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Justin Trudeau has been Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister since 2015. Contrary to popular belief that’s been widely propagated by Liberal supporters and spin doctors, he’s accomplished almost nothing in office.

Until Monday evening, that is. Trudeau earned an unusual political distinction that no other Canadian PM has ever achieved. He found a way to shift the most left-leaning government in our country’s history even further to the left.

How did he do this? By signing a three-year agreement with Jagmeet Singh and the NDP.

Delivering for Canadians Now, A Supply and Confidence Agreement details the working arrangement between the two parties that will run from March 22, 2022 until Parliament rises in June 2025. It’s not an official coalition, which means no New Democrat will have a seat at the cabinet table. Rather, the NDP “agrees to support the government on confidence and budgetary matters – notably on budgetary policy, budget implementation bills, estimates and supply” and the Liberals commit “to govern for the duration of the agreement.” Moreover, the NDP has agreed to “not move a vote of non-confidence, nor vote for a non-confidence motion during the term of the arrangement.”

As the agreement states in part, “The parties have identified key policy areas where there is a desire for a similar medium-term outcome. We have agreed to work together during the course of this Parliament to put the needs of Canadians first.”

Some of these key policy areas include: introducing a dental care plan for low-income Canadians, passing the Canada Pharmacare Act in late 2023, new affordable housing measures, initiating massive emissions reductions by 2030, introducing Just Transition legislation to help workers, unions and other communities, ensuring ten days of paid sick leave is in place this year, additional investments for Indigenous housing, a fairer tax system, and removing barriers to voting and participation.

Dental care and Pharmacare, which are part of the current NDP playbook, have been rooted in socialist thinking for decades. They’ve been previously rejected by most Canadian voters, and not just right-leaning ones, due to the enormous costs and inefficiencies these state-run plans will undoubtedly incur. With the Liberal-NDP agreement in place, a proper debate in Parliament won’t happen and these policies will easily pass in a minority Parliament operating like a majority government is in charge.

Canada will also witness massive increases to the size of government, rate of taxation and role of the nanny-state. Any hope for a return to small government, low taxes and more individual rights and freedoms by voting out the minority Liberals has fizzled out in one fell swoop. If you thought things were bad under Trudeau for nearly seven years – and it’s been bloody awful – you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Liberals and NDP are both declaring victory with the signing of this agreement. That’s predictable, but here’s the thing. Only one of them has the right to do so, and it’s not the junior partner in this arrangement.

Singh naively believes Canadians will give his party full credit for bringing in programs like public dental care and Pharmacare, if they’re successful. Not a chance. Most people barely remember what they had for breakfast a couple of days ago, let alone the specific party that proposed certain policies. If these social programs (and others) achieve what Trudeau hopes they’ll ultimately achieve, he’ll take all the credit – and the voters will reward his Liberals for introducing these policies.

Here’s a historical example to prove my point.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exists in Canada due to the efforts of Prime Minister R.B. Bennett and the Progressive Conservatives. They launched the state-owned Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, the CBC’s predecessor, in 1932. Without it, our public broadcaster may never have come to fruition – or could have ended up looking very different than it does today.

How many Canadians know this? Other than a smattering of historians and political junkies, the numbers are relatively small. Most Canadians would likely (and incorrectly) assume the Liberals and NDP had something to do with it, since they vigorously defend the CBC. Today’s Conservatives largely believe in either reducing funding for the public broadcaster, or defunding them altogether. So, their historical role has either been forgotten, ignored or usurped by parties that had nothing to do with the CBC’s creation.

That’s what will happen to Singh and the NDP.

Without any representation at the cabinet table, the NDP’s initiatives will be lost in the political wilderness. Singh’s memorable opposition to Trudeau’s three instances of blackface will become a tiny footnote in history. His party has seemingly accepted the fact that they’re irrelevant, can’t win federal elections on their own, and are more undeserving of representation in the House of Commons than ever before.

