the election was only a few weeks away. A new face and some new energy was not enough, and the NDP suffered a big defeat, dropping from 30 seats and 41.5% of the vote in 1986 to just 12 seats and 24% in 1988. The Liberals under Sharon Carstairs formed the official opposition while Filmon and the PCs formed a minority government, which they were to increase to a majority two years later.

But despite the razor-thin leadership win and his electoral defeats in 1988 and 1990, Doer was able to stay on as leader of the Manitoba New Democrats. He’d lose again in 1995 before finally bringing the NDP back to power in 1999. Doer would serve as premier until 2009, when he stepped down and ended 21 years as leader of the Manitoba NDP — far longer than anyone else has ever held the title.

All because of 21 votes.

1993 Manitoba Liberal leadership

Liberals choose Edwards, but Lamoureux endures

June 5, 1993

Under Sharon Carstairs, the Manitoba Liberals achieved something they hadn’t enjoyed for decades: relevancy. In the 1981 election before her arrival, the Liberals were shutout of the Manitoba legislature entirely after being reduced to a single seat in 1977.

But Carstairs and her populist style earned the Liberals some respect. Taking advantage of the growing unpopularity of the NDP government she won a seat in 1986 and then leap-frogged the NDP entirely, winning 20 seats and 36% of the vote in 1988. The Liberals were just five seats short of the Progressive Conservatives, who formed government under Gary Filmon. For the first time in over 20 years, the Liberals won enough seats to form the official opposition.

The Liberals couldn’t move further ahead, however. Filmon secured a majority in 1990 and the Liberals were back to third party status with just seven seats.

Carstairs was criticized for squandering what was seen as an opportunity to finally put the Liberals back into power. By 1993, after leading the party through three back-to-back election campaigns and taking a prominent role in opposing the Charlottetown Accord, Carstairs announced her resignation in late 1992.

There wasn’t a lot of interest in the leadership contest to replace her, but the Manitoba Liberals had an opening. Filmon’s government was pushing through unpopular austerity measures and Gary Doer’s NDP still hadn’t shaken off its defeat from 1988. The Liberals, on the upswing elsewhere in the country and only months away from taking power federally, seemed to be a party heading in the right direction.

The race to decide who would take the party to the next level came down to two young MLAs from Winnipeg, both first elected in the 1988 election.

Paul Edwards, 32, was the favourite of the party establishment. He promised to keep the party in the middle of the spectrum, saying that “the genius of the Liberal Party is that it refuses to indulge in extreme positions.”

His one and only rival was Kevin Lamoureux, 31. According to the Canadian Press, the contest was between a “well-connected young Winnipeg lawyer [Edwards] or a hard-working ‘professional’ politician [Lamoureux].”

The Liberals were struggling to garner attention for the leadership race, with one debate held just a few days before voting attracting an audience of less than 50. But a little controversy helped the contest get into the headlines.

For the first time, the party was abandoning the delegated convention and instead sent out ballots to all 8,104 members eligible to vote. Members could cast their ballots by mail or at regional polling stations, with the result to be announced at the Winnipeg Convention Centre on June 5, 1993.

But there were some complaints that not everyone got their ballot in time to return it. The party responded by extending the deadline for receiving the mail-in ballots, a move that was decried not only by the Lamoureux campaign but by the leadership convention chairman, Ernie Gilroy, who said that he “no longer believe(d) that the candidates are playing on an even playing field”.

The argument was that the extension would give the lacklustre Edwards campaign more time to sign-up new members. Lamoureux’s team had managed more than twice as many new member sign-ups as the Edwards team, and it was argued the delay would let Edwards close that gap (it wasn’t explained why the Lamoureux campaign wouldn’t be able to also use the extra time to its advantage).

Following the outcry, the party reversed its decision and kept the deadlines as they were. In the end, it didn’t really make much of a difference — though it might have impacted turnout.

Just under 2,000 members of the Manitoba Liberal Party cast a ballot, a turnout of less than one-quarter. Of those who did manage to vote, Edwards received 56.1%. Lamoureux took the remaining 43.9%.

The low engagement in the party’s leadership race foreshadowed trouble ahead for the Liberals. The next provincial election was not held later that year, as some in the party had predicted, but would wait until 1995. Filmon and the PCs won that election with the NDP retaining its official opposition status. Edwards would manage to lead the party to just three seats (including Lamoureux’s, but not his own). Nevertheless, the 24% of the vote the Liberals captured in that election, though lower than what Carstairs managed in her last two outings, has yet to be bettered by the party.

While things didn’t get better for the Manitoba Liberals, Lamoureux’s political career was just getting going. He’d have a few more terms in the Manitoba legislature before making the jump to federal politics in a 2010 byelection and being one of the few federal Liberal MPs to survive the 2011 campaign. Since 2015, Lamoureux has served as the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader in Ottawa.

2016 Manitoba election

Heading toward the inevitable

April 19, 2016

There are few election outcomes that were as predictable, and from so far out, as that of the 2016 Manitoba provincial election.

If parties have a biological clock, the Manitoba NDP’s was long done ticking by 2016. The party had first come to power in 1999 under Gary Doer, but after 17 years, seven of them under the chronically-unpopular Greg Selinger, time was running out.

Doer had been a popular, pragmatic New Democrat during his time in office. But Selinger could never match his popularity, winning re-election in a tight contest in 2011. During that campaign, Selinger had made promises to Manitobans — and at least one of them he wouldn’t keep.

In spring 2013, Selinger announced that he would have to go back on a campaign pledge to keep the provincial sales tax at 7%. Instead, he would increase it by one point to help Manitoba’s fiscal situation. Manitobans didn’t like the increase, but they disliked that a promise had been broken even more.

Immediately, support for the NDP tanked. By June 2013 the party was trailing the opposition Progressive Conservatives by double-digits and Selinger was among the least popular premiers in the country. Selinger and the NDP would never recover.

Facing an unwinnable election, the NDP caucus was getting nervous. But when it was clear that Selinger would not step aside to try to give his party a fighting chance, five cabinet ministers publicly called for Selinger’s resignation and resigned their own cabinet portfolios. Still refusing to leave, Selinger instead called his challengers’ bluff — demanding a leadership race that could confirm his spot at the head of the party. His gamble paid off, but Selinger was only able to defeat his main challenger, Theresa Oswald, with 51% support on the final ballot. Hardly a resounding confirmation of his leadership.

As the dumpster fire within the Manitoba NDP raged, the PCs did their best to keep out of the flames. Needing to fill the vacancy left when Hugh McFadyen resigned following the 2011 campaign, the PCs opted for Brian Pallister. The long-time Conservative MP (who had run for the federal PC leadership in 1998) was acclaimed in 2012.

Pallister’s time as opposition leader was not without controversy or bizarre statements, including his deep and abiding distaste for Halloween. But these did not have an impact on the PCs’ support, even if Manitobans admitted to less support for Pallister himself than the party he was leading.

When the campaign was finally kicked off in March 2016, Pallister’s PCs embarked on a safe front-runner’s campaign with few detailed promises. Two things Pallister did make clear, though, was that he’d reverse the sales tax increase and that this campaign was a referendum on Selinger. To drive the point home, he launched his campaign in Selinger’s own St. Boniface riding.

There was nothing the NDP could do to stem the tide. The desire for change was just too strong in Manitoba. Nearly a quarter of Selinger’s caucus wasn’t running for re-election and the internal divisions within the party made for an easy target for the PCs, with one attack ad asking “if even the NDP can’t trust Greg Selinger, how can Manitobans?”

With the NDP so unpopular, there might have been an opportunity for the Manitoba Liberals to make a breakthrough. Some polls were showing the party, with only one seat in the legislature, was running ahead of the NDP. Coming only a few months after Justin Trudeau’s 2015 federal election victory, which included many Liberal victories in Winnipeg, the election’s prospects looked promising for the Manitoba Liberals.

But their campaign fell apart. Under rookie leader Rana Bokhari, the party’s campaign was plagued by gaffes, internal disputes and a general air of amateurism. The party failed to run a full slate when a few of its candidates were disqualified and others had to be dropped. Any chance the Liberals had to displace the NDP as the second-place party appeared slim by election day.

As expected, the PCs won a sweeping majority. They more than doubled their seat count to 40 and increased their vote share by nine points to 53%. It was one of the biggest victories in the party’s history.

Not only did the PCs push the New Democrats outside of small-town and rural southern Manitoba, it was also able to win 17 seats in Winnipeg itself. The New Democrats suffered losses throughout the province, losing votes to the PCs in southern Manitoba, the Liberals in northern Manitoba and to both parties in Winnipeg. Selinger promptly resigned as NDP leader. Bokhari, who failed to win her own seat, eventually stepped aside as well.

The Manitoba Progressive Conservatives would have at least one more victory in them when the party won another big majority government in the 2019 election. But Pallister, like Selinger before him, soon became a drag as his own popularity plummeted and the NDP moved back ahead of the PCs in the polls. Unlike Selinger, though, Pallister stepped aside to keep his caucus together and to give a chance to his successor.

In October, we’ll find out if that successor, Heather Stefanson, will be able to turn things around for the PCs — and avoid what looks like the inevitable.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections Manitoba and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• Manitoba Premiers of the 19th and 20th Centuries, edited by Barry Ferguson and Robert Wardhaugh

• John Bracken: A Political Biography, by John Kendle

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

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1959 Newfoundland election

Joey vs. Dief

August 20, 1959

Marking 10 years as the last province to join Confederation, Newfoundland didn’t have much to celebrate in 1959. Poorer than the country it joined in 1949, Newfoundland had fallen further behind the rest of Canada over the next 10 years. The economy was in the doldrums and unemployment was soaring.

Joey Smallwood, the only premier the province had ever known, had to find someone to blame. John Diefenbaker would do just fine.

The Progressive Conservatives had won a landslide victory in the 1958 election, but they didn’t do so well in Newfoundland. Throwing his weight behind his federal Liberal cousins, Smallwood ensured that Diefenbaker won only two seats in the province — making it the only province in that election that didn’t elect a majority of PC MPs.

One of the terms of Newfoundland’s union with Canada — Term 29 — became the flashpoint issue that Smallwood needed to deflect Newfoundlanders’ unrest toward someone else. Term 29 ensured that Newfoundland received funding from the federal government to help ensure the delivery of services that were up to par with what was available elsewhere in Canada. But the terms were somewhat vague. The Diefenbaker government decided that the terms of the agreement would run their course in 1962 after some $36 million was sent to St. John’s. After that, the federal government would reconsider Newfoundland’s needs.

To Smallwood, this was betrayal of the terms of union. He demanded that transfers continue in perpetuity, even if they were still not enough.

The issue split the provincial Progressive Conservatives in Newfoundland. Malcolm Hollett, the party’s leader, stuck with Diefenbaker and the prime minister’s pledge that Newfoundland would be treated equitably. Another PC MHA stood with Hollett. But two others — representing half of the remaining PC caucus in what was a largely one-party state — broke with the provincial Tories, and set up their own party: United Newfoundland.

James Higgins, one of the breakaway MHAs, argued that Newfoundland needed a party divorced from federal politics. He didn’t support Diefenbaker, but he wasn’t ready to support Smallwood.

But a canny strategist like Smallwood knew an opportunity when he saw one. Calling them “patriotic men who put Newfoundland first” and promising that “anyone with the smell of Diefenbaker on him is good and finished”, Smallwood ensured that the two UNP incumbents would not face a Liberal opponent in their own ridings.

Not so the PC leader. When the Tories voted against a resolution condemning the Diefenbaker government’s decision on Term 29, Smallwood dissolved the legislature and sent the province to the polls. To make his point, Smallwood wouldn’t run in his own district of Bonavista North, but would take on Hollett on his own home turf in the Tory heartland of St. John’s West.

“We will see who speaks for Newfoundland — Mr. Hollett or yours truly,” he said.

There was another new party on the ballot in the 1959 provincial election. The Newfoundland Democratic Party, backed by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, was formed as a result of the loggers’ strike that had caused great unrest and violence in the Grand Falls area earlier that year. The party’s leader, Ed Finn Jr., even ran against the labour minister.

But though the strike had captured Newfoundlanders’ attention earlier in 1959, on the campaign trail Smallwood ensured that the only issue was Term 29 — and that a vote against the Liberal Party was the same as a vote against Newfoundland itself.

Smallwood took nothing for granted. In Smallwood: The Unlikely Revolutionary, Richard Gwyn wrote that “for the first time he experienced with television on a large scale, delivering five-minute speeches each night. In St. John’s … he canvassed by car and gave as many as six street-corner speeches a day. To reach those who remained indoors, a squad of Liberal workers telephoned householders and told them: ‘This is a message from the Premier,’ and then switch on a five-minute tape recording. Some listeners, who assumed the caller was Smallwood in person, tried to interrupt him with questions, and inspired Hollett to the best crack of the campaign: ‘That’s typical of Smallwood, he never listens.’”

The result was another landslide for Joey. The Liberals’ share of the vote fell by eight points, but most voters still backed the party. They won 58% of the vote and 31 seats.

The PCs won three seats, one fewer than in 1956 but one more than they had at dissolution, with 25% of the vote, as United Newfoundland captured another 8% and managed to win two seats. Higgins, however, was not one of them — he was beaten by a Tory.

In fact, Smallwood was the only party leader to win his seat. The Newfoundland Democrats did far better than the CCF did in 1956 with 7% of the vote, but failed to elect a single candidate. The fight in St. John’s West between Hollett and the premier went Smallwood’s way by a margin of two-to-one.

“I am sorry to see Mr. Hollett defeated as a man,” Smallwood said after the returns came in, “but more than pleased about the defeat because Mr. Hollett chose to hold himself out as a spokesman for Mr. Diefenbaker.”

With the election behind him, Smallwood let the issue of Term 29 faded away. There was not much he could do against Diefenbaker’s majority in Ottawa. Resolution of the issue would have to wait until Lester Pearson’s Liberals came to power in 1963, when they agreed to keep the money flowing. Maybe it was to repay a favour — Pearson’s Liberals swept all seven of Newfoundland’s seats in that election.

1966 Newfoundland election

Newfoundland gives their hero a last hurrah, but he won’t stay away

September 8, 1966

It was supposed to be Joey Smallwood’s last hurrah. The voters planned to send him off in style, giving the man who brought Newfoundland and Labrador into Confederation his biggest landslide. It was the pinnacle of Smallwood’s political dominance of the province, which had in many ways become a one-party state.

There was more than just affection and, just maybe, fear that gave the Liberals such a big victory in the 1966 Newfoundland election. The economic mood of the province was upbeat and the future looked bright. In the months ahead of the election call, Smallwood announced a new fish plant here and the expansion of an iron ore plant there. He announced that more electricity power would be produced and that a new phosphorus industry was going to be developed.

There had been investment in education with free tuition for first-year students at Memorial University, which was also about to get a new faculty of medicine.

Why would Newfoundlanders want to ruin all that by doing something as silly as voting for the opposition?

James Greene, who led that small contingent of Progressive Conservatives on the opposition benches in the House of Assembly, resigned in January 1966, “pleading pressure of private business.”

His replacement was Noel Murphy, who had won his seat of Humber East in the 1962 provincial election — the first time the Liberals had failed to take it. A former medical officer for the Royal Air Force’s Newfoundland squadron, Murphy was aching for a duel with Smallwood.

Rumours were circulating that Smallwood might step aside before calling an election. In response, Murphy said that he didn’t “want him to resign from office undefeated and go down in history as a legend. I want him to be defeated at the polls and this is what the Conservative Party is working toward right now.”

“It’s about time that the people of Newfoundland realize that the Liberals are not the only ones capable of forming a Government.”

Smallwood wouldn’t step aside, at least not yet, and kicked off the three-week election campaign in August 1966.

The Liberal platform, which Smallwood dubbed “the greatest political document in Newfoundland’s political history”, was a 41-page booklet that included promises of 4,000 miles of newly paved and constructed roads, including a tunnel that would connect Newfoundland to Labrador (paid for by the feds). The Liberals would build and renovate hundreds of schools, expand the province’s health services and lower electricity costs.

Flush with cash, the Liberals printed 100,000 copies of the platform and stuck 50,000 of them into the mail for voters to peruse.

Smallwood also said that he was “positively preparing to step down as soon as these kiddies [young Liberal candidates] have made up their minds what they are going to do and are ready to do it.”

These “kiddies” included newly-minted cabinet ministers like Clyde Wells, 28, and John Crosbie, 35.

But in case voters weren’t feeling grateful to Joey and the Liberals, the premier who had easily won every election held since Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949 made it clear what a lack of gratitude could mean.

To the voters of Stephenville, where the U.S. Air Force had just shuttered an airbase, Smallwood wrote a letter:

The minute [the U.S.] left it became my job to save that part of Newfoundland from unemployment, destitution, dole, despair and finally the disappearance of much of its population…. Will you help me to do it? Or do you want to send me a message saying, “Stop. We don’t need your help.” … That will be the answer you will give me if you elect the Tory candidate, or the Independent Liberal candidate. If you want to send me a message saying: “Yes, Joe, we want you to keep on working hard for this District and the people in it,” the only way you can send me that message is to elect the Liberal Party’s candidate.

Murphy and the PCs had little to fight back with and Murphy took to calling Smallwood a “tyrant” and a “dictator”. The New Democrats ran only three candidates and were led by Calvin “Tubby” Normore, who was taking on Smallwood in the riding of Humber West. According to the Canadian Press, this former amateur wrestler “was named leader of the New Democratic Party only three days after the election was called. He has no political background.”

There was some drama during the campaign when former Quebec premier Jean Lesage said that negotiations between Quebec and Newfoundland had included discussion of changing the borders of Labrador. Smallwood didn’t hold back, calling Lesage “a liar from head to toe”. The former premier eventually clarified that the negotiations didn’t include border adjustments.

By the end of the campaign, there was little doubt that Smallwood would win again. He had now upgraded his musings about retirement to “definitely”, and had even said his chosen successor would be Fred Rowe, the finance minister. All Newfoundlanders had to do was send Joey off into the sunset.

And that they did, giving the Liberals 39 of 42 seats and nearly 62% of the vote. The Liberals picked up five seats, reducing the Progressive Conservatives to just three seats, all of them in the St. John’s area. The NDP and various independent candidates were shut out.

Reflecting on the results, Smallwood said it was “a sobering victory because how am I going to measure up to such overwhelming confidence?”

To be fair, the Canadian Annual Review noted that “the opposition did not really offer a reasonable alternative government to the electorate, which can be explained, in part at least, by the fact that most of the truly promising young politicians have been attracted, by one means or another but basically by the guarantee of success, to the Liberal Party.”

