There has been a lot of caterwauling that Stephen Harper's woe and general inability to put forward a coherent agenda is due to his minority situation.
Certainly, every party wants a majority government, as it pushes off the potential for an election several years, allowing unpopular decisions to be made with relative ease.
And minority government can result in spectacular policy disasters, particularly if they become the norm as they were Italy during the post-war period or as they are in Israel today.
But majority is no guarantee of activism.
Inertia often befalls majority governments with the lack of electoral pressure creating confusion between the urgent with the important, and between the agenda of the stakeholders and civil servants and the agenda of the public and the party.
In fact, some of the most successful government's in Canadian history were minority governments.
Here is a short list ranking the ten minority governments in Canadian history.
Pearson (1965-68)
Mike Pearson is Canada's Harry Truman. While he was in the top job, everyone thought he was in over his head. After he was gone, his legacy looks more and more impressive.
Here are just some of his successes:
- Medicare
- Canada Pension Plan
- Canada Student Loans
- The Maple Leaf Flag
- Modern labour legislation, including the minimum wage, two-week vacation and 40-hour work week
- Balanced budgets
- The Royal Commission on the Status of Women
- The Royal Commission on Bilingualism
- The first race-free immigration policy in the world
He was recently nominated as one of the Greatest Canadians, an apt if late recognition of his contribution to our country.
In my opinion, it is Pearson, not Trudeau, who be epitomizes 20th century Liberalism. While the Charter is the single most powerful articulation of the liberal ideal of individual rights, in every other aspect of the state, Trudeau's policies were basically just an extension of Pearson's template.
And that template was created without the benefit of a majority government.
Harper (2006-08) Stephen Harper's first term was a remarkably activist and focused government, and it produced a number of legislative and policy results, including:
- The Accountability Act
- Quebec as a Nation resolution
- Tax Reform
- Head Tax apology
- A policy consensus on Afghanistan
- Child care
Not all of these are successes from all perspectives, but all were significant policy accomplishments undertaken without a majority.
While some elements of the plan - like the justice packages - became stalled in the Senate, this clearly has nothing to do with the status of the government in the Commons.
Martin (2004-06) Like some of the better minorities, Paul Martin's Parliament felt over-caffeinated and ad hoc, but resulted in a number of legislative and policy accomplishments:
- Equal Marriage
- The Health Accord
- Rejecting National Missile Defence with the U.S.
- Daycare
- Kelowna
One of the most important legacies of the Martin administration was actually continuing the debt repayment strategy of conservatively calculating revenues in the budget to ensure a surplus at the end of the year to put toward the debt. This policy was in place during the Chrétien majorities but only really came under fire during the minority administration. Martin was able to maintain much of the policy despite his risky status in the Commons.
King (1926-30)
This is the most stable of the minority governments, and was in fact a majority at points as the Progressives splintered and Liberal-Progressives propped up King more formally.
Mackenzie King gets points off for his poor handling of the on-set of the depression in the latter part of this odd demi-minority period. His Liberals had claimed the credit for the prosperity of the 1920s and were thus left holding the can when the depression struck. As provinces began to issue heated demands for financial help to support relief efforts, King challenged that this was all part of a vast Tory conspiracy. Bennett proved a wily campaigner and his call for tariffs won the Tory wide support from farmers in Quebec and former Progressives in the West. But King deserves to be near the top of this list for the introduction of Old Age pensions. The maximum pension was $20 a month and it changed the face of the country.
OAS was the first federal-provincial program, the template of everything from medicare to Kelowna. It was the first true Canadian social program. It was not simply "relief" to those without an income, but a supplement to income designed to ensure a viable standard of living.
The result was an immediate decrease in poverty among seniors, a massive problem in the 1920s as urbanization left cities filled with elderly people who had no family to help them.
Again, this major innovation was produced despite a minority in the Commons.
Pearson (1963-65)
Mike Pearson's first term did produce spectacular successes. The Auto Pact was signed during this period and resulted in the incredible prosperity many Canadians enjoy, and which is currently under threat.
In the Commons, Pearson cut income taxes and raised family allowances and student loans while balancing the books.
Also, it was in this session that the Great Flag Debate took place, which dominated discourse in 1964.
But compared to Pearson's second Parliament as PM, this Parliament was a series of legislative missteps. The most grave was Walter Gordon's economic nationalist budget which was so poorly received he was forced to remove the key tax on foreign takeovers that was its centerpiece.
Clearly, there were important legislative accomplishments in this minority, but the vitriol of John Diefenbaker and the lack of focus of the PM left the Liberals with relatively few points on the board.
Diefenbaker (1957-58) This was a relatively short Parliament, with just one legislative session before the PM pulled the plug and went for a majority.
There are two signal moments in the Legislature, however.
This is the only Parliament to be opened by the monarch.
And it was in the Commons that Pearson made his ill-advised request that the Conservatives turn power back over to the natural governing party because of the worsening economy. Diefenbaker pounded, producing secret documents prepared under the previous Liberal administration predicting an economic downturn and lambasted the Grits for arrogance.
Politically, this minority was a success for the PM, but its legislative record is scant.
King/Meighan (1926)
This is the setting of the King-Byng affair.
In many ways, King's mishandling of the politics of the Commons was the root of the affair. He did not tend enough to the gentle dispositions of the Progressives on whom his government was completely dependent for support. When a scandal caught up the government, he was left without a leg to stand on and forced to ask for dissolution.
King would not make that error again, and indeed his subsequent minority government was a notable success, thanks to his blandishments to the Progressives.
Clark (1979-80)
Joe Clark is a textbook example of how not to run a minority government: like it's a majority government. He failed to count the votes on his first major piece of legislation and that was that.
Diefenbaker (1962-63) Unlike Diefenbaker's anodyne first Parliament, his last was a shambles.
Diefenbaker responded to a worsening economy by hiking tarrifs, slashing spending and raising bank rates.
His defence policy was to allow NORAD Bomarc missiles in Canada, but not the nuclear warheads that actually armed them. This bizarre position caused a split in his Cabinet and the passage of non-confidence motions as the NDP and Social Credit parties withdrew their support.
Diefenbaker did have a policy success in this period, sharply criticizing South Africa over their apartheid policies and successfully blocking their readmission to the Commonwealth.
However, this diplomatic victory was nowhere near enough to make up for the chaos he unleashed on the Conservative Party from this moment on.
Harper (2008 to present)
Prime Minister Harper entered the current Parliament with all the cards:
The Liberals were weak and leaderless; the Commons was composed in that any one party could support the government to a majority of votes; the recession gave the PM carte blanche on the economy in the short-term.
Instead of playing the cards, he threw them at the opposition, followed by his fist.
The result has been the complete chaos we see today.
It is possible that the PM can fight his government out of its self-induced death spiral.
There is some interesting Legislation on the order paper, like free trade with the European Free Trade Association and the organized crime bill.
There are a half dozen major policy choices the government could make to rescue itself: an industrial policy to make Canada's banking sector the world's leader; a world-leading nuclear and renewables strategy; international leadership on Afghanistan; or shifting tax from investment and savings to consumption, for instance.
But my bet is if this Parliament's legacy is not the massive ramp-up of public spending and the resulting administrative, fiscal, ethical and environmental challenges that are the almost certain result, then it will only be because it was something worse.
UPDATE: Gosh, I seem to have forgotten Trudeau's minority from 1972-74. It was a mediocre period of government, with the roots of future fiscal profligacy born in the budget deals with the NDP. Rank it just below Pearson's second term, as it was a political success with some minor policy successes. But it certainly had none of the accomplishments of Pearson, Harper, Martin or King's better minority Parliaments.