The NDP will be remembered for a couple of things. Protecting Trudeau, a weak, ineffective Prime Minister who has repeatedly embarrassed his country on the domestic and international stage. Propping up a Liberal Party that’s won the last two federal elections with minority governments and finished second in the popular vote both times, and giving them a safe political ride for the next three years.

Oh, and signing on to a misguided agreement that is, in the words of interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen, “little more than backdoor socialism.” Singh and Trudeau are probably both fine with this, truth be told.

Michael Taube, a long-time newspaper columnist and political commentator, was a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.

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It was inevitable that hybrid sessions would be returning to the House of Commons after the Liberals and NDP both decided that they were necessary, but in trying to justify the decision, there was a combination of telling on themselves, as well as creating a new and impossible standard that they will one day come to regret. On top of that, they are continuing to set a precedent for ways in which ministers can avoid accountability both from the Commons itself as well as the media, which makes this government’s promises about openness and transparency even more hollow than they already were.

For starters, part of MPs telling on themselves is the fact that this decision is decisive proof that they do not care about the health and safety of the interpretation staff. MPs have been told repeatedly that seventy percent of interpreters have suffered either acoustic or cognitive injuries as a result of the hybrid sittings, and that they are being asked to put their health and safety on the line so that MPs can stay home. They have also been told that the finite number of freelancer interpreters in the country, who have been filling in for those interpreters who are unable to work, have not been afforded the same sick benefits that the full-time interpreters have been, meaning that they are even more at risk because they can’t take the time off when they suffer the same injuries. And MPs have proven that they do not care, and that these interpreters are essentially furniture to them.

The other way that MPs told on themselves was in some of the ways they tried to justify this move as being more than just for the pandemic. NDP MP Laurel Collins took her infant into the Chamber with her, and held her during her speech so that she could demonstrate why she needs hybrid sittings for instances where she can’t travel because of her daughter. Numerous other MPs, past and present, lined up over social media to praise Collins and to insist that this was about work-life balance for young parents – no matter that MPs already can design whatever accommodations they see fit to help them, unlike any other workplace in the country (which is fair, because Parliament is not like any other workplace) – but it proves that this is not about the pandemic. Liberals were trying to institute these hybrid sittings ever since 2015, and were being rebuffed by other parties, and they didn’t let the pandemic go to waste in proving the need for this change. They mean for these changes to be permanent, and that is deleterious to the health of our Parliament going forward.

But aside from this particular bout of telegraphing motives, the overt framing that the Liberals used was to try to kick at the Conservatives for the unknown number of MPs in their caucus who allegedly have “vaccine exemptions” of dubious merit given how statistically improbably any more than one exemption would be, and the fact that at least one MP who has claimed such an exemption – Dean Allison – has also been touting the benefits of ivermectin and has invited any “scientists” who want to dispute the merits of vaccination onto his local call-in show. The most irritating part of this, however, is that the Liberals kept trying to frame this as MPs feeling “unsafe” in the House of Commons as a result. They seem to have picked up this particular rhetorical device from certain segments of the online population who use the term of feeling “unsafe” in order to shut down any content they disagree with, and clearly that was what they were hoping to achieve.

Most concerning out of all of this was the fact that MPs have now set up an impossible standard of perfect attendance that never existed before, and which should not exist. There has been so much hyperbolic rhetoric about MPs not being able to raise the concerns of their constituents in debate or in being able to vote that they have literally just made their lives hell. Yes, representation matters, but there are other avenues than simply name-checking one’s riding during a prepared twenty-minute speech based on directions given to them by the House Leader’s office. Often that input is more seen and felt in the caucus room, which is behind closed doors but sometimes that’s where important work gets done without the need for public performance around it. There are more substantive ways to represent concerns than in giving speeches, which is why the concern is so overblown.

By creating this impossible standard around attendance, MPs have just ensured that their jobs, which are already essentially 24/7, even more demanding so that they can no longer take sick days or a leave of absence if it becomes necessary, as the expectation has been set that they must either attend virtually, or vote remotely. This is neither healthy nor responsible, and it also screws future parliaments because there are sometimes tactical absences necessary to prevent the government from falling on confidence votes when there is a much narrower divide in seats in a hung parliament, where one or two votes can make that difference. Those tactical absences are going to become impossible with this standard set, which could make for far more uncomfortable situations down the road.

