There is an interesting speculative piece out by CTV today musing if we are witnessing the end of the Conservative era in Canadian politics and comparing it to the waning of the Sixth Party System many political scientists are claiming is currently occurring in the United States.
There is certainly the potential for transformative change in the electoral dynamic at present. But the matter is much more complex than the "end of the Conservative era."
The main conclusion to be drawn from the history of the Canadian party systems remains this: Since 1896, the Conservatives do not have eras in government; they are typically the boom and bust punctuation between Liberal eras.
To demonstrate my contention, a little political science lecture is in order…
A popular method of analysis of American electoral history is to divide it into a number of eras or "party systems." These are periods of time in which the fundamental electoral dynamic remained stable. Typically, this is also joined by a general public policy consensus or a moving toward a consensus on the major division of the times.
There is significant debate over what constitutes a party system and which elections are the realignments. The theory started with V.O. Key's work on critical elections and since spawned a truckload of literature.
The basic argument in U.S. politics divides the electoral history of the country into three to seven eras, punctuated by realigning elections. These realigning elections are the obvious electoral catastrophes that remake the political map permanently and dramatically. In the United States, these are widely agreed to include the elections of Adams, Lincoln and FDR; less commonly the elections of Andrew Jackson, William McKinley and Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan.
Some see the cycle as changing every 50 to 60 years, with the complete turnover of the lifetime of voters. Others see the change occurring every 30 to 36 years, as a more common generational turnover effect.
This 30 year cycle starts with the First Party System of the Federalists of Adams and Hamilton fighting the Democratic Republicans of Jefferson, Monroe and Madison. The basic cleavages were about the role of the federal state, and was decisively won by the decentralist Democratic-Republicans to the point that no one opposed them for the Presidency for several elections.
The Second Party System is ushered in by the election of Andrew Jackson and his Democrats, who is opposed by the Whigs. It lasted from 1828 to 1854. It was a period of intense and bitter personal rivalry, with policy divides secondary to personal ambitions and the spoils system. Election turnout was huge at this time, because votes were bought and the consequences were immediate and certain.
The Third Party System saw the rise of a dominant Republican Party. The era was marked by the climax of the national debate over slavery and the repercussions of the Civil War. The South became fixedly Democrat and the North reliably Republican, but both parties were pro-business. The system finally collapsed when William Jennings Bryan shattered the standoff with his play to roll up all of the disadvantaged, and forced the Republicans to become the party of business against the Democrats as the party of the common folk.
Beginning in 1896, the Fourth Party System continued Republican dominance, but the era was marked by a series of progressive legislative reforms authored by the Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt. Over time, the Republicans became less progressive and activist and more conservative and do-nothing until they were ideologically incapable of dealing with the chaos of the Depression.
The Fifth Party System saw the Democrats finally return to dominance, with FDR and Truman. While the New Deal coalition fractured at times, and Eisenhower was able to win the White House, the Democrats rarely lost control of Congress and maintained momentum behind progressive legislation on everything from the Tennessee Valley Authority to the G.I. Bill to the Civil Rights Act.
Arguably, the Sixth Party System was born in 1968 with the election of Richard Nixon, although others point to the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan. Whatever the start date, political scientists are suspecting it is now over.
The Sixth Party system was dominated by the Republicans again, and saw the electorate divided between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. Over the course of the era, the two parties both moved to the right, with the Democrats increasingly adopting Republican policy, and the Republicans pushing off the Dems to pursue even more conservative positions.
Like Eisenhower pursing a relatively liberal agenda of strong central government and infrastructure building as a Republican president in the Fifth System, the most successful Democrat of the era, Bill Clinton, pursued an arguably conservative agenda of welfare reform and balanced budgets.
There is significant evidence that the U.S. is entering a seventh party system now. This is less because of Barack Obama, although he is its most obvious example, than it is about the intellectual exhaustion of the conservative project in the United States. The inability of John McCain to excite the Republican base demonstrates fracturing demands of the Republican core. The Democrats are now the dominant party, but in many ways by default as the only party able to command the centre.
