In response to Liberal/NDP merger talk I decided to examine past election data to see how difficult it will be for the Liberals to beat the Conservatives in a future election.
The Liberal recipe for success during the 20th century has largely been to absolutely dominate Quebec and try not to get beat up too badly in the rest of Canada (henceforth ROC). The most extreme example of this was Trudeau’s 1980 victory, where the Liberals won 74 of 75 seats in Quebec, but only 73 in ROC (compared to 102 for the Progressive Conservatives).
Can the Liberals win an election with the Bloc capturing the majority of seats in Quebec? I decided to examine three scenarios and compare them to past election results:
Election Scenarios
- 2000 Scenario: Liberals run roughly even in seats with Bloc (38 for the BQ, 36 Liberals and 1 for the Conservatives). A weak NDP wins only 13 seats, all in ROC. Call this best case scenario.
- 2004 Scenario: Conservatives a non-factor in Quebec, Liberals win 21 seats. NDP still weak, winning 19 seats in ROC.
- 2008 Scenario: Conservatives a factor in Quebec, winning 10 seats to the Liberals 14 (NDP win 1, Bloc win rest). A strong NDP wins 36 seats in ROC. This is the worst case scenario of the 3, though we can come up with even worse ones than this if we so choose (1984?)
For each of these scenarios, I pose two sets of questions:
- How many seats would the Liberals need in to win in ROC to win a majority government? How likely is this to happen given the Liberals historical performance?
- How many seats would the Liberals need to win in ROC to win a minority, if we define a minority by ‘1 more seat than the Conservatives’? How likely is this to happen given the Liberals historical performance?
Here’s the data, rank ordered by Liberal performance in ROC:
Given this data, it appears that it will be extremely difficult for the Liberals to ever win a majority government unless they can go back to dominating Quebec.
The Liberals have won enough seats in ROC to form a majority only 5 times out of 40 under the 2008 assumptions and 6 times out of 40 under the 2004 assumptions. All of those 6 elections can be considered ‘special cases’: the Pacific Scandal (1874), the post-depression Conservative wildnerness period (1935, 1940, 1949) and a divided right (1993, 2000). Unless the Conservatives get mired in a large scandal, are in office during a Depression or implode, it does not appear the Liberals can win an election.
Under the 2000 assumptions, things are a little more promising for the Liberals, as they won enough seats 11 times out of 40. Only 2 of the 5 can be considered ‘special cases’: the post-depression Conservative wildnerness period (1953) and a divided right (1997) – the other three (1904, 1908, 1968) do not fall under these categories. Of course, the 2000 scenario assumes that the Liberals can win half of Quebec and the NDP falls to barely holding party status. Having a Wilfrid Laurier or Pierre Trudeau as leader appears to help too.
If we drop our expectations down to holding 1 more seat than the Conservatives, the Liberals need to win 40-42% of seats in ROC. They have done this 18 elections out of 40, so this does not seem out of the question. Less promising, however, is to note that the Liberals have only accomplished this 4 times out of the 15 elections since Diefenbaker was named Progressive Conservative leader where the right was united. They broke the 42% of seats threshold in ROC in 1964, 1968, 1974 and 2004, while failing to in 1957, 1958, 1962, 1965, 1972, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2006 and 2008.
Given this historical data, it becomes clear that the Liberals have a steep hill to climb. I don’t know if a merger with the NDP is the solution, but I can understand why the Liberals might be interested in trying.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
It rather confirms the obvious in that the fundamental political strategy question in Ottawa is how to get the Bloc off the stage. In short, for either the Conservatives or the Liberals to have a chance of getting a majority, the Bloc needs to be destroyed and erased from the Commons.
When you have competitive two-party politics in every riding in English Canada and Quebec votes in a 45+ member strong provincial rump, the only result is minority parliaments.
“In short, for either the Conservatives or the Liberals to have a chance of getting a majority, the Bloc needs to be destroyed and erased from the Commons.”
I suspect you’re right. I really should run the numbers for the Conservatives, to see if they fare any better.
The Liberals will never return to a majority, I think only the tories under Harper or Bernier, can win a majority.
The thing about voters is that the Liberal vote tends to be radical centrists, and strong fiscal conservatives who oppose the theological-wing of the tories, despite there being virtually no theological-wing left in the caucus. If the NDP and Liberals were to merge, most of the soft votes would end up going to the Tories, not to forget the prospect of NDP policies. For vote counts, in most riding throughout Ontario and many Quebec wings, the tories would be far more popular than the Liberals, keeping in mind that about 60 seats in Ontario alone, were only won by 0.1 to 3% vote count.