This is just one more example of how fetishizing technology intended to solve certain problems only winds up creating other, more serious problems down the road. It’s not like they weren’t warned, or that some of the more forward-looking MPs could see this coming. It’s not like there aren’t voices who are telling them that this will only lead to MPs becoming further siloed, where they won’t be able to interact outside of the Chamber and see each other as human beings, who know that this will only further suffocate collegiality and decorum. MPs will come to regret this move before too long, but by then it will be too late, and all for the sake of trying to score points against the Conservatives.

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Erin O’Toole may not be the best man at winning elections. But boy he sure can spread a rumour like no one else.

With the tenacity of a prying neighbour or a gossipy teenager, O’Toole spent much of early November spreading the bizarre, unsubstantiated story that the Liberals and NDP were planning on forming a coalition government. According to O’Toole, such an arrangement between the two parties is a “radical” concept that would require “billions of dollars of new spending to buy Jagmeet Singh’s silence” making it a “disaster” for the economy. This would make Canada a “a poor and less relevant nation” and “threaten” both “the livelihood of millions of Canadians” and “national unity” itself.

It’s quite the story and O’Toole is quite the storyteller.

But make no mistake about it: it’s all a work of fiction.

While NDP MP Charlie Angus did confirm that Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had “an initial conversation” about co-operation and shared legislative priorities, a Liberal source made clear that there was no “formal agreement” nor even any ‘talk to have a formal agreement.”

Singh himself reiterated this point at a recent news conference.

When asked point blank by a reporter about the coalition rumours, Singh could not have been more categorical in his response.

“There is no discussion at all of a coalition and that is a firm no for me,” he said. “There’s not going to be any coalition at all.”

As for O’Toole, well he’s the one guilty of spreading the rumours in the first place. Or, as Singh put it, “making stuff up.”

It’s hard to find much fault with Singh’s version of events.

Most formal coalitions require the sharing of cabinet positions. And last time I checked; Trudeau allocated no positions in his bloated cabinet for NDP MPs. If he had, we might have witnessed some truly inspired cabinet appointments, like Charlie Angus being assigned to Indigenous Affairs, Alexandre Boulerice to Labour, or Singh himself as Deputy Prime Minister.

But of course, that didn’t happen.

Instead, all of Trudeau’s cabinet appointments went to his cabal of loyal Liberal followers, leaving little possibility for a coalition agreement with other parties to be hashed out.

For Trudeau – a man not particularly renowned for sharing power or for reaching across the aisle and establishing constructive relations with opposition parties – this was certainly his preferred outcome. The same goes with Singh and the NDP.

For years, the spectre of the failed 2008 coalition attempt by Stephane Dione, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe has enveloped Ottawa and suffocated any enthusiasm or mindful considerations into the merits of a coalition government. Never mind that the chief reason for that coalition’s abysmal failure was more to do with the incompetence of its leaders and the inclusion of separatists as a governing faction than anything else. The Liberals and NDP still fear another voter rebellion against them, should they attempt anything even remotely similar.

It’s a shame, because despite all the fearmongering coming from O’Toole and other Conservatives, the formation of more coalition agreements would really be a benefit to Canada’s democracy. Not only are they perfectly legitimate, but they can help foster inter-party cooperation and dial back hyper-partisanship. Furthermore, when compared to the one-party rule of majority governments (most of which rarely secure over 50 percent of the popular vote) coalitions have the added advantage of ensuring that a greater percentage of voters are represented around the cabinet table.

The strengthening of democracy isn’t the only reason to consider the formation of more coalition governments.

In the current context, a coalition between the Liberals and the NDP would have helped facilitate and accelerate the implementation of more progressive policies in Ottawa. This would benefit everyday Canadians, yes, but also the political parties responsible for implementing said policies.