Murphy went down to defeat in Humber East, beaten by future premier Clyde Wells. His campaign was also made all the more difficult by Smallwood deciding he would run in the neighbouring riding. Smallwood wasn’t going to take any chances by letting the leader of the opposition win his own seat.

It would prove to be Smallwood’s last victory. He eventually announced his retirement in 1969 but reversed his decision and ran for the leadership of the Liberals in order to block the candidacy of John Crosbie, one of his former “kiddies”. Smallwood beat Crosbie, split the party in two and met his defeat when, in 1971, Newfoundlanders finally did realize that the Liberals were not the only ones capable of forming government.

1969 Newfoundland Liberal leadership

Only Joey can replace Joey

November 1, 1969

Joey Smallwood, the man who led Newfoundland into Confederation in 1949, was approaching two decades as the premier of Canada’s newest province in 1968. His political dominance of Newfoundland had rarely been challenged over the preceding years, but signs of rebellion were starting to show in his kingdom.

It didn’t help when he strong-armed his own Liberals to back Pierre Trudeau in that year’s federal leadership contest. Many of them preferred Robert Winters, but once Smallwood had decided that Trudeau would be his candidate he brooked no dissent.

One of those who was upset was John Crosbie, a young minister in his cabinet, and he quit over a dispute with Smallwood over a questionable loan the government was proposing to give to a developer. He was joined in his resignation by Clyde Wells.

Hailing from a distinguished family as Crosbie did, Smallwood was proud to have him serving in his cabinet. But that pride was not reciprocated. According to Richard Gwyn, writing in Smallwood: The Unlikely Revolutionary,

“For a full year before he quit, Crosbie left little doubt of his dissatisfaction as he mocked Smallwood, with astonishing indiscretion, round the St. John’s East cocktail circuit. The stories all found their way back to Smallwood, but he took no action. He could not afford to. As Minister of Municipal Affairs, and later of Health, Crosbie came to dominate cabinet. A glutton for work, he won arguments by force and sheer dogged persistence. At the same time, outside the cabinet, investors and businessmen looked to him for leadership and sanity. As the government’s financial troubles deepened, Crosbie became that rarity in any Smallwood cabinet, the almost indispensable man.”

But not only was Smallwood’s control over his cabinet starting to fray. In the 1968 federal election, Newfoundlanders shocked Joey when they elected six PC MPs — nearly as many in one election as had ever been elected in Newfoundland over the previous seven. It was an embarrassing rebuke, and Smallwood announced that he’d call a leadership convention for the next year.

John Crosbie threw his hat into the ring, as did Fred Rowe, a senior minister in Smallwood’s cabinet. But Joey hoped that Don Jamieson, the leading Liberal MP from Newfoundland in Ottawa, would quit federal politics to take up the mantle.

Jamieson, however, would not definitively make up his mind. And as Crosbie toured the province criticizing the work that Smallwood had done over the last 19 years, Smallwood seethed. He couldn’t risk handing over the keys to his province — and it was his, of course — to a rogue, a “rat” like Crosbie. When Jamieson refused Smallwood’s entreaties one last time, the premier threw his own hat into the ring, and Rowe meekly stepped aside.

The campaigning between Crosbie and Smallwood was an all-out civil war, with Smallwood relying on his traditional backers in the outports who had decided for Confederation, Crosbie on the young and the well-heeled. Incredible sums of money were spent by both candidates, with total spending on this leadership race topping $1 million. Both Crosbie and Smallwood spent more money trying to win the leadership of the Newfoundland Liberals in 1969 than any candidate did to try to become the national Liberal leader in 1968.

The battle came down to fighting for delegates in each district across the province, but as the delegates were being elected it became clear that Smallwood would have a big advantage — an insurmountable one — at the convention in St. John’s. The old levers Smallwood could always pull within the Liberal Party were working in his favour, even if Crosbie’s campaign was more professional and modern.

But it was an ugly fight. So ugly that Alex Hickman, another member of Smallwood’s cabinet, joined the race in its late stages in the hope of being a consensus candidate between the two polarized wings of the party. (Three other candidates, Randy Joyce, a university student, and businessmen Peter Cook and Vincent Spencer, were running but had little support.)

The money kept flowing when nearly 1,600 Liberals gathered for the convention. Alcohol was readily available at the Crosbie and Smallwood hospitality suites (Hickman’s coffee and sandwiches weren’t nearly as popular) and the Smallwood campaign rented some passenger train cars to supplement the over-booked hotels in the provincial capital.

The result went just about as expected after the delegate elections had so heavily favoured Smallwood. He took 62% of the delegates’ votes, followed at length by Crosbie with 26% and Hickman with 11%. It wasn’t a resounding, convincing victory — nearly two out of every five delegates had voted against the only leader the party had ever known — but it was a victory nonetheless. Smallwood wouldn’t give up his grip on his province so easily.

But the campaign had deeply divided the party. After the results were announced, Crosbie’s supporters booed and nearly rioted in the hall once Smallwood had exited, chanting slogans and spitting on a cabinet minister, all in front of the media’s cameras.

Smallwood’s vengeance was swift. Crosbie was booted out of the party and Hickman and the sole minister who endorsed him didn’t return to the cabinet table. Karma, however, would come back to bite Smallwood. In 1971, both Crosbie and Hickman would stand as PC candidates in the election that would ultimately end his premiership — for real this time.

1982 Newfoundland election

Peckford wins big for the PCs

April 6, 1982

In 1982, the era of Liberal rule under Joey Smallwood was already a decade in Newfoundland’s past. The Progressive Conservatives had governed the province since Smallwood’s defeat and had already changed leaders once after a 36-year-old Brian Peckford succeeded Frank Moores shortly before the 1979 provincial election.

But after less than three years in office, Peckford was still struggling with a sluggish economy and disputes with the federal government over offshore resource development.

So, in a television address Peckford announced he was calling an election to be held just three weeks later in order to send a message to Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government.

“What I need now, he said, “is a clear mandate which will show Ottawa that you do support my administration and the stand we are taking.”

The federal government was claiming full control over offshore resource development. Instead, Peckford proposed revenue-sharing between St. John’s and Ottawa and said he would make it the one issue of the election.

With every incumbent PC MHA running again in a quick campaign, the Progressive Conservatives held all the advantages. Nevertheless, Peckford had to defend his decision to call an early election only 2.5 years after the last one.

Len Stirling, the Liberal leader, charged that the issue for voters wasn’t the control of offshore resources but whether Newfoundlanders wanted to “go to war or go to work.” He accused the PCs of ignoring more immediate issues like the fate of the inshore fishery or the mining industry on the island, and proposed a less confrontational approach with the feds.

The opposition, which included the New Democrats under Peter Fenwick, tried to make the campaign about other issues and faced off with Peckford in a televised debate that got less than rave reviews — The Daily News editorial had only this to say: “Blah.”

But attempts to make the campaign about the immediate joblessness scourging the province rather than the resources that would only start paying off years down the road were largely unsuccessful, especially when Peckford announced his own measures late in the campaign to try to support the fishery.

The anti-Ottawa sabre-rattling was very effective, and on April 6, 1982 the Progressive Conservatives won what was their biggest victory at the time, and one that has only since been surpassed once (by Danny Williams in 2007).

With turnout jumping to 78%, the PCs secured 44 seats, a gain of 11 over their performance in the 1979 election, entirely at the expense of the Liberals outside the Avalon Peninsula, which the PCs had already swept the last time. The party was also up 11 points in its vote share, capturing 61% of ballots cast.

The Liberals suffered their worst defeat up to that time, dropping 11 seats to just eight and falling six percentage points to only 35% support. Stirling was one of the defeated Liberals, and he announced his intention to resign.

Fenwick’s New Democrats ran less than half of the slate of candidates as they had in 1979 and accordingly saw their share of the vote drop by four points to 4%. The NDP placed second in only two ridings, and in neither case were they even close to winning.

It was a big, sweeping victory for Peckford which, he argued, gave him the powerful mandate he needed in his negotiations with the federal government.

“Newfoundland speaks with one voice,” he said on election night, “when we say that one day the sun will shine and have-not will be no more.”

But Peckford would have no success in renegotiating its deal with Quebec over revenues from power generation in the Upper Churchill, and the cod stocks would collapse a few years after his departure as premier. The strong mandate voters gave him in 1982 did nothing to help him with the Trudeau-Turner Liberals, and he would have to wait until the arrival of Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government in 1984 for Canada and Newfoundland to sign an agreement that made the two levels of government joint partners in developing the oil and gas fields off the coast.

And it was not until 1997 that oil would begin to flow at Hibernia, 15 years after the “one-issue” Newfoundland election of 1982.

1987 Newfoundland Liberal leadership

All’s well that ends Wells

June 6, 1987

For the first few decades of Newfoundland’s history, the Liberals were absolutely dominant. But once Joey Smallwood, the man who took the province into Confederation, couldn’t take the hint and outstayed his welcome in the early 1970s, the Liberal Party was in rough shape — internally divided and externally unpopular.

Things didn’t get much better when Smallwood finally called it quits as the Liberals went through a succession of unsuccessful leaders while the Progressive Conservatives, first under Frank Moores and then Brian Peckford, won election after election. The increasing unpopularity of the federal Liberals was also taking its toll.

In 1985, the Newfoundland Liberals lost another election, this time under the leadership of Leo Barry. He had been a PC cabinet minister but resigned from Peckford’s government in 1984 and found himself leading the Liberal opposition a few months later. Barry nearly doubled the Liberals’ seat total, but Peckford won another majority government.

Before long, Barry’s caucus was in open revolt against his heavy-handed leadership. They unanimously called for his resignation when he decided to make a trip to Boston while the House of Assembly was sitting and, in early 1987, he called for a leadership convention in June to settle the matter. He’d stand as a candidate, which pleased no one.

It was in the midst of this tumult that Clyde Wells finally decided to take the plunge. He had served as a minister in Smallwood’s government, but quit cabinet (along with John Crosbie) over his leadership. Crosbie would unsuccessfully challenge Smallwood for the title and eventually crossed the floor to the PCs, but Wells went back to practising law instead, first in Corner Brook, then in St. John’s.

He was often courted to run for the Liberal leadership, but he didn’t want to give up his lucrative practice. But he was finally ready to return to politics — for a price.

He announced his candidacy in April, backed by former leaders Steve Neary and Ed Roberts, along with the three MHAs. He was one of three candidates in the running, the others being Leo Barry and Winston Baker.

Baker was new to provincial politics, having been elected in Gander in 1985, but the Baker name wasn’t new, as his brother George had been the Liberal MP for Gander–Grand Falls since 1974.

The ballot got winnowed down to two before the end of April with the withdrawal of Barry, who blamed the caucus for causing him “irredeemable damage”. But he didn’t go without a parting shot at Wells, who wanted his lost income from leaving his practice (estimated to be about $200,000 at the time) to be covered by the party.

“Unless the funds come out of general Liberal Party revenues,” said Barry, “…the general party membership and indeed the general public must be informed of the source of such funds, keeping in mind that he who pays the piper calls the tune.”

It was really the only issue of the leadership campaign, and ahead of the convention Wells sent a letter to delegates explaining how a group of Liberal supporters had promised to raise the money to cover half of his lost salary.

“I suppose I could do it on $100,000,” Wells said. The salary for an opposition leader at the time was about $70,000.

The convention was held at the Mary Queen of Peace parish hall (“undersized”, according to the Canadian Press correspondent), and Baker agreed that he was the underdog. Nevertheless, he predicted he would get hundreds of ballots. Wells predicted he’d win an easy majority.

“If posters were any indication,” wrote Robert Martin in The Globe and Mail, “Mr. Wells is a shoo-in. His large, full-color [sic] portraits, featuring his startlingly blue, John Turner-like eyes, completely overwhelmed Mr. Baker’s modest little signs that said simply ‘Baker’”.

The result was an absolute landslide. Wells won 88% of the 643 ballots cast, with Baker managing only 67 votes. Ted Noseworthy, a marginal candidate who didn’t even show up to a leadership forum the day before the convention, received 10 votes.

It was the result everyone was expecting, and Wells told the audience to “take heart, Newfoundland, the Liberals are coming.”

But after the party’s recent history of revolving-door leadership, Wells also had a warning for the delegates.

“The days of saviors [sic] and messiahs are over,” he said. “If ever they existed, they don’t any more.” He alerted the delegates that winning the election would be the work of more than one man.

Whether or not he was the saviour, Wells did bring the Liberals to the promised land. It wasn’t quite the same landslide victory that he scored in the leadership race, but Wells would lead the Liberals back to power in 1989, promising to forego his salary top-up if elected premier.

1989 Newfoundland election

Clyde Wells in, Tom Rideout out

April 20, 1989

After 17 years in government and a decade of Brian Peckford in the premier’s office, the Progressive Conservatives in Newfoundland made a change in 1989. In a leadership contest that pitted five cabinet ministers against each other, it was the youngest at 40 years of age — Tom Rideout — who emerged as the winner.

Rideout, who was “gifted with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's broad chin but none of his rhetorical flourishes,” took over a province (and a party) that faced many challenges. There were the collapsing cod stocks, the continued delays in getting the Hibernia oil project up and running, expected cuts to federal transfers as the Mulroney government tightened its belt, and the $22 million money-pit Sprung Greenhouse project that would earn Rideout the sobriquet “Mr. Cucumber” on the campaign trail.

Rideout had pledged that he would seek a mandate of his own as soon as possible, and promised that his would be a leaner, more frugal administration — something he signalled immediately when he requested the resignation of four cabinet ministers and didn’t replace them.

But after so long in government and fresh off the heels of a closely-fought leadership race, the Progressive Conservatives had plenty of baggage and were riven by fissures from the leadership contest.

Nevertheless, with an internal poll giving his PCs a 21-point lead over the opposition Liberals, Rideout dissolved the House of Assembly about a week after he was sworn in as premier, kicking off a three-week election campaign.

The Newfoundland Liberals, who hadn’t won a vote since the days of Joey Smallwood, were now under the leadership of Clyde Wells, a former member of Smallwood’s cabinet.

Wells had returned to politics after a 16-year hiatus to take over the Liberal Party in 1987, being enticed in part by a $50,000 annual stipend provided to him from party coffers. Wells was criticized for this, and had to promise that he’d forego the bonus if elected premier.

Still, the Liberals were optimistic heading into the campaign. They were united behind Wells and organized, having all of their candidates nominated before Rideout’s PCs.

Wells promised a series of new programs targeted at equalizing services between rural and urban areas in the province. He had to spend a great deal of the campaign on the western coast of Newfoundland fighting to win the riding of Humber East, his old seat, taking on deputy premier Lynn Verge in the process.

The campaign injected some new, unexpected energy into Wells, and the crowds he attracted were moved by his rhetoric. Speaking in Corner Brook, he said “there's not a person here who doesn't have a brother or a sister or a son or a daughter who had to leave because there hasn't been any opportunity in this province to make a living in the last 10 years.”

Tapping into those emotions revolving around emigration and the economic struggles in Newfoundland, Wells laid the blame at the feat of the long-in-the-tooth PC government.

Also needling Rideout was the New Democratic Party under the newly-minted leadership of the “professorial” Cle Newhook. The NDP, though, was low on funds and Newhook had to limit his campaign to the St. John’s area, where he was running for a seat and where the only incumbent NDP MHA was on the ballot.

A TV debate settled little, with Wells and Newhook keeping Rideout on the defensive.

The Newfoundland PCs got little help from the federal government in the midst of the campaign, as the Mulroney PCs agreed to let the French increase their fishing hauls off the coast of the province, delayed signing an agreement that would have funded Hibernia and announced cuts to unemployment insurance in their federal budget. A late campaign visit by federal cabinet minister John Crosbie to announce new spending in St. John’s didn’t seem to do much good.

The PCs lacked incumbents in almost a dozen ridings and their campaign seemed stilted and unimaginative compared to the Liberals’ well-calibrated machine. The party was also dogged by a case involving sexual assault by social workers in western Newfoundland and rumours that the PC government had tried to cover it up.

But it was those cucumbers at the Sprung Greenhouse that were perhaps the biggest symbol of the PCs’ struggles. A Liberal ad, featuring a shrivelling cucumber, concluded with the message “Enough is enough. Vote Liberal for a real change."

The final polls of the campaign showed either a neck-and-neck race between the two parties or a PC advantage. But the momentum clearly appeared to be on the Liberal side.

When the ballots were counted, the result was close — at least in the vote count. The Liberals finished with 31 seats, a gain of 16 since the 1985 provincial election. The party captured 47.2% of the vote, up 10 points, but that still put the Liberals narrowly behind the PCs, who were down a single point to 47.6%.

However, the PCs dropped 15 seats and ended up with just 21, as the Liberals picked up eight seats in and around St. John’s and won four more seats from the party elsewhere on the Avalon Peninsula. Liberal gains were also scored in the north and west of the island — though not in Humber East, where Wells fell 143 votes short of Verge.

Rideout was re-elected with 82% of the vote in Baie Verte-White Bay, and said he intended to “lead this party vigorously into the 1990s”, though he would resign in early 1991.

The NDP was shutout and saw its share of the vote fall 10 points to just 4.4%. Newhook would stay on until 1992.

The Liberals were finally back in power after sitting in the opposition for nearly two decades, and they’d remain in office until 2003. In the immediate aftermath of the 1989 election, however, Wells’ win marked a shift in the national campaign to pass the Meech Lake Accord. Wells opposed it, and his victory gave new energy to the drive to see Meech Lake go down to defeat. When it did, it was another nail in the coffin of Brian Mulroney’s PC government — a nail Mulroney helped hammer in when he failed to make things easier for Tom Rideout and his cucumbers.

1993 Newfoundland election

Tough love rewarded

May 3, 1993

When Clyde Wells ended a 17-year Tory dynasty in 1989, he appealed to the hearts of Newfoundlanders. For too long, their children had to leave Newfoundland to find work. He would end that, bring those jobs back home and begin the province’s economic recovery.

Four years later, things were still going badly.

Unemployment stood at 20% and thousands more were out of work than when the Liberals came to power. Cuts had to be made to the public sector to try to keep the government’s deficit from ballooning too much.

Contrary to the usual practice of announcing a ‘good news’ budget ahead of an election, Wells’s government instead introduced another tough dose of fiscal medicine that included spending cuts, the postponement of construction projects to build new hospitals and schools and reductions in pension contributions to civil servants and teachers.

The economic headwinds were just too strong — a recession, the collapse of the fishing industry and the reduction in federal transfers had limited Newfoundland’s options.

For PC leader Len Simms, it was a depressing budget.

“It’s certainly gloom and doom,” he said, “and there is no message of hope.”