While the number of Canadian party systems is a matter of some debate, what is more commonly agreed is that the party systems are typically punctuated by a boom and bust of the Conservative Party.
The First Party system begins with Confederation and either ends with the election of 1896 and the rise of Laurier, or - and this is the more common benchmark - the collapse of the Unionist government and the rise of regional and protest parties like the Progressives, CCF and Social Credit. A booming Conservative party, joined with English Canadian Liberals, won virtually every seat in English Canada in 1917, but then collapsed to third place.
Again, there is a debate about the end of that party system, although some point to the 1935 to 1957 era as a distinct party system of Liberal hegemony. Again, that era is launched by the boom of the Conservatives in 1930 and their subsequent bust in 1935.
The next major punctuation point in Canadian political history is the Diefenbaker era, yet another boom and bust cycle for the Conservatives. It sees the Conservatives briefly flower, then collapse yet again. The 1963 election that ends that Conservative transition period also sees the rise of the NDP and the shift from regionalism to broad, nation-wide parties.
The Conservatives again return to power with a sweeping win in 1984, but find their coalition increasing impossible to hold together. By 1993, the party system fractures again, this time into five pieces. The NDP and PCs are reduced to rumps, while powerful regional parties -- Reform and the Bloc -- rise. The Liberals return to hegemony, which begins to breakdown over time, as always. By 2004, the Liberals are reduced to minority and by 2006 to opposition and in 2008 to an historic low.
All that history allows patterns to emerge. From those patterns, conclusions can be drawn.
It is probable that the current Conservative regime is the traditional boom-and-bust that punctuates party systems, rather than the middle of an existing system. What is remarkable is the almost glacial pace of the transition. Typically, Conservatives win big and then lose it all again quickly. Between 2000 and 2008, the Conservative grew very slowly, and it is in fact the slowly declining support of the Liberals that fuels their growth in seats.
How long the current boom takes place is anyone's guess. Bennett could only hold government for a single term, while Diefenbaker enjoyed a majority government flanked by two minorities, and Mulroney two majorities.
There is no doubt that the Conservatives will not be able to run on the same theme - small government, low taxes - that they ran on in 2004, 2006 and 2008.
Like Mulroney in 1984, they are moving to capture the centre of Canadian politics. But like Mulroney, this move threatens the ties that bind together the Conservative coalition. Like all previous Conservative regimes, their regional outs against the centre play tends to become more difficult to sustain with time.
The result of the budget on party system realignment is anyone's guess.
Some hypothetical results are:
-- A fracturing of the Conservative coalition with a new regional protest party rising in the West, ala 1993. This seems unlikely given Stephen Harper's almost spiritual connection to Alberta and rural BC, and the absence of an existing "Reform"-type party vehicle to build on.
-- A collapse of the Conservative support in Ontario and Atlantic Canada. Given the choice between the Liberal Party and Liberal lite, voters may choose the real thing. This was seen in 1935 when Bennett attempted to move his party from the right to the centre-left in response to FDR's rise in the U.S. and his own policy failures.
-- Continuation of the era of minority government as voters continue to split their choices among many parties. This is similar to the reoccurring minorities of the 1960's under Diefenbaker and Pearson.
-- The rise of new or existing economic protest parties. The 1921 realignment saw a flowering of new parties as voters found themselves unsatisfied with the economic policy consensus of the Liberals and Conservatives. This could see the NDP and Greens continue to grow at the expense of both of the larger parties.
-- A collapse of the Bloc and Quebec's reentry into the government formation game. This would happen separately from the changes in the Conservative Party, as it tends to reflect the ability of the Liberals to draw Quebec back to their coalition ala 1968.
It is also not impossible that the Conservatives could actually thrive in their new economic policy space, expanding into the GTA and earning a majority. Voters may find an ideologically handcuffed Conservative Party more compelling than its free-wheeling version.
This is particularly likely if the Ignatieff Liberals overplay their hand in Quebec and invite a backlash against them in English Canada.
Whatever the result of the Conservative budget, it is unlikely to signal the end of the "Conservative era" since, by most definitions, this is not a Conservative era at all, but an era of revived regionalism after the 1963-1993 era of three broad pan-Canadian parties.