After two disappointing election cycles, the Liberals must realize by now that their lack of progressive achievements – the ones that actually bolster the socio-economic well-being of working-class Canadians – are wounding them. Its probably too late now, but the influence of the NDP in a formal coalition might have been exactly what Trudeau needed to cement a more admirable and robust legacy before his inevitable retirement.

As for the NDP, they’d have received more publicity for policy accomplishments, and would gain the credibility and experience of governing in Ottawa; something that they’ve long sought after. They’d just have to be wary of being swept up by the Liberal’s token progressivism – and being punished for it later at the ballot box.

Regardless of these and other potential pitfalls, the NDP, the Liberals and indeed, all of Canada’s political parties should really get over their fear and aversion to the idea of coalition governments. They’re anything but the “radical” notion O’Toole claims they are, and voters will recognize as much when the democratic rewards from them begin to accumulate.

Plus, it would just be nice if for once the Liberals and the NDP actually gave the Conservative leader something truthful to gossip about.

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The clear majority of Albertans want the principle of equalization removed from the constitution.

Well, maybe not a clear majority. Slightly under 62 per cent of the around 38 per cent of eligible Albertans who voted in the recent municipal election voted that equalization should be dumped.

And Premier Jason Kenney suggests the referendum wasn’t really about killing the principle of equalization. For one thing, no single province can amend the constitution so the vote was a moot point.

Kenney says the referendum was really a lever to start negotiations with Ottawa about a “fair deal” for Alberta. It was about the big picture of how Alberta has been hard done by because the province’s oil and gas economic engine is being hampered by Ottawa’s plans to reduce Canada’s carbon emissions.

The referendum question didn’t really get into all that subtext. It just said: “Should Section 36(2) of the Constitution Act, 1982 – Parliament and the government of Canada’s commitment to the principle of making equalization payments – be removed from the Constitution?”

Voters who looked it up would know that the offending section says the government of Canada is committed to making payments to the provinces so they can all provide comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.

Some voters actually are aggrieved that their tax dollars get transferred to other other regions of the country. According to the provincial government, Albertans’ wealth is being transferred to provinces like Quebec where the provincial government is trying to strangle the Alberta oil and gas economy by opposing pipelines.

The premier suggests the majority referendum vote forces Ottawa to come to the table and discuss a much broader set of issues. He plans to rail against tanker bans and the long defunct Northern Gateway Pipeline and the inability of Ottawa to bring Joe Biden to his knees over Keystone XL.

He may toss in a few other nagging irritants between the two levels of government while he’s at it. The federal child care program isn’t finding favour with the UCP for instance.

Kenney spent more time during his remarks on the referendum on stymied pipelines and federal environmental legislation than the principle of equalization. It’s pretty tough to argue that Canadians living in have-not provinces don’t deserve the same services of those in wealthy provinces.

It is possible to quibble about the formula used to work out equalization transfers as being unfair to Alberta. But Kenney was a minister in the Conservative government that instituted the current equalization formula, so that’s a no-go zone.

No matter how few Albertans may have voted in the referendum or how confused the intent of the entire exercise may have been, Kenney at last has a win in a year of many painful losses. Fresh negative polls hint that his tenure as premier is hanging by a thread. His own party is anxious to test the waters at a leadership review in the spring.

While Covid numbers have finally begun to decline, the abysmal overall case count, hospitalization and death toll in Alberta are a grim legacy for the UCP regime.

Canada’s decades old commitment to equalization is in no danger from Alberta’s flurry at the ballot box. For any change, Kenney would need seven provinces on side. Only Saskatchewan is likely to rally to Alberta’s side on this one.

It’s also unlikely that the federal Liberals are going to walk back their environmental priorities and carbon-cutting policies to unfetter Alberta’s fossil fuel industry.

But for a brief time, the referendum win allows Kenney to change the channel and get back to his comfort zone. Railing at Ottawa is a time-tested strategy to buoy the fortunes of Alberta politicians.