Simms, a former cabinet minister in Brian Peckford’s PC government, had replaced Tom Rideout in 1991 a few years after Rideout’s election defeat at the hands of Wells. But despite the pessimism from the premier, not even this affable, approachable PC leader could make a dent in the Liberals’ popularity.

The polls were giving the Liberals a huge lead over the PCs. Wells was popular in Newfoundland, some might even say revered. He was a hero, not only in Newfoundland but in other parts of Canada, when he played a hand in sinking the Meech Lake Accord. After coming to power, he let the accord that his predecessors had negotiated die without ratifying it before the deadline.

Buttressed with favourable polls, Wells launched the 1993 election campaign casting himself as the only leader willing to make the hard decisions that needed to be made. He directly challenged the Newfoundland Teachers Association that was opposing his cuts, arguing that the pain had to be spread around fairly. Would Newfoundlanders want budget decisions to be set by “their democratically elected government” or “the privately elected executive of the NTA”?

Other public sector unions would join the fight against the Liberal government, some of their leaders running for the NDP under Jack Harris. These unions would fund attack ads against the government and directly contribute to local candidates — both NDP and PC.

Simms and Harris put the emphasis not on cuts but on growth, though Simms also promised to reduce Newfoundlanders’ already heavy tax burden.

The PCs went after Wells’s constitutional distractions, too. Simms said the premier “became so obsessed with the Constitution that it took all his time and that is one of the reasons this economy has gone the way it has.”

“Clyde Wells’s biggest problem in governing Newfoundland is that it takes so long to fly to Calgary, Toronto and Winnipeg!”

But Wells used his experience as a sword. He demanded more provincial control over the fisheries, which he argued the federal government had mismanaged. That would take a constitutional amendment — and who else had more experience on this file than Clyde Wells?

Nevertheless, a strong campaign by Simms, the constant attacks by labour groups and a full slate of candidates for the NDP was taking its toll on the Liberals. Their lead at the beginning of the year had been more than 40 points. A late-campaign poll put the margin at less than half that. A big improvement for the PCs, but not quite enough to put the outcome in doubt. The PCs even ran ads claiming “a vote for the NDP is a vote for Clyde Wells”, as they were concerned the New Democrats would siphon off too much of the anti-government vote.

Perhaps Simms and the unions made this into a race that would have been a walk had it not been for their efforts, but the results nevertheless gave Wells and the Liberals a bigger mandate than in 1989.

The party captured 35 seats, up four from the previous election, and increased its vote share by two points to 49.1%. The PCs, who had narrowly won the province wide vote in 1989, dropped 5.5 points to just 42.1%. With only 16 seats, the party had lost five.

Jack Harris succeeded in being re-elected in the riding he had secured in a byelection, but otherwise the NDP had little to show for their jump to 7.4%.

The Liberals had won another big majority in the first election to take place in the context of the severe budget cuts that were happening across Canada, an apparent endorsement of the tough love Wells had pitched to voters. But it might have simply been a recognition that Newfoundlanders had no better options. They had voted with their hearts in 1989. Now they had to vote with their heads.

1996 Newfoundland election

Brian Tobin storms Newfoundland

February 22, 1996

It was a whirlwind that brought Brian Tobin to the premier’s office in the first weeks of 1996.

Clyde Wells, the Liberal premier of Newfoundland since 1989, had announced his decision to resign in December 1995. It wasn’t long before his replacement came forward: Brian Tobin, the popular fisheries minister in Jean Chrétien’s federal government.

Tobin had made a name for himself with his leadership during the so-called Turbot War, when Canada faced-off with Spain over fishing rights off the Newfoundland coast. Tobin also played an important role in the 1995 Quebec referendum that put him on the national stage.

He announced in early January 1996 that he would leave federal politics to run for the provincial leadership. Seeing the writing on the wall, no one dared oppose Tobin and he was acclaimed as leader.

Newfoundland was in dire straits at the time, facing a collapsed fishery and very high unemployment. But Tobin saw signs of prosperity on the horizon, particularly in resource development.

Once sworn in, he re-appointed Wells’s cabinet and would have called an election right away if only the elections officials were ready. A new electoral map had been drawn up and the voter lists weren’t printed.

“We’re like the team that got strapped up and ready to go,” said Tobin, “and found out the guy who was supposed to grease the sleds had not done so.”

Telling reporters they could reconvene after the weekend, Tobin set his election date for Feb. 22, kicking off a 24-day campaign less than 72 hours after becoming the sixth premier of the province.

Tobin sought a mandate of his own, and the polls suggested he was very likely to get a big one with numbers in the 70s.

In the party’s platform, a red book like Chrétien’s in 1993 and titled “Ready for a Better Tomorrow”, Tobin called for the jobs and revenues that would be derived from mining and offshore oil drilling to stay in Newfoundland. The ore should be smelted in the province and the oil refined locally rather than being shipped out. Newfoundland would further diversify itself away from the collapsed cod stocks with fish farming, tourism and technology.

Against the Tobin juggernaut, the Progressive Conservatives had little to offer. Lynn Verge, a former cabinet minister in Brian Peckford’s government and leader of the PCs since 1995, argued that “Brian Tobin is trying to steamroller over people. He came through a short leadership contest unchallenged and then he calls a snap election, hoping people won’t have an opportunity to scrutinize his record.”

Verge’s campaign was not nearly as dynamic and lively as Tobin’s, and she tried to tie the former federal minister to some of the unpopular decisions being made by the Chrétien government. Changes to unemployment insurance and spending cuts would impact Atlantic Canadians especially hard, and the Chrétien Liberals would pay for those decisions in the 1997 federal election. But in Newfoundland in 1996, it was the Tobin Show.

There was an air of inevitability surrounding Tobin and the Liberals throughout the campaign, something Liberal candidates used to their advantage when they told voters it would be better to have a member on the governing side than on the opposition benches.

That there was only one party likely to form government even led Jack Harris, leader of the New Democrats, to go after Verge during the leaders’ debate as he vied for the few votes available for the other parties. Faced with the possibility of a Liberal sweep in its own polling, the Evening Telegram went so far as to endorse the election of at least some opposition members.

The unseasonably warm election day on February 22 resulted in a big Liberal victory, though not a sweep. The “message of hope, a message of confidence” that Tobin saw in the results sent 37 Liberals to the House of Assembly, two seats more than Wells had won in 1993 when there were four more ridings on the electoral map.

The Liberals took 55.1% of the vote, up six points from the last election. But it wasn’t all good news — a trio of cabinet ministers went down to defeat, in part due to the changes made to riding boundaries.

The PCs dropped from 16 to nine seats, taking just 38.7% of the vote. The party went from five seats to just one in western and central Newfoundland and lost their two seats on the Burin Peninsula. Only on the Avalon Peninsula did the opposition succeed in electing a sizeable opposition, with eight of 20 seats in the region.

Verge, however, was defeated in her own riding of Humber East, a seat she had held since 1979. She would resign the leadership shortly after the election.

The New Democrats, who only managed to run 20 candidates, succeeded in re-electing Harris. But he would remain the lone New Democrat in the House.

Also elected was Yvonne Jones, who ran as an Independent after losing the Liberal nomination to Danny Dumaresque in the Labrador seat of Cartwright–L’Anse-au-Clair. Though her pledge to join the Liberal caucus was initially rebuffed by Tobin on the campaign trail, she would be the Liberal candidate in 1999 (and a future party leader).

Tobin would have one more election victory to look forward to when he called a second early election in 1999. But he’d make the jump back to federal politics the following year — and the Liberals would not win the next time without him.

1999 Newfoundland election

N.L. Liberals win four in a row

February 9, 1999

As Newfoundland and Labrador entered the last year of the 1990s, the province had been governed by the Liberals for a decade. But its energetic premier, Brian Tobin, had only been in office since 1996, when he led the Liberals to a big victory after replacing fellow Liberal Clyde Wells in the top job.

Only three years into his own term, Tobin claimed he needed a new electoral mandate to back-up his negotiations with Quebec over Churchill Falls and his showdown with nickel company Inco over a mining project in Labrador. That made these two resource projects the focus of the short 23-day election campaign.

Against him, Tobin faced a rookie Progressive Conservative leader in Ed Byrne, while Jack Harris of the New Democrats would mount his third campaign as leader. Tobin waged a relentless, whirlwind campaign that was considered a foregone conclusion.

The pre-campaign polls were good for Tobin and the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador was humming along as the province topped the nation in economic growth. Oil revenues were flowing and the fisheries had a good year. Unemployment was still more than twice the national average at around 18%, but things were looking comparatively good in Newfoundland and Labrador.

So, Tobin won his expected victory, though the opportunistic call might have cost him a little. His Liberals captured 50% of the vote, down five points since 1996, and won 32 seats, five fewer than the last time.

The PCs picked up two percentage points, capturing 41% of the vote, while the NDP was up four points to 8%. But it was the PCs who gained the most in seats, up five to the NDP’s one, with PC gains coming in central Newfoundland and on the Avalon Peninsula.

Though the PCs were making progress, Byrne would eventually step aside and be replaced by businessman Danny Williams, who was acclaimed as leader and would be swept to power in 2003, after Tobin had taken his leave.

Like his win in 1999, a jump back into federal politics was widely expected for Tobin — it was actually seen as one of the reasons he decided to call an early election. Tobin was viewed as a potential replacement for Jean Chrétien as federal Liberal leader and thus prime minister, at least among those who wanted an alternative to Paul Martin.

Accordingly, Tobin cut his second term short and ran for federal office when Chrétien called an election in 2000. But, perhaps seeing Martin as unbeatable, Tobin eventually threw in the towel for good in 2002. Speculation would rise again when a new leadership race was called in 2006 to replace Martin, but Tobin would stay on the sidelines, never ascending to the higher office he was always thought to covet.

2001 Newfoundland Liberal leadership

The workhouse vs. the warhouse in Newfoundland & Labrador

February 3, 2001

In the first months of the 21st century, Brian Tobin and the Liberals seemed to be in a good spot in Newfoundland and Labrador. Tobin had led his party to another majority government in the election of 1999, marking a decade in power for his party. The Liberals took 32 seats in that vote, the Progressive Conservatives under Ed Byrne just 14.

But Ottawa had other plans.

Jean Chrétien, spying an opportunity to take advantage of an unsteady Canadian Alliance opposition under new leader Stockwell Day, called an early election for November 2000. Though Tobin had promised to see out his term in office in St. John’s, the siren song of federal politics was too much for him to ignore. The Liberals needed him to win back Atlantic Canada, where the party had suffered significant losses in 1997. And Chrétien needed an heir that wasn’t Paul Martin. Maybe Brian Tobin would be that man.

So, Tobin resigned. It was a move that shocked the province. Deputy premier Beaton Tulk was named to replace him while the Liberals searched for a new leader. They immediately had two candidates in Roger Grimes and John Efford.

Grimes, an MHA since 1989 for a riding on the north coast of Newfoundland, had been a cabinet minister in both Brian Tobin’s and Clyde Wells’s governments. He held tough portfolios like labour and education, but got through them without much difficulty. At the time of Tobin’s resignation, Grimes was heading up the health ministry — another challenging job.

Efford was also a veteran MHA and cabinet minister, first elected in 1985 in his riding on the Avalon Peninsula. Efford attracted more controversy in his ministries, including his strident and outspoken advocacy of the seal hunt and his defense of the fisheries against decisions made by the (Liberal) federal government. He was more charismatic and pugilistic than the mild-mannered Grimes, and a populist who, in the words of Michael MacDonald of the Toronto Star, was “often perceived as too colourful for his own good.”

A third candidate came forward in Paul Dicks, first elected in 1989 on the west coast of Newfoundland. Minister of mines and energy, Dicks had presided over deep spending cuts during his time as finance minister.

According to Kevin Cox, St. John’s correspondent for The Globe and Mail, “if Mr. Grimes is the workhouse and Mr. Efford is the warhorse, then Mr. Dicks is the dark horse.”

Nevertheless, though he had a “plodding speaking style”, Grimes was seen as the favourite as the convention approached. He had the backing of the establishment of the party and most of the caucus. Efford, on the other hand, had support among the grassroots membership. Dicks was a long shot, but if Grimes failed to win on the first ballot his supporters could decide the winner.

About 1,300 delegates braved a snow storm to attend the convention in Mount Pearl’s Glacier Arena on February 3, but their mood was grim. It wasn’t just the weather. On January 30, the Liberals had been defeated in two byelections held in traditionally safe Liberal strongholds. One of them was Tobin’s old seat.

The Progressive Conservatives were now on the upswing under their new leader, businessman Danny Williams (who would officially be acclaimed later in the year). The party was surging and Williams’s style seemed like a tough one for Grimes to stack up against — a fighter like Efford could have a better shot.

On the first ballot, Grimes emerged with the most support but was just short of a victory. He had 609 votes to 546 for Efford and 111 for Dicks, who crossed the convention floor to join Efford after he was eliminated. If Dicks could deliver 80% of his delegates, Efford would win.

Dicks nearly did it, as Efford gained 78 votes on the second ballot. But Grimes gained 29, just enough for him to finish with 638 to 624 for Efford. If eight more delegates had gone for Efford, he would have won.

Efford’s supporters booed when the results were announced. The party had been divided between the establishment and the grassroots. At first, Efford called for unity. In his victory speech, Grimes said “there's just one, great, strong, united Liberal party that can go forward with pride from today.”

The unity wasn’t real and it didn’t last. Within months, both Efford and Dicks would leave provincial politics rather than serve under Grimes. Efford followed Tobin to Ottawa, and served in Paul Martin’s cabinet.

Grimes struggled on as premier for the next two years, but his chances against Danny Williams were slim. When the next election was held in 2003, the Liberals went down to defeat with just 12 seats, the PCs winning 34. Worse, Williams and the PCs won the province wide vote by nearly 26 percentage points.

The long Liberal reign was over. The Danny Williams era was about to begin.

2014 Newfoundland and Labrador PC leadership

50%+1, and we really mean it

September 13, 2014

It had been over a decade since the Progressive Conservatives had come to power in Newfoundland and Labrador under the dynamo that was Danny Williams. But in 2014, Williams was gone and it was Kathy Dunderdale who had been piloting the ship of state since 2010.

Things had started well enough for the new premier when she won a landslide victory of her own in 2011, but by 2013 the PCs were deeply unpopular. There was internal dissent within the party (one MHA crossed the floor to the Liberals) and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were growing tired of the Tories after they had brought in an austerity budget and reacted ham-handedly to a series of rolling blackouts.

Worse, the PCs were now down in the polls — by a lot. They were trailing the Liberals by more than 20 percentage points, and in January 2014 Dunderdale saw the writing on the wall and announced her resignation.

Thus started the first of two strange leadership races for the Newfoundland and Labrador Tories in 2014.

By April, Corner Brook businessman Frank Coleman was the only candidate still standing to replace Dunderdale as PC leader and he was acclaimed. But, just a few weeks before he was scheduled to be sworn-in as premier, Coleman announced he wouldn’t take the job after all, providing no more detail than that there was a serious medical issue in his family.

So, back to the drawing board.

When the next round of the leadership began, former St. John’s East MHA John Ottenheimer was in right from the start. He had been out of politics since 2007 but had been a cabinet minister in Williams’ government.

A few weeks later, Paul Davis, the MHA for Topsail since 2010 and minister of health, jumped into the race, saying the PCs needed “a new beginning.” The very next day, the list of contenders grew to three when Steve Kent, MHA for Mount Pearl North since 2007 and minister of municipal and intergovernmental affairs, threw his hat in the ring. Younger than the other two, Kent pitched himself as “something fresh.”

By the time voting day arrived on September 13, Davis appeared to be the front runner. He had nearly as many endorsements from the PC caucus as Ottenheimer and Kent combined. But excitement for the fresh or new start wasn’t entirely high — the PCs had lost some key byelections and were still trailing the opposition Liberals by more than 20 points.

But Davis was in for a surprise on the first ballot when Ottenheimer finished ahead of him with the support of just over 42% of the delegates gathered at the St. John’s Convention Centre. Davis finished with 37% support, while Kent was in third with just under 21%.

Eliminated after that first ballot, Kent endorsed Davis — though not all of his delegates were happy with the choice and more than a third would not follow Kent to Davis.

Still, it seemed like it would all come down to the second ballot. After all, only two candidates were on it. But conventions-goers were puzzled when officials announced that after the second round of voting, there had been “no clear majority”.

How could that be?

The count was incredibly close. Davis had 340 votes in his favour and Ottenheimer had 339. But one ballot had been spoiled — the delegate marked an X for both Ottenheimer and Davis — and party officials had to determine whether Davis’s one-ballot victory counted as receiving “more than 50 per cent of the valid ballots cast”.

The Davis camp protested, saying that Davis had the clear win. But John Noseworthy, the party’s chief electoral officer for the contest, ruled that Davis needed 50% plus one vote to prevail.

The math behind the decision was a bit confusing (and still is today), but a third ballot went ahead. Perhaps sensing that taking the victory away from Davis at this stage would do little good, a net 13 delegates either swung from Ottenheimer to Davis or didn’t vote. The result was that Davis won an undisputed but narrow majority on the third ballot, taking 351 votes to Ottenheimer’s 326.

It ended what was a bit of an odd year for the Newfoundland and Labrador Progressive Conservatives. But things would only get worse — by the end of 2014, Davis and the PCs were trailing the Liberals by 30 points and with just one year to go before facing voters. Things wouldn’t improve.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections Newfoundland and Labrador and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• Smallwood: The Unlikely Revolutionary, by Richard Gwyn

• Frank Moores: The Time of His Life, by Janice Wells

• No Punches Pulled: The Premiers Peckford, Wells and Tobin, by Bill Rowe

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

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1992 Yukon election

Yukon Party wins Yukon

October 19, 1992

The New Democrats had been in power in Yukon for seven years by 1992 under Tony Penikett, the first Yukoner to adopt the title “premier” as a signal of the territory’s ambitions to one day become a province.

In the run-up to the territorial election that year, Penikett had spent a great deal of time outside Yukon on the national stage. This was the age of constitutional debates, and Penikett wasn’t too pleased with what was on the table in the Meech Lake negotiations that, in his view, would limit Yukon’s potential of achieving its ambitions.

Closer to home, though, politics was in flux. The PCs under Brian Mulroney had grown deeply unpopular, and the Yukon Progressive Conservatives decided it was time for a re-branding. The result was the new Yukon Party, which itself became divided when in 1991 it elected a 21-year-old named Chris Young as its new leader.

By the following year, Young was out and 56-year-old John Ostashek was in. The former outfitter didn’t hold a seat in the legislature and his party’s caucus had been reduced by three MLAs who quit to form the Independent Alliance Party.

These dynamics might have improved Penikett’s chances, but Yukon’s sluggish economy and the baggage of seven years in office weighed against the New Democrats. It didn’t help matters that Penikett was in the south so often.

The result was a rebuke for Penikett and the NDP, as they dropped 9.9 percentage points to 35.1% of the vote and lost three seats, finishing with six. The Yukon Party also under-performed its PC predecessor with just 35.9% of the vote, down eight points, but Ostashek was able to win seven seats — just enough to put his party in first place.

"We've come a long way in one year," Ostashek said on election night. "It looks like Yukoners have told us tonight they want a change."

The Liberals got themselves back into the legislature after being shutout in 1989, but they were still outnumbered by the Independents. Though the Independence Alliance Party didn’t officially nominate candidates in time for the election, its three former-PC MLAs were all elected as unaffiliated Independents. While it was unclear at first who would form government, the three would back the Yukon Party and Ostashek would head-up a minority government for the next four years, re-adopting the traditional title of “government leader”.

Yukon wasn’t a province, after all. “I’m not for big titles anyway,” Ostashek said.

1999 Nunavut election

Nunavut’s first election

February 15, 1999

The long battle for the Inuit to have a land of their own, separate from the Northwest Territories, would finally come to a close in 1999 when Canada’s third territory, Nunavut, would be born.

Nunavut, a land twice the size of Ontario in which the Inuit represented about 85% of the population of some 25,000, would officially be created on April 1. But to get their legislators in place before that, an election would be held on February 15, 1999.

The 19 MLAs that would be elected would sit in Iqaluit, the small city on Baffin Island that had beaten out Rankin Inlet on the mainland in a 1995 plebiscite held to choose the new territory’s new capital. Those MLAs would continue the tradition of consensus government that prevailed in the Northwest Territories. There would be no political parties. All MLAs would sit as Independents and collectively choose the premier and cabinet ministers.

When the electoral rolls were completed, there were 12,200 people on it eligible to vote. Of them, 71 candidates put themselves forward to contest Nunavut’s 19 seats, including eight MLAs who were sitting in the Northwest Territories legislature.

The election was the culmination of a long journey, but the winners would take on a daunting job in creating a government from scratch in a territory with serious health challenges, high unemployment and few resources.

There were two favourites to win the premier’s job: Goo Arlooktoo, the young deputy premier of the Northwest Territories, and Jack Anawak, a two-term Liberal MP from 1988 to 1997 and the interim commissioner of the territory.

As the campaign got going — with no territorial parties, the contests were all localized — early turnout was high.

“People are finally starting to realize that with this election comes the start of a long-awaited dream,” Arlooktoo told the Canadian Press. When the votes were tabulated, turnout was over 88%.

Five of the eight veteran MLAs were re-elected, but the rest were all newcomers — a mix of young and old, but only one woman. The surprise, though, was the defeat of Arlooktoo in Baffin South. That seemed to leave the way open for Anawak, who was elected in Rankin Inlet North, to become premier.

But one shining newcomer to the scene was Paul Okalik, elected in Iqaluit West. Okalik was the first Inuk lawyer in the territory — he passed the Bar during the campaign. After a troubled youth, Okalik overcame addiction to earn a university education and was a member of the team that won the important Inuit land claim with the federal government that would lead to the creation of Nunavut.

The 19 MLA-elects met in Iqaluit in March to choose the premier and the territory’s first cabinet. While Anawak was widely seen as the favourite, it was Okalik who won the day as Anawak carried some of the political baggage of his time in Ottawa with the Chrétien government.

Only 34, Okalik would be the first premier of the newborn territory — a job his peers would award him again in 2004. He lost it after the 2008 territorial election, but his two terms still make him the longest serving premier of Nunavut.

1999 Northwest Territories election

When partisan politics tried to invade the North

December 6, 1999

When the Northwest Territories went to the polls in December 1999, there were a lot of big issues at stake.

The territory was facing a big debt burden. The resource sector was booming, but being a mere territory any industry-related revenues went south to Ottawa. And, with the creation of Nunavut only a few months earlier, this election was the first to be held since the territory’s size and population had been dramatically reduced.

Lots to mull over for the Northwest Territories’ 21,000 voters, spread out over 19 ridings.

But one of the issues that caught the most attention was an attempt to change the way politics in the territory worked.

N.W.T. used a consensus model of government, where MLAs were elected as Independent candidates. Once sent to the legislature, they would then choose a premier and cabinet minister from amongst themselves. Parties didn’t exist.

The Western Arctic New Democrats wanted to change that.

Though still listed as Independents, the NDP tried to put together a partisan slate running on a joint platform — a novelty in the territory. Six candidates ran as New Democrats, five of them in Yellowknife and one in Inuvik. To add a little southern glamour to their offering, NDP MP Svend Robinson swung by to campaign alongside the N.W.T. NDP.

None of the candidates, however, were incumbents. They were insurgents, trying to overthrow the old system.

Those who had come up through the ranks of that old system dismissed the attempt to bring partisan politics to the North.

"The people who are pushing party politics are people who have moved up here from the south,” Jim Antoine, the incumbent premier, told the National Post. “Up here, people vote for people they know who will do a good job representing them on the issues.”

But according to Steve Petersen, one of the candidates running under the NDP banner, "the problem is we don't have a consensus government, we have cronyism and an old boy's club. There's no opposition whatsoever.”

This had become a glaring problem in the last legislature. Don Morin, then premier, resigned over a conflict of interest scandal. If the legislature had an opposition to hold the government to account, this wouldn’t happen. This, at least, was the message of people like Mary Beth Levan, the highest-profile of the NDP’s candidates. She had run for the federal NDP in the last election in 1997, taking 19.4% of the vote and finishing second to the Liberal candidate.

But Northwesterners liked their consensus-style of government, considering it well-suited for a sparsely-populated, diverse and enormous territory.

"[Partisan politics] could take away the flexibility the people always have to find common ground," incumbent MLA Stephen Kakfwi told the Toronto Star.

In the end, the skeptics were right. All six of the NDP’s candidates were defeated, all but one of them finishing last. Levan managed 20.4% of the vote in Yellowknife South. But Petersen managed just 9.4% in Kam Lake. Bill Schram, another New Democrat on the ballot, also finished with under 10% of the vote.

Instead, voters stuck with what they knew. Eight of 10 incumbent candidates were re-elected, including Antoine and cabinet ministers like Charles Dent (finance), Floyd Roland (health) and Michael Miltenberger (education). Of the two incumbents defeated, one was the speaker of the legislature, Samuel Gargan.

The slate of elected candidates included two future premiers (Roland and Joe Handley) as well as Michael McLeod, who was elected as the Liberal MP in 2015.

As always in the Northwest Territories, though, the election results didn’t indicate who would form the next government. Over the holidays, Antoine mulled his future and decided not to stand again for premier. Instead, the job went to Stephen Kakfwi, a former president of the Dene Nation and the dean of the legislature who had held multiple cabinet portfolios in his previous 13 years in office.

Partisan politics weren’t established in the Northwest Territories in 1999. Nearly a quarter of a century later, partisan politics remain a southern concept.

2000 Yukon election

Don’t count your chickens

April 17, 2000

It’s rare that a truly surprising outcome happens in elections — and when it does happen, it often leaves some deep scars (largely on pollsters and adjacent pundits). But in smaller campaigns where pollsters don’t dare venture, sometimes the only thing to go on are the vibes. And those vibes can be wrong.

The Yukon territorial election in 2000 was expected to be a relatively easy one for the New Democrats. They had come to power after the 1996 election and had governed the territory for 11 of the previous 15 years. Government leader Piers McDonald was expected to get a second term in office.

Against him were the opposition Liberals. Their leader was a former sports broadcaster, Pat Duncan, but a relative newcomer to politics. McDonald had been an MLA for 18 years and John Ostashek, leader of the conservative Yukon Party, had been premier from 1992 to 1996. Duncan was first elected as an MLA in 1996 and was installed as leader of the Liberals only in 1998. But, the wind was in her sails following a byelection victory at the expense of the NDP in 1999.

In February 2000, McDonald introduced a half-billion dollar budget, with big (by Yukon standards) spending commitments and tax cuts. McDonald and the NDP would campaign on diversifying the territorial economy. That would be their issue.

But the issue for voters was that the economy was in the doldrums. Unemployment stood at 12%, the third-highest rate in the country, and the price of gold had dropped precipitously. Duncan and Ostashek blamed the NDP government for the collapse of the mining industry due to the creation of two parks in the north of the territory, and credited the departure of Yukoners to greener pastures in the South to the economic failures of the New Democrats.

Was the message resonating? It didn’t seem so. Expectations on election day were that the New Democrats would be re-elected, helped in part by a stronger-than-expected Yukon Party campaign that would split the anti-NDP vote. Headlines like the one running in the Ottawa Citizen on election day (which was also shared by Prince Edward Island) said “Incumbents likely to win P.E.I., Yukon votes today”.

“In the Yukon,” the paper reported, “observers don’t consider Government Leader Piers McDonald out of line when he predicts another majority government for his New Democrats.”

Oops.

The results were a huge victory for the Liberals, many of whom could not believe their eyes at the party’s election night party. They captured 10 seats and 42.9% of the vote, a huge increase of 19 points over the last election in 1996. The NDP won just five seats and shed seven percentage points, falling to 33%. The Yukon Party was reduced to a single seat.

Pat Duncan would become the first Liberal premier in the history of the territory, and only the second woman in all of Canada to lead her party to victory in an election campaign. But the results pointed at a split in Yukon, as all 10 of the Liberals’ seats were won in and around Whitehouse, while the NDP won the seats in the rural and remote communities in the rest of the territory.

Recognizing the divide, Duncan assured listeners of her victory speech that her “government will put all Yukoners ahead of politics no matter where they live.”

The election was a tremendous rebuke for the NDP. McDonald was defeated in his own riding, his first defeat since being elected to the legislature in 1982. Ostashek and the Yukon Party also took a big hit, as Ostashek, too, went down to defeat in his riding and resigned as leader of the party.

While it was a big upset victory for the Liberals, the euphoria would be short-lived. Within a few years, three of Duncan’s caucus members would leave to sit as Independents, reducing her majority to a minority. When she called an election in 2002 to settle matters, she and the Liberals were sent back to third-party status with a single seat (Duncan’s).

Of course, in Yukon, small swings can have a big impact. Between the 2000 and 2002 elections, the Yukon Liberals lost only 2,063 votes — but that was enough to lose them power, too.

2004 Nunavut election

Nunavut holds its second election

February 16, 2004

When Nunavut became a separate territory in 1999, Paul Okalik was voted its first premier by Nunavut’s legislative assembly. By 2004, it was time for Nunavut to hold its first election in which members were going back to voters for another mandate.

There are no political parties in Nunavut — candidates all run as independents. Once the members of the new assembly have their seats, those members then vote to choose who among them will become premier and who will make up the cabinet.

So, when Okalik sent the territory to the polls in 2004 he wasn’t necessarily going to voters to ask for his own re-election. That decision would not be up to him.

Turnout was high, as it had been in 1999, at over 80%. Okalik was re-elected in his riding of Iqaluit West, capturing 77% of the vote — more than any other candidate in Nunavut, a solid mandate from his own constituents. Not all incumbents were so lucky, however, as only eight of the 13 MLAs who ran for re-election were successful. Among the winning candidates were future federal cabinet ministers Leona Aglukkaq and Hunter Tootoo.

When the new assembly gathered, the race to become premier was between Okalik and Tagak Curley, who had been acclaimed in Rankin Inlet North. Okalik prevailed, but would only be narrowly re-elected in Iqaluit West in the next election in 2008. After more than nine years in office, MLAs decided not to install Okalik as premier again for a third term and turned instead to Eva Aariak — one of only 14 women to ever serve as a provincial or territorial premier in Canada.

2015 Northwest Territories election

Continuity with change in the Northwest

November 23, 2015

The Northwest Territories, like Nunavut, operate under the so-called “consensus” model. There are no parties in their legislative assemblies. Instead, voters send Independents to their legislatures and let them figure out who should be premier and who should be in cabinet.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t pass along a message of change.

Change was in the brisk air of the Northwest Territories in November 2015. The territorial election set for November 23 of that year came just about a month after the 2015 federal election (which forced the set date for the territorial vote to be pushed back).

With Stephen Harper’s Conservatives out and Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in, it had certainly been a change election across Canada. That was also the case in the Northwest Territories, as the NDP incumbent went down to defeat against the Liberal candidate, Michael McLeod.

There were plenty of good reasons for change in the territory — a CBC analysis listed 18 of the challenges that the incoming territorial government would face — and voters (or, at least, the 44% of Northwesterners who cast a ballot) delivered that change in what were some very tight local races.

Three of the 19 seats up for grabs were won by candidates who captured less than 30% of the vote: Kevin O’Reilly in Frame Lake (28.6%), Shane Thompson in Nahendeh (29.4%) and Daniel McNeely in Sahtu (29.6%).

Five races were decided by less than 20 ballots, including the contest in Range Lake where (current premier) Caroline Cochrane defeated incumbent Daryl Dolynny.

Dolynny was one of eight incumbents who went down to defeat out of the 16 who stood for re-election — a message for change if there ever was one. Even the finance minister was sent packing.

But the premier wasn’t. Bob McLeod, brother of the new Liberal MP, was re-elected in his own riding and the new legislature would keep him on as the premier, the job he first got after the 2011 election.

That, in and of itself, represented some change for the Northwest Territories — never before had a premier served two terms. Continuity with change, then.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from the electoral authorities in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

Every installment of The Weekly Writ includes a short history of one of Canada’s elections. Here are the ones I have written about the elections in Ontario.

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

1875 Ontario election

Ontario gets the secret ballot

January 18, 1875

In the 19th century, voting could be a dangerous affair. Not everyone had a vote, of course. Women didn’t and neither did the men who didn’t meet the property qualifications.

But those who did have a say literally had a say — voting was done in public and out loud.

Without a secret ballot, votes were liable to be acquired not by persuasion but by bribery, booze or brawls. Money was paid out, copious amounts of alcohol was provided and, when that failed, a recalcitrant elector could be threatened with violence or physically prevented from voting by gangs of toughs.

But by the 1870s, Canada was starting to mature as a democracy and governments implemented changes to their voting systems to expand the franchise to more (male) voters and arrange for a secret ballot. Alexander Mackenzie’s Liberal government in Ottawa leveled the playing field at the federal level, while in Ontario it was Oliver Mowat’s Liberals who brought in the secret ballot with bipartisan support.

(Implementing compulsory voting, though, was one step too far for Mowat, who shut down a fellow Liberal’s proposal to make voting mandatory in Ontario.)

One of those democratic reforms of the 1870s was actually responsible for bringing Mowat to the premier’s office.

In the first years after Confederation, being an MP wasn’t a full-time job. In fact, it was permitted for MPs to not only sit in the House of Commons but also in their provincial legislature. When that practice was finally ended in 1872, some MPs had to make a hard decision. That included Liberal MPs like Alexander Mackenzie and Edward Blake, the latter who just happened to also be the premier of Ontario.

When Mackenzie and Blake decided to opt for the federal scene, they casted about for a provincial replacement. They found one in Oliver Mowat, who had served in the pre-Confederation parliament and was now sitting on the bench as a judge. Mowat didn’t require much persuading and he took the job — one that he would hold for more than two decades.

At the end of 1874, however, it was time for Mowat to seek his first mandate from the people. More Ontarians would be eligible to vote than ever before and, for the first time, they could do so with a free conscience. On December 21, Mowat set the date for his first test as leader for January 18, 1875.

The Conservatives, who under John Sandfield Macdonald had been ousted from power in 1871, were not in a great position. Their leader, Matthew Crooks Cameron, seemed distracted. Part of his focus was in running his legal practice and even a friendly newspaper editorialized that “Mr. Cameron has not bent his whole mind to the task of leading the Ontario Opposition.”

The party was still reeling from the Pacific Scandal that had derailed John A. Macdonald’s government in 1873 and Mackenzie’s Liberal victory in the 1874 federal election was still fresh in voters’ minds. Cameron and the Conservatives thought that Mowat had a vulnerability in his government’s lavish spending, but the Liberals were still able to report a surplus and Mowat, while not an engaging speaker, was “persuasive with his earnestness and mastery of facts.”

He also received some help on the stump from Mackenzie and Blake, while the prime minister indirectly assisted Mowat by delaying the declaration of a general amnesty for the Métis who participated in the 1870 Red River Rebellion until a few days after voting took place.

According to the Liberal Globe, “the elections passed off in [Toronto] yesterday in a very quiet and orderly manner, as was to have been expected under the ballot system of voting. Had it not been for the fact that all the places in which intoxicating liquor is sold were closed all day, a casual visitor to the city would scarcely have known that a fierce contest between two parties … was waging from nine o’clock in the morning until five in the evening.”

When the ballots were counted, the Liberals emerged victorious with 50 seats in the enlarged legislature, their majority re-established thanks in large part to their traditional strength in southwestern Ontario.

The Conservatives took 35 seats, while two Independent Conservatives and one Independent Liberal were also elected. The share of ballots cast was close at 47.6% for the Liberals to 46.3% for the Conservatives, but the Liberals won many more seats by acclamation than the Conservatives did. Had contests taken place in those ridings, the Liberals’ margin of victory would have been larger.

Cameron wouldn’t lead the Conservatives into another election, but Mowat would establish himself as the longest serving premier in Ontario’s history. His unmatched winning record began in 1875, when Ontario proved it could run an election fairly — at least by 19th century standards. Seventeen contests were voided either due to a recount or because of “corrupt practices”. Some old habits die hard.

1886 Ontario election

Another win for Oliver Mowat

December 28, 1886

In the late 19th century, elections could be (and often were) decided over religious issues. That was the case of the Ontario provincial election held on December 28, 1886.

By then, the province was well into a long period of dominance by the Liberal Party. The premier, Oliver Mowat, had already been in power since 1872 and had three electoral mandates under his belt. Ontario was prosperous and Mowat had secured provincial rights in a series of stand-offs with the Conservative government of John A. Macdonald in Ottawa.

But after a close contest in 1883, Mowat wanted to avoid putting things to chance again. It hadn’t helped that the last election came shortly after a national Conservative victory in 1882, so Mowat decided to call an early election to get ahead of another expected Macdonald victory in 1887.

His government was running a big surplus, the electoral boundaries had been re-drawn to the Liberals’ advantage and the party’s organization had been improved since 1883. It was as good a time to go to the polls as it ever would be.

The Conservative opposition was led by W.R. Meredith, and had been since 1878. After two consecutive defeats, this time Meredith hoped to exploit the Liberals’ ties to the Catholic Church.