When dealing with Ottawa, Kenney will use the vote to sum up Alberta’s current political sentiment as “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

And for domestic consumption, the premier can site the referendum as proving he can still deliver the vote.

But more Albertans actually cast a ballot in provincial elections. And choosing a provincial government is more clear cut than messing with the Canadian Constitution.

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“Wait! Don’t be fooled. She’s just a regular Malibu Stacy with a stupid, cheap hat. She still embodies all the awful [aspects] she did before.”

—“Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy,” The Simpsons, season five, episode fourteen

New Ontario Liberal leader Steven Del Duca is promising to bring ranked ballots to provincial politics if his party forms government next spring. But such a reform offers only minuscule improvement at best, threatens to send third parties into electoral oblivion, is premised on a disingenuous rationale (if not an outright lie), and is more about feathering the Liberals’ nest than improving democracy.

At the Ontario Liberals’ annual general meeting this past Sunday, Del Duca promised to change the type of ballot used in elections, as a “first step” to purportedly enhancing the province’s democracy. With ranked ballots, rather than marking an “X” for only their favourite candidate, voters would instead rank the candidates in order of preference. It’s not clear if this proposed change would involve a referendum or simply be ushered in by legislation, but thus far it sounds like the latter.

Del Duca also claimed he would resign if he doesn’t implement the aforementioned ranked ballots during Ontario’s 43rd Parliament, and that Liberals would subsequently form a citizens’ assembly to gauge further democratic changes.

A Liberal party, temporarily banished to the political hinterlands of third-party status, making flowery offers regarding electoral reform. Where might we have heard this before, dear reader?

To Del Duca’s credit, he is refreshingly honest about which electoral system Liberals prefer, rather than the usual Grit tactic of being coy about such crucial details. And, at least thus far, it sounds like he’s promising to implement electoral reform without delay, rather than stymie the process with a referendum intended to fail, as former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty did 14 years ago. However, if we’re being cynical – or perhaps realistic – there’s still time for Del Duca to acquire cold feet after getting elected and suggest a referendum would be needed after all, just as both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Quebec Premier François Legault did in recent years when they realized their reform promises threatened their respective routes to re-election.

But if Del Duca is being surprisingly open about which electoral system he intends to switch Ontario to, he’s not being honest about why.

The Ontario Liberals claim elections that use ranked ballots would foster greater civility and less vitriol – that politics would be characterized by consensus rather than conflict – because candidates would require more than just first-preference votes. In other words, candidates would have to appeal to as many voters as possible, even to those who prefer another candidate/party, to acquire enough second-preference votes. It would no longer be possible to get elected with just 40 percent of the vote, and thus the tone of politics would naturally become more cooperative.

Except for one problem: this claim is largely nonsense.

Admittedly, it’s true that ranked ballots can encourage politicians to tone down the toxicity – but only in non-partisan contests devoid of political parties, such as municipal council elections featuring independent candidates. However, Ontario’s provincial elections are partisan – they involve political parties – and that wouldn’t change with the adoption of ranked ballots.

The suggestion that Ontario’s rival parties would suddenly join hands and engage in a harmonious rendition of Kumbaya just because of ranked ballots is completely without basis. Just look at the Australian House of Representatives, which uses the electoral system Del Duca is proposing for Ontario: ranked ballots and single-member ridings, formally known as “instant-runoff voting.” Politics “Down Under” is arguably more acerbic than here in Canada. In fact, the United Kingdom’s Report of the Independent Commission on the Voting System from 1998 specifically noted that Australian “politicians tend to be, if anything, more blunt and outspoken than [their British equivalents]”. Note that Australia adopted this voting system way back in 1918; if 103 years hasn’t been long enough for ranked ballots to bring civility to Australian politics, perhaps it’s time to admit such claims are complete codswallop.

One positive outcome that ranked ballots would actually achieve for Ontario’s elections – oddly unmentioned by Del Duca – is the elimination of strategic voting. Ontarians would be liberated to support their favourite candidate without fear of “splitting the vote,” and no candidate/party would be too minor to vote for.