An anti-Catholic campaign was spearheaded by the Toronto Mail. It was a potent issue in 1886, coming shortly after the North-West Rebellion of 1885 and the execution of Louis Riel. The Mail charged that Mowat was unduly influenced by the Catholic Church in his support for separate schools, patronage appointment of Catholics and in allowing Catholic students and objecting teachers to opt-out of readings from the Bible in public schools.

Meredith also tried to tie Mowat to the newly-elected nationalist government of Honoré Mercier in Quebec, a relationship that he said suggested pro-Riel sympathies in the Ontario premier.

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But Meredith tried to have it both ways — in part out of deference to John A. Macdonald, who objected to the sectarianism of the Mail. The Macdonald Conservatives, after all, were still chasing the votes of Quebecers and Irish Catholics. So, Meredith let the Mail do the dirty work while he took ambiguous positions on religious issues. According to the Globe, while Meredith did not “travel on the Protestant horse” he also did not mind “the steed being hitched to his buggy”.

Mowat defended himself adroitly, saying he aimed to treat Protestants and Catholics equally and, with his long experience as premier of a prosperous province, the Liberals were re-elected — again.

Mowat scored his fourth consecutive victory, in part (but not wholly) thanks to his support among French Canadians and Irish Catholics. The Liberals won 57 seats and 48% of the vote, a gain of nine seats from the 1883 result. The Conservatives were close behind at 47% of the vote, but won just 32 seats, five fewer than in 1883. An independent was also elected and Labour candidates captured 4%.

This would not be the last time that Mowat and Meredith would face-off as opponents. Mowat would defeat the Conservative leader again in 1890 and 1894, before resigning as premier to take a cabinet post in Wilfrid Laurier’s new Liberal government in 1896 — another election in which religious divisions would play a decisive role.

1898 Ontario election

Prelude to a fall in Ontario

March 1, 1898

In early 1898, the Ontario Liberals tried to do something they hadn’t done in over 20 years: win an election without Oliver Mowat.

Mowat, Ontario’s bespectacled longest-serving premier, had resigned to take up a new post in Wilfrid Laurier’s federal government in 1896 after 24 years in office. His Liberals had governed the province without interruption since 1871, as dominant in Canada’s largest province in the last decades of the 19th century as John A. Macdonald’s Conservatives had been in Ottawa.

Trying to fill Mowat’s big shoes was his most senior minister, Arthur Sturgis Hardy, whose diabetes made him hesitate to take the position until he “concluded not to let it pass by. There were other good men who could have taken the place, and it would not have gone begging; but you know how very difficult it is in this wicked world to let high honors pass by.”

Hardy took over the redoubtable Liberal machine and seemed in a good position with a friendly federal Liberal government handing out patronage and favours. The Conservatives had never mounted much of a challenge, though their new leader, James Pliny Whitney, brought new energy and a tireless work ethic to the leadership of their party. Still, the Conservatives were short on money and organization and Whitney’s task would be a daunting one.

Some things, however, were starting to go Whitney’s way. The 1894 election had featured a number of parties on the ballot, including the Patrons of Industry, a farmers’ party, and the anti-Catholic Protestant Protective Association. The Conservatives’ own hostility to Catholics, particularly in terms of separate education rights, had limited their appeal among this important electorate and the presence of the PPA further reduced their base. The Patrons also cut into some of the Conservatives’ support.

But by 1898, the PPA was no longer a force and the Patrons had largely been subsumed into the Liberal Party. Whitney also wanted to put behind him and his party its anti-Catholic past. He had sent signals in that direction during the 1896 federal election when he kept his party out of the divisive Manitoba schools question. At a fraught nomination battle in the riding of Toronto South ahead of the provincial vote, he successfully backed a prominent Catholic candidate, much to the consternation of the old school within the party.

Hardy, meanwhile, was not getting the kind of support he had expected from the Laurier government to grease the palms of Catholics in Ontario and he hesitated to name an important Catholic Liberal politician to high office in his government. Together, this weakened the Liberals’ support among this key voter base that they had been able to count on in election after election at a time when the Conservatives had ruled themselves out as an option for Catholics.

The narrowing of the contest to a two-horse race between the Liberals and the Conservatives resulted in a far tighter outcome than the confident Liberals expected. Hardy and the Liberals held on to 51 seats, down eight from the combined totals of Liberals and Patron/PPA-affiliated Liberals in 1894. The Liberals roughly matched the Conservatives in the popular vote, but that represented a big increase for the Conservatives as much of the PPA as well as some of the Patron vote went their way.

The Conservatives, who seemed destined to opposition for eternity, had made serious inroads under Whitney. It was only the Liberals’ stronghold of southwestern Ontario that saved the party from defeat.

As was the style at the time, both sides accused the other of under-handed tactics. According to G.M. Grant, principal of Queen’s University, “on polling day in cities like Kingston, Toronto, London and Hamilton … a seedy-looking lot loafed round the booths, and it was evident to the most careless observer that they were waiting to get their two dollars apiece before entering. Hundreds got what they waited for. Both sides bought.”

As was also usually the case, the results in dozens of individual ridings were challenged in the courts, but Hardy’s government survived. Not the premier, though. His health made it impossible for him to continue and he resigned in 1899. He died two years later.

His successor, George William Ross, would win one more election for the Liberals — barely — before Whitney stormed into office in 1905, ending one of the longest political dynasties in Canada’s history.

1902 Ontario election

An election decided by the narrowest of margins

May 29, 1902

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ontario Liberals were the natural party of government, having run the province for the previous 30 years. Most of that tenure was under Oliver Mowat, but since his departure for federal politics in 1896 things had been going badly for the Grits.

His first successor, Arthur S. Hardy, proved he couldn’t fill Mowat’s shoes and very nearly lost an election in 1898. Suffering bad health and worse debts, Hardy resigned in 1899 and was replaced by the 58-year-old George William Ross. He had looked after the education portfolio in Mowat’s cabinet, was a temperance supporter and

“…probably best described himself when he wrote to Laurier: ‘The Ontario Liberal is not a radical in the English sense of the term. He is a cross between the radical and the conservative.’ Ross was very much that hybrid.”

On the opposition benches, the Conservatives had also made a change from the long era of election-losing leadership of William R. Meredith. Since 1896, the Conservatives had been under the leadership of James Pliny Whitney, MLA for Dundas since 1888.

Whitney was a tireless campaigner and he led the Conservatives to significant gains in the 1898 election.

By early 1902, it was a well-known secret in Toronto that there would be an election in the spring. So, after the legislature shut down in March, Whitney kicked off a seven-week speaking tour across the province. Unlike Meredith, who was only too happy to incite religious strife between Catholic and Protestant, Whitney campaigned with a high-profile Catholic candidate in an attempt to wrest away a voting bloc that had long backed the Liberals.

The campaign turned on a few issues, including the development of hydroelectric power in Ontario. The debate was over whether power generation should be in public or private hands — and it was the Conservative Party that wanted to see it turned over to public ownership.

“The Government at the switch; not corporations” was the Conservative battle-cry, just one of many ways in which Whitney’s Conservatives were populist class warriors, pitting Whitney’s pledges to help the working man against the Liberals’ alleged cozy relationship with big business. It was the kind of rhetoric popular in the United States, which in 1902 was only in the early days of “trust-busting” Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency.

Prohibition was another issue. A supporter himself, Ross was pressured by temperance advocates to come forward with legislation to ban booze in its entirety. Knowing that it was probably not a good political move, Ross instead promised new temperance laws (with plenty of exemptions) and a referendum that would be held later in 1902 that had to meet onerous turnout requirements to count.

Prohibitionists saw it as a half-measure, while Whitney tried to woo moderates with promises of more enforcement of existing regulations.

The development of “New Ontario”, as northern Ontario was then known, was another frequent focus of discussion, with Ross lauding the work the Liberals had done to development the north while Whitney promised even more (and with less corruption).

While Whitney had a catchy campaign song called “Whitney Will Win”, Ross put a fresh face on an old Liberal government, someone who was seen as “distinctly stronger personally than Hardy was four years ago.” The focal point of the Liberal campaign, Ross toured the province and did just enough to keep his government in power.

The Liberals emerged with 50 seats and a tiny majority, as Whitney and the Conservatives won 48. His party made gains in the Liberal stronghold of southwestern Ontario and he elected a Franco-Ontarian and other Catholic candidates. But even though Whitney’s party won more votes — 49.7% to the Liberals’ 47.5% — he had failed to win power.

And by the narrowest of margins. The Liberals secured the seat of Grey North by only five votes. Had three people voted differently there, the two parties would have been tied at 49 seats apiece. (Alex Mackay’s victory here was re-affirmed in a byelection held in early 1903.)

But a two-seat majority was tough for Ross to manage, and the death of an MLA nearly meant the death of his government. Ross would stumble on for three more years, leading a tired government troubled by the baggage of more than three decades of rule. When he finally called an election to settle matters in 1905, his party was met with a crushing defeat and James Whitney became what Ontario had not seen in more than a generation: a Conservative premier.

1926 Ontario election

Howard Ferguson wins, Prohibition loses

December 1, 1926

Welcome to the 1920s, when prohibition (and ignoring prohibition) was all the rage. Ontario was no exception, but the province was divided on the issue. In the 1924 plebiscite on repealing the Ontario Temperance Act, brought into force during the First World War, the attempt failed by a narrow margin — 51.5% for continuation to 48.5% for repeal.

But by 1926 the Ontario government was ready to take on prohibition again.

That government was led by G. Howard Ferguson and the Conservatives, who had come into power in 1923 when they defeated the single-term government of the United Farmers of Ontario.

Ferguson wanted to institute government control of the liquor trade, in order to reap the tax revenues but also to do a way with a system that was being largely ignored. It was a thorny issue, though, as the Conservatives were split on whether to be “wet” or “dry” and in the 1924 plebiscite a majority of the ridings held by the Conservatives voted against repeal.

But Ferguson was a cunning, colourful and combative politician and wasn’t about to shy away from a fight, particularly when he saw the weakness on the opposition benches.

That opposition was divided. While there had been some speculation the Liberals and United Farmers could join together to fight the Conservatives, it never happened. Instead, the United Farmers dissolved to form the Progressive Party under Manning Doherty, but even that attempt at renewal faltered when some MLAs decided to keep sitting under the United Farmer label.

Things got worse when Doherty stepped aside to run for the federal Conservatives and was replaced by W.E. Raney, someone who was no better placed to keep the sputtering movement together.

The Liberals, under W.E.N. Sinclair, were similarly weak. Like the Progressives, Sinclair was a staunch prohibitionist and “a throwback to the dour Presbyterian Grits of nineteenth-century Ontario”, according to historian Peter Oliver.

Sinclair’s position on prohibition went against the views of one of the Liberals’ key constituencies: Franco-Ontarians. But the Liberals could have still kept these voters onside had they opposed Regulation 17, a law that limited French-language education in the province. Instead, Sinclair spurned them and gave Franco-Ontarians little reason to back the Liberals — and some of his MLAs decided to run as Independent Liberals in their eastern Ontario ridings to give themselves a better chance.

The Liberals weren’t the only ones being divided, though, as when Ferguson called the election he lost his attorney-general, W.F. Nickle, who resigned in protest. He would be joined by a number of Conservative party officers, workers and candidates. But the election was on, and set for December 1.

Ferguson also faced opposition from many corners: the Toronto Star, the Protestant churches and from both the Liberals and Progressives.

But he soon quelled the discontent within his party by putting a little water in his anti-prohibition wine. The proposal was always going to require liquor permits and allow dry counties to remain dry if they wanted to, but now “beer by the glass” would no longer be an option: there would be no return of the beer halls.

Though repeal would help fill the government’s coffers, Ferguson mostly argued for it due to the failure of the Ontario Temperance Act. Alcohol consumption was still high, based on the number of prescriptions doctors were handing out and the popularity of home brewing — and bootlegging.

Using the new-fangled radio, Ferguson took the case to the people, explaining that enforcing the OTA was costing more than the enforcement of all of Ontario’s other laws, to little effect. Government control of the liquor trade would be better for everyone.

Though prohibition was very popular in some quarters, the opposition parties were too weak and divided to make their case. Neither the Liberals nor the Progressives ran full slates, meaning no single party was running in enough ridings to provide a serious alternative to the Conservatives.

The result was a resounding victory for Ferguson. The Conservatives won 72 seats and over 55% of the vote, with the Liberals (of various hyphenated labels) taking 23 seats with 24% of ballots cast and the Progressives and United Farmers combining for 14 seats and 8.5% of the vote. Candidates running under a “Prohibitionist” banner also captured 8.5% of the vote.

Ferguson would have one more victorious election under his belt in 1929. The Conservatives (under his successor, George S. Henry) would be booted from office in 1934, along with many other Depression-era governments.

But the legacy of the 1926 Ontario election can still be seen throughout the province even today. With the repeal of the OTA, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, better known as the LCBO, was founded in 1927.

1942 Ontario CCF leadership

The Ontario CCF’s first leader

April 3, 1942

As the Second World War raged across Europe, North Africa and the Pacific, Canadians sensed that things would not go back to where they were before the war had started — assuming the Allies could win, of course. The trauma of the Great Depression and the demands of the war demonstrated to Canadians that there was a need for a more activist central government, one that would ensure the well-being of everyone. If the government could mobilize massive resources to defeat enemies overseas, why couldn’t it do the same to guarantee a minimum standard of living at home?

This was the moment that the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation had been waiting for, and accordingly the CCF started to surge in some of the first political polls ever conducted in Canada.

Already established in Western Canada, the CCF was having difficulty breaking through in Ontario. But a byelection in the riding of York South provided an opportunity for the party.

The Conservatives had yet to recover from the defeat of R.B. Bennett’s government in 1935. His replacement as leader, Robert Manion, had no success in the 1940 election and the Conservatives went back to the drawing board. Rather than look forward, however, the Conservatives looked back and acclaimed Arthur Meighen, leader and briefly prime minister during the 1920s, as their party chief in 1941.

Assailed on his war record, Mackenzie King was desperate to see his old and hated foe go down to defeat. When a byelection was called in the riding of York South to get Meighen into the House of Commons, the Liberals opted not to run a candidate. To avoid splitting the vote, they left the field open to Joseph Noseworthy, the seemingly long-shot candidate of the CCF.

With a little help from the federal Liberals — though not the provincial Liberals, whose leader, Premier Mitchell Hepburn, backed Meighen — Noseworthy scored an upset victory in February 1942. It spelled the end of Meighen’s comeback attempt, but also created some positive momentum for the Ontario CCF.

The Ontario CCF wasn’t in the best of shape. In the last provincial election in 1937, the party had failed to elect a single candidate and took just 5% of the vote. But with support for the national party rising and fresh off the stunning win in York South, it was decided that the Ontario CCF needed to get better organized. To mark the 10th anniversary of its founding convention, the Ontario CCF decided they would finally name something they hadn’t yet had: a party leader.

A convention was set for April 1942, where the party would decide on platform policy and name its new leader. A total of 17 candidates were nominated for the post, including Noseworthy, future federal NDP leader David Lewis, then-sitting Ontario CCF president Sam Lawrence and Agnes Macphail, the first woman ever elected to the House of Commons.

In the end, all but two declined the nominations. One was Murray Cotterill, the 28-year-old secretary to the Toronto labour council and a stalwart of the CCF Youth Movement.

The other was Edward (Ted) Jolliffe, the vice-president of the provincial council of the CCF. “Tall and slender,” according to media reports, Jolliffe was born in China while his Christian missionary parents were in the country. Also young at just 33, Jolliffe nevertheless had an impressive resume. He had been a Rhodes scholar at Oxford (where he had founded an Oxford branch of the CCF with David Lewis), a journalist and a lawyer, and had twice stood as a candidate for the federal CCF.

Between the two, it wasn’t much of a contest. The delegates gathered at the Carls-Rite Hotel in Toronto, more than 100 strong, and overwhelmingly selected Jolliffe as the first leader of the Ontario CCF. The detailed results were not announced, but “it was learned reliably, however, that the majority was so sweeping as to show almost complete endorsation by the 107 delegates” according to the Canadian Press.

In his victory speech, Jolliffe attacked the Hepburn government, both on the premier’s unpatriotic position on the war effort (he had dismissed the U.S. Navy and predicted that the Soviet Union would be defeated) and his unwillingness to create a social safety net for Ontarians.

“We believe the C.C.F. has the policy and the C.C.F. is the only hope in this province,” he said, citing a previous meeting he had with Hepburn where the fate of those on unemployment relief was discussed. “There was contempt and hatred in his tone of voice,” Jolliffe charged, “hatred and contempt for the unemployed.”

“The time has come, following C.C.F. successes in other provinces and in the federal field, to open a ‘second front’ here in Ontario. And with the help of the workers and the farmers we are going to do it.”

Jolliffe would deliver on his pledge. Before the convention, one of its organizers had confidently predicted that the Ontario CCF could elect 15 candidates in the next election. When it was finally called in 1943, the CCF won 34 seats and formed the official opposition. One of those seats was Ted Jolliffe’s. He ran, and won, in York South.

1943 Ontario election

The Big Blue Machine revs up

August 4, 1943

Wars are transformative moments in history, and the Ontario election of 1943, taking place just as the tide of the Second World War was turning in the Allies’ favour, was a transformative moment for Ontario.

Not only did the election gave birth to a new political dynasty, it also inaugurated a new party system that has survived in Ontario to this day.

Even before the war started, Ontario had been going through a period of turmoil. The Great Depression had impacted the province like everywhere else, and helped bring to power the charismatic (and some would say demagogic) Mitchell Hepburn, a populist with a volatile personality — and a colourful personal life. Though a Liberal premier, Hepburn would quickly become the nemesis of Liberal prime minister Mackenzie King.

After initially working together once Hepburn had come to power, the two would eventually come to hate each other. Hepburn felt that King interfered too much in his bailiwick. The paranoid King saw in Hepburn a rival who was continually trying to bring him down and take his spot at the head of the Liberal Party and the country.

When Hepburn joined Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis in criticizing King’s prosecution of the war effort, the prime minister pulled out all the stops to defeat Duplessis in the 1939 Quebec election and subsequently took his own national victory in 1940 as a rebuke of Hepburn’s attacks.

Eventually, Hepburn’s erratic and hard-living style was impacting his leadership of the Ontario Liberals as well as his own health, and he stepped down as premier in 1942 (though he stayed on as the provincial treasurer). By then, though, Hepburn had almost gone entirely over to the other side, campaigning with federal Conservative leader Arthur Meighen in the York South byelection (which Meighen lost) and saying he would vote for John Bracken, Meighen’s replacement as leader, in the next federal campaign. When Hepburn likened King’s political tactics to Adolf Hitler’s, the Ontario Liberals had finally had enough and Gordon Conant, Hepburn’s ally and choice as interim successor, removed Hepburn from cabinet.

As the date for the Liberal leadership approached, the divisions within the Liberal Party were coming to a head. Conant, claiming nervous exhaustion, removed himself from contention and checked himself into a hospital. Delegates chose Harry Nixon, who had brought the remnants of the old United Farmers and Progressives into the Liberal Party in the 1930s, as the new leader and premier of the province.

Nixon had King’s support, and the prime minister saw in his victory a deliverance from the Hepburn menace, a “remarkable evidence of the moral forces that work in the unseen realm, and of the vindication of right in the end.” King also advised that Nixon go to the polls as soon as possible, and Nixon called an election shortly after he was sworn in as premier.

But Nixon’s decisive leadership victory did not heal the divides within the Liberal Party, and the organizational links between the provincial and federal wings had been severed. Hepburn wouldn’t go away either, and he ran as an Independent Liberal in his Elgin riding.

While the Liberals were tearing themselves apart, the Conservative opposition was getting its act together. Now under the leadership of First World War veteran George Drew and re-branded the Progressive Conservative Party (Bracken, a Progressive premier in Manitoba, had accepted the national leadership of the party on the condition that the name be changed), the Tories had developed a progressive 22-point policy platform and strengthened their local organizations across the province.

Also stacked against Nixon and the Liberals was the rising Co-operative Commonwealth Federation under Ted Jolliffe. Though the Ontario CCF had been shutout in the 1937 election, the war saw a rise in CCF support across the country. National polling was beginning to put the socialists in contention and its prospects for forming government in places like British Columbia and Saskatchewan were looking up. Labour was uniting behind the CCF and Jolliffe was an effective, articulate leader, pitching a future vision of the province that would deliver a better life for workers, soldiers and their families after the war was over.

Polls before the campaign had put the CCF in third, but by election day the latest numbers from the nascent Gallup Poll had the CCF ahead, with 36% support to 33% for Drew’s PCs and 31% for the Liberals.

The competitive contest pushed the Liberals to try to lump the PCs and the CCF together, seeing in Drew’s progressive platform yet more socialism that only a Liberal government could keep at bay. But the PCs were just as opposed to the rise of the CCF — Drew would campaign hard against the ‘Red Menace’ once in power — and his allies went to bat against the socialists, claiming that the CCF would break Canada’s connection to the British monarchy. One third-party ad charged that “The C.C.F. Would Get Rid of Churchill” and begged Ontarians to “Keep Ontario British”.

The Liberals were facing pressure from both ends — and also had to grapple with the unpopularity of the Mackenzie King government. King had just held a plebiscite on conscription that divided English and French Canada (again) and was still refusing to send conscripts overseas, so the Tories cast Nixon as King’s puppet, and King’s government as beholden to Quebec. “The voice may be the voice of Nixon,” Drew said, “but the words will be the words of Mackenzie King.”

Citing the requirements of the war, the teetotaler King had also instituted a reduction in the supply of beer in the country, sparking an uproar among Canadians who were willing to give up a lot for the war effort — except a drink. It wasn’t prohibition, but the result was that the beer halls would run out of supply before the end of a hot summer’s day, when labourers and farmers were thirsting for a cool beer after a long day’s work under the sun. The Liberals were doomed.

Still, the outcome of the election was in doubt. Every leader claimed they were on track for victory, but an editorial in the Ottawa Evening Citizen summed it up best: “stalemate seems probable,” the editorialists wrote, “yet so unpredictable are elections under present circumstances that almost anything can happen.”

The result showed a divided province. Drew and the Progressive Conservatives won 38 seats, an increase of 15 since the 1937 election, but saw their share of the vote drop 3.6 points to 35.8%. They suffered losses to the CCF, but also made gains in the southwestern portion of the province that had long been the Liberal heartland, and where the Tories had been shutout in 1937.

The CCF captured 31.6% of the vote, a gain of 26 points since the last election. The party won 34 seats, sweeping northern Ontario, making significant gains in Toronto and winning seats in the industrial centres of Windsor, Hamilton and Kitchener. Two Communists were also elected (A.A. MacLeod and J.B. Salsberg) in Toronto under the Labour-Progressive banner, as the Communist Party had been banned in 1940.

Support for the Liberals collapsed, dropping 19 points to just 30% and leaving the party with only 15 seats — 16 seats if Hepburn, elected as an Independent Liberal, is added to the total. The Liberals had retained their support among Franco-Ontarians and in parts of the southwest, but they had been dealt a serious blow.

“In my inner nature,” King wrote in his diary after the results of the election were known, “I feel a sense of relief that a cabinet that has been so unprincipled and devoid of character has been swept out of Queen’s Park.”

The Liberals had indeed been beaten, but Hepburn wasn’t done just yet. He’d return as leader once again after Nixon’s resignation. But the 1945 election would not see the return of the Liberals to power. Instead, Drew and the Progressive Conservatives would secure a majority government — and the Big Blue Machine would continue powering Ontario until 1985. The CCF had come close in 1943 and would whither under Drew’s ferocious attacks in 1945, but it formed the official opposition again in 1948 and on several more occasions as the Ontario New Democrats, who themselves would form a government in 1990.

The 1943 election had brought the Conservatives back to power, where they would remain for decades. But it also brought about a new dynamic in Ontario politics that has stood the test of time.

1947 Ontario Liberal leadership

How do you follow Mitch Hepburn?

May 16, 1947

The early 1940s were a tumultuous time in Ontario politics. Liberal premier Mitch Hepburn was a magnet for controversy, and after his own party turned on him — both those governing in Toronto and Ottawa — he stepped down, his party was turfed in the 1943 election, the PCs under George Drew came to power and the CCF formed the official opposition.

Back as leader for the 1945 election for one more kick at the can, Hepburn was beaten when Drew led his PCs to a big majority government. The Liberals were only able to tread water and hold their seats, but the collapse of the CCF meant the Liberals were back in the official opposition role — though without Hepburn.

He had failed to win his own seat, and so the Ontario Liberal Party turned to Farquhar Oliver to hold down the fort.

First elected as a United Farmer in 1926, Oliver was the last of the UFOs when he joined the Liberals and Hepburn’s cabinet in 1941. It was an arrangement that didn’t quite work out, as Oliver quit the following year before re-joining when Hepburn stepped aside. But, two elections later and with the Liberals lacking a leader at Queen’s Park, it was Oliver who took over on an interim basis.

Only 43, Oliver was still an experienced member of the Liberal caucus, even if he wasn’t much loved. An editorial in The Globe and Mail said that “even his warmest admirers would not claim for him that he has shown the vigor, the abilities and the industry of the great figures who led the Ontario Liberals in the past.”

Perhaps that’s why he had to campaign for his own job when the Ontario Liberals held a leadership convention in 1947.

His opponents on the ballot included Colin Campbell, a former MPP from Sault Ste. Marie and a cabinet minister in Hepburn’s government who threw his name into the ring at the last minute, and city councilor and former Toronto MPP Allan Lamport.

Alvin Cadeau of Burlington and W.A. Gunn of Toronto were also in the running.

But as the incumbent, Oliver was the favourite. At least, he was the favourite to win the leadership. Rumour had it that the meddling Liberals in Ottawa, particularly those around the powerful federal minister C.D. Howe, preferred Campbell, who had started his political career as an MP.

About 1,200 delegates attended the party’s convention at Toronto’s King Edward Hotel on May 15 and 16, 1947, making it the party’s biggest convention up to then.

Each of the candidates gave a speech, but the reviews awarded Oliver as the victor for his “fighting address”.

“Don’t worry that I won’t be aggressive. Don’t think I won’t fight. Drew is ready to be punctured and the time to puncture his balloon is between now and the next election. But you don’t win elections in the two years after the last one; you win in the two years before the next one. That’s why I’m going to organize this province from end to end.”

He pledged to keep the Ontario Liberals in the middle road between the “reaction of Toryism and the wild ideas of socialism”, and it was widely seen that his speech secured the leadership for himself and deflated Campbell’s upstart campaign.

The detailed results of the vote were not announced, only that Oliver won “by a substantial overall majority”. Knowing he was beaten handily, Campbell successfully moved to make Oliver’s victory unanimous.

Farquhar Oliver would lead the Liberals into the next election in 1948, but rather than puncture Drew’s balloon he found himself back in third place when the CCF surged ahead. He resigned in 1950 but would be re-installed as leader before the decade was out, and he would again add his name to the long list of Ontario Liberals who could not get themselves into the premier’s office for the four decades between 1943 and 1985.

1949 Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership

The rise of Old Man Ontario

April 27, 1949

When the Ontario Progressive Conservatives under George Drew won the 1948 provincial election, there was just one problem: Drew, the premier, had failed to win his own seat.

Except, it wasn’t really much of a problem for George Drew.

Already eyeing bigger and better things, Drew decided not to try to get himself a seat at Queen’s Park through a byelection. Instead, he’d run to take over the national Progressive Conservative Party. So, just a few months after asking Ontarians for a new mandate to govern in June, he contested and won the federal PC leadership in October. Only after securing that job did he resign the premiership.

It meant the Ontario PC leadership was race was on. First out of the gate was Leslie Blackwell, an MPP from Eglinton and the attorney general. Hoping to get the contest over with and a new premier in place as soon as possible, Blackwell pushed for an early vote before the end of 1948.

Instead, Drew (who had quarrelled with Blackwell) recommended the appointment of Thomas L. Kennedy as his interim replacement and the party settled on April 27, 1949 to name the next permanent leader of the Ontario PCs.

Kelso Roberts, a former Toronto MPP who hailed from northern Ontario, also declared his candidacy but it wasn’t until after the legislature was prorogued just a few weeks before the leadership vote was held that two other candidates came forward.

The first was the suave, urbane Dana Porter, a Toronto MPP since 1943 and a cabinet minister.

Next was Leslie Frost. A veteran of the First World War (like Blackwell), Frost had been an MPP since 1937 for the riding of Victoria, based around the town of Lindsay.

Treasurer (today’s finance minister) in the Drew government, Frost was described by the Telegram as “the most tranquil man in the Ontario legislature.” Frequently leading the government as the septuagenarian Kennedy was often absent from Queen’s Park, Frost had considered retirement rather than running for leader. But in the end he announced on April 12, 1949 that he’d be a candidate and got a small leadership campaign organization up and running. His campaign would eventually spend less than $3,000.

With the imaginative slogan of “Frost for Leader”, his political brochure boasted that “he has never allowed his public responsibilities to completely detach him from living the simple country life which he has always lead [sic]. He enjoys his hobbies of fishing and hunting but his greatest hobby is ‘people’.”

Frost’s “country life” was a cornerstone of his leadership campaign. He had the advantage of being from somewhere other than Toronto, the city which Blackwell, Roberts and Porter were all identified with either because they represented ridings in Toronto or had grown up there. Frost’s rural background gave him an edge over the others.

On Monday, April 25 some 3,000 delegates, alternates and other attendees (including about 350 women) gathered at the Royal York Hotel to pick the party’s next leader and the province’s next premier. The convention was based out of the main ballroom of the hotel.

Booths for all the candidates, each bedecked with a blown-up photograph of its man, had been set up around the room as focal points dispensing literature, buttons and sound advice. Large signs urging support for the contestants covered the walls, and placards were propped up in every corner. A troubadour strolled around the hotel strumming a guitar and singing the praises of Dana Porter. The Frost Committee had engaged three pipers and a drummer, who strode through the lobby, the ballroom, and other public areas emitting sounds that would have warmed the blood of their man’s Scottish grandfather.

Each of the candidates hosted delegates in their hotel suites. Porter even entertained them there with a female accordionist.

The focal point of the convention would be the speeches. Drew returned to warn the crowd of the dangers of international communism, the sort of Red-baiting speech common to the strain of Drew PCs. Then, each of the candidates had 15 minutes to make their pitches.

These speeches were all greeted by the requisite enthusiasm of their supporters in the hall, but none were particularly memorable. They might not have changed many of the contours of the contest. Porter wasn’t seen as a serious contender and Roberts had the disadvantage of being seatless (and was greeted with booes when he disagreed with a piece of government policy in his speech). The race was widely seen as between Blackwell and Frost, with Blackwell recognized as the riskier, less predictable option than Frost and his bland reliability.

Though Frost might have been the favourite, the outcome was in some doubt. Observers expected it to go at least two rounds. Instead, the delegates in the “steaming-hot hall” gave Frost a smashing first-ballot victory.

Though the results were not officially announced, reports gave Frost 834 votes (57%) against only 442 (30%) for Blackwell. Roberts and Porter were well back with 121 and 65 votes, respectively.

The crowd, which might have expected a longer afternoon of voting, cheered Frost’s victory, and pipers and supporters streamed into the hall in celebration. Blackwell moved to have Frost’s victory be made unanimous, and so it was.

When Frost was sworn in as premier, he kept the treasury portfolio to himself and would wait until November 1951 before he sought his own electoral mandate. He got it, and would go on to win two more elections in 1955 and 1959 before stepping aside in 1961.

Despite only being 53 when he won the PC leadership, his unflashy style would earn him the nickname “Old Man Ontario”. Frost continued and solidified the centrist approach of Drew, expanding the size and role of government and investing in public services and setting the stage for what would be another 24 years of Tory rule to follow his 10 years as premier.

1971 Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership

Bill Davis wins, but nearly loses

February 12, 1971

Running a front runner’s campaign is often the safe play when you’re the front runner — that’s why it’s so common. But, sometimes, it nearly backfires.

In 1971, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives knew a thing or two about being front runners. They had been in power since 1943 and were in the midst of a string of seven consecutive majority governments. John Robarts, the author of the two most recent victories, nevertheless had his majority reduced in 1967 and, with nearly a decade as premier under his belt, resigned at the end of 1970.

There wasn’t much doubt who would replace him.

Bill Davis was just 41 but had already been an MPP from Peel Region since 1959. He was the minister of education at a time when the Ontario education system had seen a massive expansion. He had the support of a majority of cabinet ministers and about two-thirds of the PC caucus.

The Davis team was so convinced of their eventual win that they declined the help of some of the brightest political organizers in Tory circles, including the legendary Dalton Camp and Norman Atkins.

Stung by their rejection, the architects of the so-called “Big Blue Machine” cast about for another candidate to back and found one in Allan Lawrence.

A Toronto MPP since 1958, Lawrence had been a bit of a maverick as a backbencher. But late in the Robarts government Lawrence got a promotion to cabinet and was named the minister of mines and northern affairs. The move actually made him a potentially formidable leadership contestant. He already had a base in Toronto. To that, he was able to add support from PC members in northern Ontario, a region of the province he frequently visited as minister.

Camp, Atkins and crew helped mould Lawrence into a serious challenger for Davis. While the front runner ran a stodgy, old-fashioned campaign, Lawrence had a more modern organization.

Davis’s approach to the campaign reflected what would be his approach to being premier and party leader. He was the candidate of the “establishment”, a Red Tory that would continue in the moderate (and election-winning) ways of Leslie Frost and John Robarts. Not wanting to ruffle too many feathers, Davis was reluctant to attack his opponents or propose much in terms of policy. Not so for Lawrence, who went on the offensive against Davis’s record as education minister, criticizing what he considered the ministry’s “out of control” budget.

He wasn’t, though, the candidate of the right. That title went to Darcy McKeough, an MPP from southwestern Ontario since 1963 and minister of municipal affairs. Though only a few years younger than Davis, he was the youngest member of Robarts’s cabinet. He staked out a position on the right-wing of the party and as a unity candidate for those who couldn’t decide between Davis and Lawrence.

Also in the running were Bob Welch, minister of citizenship and MPP from the Niagara region since 1963, and Bert Lawrence (no relation to Allan), an eastern Ontario MPP and minister of financial and consumer affairs. Rounding out the list was Robert Pharand, a young single-issue candidate advocating for a fully-funded Catholic education system.

As the leadership convention approached, the certainty that Davis would win had gone. He was still the front runner, but he was up against some surprisingly strong challengers.

The convention, held at Maple Leaf Gardens, didn’t go quite as planned. New electronic voting machines were used but when the count from the first ballot was complete it was clear something had gone wrong — the numbers didn’t match the number of delegates who voted. So, it was decided that the first round results would be scrapped and it would be run again the old-fashioned way.

The delays made the leadership race a marathon and it wasn’t until the evening that the results of the first (re-run) ballot were announced.

Davis was on top, but he had just 33% of the vote. Allan Lawrence had a strong showing with 26%, followed by McKeough at 16.5% and Welch at 16%. Rounding out the list was Bert Lawrence with 8% and Pharand with under 1% of the vote.

Pharand was automatically eliminated, but Bert Lawrence also decided to throw in the towel after scoring so poorly. Neither endorsed any of the other leading candidates.

On the second ballot, Allan Lawrence emerged as the clear Anyone-but-Davis candidate. He picked up 67 votes to only 47 for Davis, shrinking the gap from seven points to six points. McKeough and Welch picked up only a handful of votes, and Welch was eliminated next. He endorsed no one.

Lawrence picked up more votes on the third ballot with an increase of 108 against 74 for Davis. The gap was now four points — 41% to 37%. McKeough, who increased to only 21%, was eliminated.

Now after midnight, it was clear this supposed coronation was anything but. Over three ballots, Davis had gained only eight percentage points against Lawrence’s 11. It would come down to that final ballot and the votes of McKeough’s supporters. McKeough would be kingmaker. And he placed the crown on Davis.

At least, that’s what he intended to do.

He nearly failed. On that final ballot, Lawrence’s support increased by 162 votes. Davis’s total increased by only 143. McKeough hadn’t delivered even a majority of his delegates to the Davis camp. But it was just enough. After 2 a.m. in the morning, the results were finally announced: 51.4% for Davis, 48.6% for Lawrence. Just 44 votes made the difference.

It could have been a divisive leadership race. While there might have been some hurt feelings in the party, McKeough, Welch and both Lawrences all ran as Ontario PC candidates in the next general election and served in Davis’s cabinet. Camp, Atkins and the rest of the Big Blue Machine kept all cylinders firing for the party’s new leader.

The result was another majority victory for the Progressive Conservatives later that year in 1971, followed by three more wins before Davis resigned in 1985 — the year the Big Blue Machine finally came to a grinding halt.

1982 Ontario NDP leadership

The Ontario NDP goes for the win

February 7, 1982

The 1981 provincial election was a traumatic one for the Ontario New Democrats.