However, because ranked ballots would be paired with single-member ridings under Del Duca’s proposal, there would be no improvement to the diversity of Ontario’s legislature. In fact, the two largest parties would likely come to dominate even more. Of the 151 seats in Australia’s House of Representatives, two parties won all but six seats in the most recent federal election. That is even less proportional and more skewed than the first-past-the-post system currently used in Canada’s provincial and federal elections.

Instant-runoff voting makes it difficult even for large third parties to get elected in Australia, where the Greens only have one federal Member of Parliament, despite earning 10.4 percent of the vote in 2019. (Under a proportional system, they would have received 16 seats.) Make no mistake: like Ontario’s current voting system, Del Duca’s proposed instant-runoff voting is a “winner-takes-all” system that favours the status quo – and might actually make it worse.

So sure, with ranked ballots you could vote Trillium instead of Tory, or Moderate instead of Liberal, or Communist instead of NDP, or Go Vegan instead of the Greens, without having to worry about “wasting” your vote. But the reality is none of these smaller parties would come close to winning a seat under instant-runoff voting. In fact, if Australia serves as an example, even a larger third party – normally the NDP in Ontario – might struggle to retain official party status at Queen’s Park under such an electoral system.

(Strangely enough, when the British Columbia Liberals and Conservatives conspired to introduce ranked ballots for that province’s 1952 election in an effort to snuff out the rapidly-growing CCF/NDP, it was instead the Grits and Tories who inadvertently became the third parties, pulverized almost out of existence. Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Del Duca.)

Would getting rid of strategic voting really be worth Ontario having a less diverse Legislative Assembly? Do Ontarians really want to cram their four political parties into a voting system even less tolerant of multiple options? How would this possibly lead to better democratic outcomes, as Del Duca claims?

If adding ranked ballots to Ontario’s elections wouldn’t improve civility as the Ontario Liberals attest, and would actually make the Legislative Assembly less reflective of social diversity than it is now, it’s worth asking why Del Duca is pushing for this reform.

There are likely two reasons, in addition to trying to squeeze the Ontario NDP and Greens as mentioned above. First, Del Duca’s reform proposal presents him as an exciting reformist courageously confronting a bully, rather than a dull-as-dishwater technocrat. It’s an opportunistic ploy: last year, Doug Ford undemocratically quashed ranked ballots from Ontario’s municipal elections, so Del Duca hopes to portray Ford as the autocratic villain while presenting himself as the saviour restoring democracy – and extending such reforms to the provincial level. After all, successful politics requires you to define your opponent before they define you.

But the most likely reason is that an electoral system that captures voter preferences – rather than only their favourite option – is bound to favour a large, centrist party. A lot of Conservative, NDP and Green voters would mark the Liberals as their second preference, allowing the Liberals to win more seats than under the current first-past-the-post system.

In other words: this proposal is really about Liberal self-interest. Plus ça change…

Earlier this year, the Ontario Liberals conducted a policy survey called #TakeTheMic, meant to shape the party’s priorities ahead of the 2022 provincial election. According to the responses, adopting a system of proportional representation was more popular than adopting ranked ballots (instant-runoff voting), and yet Del Duca has chosen to ignore this advice, as proportional voting would likely deliver fewer seats to the Liberals.

Del Duca’s ranked ballots proposal is not about reinvigorating Ontario’s democracy. It’s about retaining a winner-takes-all status quo, and possibly further inflating the Liberals at the expense of third parties. It’s about getting back in power at Queen’s Park – and staying there.

Interestingly, during his speech this past weekend, Del Duca proactively attempted to disarm those who would rather see Ontario embrace a proportional voting system.

“Now, there are people who will say that [instant-runoff voting] is not a perfect solution, but the status quo is simply not serving people’s interests, and something needs to change.”

Those people are Ontarians, Mr. Del Duca. The same people who responded to your party’s recent policy survey, who you are now choosing to ignore because their answers didn’t align with your premeditated motives.

Del Duca is right on one thing: something needs to change. But by merely adding ranked ballots to Ontario’s elections, it’s barely a change at all. In fact, if Australia is any example, instant-runoff voting might further erode the province’s democracy.