Their future looked bright in the 1970s, as Stephen Lewis brought them to official opposition status in 1975 and helped keep the Progressive Conservatives under Bill Davis to a minority in 1977. Lewis stepped aside after that election and the party chose Michael Cassidy as his successor.

But Cassidy was no Lewis. He couldn’t match his charisma and appeal, and in the 1981 election the NDP lost over a third of its seats, dropping decisively to third-party status as the PCs regained a majority government. When Cassidy, too, stepped aside, the party came to a conclusion: in an age of image politics, they needed an interesting, electable leader at the helm.

There were two candidates who were seen as potentially fitting the bill.

One was Bob Rae. Only 33, Rae was a first-term Toronto MP making a name for himself as the NDP’s quotable finance critic in the House of Commons. Judy Steed, writing in the Globe and Mail, profiled him as the “son of a diplomat but not a rich man’s son, he has the kind of background and credentials that make him an ideal candidate. Born in Ottawa, where he went to public school, educated in Washington and Geneva, bilingual, a Rhodes scholar, a lawyer, articulate, witty, photogenic… Mr. Rae has generated an almost unprecedented enthusiasm among NDPers.”

The other was Richard Johnston. Also in his mid-30s and a former social worker, Johnston was the candidate of the left-wing of the party. An MPP for Scarborough fresh off a byelection win that won him the seat vacated by Lewis, Johnston campaigned to give more power to the grassroots of the party.

Once Rae and Johnston got into the race, other party heavyweights opted to stay out. But not Jim Foulds, a veteran MPP from northern Ontario who was the “outsider” as the sole candidate who didn’t represent a seat in the Toronto area.

According to Steed, Foulds “exudes a kind of unsophisticated warmth that may not be appreciated in downtown Toronto but goes over well in small towns and rural areas.”

It was quickly apparent that Johnston and Foulds had an uphill climb. Rae earned the support of 11 of the 21 caucus members and landed the endorsement of Donald MacDonald, leader of the Ontario CCF and NDP from 1953 to 1970, a few weeks before the convention.

It was his moderate approach, high profile and “electability” that gave Rae the advantage over his two opponents. The party had decided they wanted a winner. They weren’t choosing the next leader of the Ontario New Democrats. They thought they were potentially choosing the next Ontario premier.

There wasn’t much suspense when over 3,000 New Democrats attended the convention held at the Harbour Castle Hilton in Toronto. A questions-and-answers session on the Friday of the convention went well for Rae and Johnston was seen as having given the best speech on Saturday. But on Sunday, when a little more than 2,000 delegates would cast their ballots, it was clearly Rae’s contest to lose. Even his own staffers were privately predicting he’d prevail with over 60% of ballots cast.

It was a solid guess. Rae won handily on the first ballot, taking 65% of the vote against just 24% for Johnston and 11% for Foulds.

Rae won with the backing of the labour unions (who had votes and volunteers to provide on the convention floor), the party establishment and the moderates looking to challenge the Davis government. Johnston’s camp felt they had been treated a little unfairly in the delegate selections, but their candidate nonetheless rallied to Rae after the results were announced, as did Foulds.

“The Rae support was much stronger coming into the convention than we anticipated,” Johnston said, with one of his organizers bluntly admitting “we were out-pointed, out-gunned and out-manoeuvred.“

By the end of the year, Rae had his seat at Queen’s Park when Donald MacDonald stepped aside. Rae led the NDP to modest gains in the next election in 1985, enough to reduce the PCs, now under Frank Miller, to another minority and bring them down in conjunction with David Peterson’s Liberals. The NDP would get back to official opposition status under Rae in 1987 before he led them to the promised land in the 1990 campaign. The New Democrats who believed in 1981 that they were selecting a future Ontario premier were proven right.

1982 Ontario Liberal leadership

Ontario Liberals opt for the ‘radical centre’

February 21, 1982

After two election results in which he was unable to make any significant gains for the Ontario Liberal Party, Stuart Smith threw in the towel as leader a few months after the 1981 election. Not only had the Liberals failed to pick up a seat in that vote, but the Progressive Conservatives under Bill Davis had upgraded the minority government they won in 1977 into a majority government.

“Intelligent and articulate,” according to Rosemary Speirs, writing in The Globe and Mail, Smith had “been unable to shake off a reputation for inconsistency and petulance that he gained in his first months as leader.”

Smith had tried to push the Ontario Liberals in a new direction. He believed that the party needed to move to the left and take votes away from the New Democrats. But the party’s traditional base in the rural southwest did not make it easy for him.

Contrary to what the Ontario Liberals have been in the 21st century, in 1981 the party was still a largely rural party with its strongest support coming from southwestern Ontario — a legacy of support dating back to the 19th century, when the Liberals dominated the southwest. Even with Smith’s attempt to move the party to the left, the Liberals still had nearly no seats in the Greater Toronto Area, where the PCs and NDP were far stronger.

When Smith announced his resignation in September 1981, it was clear who the heir apparent was. In the 1976 leadership contest, David Peterson had nearly beaten Smith, falling just 45 votes short on the final ballot. A London MPP first elected in 1975, Peterson had used the years since his leadership defeat to prepare for his next run.

For the convention that would be held between February 19-21, 1982, Peterson would have the support from a majority of the Ontario Liberal caucus, including former leader Robert Nixon. The establishment, including that of the federal Liberal Party, was behind Peterson.

His biggest challenger turned out to be a first-term MPP from Hamilton. Sheila Copps, at 29 about nine years younger than Peterson, was the daughter of a former Hamilton mayor. Seeing the field of candidates running to replace Smith, Copps put her name forward as she thought there needed to a candidate to represent the left-wing of the party. She was the ideological successor to Smith, whom she worked for before running for office in 1981.

She would turn out not to be the only candidate from the left. There was also Robert Thomas, environmental activist and a failed candidate in Parry Sound, and John Sweeney, an MPP from Kitchener. A father of 10, Sweeney wanted to restrict access to abortion but otherwise considered himself a progressive.

Jim Breithaupt, a fiscal conservative and another Kitchener MPP first elected in 1967, was considered a serious contender early on. But he was sidelined in early January when he got into a car accident that broke four of his ribs, and proxies (including his wife) had to campaign in his stead.

It was a demanding campaign, with candidates criss-crossing Ontario to meet delegates and participate in various debates and town halls (Breithaupt did the most he could speaking to delegates over the phone from his hospital bed).

But it was clear what question this race would answer: what direction did the Ontario Liberals need to take to get back to power, which they had last lost in 1943?

Peterson was the pragmatist, the unexciting moderate who focused on the economy. Copps was the progressive, focusing on social issues. She was younger and inexperienced, but she was new and interesting. Peterson had a reputation for choking. His loss in 1976 was largely credited to his convention speech, which Peterson himself later called “the worst speech in modern political history.” Would he choke again?

A few weeks out, the contest was seen as Peterson’s to lose. But to who? His campaign manager told the Globe that Breithaupt, Copps and Sweeney were all roughly tied in second for support behind Peterson, with Thomas far behind in the rear. Even a week before the convention, Peterson was still saying that Briethaupt was running third and gaining momentum.

But he wasn’t. Instead, it was Thomas. Variously described as an actor and inventor with a manner of speaking that lent itself well to the voiceover work he did, the media began to pay more attention to him as the convention approach. His pitch “that Ontario must protect its environment and that the province’s future depends on its becoming self-sufficient in energy and food,” as described by the Globe’s Paul Palango, was resonating with some members.

The convention at Toronto’s Sheraton Centre hosted over 2,000 delegates, representing some 10% of the party’s membership at the time. There was a little tension over whether Peterson could pull it off or not, but his campaign clearly had more resources than the others.

The hall was full of red-and-white “Peterson for Premier” signs and “Team Peterson” baseball caps. There was even a “Peterson ice cream wagon” for delegates to enjoy. The black and yellow campaign materials for Copps (showing her hometown Tiger-Cats pride) were less apparent, while Thomas had little more than a man in a sandwich board with “It’s time for Thomas” written on the front and “It’s time to win” on the back.

It was a packed convention with long lines for registration. Perhaps signalling the impatience of the delegates, Charles Gordon, writing in the Ottawa Citizen, noted how “the first spontaneous applause of the convention was for the mayor of Toronto, when he said his speech would be short.”

But when the results of the first ballot were announced, there was little doubt that Peterson was going to win. He took 46% of delegates’ votes on the first ballot, at the higher end of pre-convention predictions. Copps performed well with 30.5%, with Thomas finishing in third place with 11%. Breithaupt and Sweeney finished well back with 6% apiece. Sweeney, narrowly finishing last, was eliminated, but Breithaupt also withdrew after the first ballot. Neither endorsed another candidate.

The expectation was the Breithaupt’s delegates would go to Peterson and Sweeney’s to Copps. That’s likely what happened, but Peterson also picked up support from Sweeney’s and/or Thomas’s delegates — he gained 170 votes on the second ballot against 138 for Copps, while Thomas dropped by 86. Breithaupt had only 130 delegates backing him, so Peterson had to get some votes from elsewhere.

In the end, the Ontario Liberals might have decided they were sick of losing. Rather than stake out a position on the progressive left, it was smarter to stick to the electable centre.

In his victory speech, Peterson pledged that he’d keep the party in the “vibrant middle, the radical centre, call it what you will”.

Post-convention analyses echoed some concerns from Liberals, though, that by sticking to the centre the Liberals were at risk of getting squeezed. The Davis PCs were Red Tories who very comfortable in occupying the middle ground, while the New Democrats, now under Bob Rae, were also moving towards the centre. What would be left for the Peterson Liberals?

The concerns might have had some merit — until the retirement of Bill Davis changed the equation. Bucking their moderate traditions, the PCs opted for Frank Miller, a conservative more in the mould of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher than Bill Davis or Leslie Frost. By moving to the right, the PCs opened up some ground in the centre. Peterson and the Liberals took up that space and, in 1985, their long wait for a return to power finally came to an end.

1985 Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership

Frank Miller wins

January 26, 1985

You know those dynasties in Alberta? Well, Ontario had one, too. When Marty McFly was travelling through time in the DeLorean, the Ontario PCs were celebrating 42 years in office and 12 consecutive election victories running through the premierships of George Drew, Leslie Frost, John Robarts and Bill Davis.

The PCs had faltered a little in two elections in the 1970s when they only secured minority governments, but the Big Blue Machine was still a formidable one by 1985, and surely was on track for many more decades of success.

When Davis resigned in 1985, the leadership race to replace him came down to four contestants. There was Larry Grossman and Roy McMurtry, two cabinet ministers from the moderate Red Tory wing of the party, and Dennis Timbrell, another cabinet minister who would be more of a centrist. Their pitch was to continue Davis’s successful running of the party in the centre of Ontario’s political spectrum.

Then there was Frank Miller, a more traditional conservative with a rural base of support. At stake was whether the Ontario PCs would turn to the right or stay in the middle.

At the delegated convention in Toronto, Miller placed on top of the first ballot with about 30% support, followed closely by Timbrell at 25%, Grossman at 22% and McMurtry at 18%.

On the second ballot, after McMurtry threw his support to Grossman, Miller was still in front. Though Grossman had gotten more of the liberated vote than Timbrell, Miller got just as much and led with 39% to 31% for Grossman and 30% for Timbrell.

On the final ballot, Grossman was able to gather nearly three-fifths of Timbrell’s vote, but Miller got just enough of it to win with 52% of the delegates’ support. The party would move to the right, a move that would divide it.

The result? Miller’s PCs managed to win only 52 seats in the 1985 provincial election, only four more than the Liberals under David Peterson (who won more of the vote). Miller’s PCs were tossed aside as the Liberals formed government with the backing of Bob Rae’s New Democrats, and the long dynasty of the Big Blue Machine was over.

1985 Ontario election

The Big Blue Machine breaks down

May 2, 1985

In 1985, the Progressive Conservative hold on Ontario looked as safe and secure as it always had been. The party had governed without interruption since 1943 and still held a big lead in the polls.

There had been a change at the top, though, after Bill Davis announced his resignation at the end of 1984. His replacement, named in January, was Frank Miller. He had won the 1985 PC leadership as a right-winger, beating several moderate candidates.

It was a risky choice by PC party delegates. While Miller tried to present a more centrist face than he had shown as a cabinet minister, he was still going to take the party away from the middle ground that had worked so well for the PCs under premiers George Drew, Leslie Frost, John Robarts and Bill Davis.

With polls showing PC support at 55% and the opposition Liberals and New Democrats tied in second with just 21%, Miller waited less than two months after his swearing in to call an election.

On the surface, things looked good for the PCs. Brian Mulroney’s federal PCs had won a landslide majority government just a few months earlier and nowhere in Canada did the Liberals run a provincial government.

The Ontario Liberals would be heading into the campaign under David Peterson, who had taken over as Liberal leader in 1982. A 41-year-old lawyer, Peterson hadn’t impressed during his short time as opposition leader at Queen’s Park but he would prove to be an effective campaigner, moving his party into the centrist territory that had been abandoned by Miller’s shift to the right.

Peterson also used his relative youth to his advantage, pegging Miller (57) and the PCs as part of the past.

“Frank Miller is fighting for Frank Miller’s Ontario,” he said in a stump speech, “a dusty dream of some 20 years ago.”

The leader of the NDP was even younger than Peterson and, like his two opponents, also heading into his first campaign. Bob Rae had even been named Ontario NDP leader the same month as Peterson in 1982 and there were hopes that Rae could take the New Democrats back to official opposition status, a role they had held in the 1970s.

However, Rae’s campaign would fail to take off. It revolved around issues, such as fighting pollution, and was unable to impose itself on the campaign when the Liberals got off to a good start. Peterson was talking about a lot of the same things as Rae, and so the NDP was crowded out of the centre-left field they had previously occupied by themselves.

While Peterson’s campaign was slick and open to the media, Miller largely avoided the press. He turned down a leaders debate. His campaign lacked energy and cohesiveness, as the leadership race had left scars within the PC Party that went unhealed.

Miller centred his campaign around a business-oriented plan called Enterprise Ontario, which contrasted with the campaigns being run by the Liberals and New Democrats that focused on social issues and unemployment. The PCs also stumbled over a promise to give Catholic high schools full funding — a controversial issue not because the other parties opposed it (they didn’t) but because it upset the PCs’ own rural and largely non-Catholic base.

(John Tory, who was involved in the Miller campaign, did not appear to learn the lesson when he ran a losing PC campaign promising funding to faith-based schools in 2007.)

As election day approached, the polls suggested that the PCs were falling back to the advantage of the Liberals, who were also buoyed by late campaign endorsements by not only the Toronto Star but the Globe and Mail as well.

The results showed the Liberals had closed the gap — but not by enough. The PCs still emerged with more seats at 52. But that was a drop of 18 seats from the previous election and cost the party a few cabinet ministers, including the likes of Morley Kells, Gordon Walker and John Williams, ministers who were “prominent members of the party’s right wing.”

While the PCs won the most seats, they took less of the vote, finishing with 37.1%, a drop of seven percentage points from the 1981 Ontario election.

The Liberals were just four seats back, gaining 14 to end with 48. The party was also up four percentage points to 37.9% support.

The Liberals made gains in the urban areas that the PCs had previously dominated, picking up seven PC seats in Toronto and three in the Peel and York region, along with four in southwestern Ontario.

According to campaign manager Ross MacGregor, the PCs “left room for David Peterson and the Liberal party to occupy the centre — and it was that centre of the political spectrum that we had so desperately tried to occupy during the Davis years without success. Peterson has succeeded in putting an urban face on the party without abandoning the True Grit rural constituency.”

The New Democrats made gains of their own, but they were far from their goal of official opposition. The party picked up four seats and 2.5 percentage points, winning 25 seats and 23.6% of the vote.

It all meant a minority legislature — and the PCs were technically still in the driver’s seat. They had governed with minorities before, and Miller wanted to try again.

But the Liberals and NDP knew this was their chance, and the two parties came together to sign an agreement that would put David Peterson in the premier’s office and ensure no election would be called for another two years, in exchange for Liberal support for NDP policies.

A four-page document outlined the terms, which included introducing a freedom of information bill, a committee to investigate patronage, election-finance reforms, and television in the legislature; broadening the powers of the provincial auditor; allowing public servants to participate in political activity; and investigating the commercialization of health services.

Miller tried to hang on, presenting a throne speech with some nods toward the Liberal and NDP platforms. But he had few kind words to say about his opponents, charging that the New Democrats were “prostituting themselves for power” and that Ontarians “deserve better than a puppet Liberal premier with the NDP pulling the strings.”

The 42-year dynasty of the Big Blue Machine came to an end when Rae presented a non-confidence motion and the government was defeated. Rather than send the province into another election, the lieutenant-governor handed the reins over to Peterson. He’d govern for five years that included a big majority victory in 1987, but his government would fall, too, though this time at the hands of Bob Rae’s New Democrats in 1990.

1990 Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership

Ontario PCs choose third leader in five years

May 12, 1990

After over four decades of uninterrupted rule, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives were having a rough time in the late 1980s. The party, under new leader Frank Miller, was ousted by the Liberals and New Democrats following the 1985 election and, two years later, Larry Grossman did much worse, as the PCs dropped to third place with just 16 seats and less than 25% of the vote — the worst result in the party’s history.

Grossman, who failed to win his own seat, resigned the leadership and it wasn’t until 1990 that the Ontario PCs decided to name his permanent replacement.

They used a new system to decide the winner, abandoning the old delegated convention to give a vote to every member. Each riding in Ontario would be given an equal weight, a system that the Ontario PCs (and the federal Conservatives) still use today.

But when the higher profile contenders decided not to run, including 1985’s third-place finisher Dennis Timbrell, who was widely seen as the favourite, the race came down to two largely unknown candidates.

Mike Harris, a former teacher and golf pro, had been the MPP for Nipissing since 1981. A backbencher, he backed Miller’s leadership bid in 1985 and was subsequently named to his short-lived cabinet.

Harris was the right-wing candidate in the race, opposing equal pay legislation and supporting the abolition of rent controls and the imposition of user fees for patients visiting their doctor.

Dianne Cunningham was the moderate Red Tory candidate. She lacked even Harris’s limited political experience, as she had won a byelection in 1988 in the riding of London North. She had the backing of some of the stalwarts of the old “Big Blue Machine”, and warned that the PCs needed to modernize along with the rest of the province — otherwise another move to the right under Harris would lead to another defeat at the polls.

It was, then, a contest between perceived electability and rock-ribbed conservative ideology.

But being a party in third place, the PC leadership campaign got little attention from the media and Harris and Cunningham had difficulty raising both money and enthusiasm.

Thomas Walkom in the Toronto Star summed it up this way:

“You may remember the Conservatives. They ran Ontario for 42 years, handing out patronage jobs, greasing the wheels, passing out the contracts. They may even run it again. And yet here they are, preparing to elect as leader one of two people most Ontarians have never heard of.”

Heading into the vote on May 12, 1990, Harris was seen as the narrow favourite. But much of the caucus was remaining on the sidelines — he had only five backers within the 17-member PC caucus. Cunningham had four.

There were 33,183 members eligible to vote, but a majority stayed on the sidelines as well. Less than 16,000 cast a ballot.

Harris emerged as the victor with about 55% of both the points awarded and the ballots cast by members, winning a majority in 81 of the province’s 130 ridings.

It was a vote for Harris’s swing to the right. And, as Cunningham predicted, it failed to resonate with voters — at least at first. Harris led the indebted PC Party into the September 1990 election and finished third again, gaining four seats but capturing just 23.5% of the vote.

Harris, though, would stay on as leader, unlike his two predecessors. And after five years of Bob Rae’s NDP government, voters in Ontario came around to Harris’s way of thinking, and he led the PCs back to power in 1995.

1990 Ontario election

Ontario’s Orange Wave

September 6, 1990

The 1980s were a time of political upheaval in Ontario. The long reign of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives that had begun in 1943 finally came to an end in 1985, when the Liberals under David Peterson and the New Democrats under Bob Rae combined to bring down the minority government that Frank Miller’s PCs had narrowly secured in that year’s election.

But after two years of co-operation between the Liberals and the NDP, Peterson eyed an opportunity — and won a huge majority government of his own in 1987.

Those string of successes suggested a keen political judgment on the part of Peterson, and so when the Liberals opened up a 20-point lead over the NDP in the summer of 1990, another snap election seemed like a good idea. Convention would have had the Ontario Liberals wait until 1991 or even 1992, but why pass up another sparkling opportunity?

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Voters can spot a cynical political move from a mile away, though, and what seemed like a cakewalk for Peterson started off badly when the premier couldn’t quite explain the urgency for an early election call. “I don’t have to apologize for consultation with the people at this time,” he said — setting the tone for what Ontarians could expect for the next few weeks of campaigning.

Timing, of course, is everything. And the timing wasn’t particularly good for Peterson in the late summer of 1990, despite what the polls were saying.

Ontarians were grumpy. The economy was starting to tip over into recession. The Liberals were in the midst of a corruption scandal and were facing protests and organized opposition from environmental activists, teachers’ unions and doctors over government policy. Voters were upset with the province’s high taxes. They also weren’t too keen on Peterson’s involvement in negotiating the Meech Lake Accord with the unpopular prime minister, Brian Mulroney.

Disregarding these mounting problems, the Liberals tried to run a frontrunner’s campaign. Peterson even went so far as to avoid mentioning his opponents’ names in the early days, instead touting the economic performance of Ontario (even if Ontarians weren’t necessarily feeling the impact of those sunny statistics).

His opponents, however, weren’t going to give Peterson and the Liberals an easy go.

The Ontario Progressive Conservatives were still reeling from their third-place showing in 1987. But they were now under the leadership of Mike Harris, who took over the party in May 1990.

Harris was very much in the mould of the 1980s and 1990s small-government conservatives like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. He promised a tax freeze and to get the government out of the way of business, which he claimed was being stifled by Peterson’s high-tax regime.

The New Democrats took an alternative route. Rae, who was now in his third election as Ontario NDP leader, attacked the government for being too close to big business and property developers. He attacked the Liberals on their environmental record (a growing concern at the time) and promised to reform the tax system, institute a publicly-run auto insurance programme, increase the minimum wage and bring in measures to help workers.

It was all having an effect. Harris’s attacks on taxes focused the campaign narrative on a weak issue for the Liberals. The cynical snap election call sapped Peterson’s image and Rae’s disciplined campaign was moving the numbers.

In June, the NDP had scored only 26% support in an Environics poll. But a mid-campaign survey put the NDP at 34% and only six points behind the Liberals, who had slumped 10 points since the writ drop. The PCs weren’t moving, but they were holding their vote.

Polls were showing the New Democrats were now more trusted on issues like taxation and the environment — and on running an honest government.

The Liberals saw the shift in the numbers, and started going on the attack against the PCs and NDP. What was seen in some quarters as a desperate move in response to Harris, Peterson announced he’d cut the PST by a point.

Starting out as focused on another big Liberal majority, discussion turned to a potential minority government — and then an NDP victory. One poll at the end of the campaign showed the NDP ahead by about four points. The net swing between the Liberals and the NDP over the course of the campaign was around 30 points.

In the final stages, the desperation became more obvious when the Liberals went on the offensive against the NDP, raising the spectre of a socialist menace about to descend on Ontario. It didn’t work.

The NDP’s momentum crested on election day and the party captured 74 seats — a massive increase of 55 since the last election. The New Democrats won seats in every region, jumping 12 points since 1987 to 37.6%.

The Liberals were crushed. The party fell 15 points to just 32.4% and was reduced by 59 seats to 36. Those surviving MPPs did not include David Peterson, who lost by a wide margin to the NDP’s Marion Boyd in his riding of London Centre. Peterson resigned on election night.

Harris and the PCs took a little less of the vote than they did in 1987, but their seat count had increased by four to 20, a respectable showing for a party that some pundits thought would drop to single digits. Harris, who was only a few months into the job, would stay on.

The PCs could have done better had it not been for the vote taken by two parties to their right: the Family Coalition and the Confederation of Regions, parties motivated by social conservatism and anti-bilingualism, respectively. In 11 ridings, the combined vote of the Family Coalition and COR was greater than the margin between the losing PC candidates and the victorious New Democrats. The NDP had secured its majority by nine seats.

It was a big victory for the NDP, its first in any province east of Manitoba. It came at a time when the Mulroney PCs were deeply unpopular and the federal New Democrats were polling strongly. In 1991, the NDP would return to power in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. Things seemed to be changing in Canada, and Bob Rae had an opportunity to establish the New Democrats as a party of government in the country’s most important province. Hopes — and the stakes — were high. Would the 1990s finally be the NDP’s moment in the sun?

2002 Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership

Ernie Eves takes over

March 23, 2002

The 2002 Ontario PC leadership race was sparked by the resignation of premier Mike Harris, who had been swept into office after the 1995 provincial election and was re-elected in 1999. It meant the winner of the contest would become the next premier, though the prospects for staying in that job for long looked a little bleak.

Shortly before Harris had announced his intention to resign in October 2001, an SES Research poll pegged support for his party at 37%, down eight points since the 1999 election. Worse was that Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals were well ahead at 53%. The PCs were on track for defeat. Maybe a new leader could turn things around?

The five candidates on the ballot could be lumped into two broad categories: those wanting to keep Harris’s “Common Sense Revolution” of spending cuts and lower taxes going, and those aiming to soften the hard-edged PC image.

Leading the first camp was Jim Flaherty, the minister of finance and deputy premier. Proclaiming that “the revolution is not over”, Flaherty promised a continuation of the Harris legacy of confrontational, pugnacious politics.

Ideologically adjacent to Flaherty was Tony Clement, a Brampton-area MPP and the health minister, who ran a policy-focused campaign. According to an editorial in The Globe and Mail, “Clement is keen — boy, is he keen”.

Leading the second camp was Ernie Eves. A former deputy premier, finance minister and MPP for two decades, Eves had stepped away from politics in 2001 to enter the private sector. He got back into politics for the leadership race as its highest-profile candidate. As a key figure in the Harris government, Eves tried to recraft himself as “a fiscal conservative with a social conscience”, pledging robust publicly-funded health care and more access to post-secondary education.

This second group also included Elizabeth Witmer, a Waterloo-area MPP and environment minister, along with Etobicoke MPP Chris Stockwell, the labour minister and former speaker of the legislature.

It was clear from polling and caucus support that Eves was the front runner. He accordingly ran a front runner’s campaign, offering few specific proposals and coming under the withering attack of Flaherty, his main challenger. Nevertheless, few doubted he would emerge as the winner.

Just over 100,000 members were eligible to vote on March 23, 2002. The PCs used a system of voting that the party still uses today, giving each riding equal weight. Unlike today, however, the PCs required members to vote in each round, rather than submitting a preferential ballot. This means members had to stick around while the counting was being done. As a result, the number of voting members dropped from just over 44,000 in the first round to just under 35,000 in the second round.

Eves emerged as the clear favourite on the first ballot, capturing 41% of the points on offer. Flaherty was second with 29%, followed by Clement at 13%, Witmer at 12% and Stockwell at 4%.

Stockwell was eliminated and both Clement and Witmer withdrew in favour of Eves — a move by Clement that the Flaherty people didn’t appreciate. Both Clement and Witmer withdrew too late, however, and their names remained on the ballot in the second round and the two combined for about 7.5% of the vote.

But Eves got the bigger share of the liberated ballots, gaining 13 points in the second round to Flaherty’s nine points, putting him on top with nearly 55%.

Following his leadership victory, Eves didn’t give the PCs much of a boost in support. The party continued to trail the Liberals in virtually every survey until the PCs were finally defeated in 2003, ushering in 15 years of Liberal rule in Ontario. The more electable Eves was supposed to be McGuinty’s “worst nightmare”. Instead, the Liberals won their biggest victory since 1987, a win that remains their best performance over the last 30 years.

2013 Ontario Liberal leadership

Kathleen Wynne becomes premier

January 26, 2013

By 2013, the Liberals had been in power for 10 years. Dalton McGuinty had become woefully unpopular, securing only a minority government in the 2011 provincial election. With his approval ratings in the toilet, he had to step aside to save the party. But who would replace him?

A long list of candidates stepped forward, including cabinet ministers Eric Hoskins, Charles Sousa, Harinder Takhar and Kathleen Wynne. Former cabinet ministers Sandra Pupatello and Gerard Kennedy were was also in the running. As a former federal MP and 2006 Liberal leadership candidate (as well as a provincial leadership candidate in 1996), Kennedy was perhaps the most recognizable figure in the race and so led in most leadership polls among the general population.

Caucus, however, lined up primarily behind Wynne and Pupatello, who emerged as the two front runners for the leadership.

This was borne out by the first ballot results, which gave both Pupatello and Wynne 29% of delegates’ votes. Kennedy was third with 14%, followed by Takhar and Sousa at 11% and Hoskins at 7%.

Dropping off the ballot, Hoskins (who had previously remained mum on what he would do) backed Wynne. Takhar withdrew (too late to actually be removed from the balloting) and endorsed Pupatello, as expected. Freeing up a big chunk of the vote, this boosted Pupatello to 39% and Wynne to 36%. Kennedy was stuck at 14% and Sousa dropped to 10%.

At this point, both Kennedy and Sousa withdrew to endorse Wynne. This was decisive, as Pupatello only grew to 43% on the final ballot — giving Wynne the win with 57% of delegates’ votes and making her Ontario’s first female premier and the first openly gay premier in Canada’s history.

Wynne would wait a little while before sending the province to the polls. In the 2014 election, she secured a majority government of her own. That would be her one and only electoral mandate after she was defeated in June 2018.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections Ontario and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• John Sandfield Macdonald, by Bruce W. Hodgins

• Sir Oliver Mowat, by A. Margaret Evans

• Honest Enough to Be Bold: Sir James Pliny Whitney, by Charles W. Humphries

• E.C. Drury: Agrarian Idealist, by Charles M. Johnston

• G. Howard Ferguson: Ontario Tory, by Peter Oliver

• Just Call Me Mitch: The Life of Mitchell F. Hepburn, by John T. Saywell

• Old Man Ontario: Leslie M. Frost, by Roger Graham

• Public Triumph, Private Tragedy: The double life of John P. Robarts, by Steve Paikin

• Bill Davis: Nation Builder, and Not So Bland After All, by Steve Paikin

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Only three elections in Nova Scotia’s history have been held in August. The third one will be on August 17, 2021. To tell the story of the first, we have to go back 88 years to 1933.

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Nearly four years after the stock market collapse of October 1929, Canadians across the country were still deep in the depths of the Great Depression, a challenge that governments were proving unable or unwilling to meet. The boom times of the 1920s were over. The political upheavals of the 1930s were just getting started.

In Nova Scotia, however, the depression only prolonged what had been an enduring economic slump. Far from the bustling centres of Canadian industry, Nova Scotia didn’t experience much of the post-war boom. Its Liberal government, in power since 1882, bore the brunt of Nova Scotians’ frustrations in the provincial election of 1925.

It was a tough time to be a Nova Scotia Liberal. George Murray, premier for 26 years, had finally stepped aside in 1923 and was replaced by Ernest Armstrong. He had to take over a struggling economy whose poor prospects led Nova Scotians to leave the province to seek a better life. For those who kept toiling in the coal mines, it was a time of labour unrest.

A strike in 1925 was bungled by Armstrong but the opposition Conservatives sensed an opportunity, siding with the strikers. Gordon S. Harrington, a Conservative, was the miners’ legal advisor and helped bring the labour vote over to the Tory side.

Running on a platform of “Maritime Rights” and arguing that Nova Scotia was not getting a fair shake from the Liberal government in Ottawa, the Conservatives under Edgar Nelson Rhodes swept Armstrong’s Liberals from office in 1925, winning 40 of 43 seats in the province.

While economic difficulties, a desire for change and Rhodes’ skills as an orator might have swayed the electorate, politics in 1920s Nova Scotia was far from clean. Or sober.

“Party workers typically supplied liquor at campaign rallies and cash or bottles of liquor on election day,” writes T. Stephen Henderson in Angus L. Macdonald: A Provincial Liberal.

“Chisholm, a Liberal MLA, noted that ‘people who never touched liquor at any other time would always want it at election time.’ Rum had been ‘the traditional political drink’, but many women thought it cheap and insisted on being given gin instead.”

The shift from over four decades of Liberal rule to government by the Conservatives was a significant one, and Rhodes was able to reduce Nova Scotia’s big deficit during his first years in office.

What he didn’t do, however, was successfully replicate the Liberals’ system of patronage across the province. Ensuring that the right people — Conservatives, in this case — would get the right jobs was a mainstay of 19th and early 20th century Canadian politics. But without this network of patronage in place, the Conservatives were at a disadvantage.

When Rhodes decided against enrolling Nova Scotia in Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s old age pension scheme because the province couldn’t afford its side of the bargain, the Conservatives took a hit in public support. In the 1928 election, the Conservatives were returned to power but with a significantly reduced majority government.

Change in Halifax and in Ottawa

By 1930, the Conservatives were in need of a boost. They got it with a smashing byelection win in Halifax South, the first sign that things might be heading in the right direction for Rhodes and the Conservatives.

The Liberal defeat in Halifax South spurred the departure of William Chisholm, the Liberals’ interim leader. The party would have to find a replacement — and they’d do it with the first leadership convention in their history.

The Conservatives, however, were in need of a new leader, too. After R.B. Bennett’s Conservatives won the federal election of 1930, Rhodes resigned the premiership to sit in Bennett’s cabinet. His replacement was Gordon S. Harrington.

It wasn’t clear who would be his Liberal opponent. By the time the convention was held on October 1, 1930, only two candidates had come forward: J.J. Kinley and William Duff. While they had some political experience, neither was particularly inspiring.

So, some Liberals looked to a 40-year-old lawyer named Angus L. Macdonald as their saviour.

A veteran of the Great War and a professor at Dalhousie University, Macdonald had never held elected office before. He had campaigned with the Liberals in 1925, but hadn’t put his name forward as a candidate until 1930, when he lost his only attempt to win the seat of Inverness in the House of Commons.

He was well-known in Liberal circles for his work at the grassroots level, setting up Young Liberal clubs across the province after the 1925 defeat. Attending the convention, Macdonald was surprised when a friend threw his name into the ring.

Not expecting this turn of events, Macdonald took the stage and initially declined the nomination. After stepping off the platform, however, he was quickly made to reconsider.

“A clutch of friends … encircled him and urged him to change his mind. Senator H.J. Logan grabbed his arm and hissed ‘don’t be a fool. This is a thing that only comes along once in a lifetime.’”

After announcing he had changed his mind, he made a strong speech and was duly chosen as the new Nova Scotia Liberal leader with nearly two-thirds of the vote.

Macdonald, however, was still without a seat in the legislature. And he would have to wait to get one.

Harrington refused to hold byelections to fill the six vacancies in the assembly, as he only had a five-seat majority and couldn’t risk losing it. Macdonald led the party from up in the gallery while A.S. MacMillan ably directed the Liberal caucus from the legislature floor (though not without issue, as he came to blows with a Conservative MLA in 1931). The new leader made use of Harrington’s refusal to call byelections by attacking him for leaving so many Nova Scotians without political representation.

Touring the province to get better known, Macdonald was shy in large crowds. But he had a warm, charming personality in small groups. According to Henderson,

“Macdonald symbolized the revitalization of the Liberal Party in Nova Scotia and, later, in Canada. He emerged from a group of young professionals who wanted to recommit the party to liberal principles. Influenced by the economic devastation of the 1920s, they were convinced that the state had a significant part to play in the economy. The dominance of ‘machine’ politicians and their corporate clients had bred a cynicism that could be removed only by sharply broadening political participation. This push for greater democracy in the province matched the rhetoric of equality common in Macdonald’s circle: their opinions mattered as much as those of the older generation.”

Macdonald disliked the way politics was done in the 1920s and 1930s. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “we have too much politics in N.S. Too much of the cheap style of politics—too much of the ward-healer—too little of the stateman—too much political so-called oratory—too little political thinking—we cannot have too much of that.”

The struggles of the Harrington Administration

Nova Scotia’s economy and public finances were already troubled by 1929. The depression could only make things worse.

Looking for sources of funds, the Conservative government set up the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission to fill provincial coffers. The end of prohibition, which voters supported in a 1929 plebiscite, proved to be a great opportunity for political parties to fill their own coffers from liquor producers and distributors.

Further afield, Harrington looked to Bennett’s new Conservative government in Ottawa for more support, but with demands coming from every province Bennett couldn’t (or wouldn’t) provide much help.

He did, however, offer to cover 75% of an old age pension program. But that was not what he had campaigned on — Bennett had promised a fully-funded old age pension program. Harrington, who had echoed Bennett’s pledge, still couldn’t afford his province’s share of the cost and had to say no. As a result, the Nova Scotia Conservatives had to wear Bennett’s broken promise as their own.

Help for the mines also fell short of what was promised, when Harrington persuaded miners to accept a wage reduction on the assurance that a deal he had worked out with the federal government would lead to more orders for coal. When Canadian railways and industries didn’t put in the promised orders, the Conservatives lost the vote that Harrington had worked to earn for the party in the 1920s.

By 1933, five years after the last election, Harrington’s window for calling the next election was closing.