Adopting ranked ballots might be a half-decent improvement for Toronto’s non-partisan city elections, but not for Ontario’s provincial elections contested by political parties. Del Duca disingenuously insists otherwise, which should make voters question whether they can trust him.

If the Ontario Liberals genuinely want to improve the province’s democracy, they should listen to the Ontarians who responded to their party’s policy survey and opt to champion proportional representation. Otherwise, they’re wasting our time by peddling the electoral reform equivalent of snake oil.

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There have been many complaints about the necessity of the 2021 Canadian election. But it may finally prove more important in retrospect.

The latest federal contest at least raises an intriguing question. Are voters, or growing numbers of political activists at any rate, increasingly demanding a more collegial and co-operative incarnation of Canada’s parliamentary democracy?

There have been, for instance, eight federal elections so far in the 21st century. Three of them, in 2000, 2011, and 2015, have returned majority governments.

Five elections, however, have returned minority governments, where no party had at least 50% plus one of the seats in the elected parliament — in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2019, and now 2021.

All five recent minority governments have finally had to co-operate with their oppositions in some degree, to get key legislation and government budgets through the House of Commons.

All told there have been 15 minority governments in Canada since 1867. A new Progressive Party complicated the struggle between Liberals and Conservatives in the 1920s. The New Democratic and Social Credit parties had a parallel impact in the 1960s.

The latest minority governments of the 21st century are arguably tied to two historical events. One is the election of 1993. The other is the introduction of fixed date election legislation by the minority government of Stephen Harper’s new Conservative Party of Canada in 2007.

The 1993 election was the first in which the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois ran candidates. In this and other respects it “gutted the Canadian political structure like no other,” in the sharp words of journalist Lawrence Martin.

The 2007 fixed date legislation — requiring that each election take place on the third Monday in October, in the fourth calendar year after the preceding election — echoed similar early 21st century action in Canadian provinces and elsewhere.

The legislation adapted an ancient practice of Democracy in America to Canada’s somewhat different “Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom,” as prescribed in what we now call the Constitution Act, 1867.

Because of this the 2007 legislation includes the crucial sentence: “Nothing in this section affects the powers of the Governor General, including the power to dissolve Parliament at the Governor General’s discretion.”

This provision is integral to our kind of parliamentary democracy, where a government can last only as long as it retains the support of a majority in parliament. It also legitimizes so-called snap elections called by prime ministers who effectively appoint governor generals.

This has meant that since the 2007 fixed date legislation was passed Canada has had only two elections the prescribed four years apart (2015, 2019), and three snap elections at shorter intervals (2008, 2011, 2021).

One potentially intriguing feature of the 2021 federal campaign has been a novel claim that the minority government elected in 2019 should have carried on with the people’s business, until the next legislated fixed date election on the third Monday in October, 2023.

The September 20, 2021 election on this view was unnecessary and even “unlawful”! And the argument is logically accompanied by a parallel claim that our party politicians should increasingly behave with more collegiality and co-operation.

Some have urged as well that in the very similar results of the 2019 and 2021 elections the Canadian people have voted as if our current electoral system were “proportional representative” instead of “first past the post.” And this further implies some increasing popular demand for less partisan and competitive politics in Ottawa.

The fate of the 2021 minority government could begin to tell us just how much of a future this point of view might have. Even former Trudeau advisor Gerald Butts has suggested that the new government might just try to last the fixed date term of four years.

A government that succeeded in or at least came very close to doing this would almost certainly be a more collegial and co-operative government than in the past. (And it would require much greater co-operation from opposition parties too.)

At the same time, already other expert voices are arguing that the Trudeau Liberal minority government elected in 2021 is unlikely to last too long. And this brings a more traditional perspective to bear on the issue.

It is also possible that the real wave of the future is the 2011 and 2015 elections. Liberals and Conservatives at least may not be all that likely to give up on the longstanding quest for more partisan and competitive majority governments any time soon.