In Quebec, I agree that the Bloc is a pain, but the tories are the only party that can eliminate the Bloc. If Harper began engaging in decentralization/ privatization/deregulation, he could sweep Quebec, or triple his numbers. The tories like the market(in theory), under the minority their wacko. By embracing deregulation and privatization of government services, they could add a clause in legislation to permit provincials government to rule in the newly deregulated federal jurisdiction, which the Bloc would be greatly favorable to. It would end up fueling the satisfaction to permitting Quebec to follow its nation and the other provinces such as Alberta or BC, who would like more autonomy and an end to central Canada’s dominance.
Privatize what, pray tell? Most of the saleable Crown Corporations have already been sold. We deregulated much of what could be deregulated.
If you’d like to privatize health care, count me out. Besides, I have worked in the insurance industry. The open secret is that they can’t and won’t provide universal health insurance with any profit. It’s slowly slipping into government hands and the industry couldn’t care less. They prefer snootier lines like Disability and Long-Term Care. Critical Illness if they must.
Harper is now on the way to implementing a national securities regulator. Quebec isn’t onside but it will be good for Quebec. It will be good for all provinces.
A health-care privatization policy would be the death of any party that supported it in English Canada.
@Determinant:
How would the creation of a Toronto-based federal securities regulator and a transfer of 1,000 financial sector jobs from Montreal to Toronto “good for Quebec”? Seriously, the boys on Bay Street and their go-to guy in Ottawa are not fooling anyone on rue Saint-Jacques.
Claude: are there 1000 regulators in Montreal?
Also, even if there is a single regulator headquartered in Toronto, I’d imagine there would be field offices in Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.
“The Liberals will never return to a majority, I think only the tories under Harper or Bernier, can win a majority.”
Never is a long time.
Bernier would be a tough slog in Ontario, much less Alberta.
@Andrew F.
No, there are less than 1,000 regulators in Montreal. But the AMF brings other profesionnals, lawyers, accountants, etc. The figure is not mine, it comes from a study by Groupe SECOR<>/a, released 2 weeks ago.
And please, replacing the AMF by some broom closet in a strip mall is insulting and it won’t entice Quebec to join in yet another federal power grab.
@ ClaudeB:
A number of Quebec companies, foremost among them the National Bank and Power Financial will benefit from a single national securities regime. Plus every Quebec company that wants to raise capital. Not to mention our international reputation.
The rent-seeking ability of 1000 accountants and lawyers is outweighed by the enhanced access to capital and more efficient markets that a national regulator would create.
Yes, I imagine there would be a field office in most provinces, certainly in Montreal. Maybe not PEI, but we’ll see.
The Montreal Exchange merged with the TSX. This is just the next logical step.
Plus this isn’t a federal power grab. It’s righting a horrible and wrong interpretation of the Constitution imposed by the Wicked Stepfathers of Confederation, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Of course, the alternative political strategy for the Liberals is to split the Tories. Harper is no Tory in the mould of Clark or Mulroney; instead the current Conservative party tries to bridge from Canada’s neo-cons and tea-party wannabes to “something that can also look multicultural and comfortable in a gay pride parade in Toronto.” That is a tough act to manage and a hard party to keep together.
One thing that is often not realized is in fact the Western Social Credit/Reform/Alliance wing of Conservative politics has split up and remerged with Progressive Conservatives three times already in the course of Canadian history. First in 1935 Social Credit emerged with both a Western Populist base and Quebec Nationalist base of 17 seats against Calgary based RB Bennett’s Conservatives. Then both sides came back together in the 1950s under the leadership of John Diefenbaker only to split apart shortly after the defeat of the Diefenbaker govt.
By the late 1960 the two most important Social Credit leaders at the time Ernest Manning and WAC Bennett decided the really didn’t like Crediste Real Coullette who wanted to become leader of the national Social Credit Party. Manning and Bennett also saw the rise of Trudeaumania and decided unite their Social Credit forces back behind Robert Stanfield’s Progressive Conservatives. In the mean time both Alberta and BC moved away from tea-party populism under Peter Lougheed and Bill Bennett Jr something more akin to Bill Davis’s loyalist Toryism.
Of course everyone knows by now the story of Brian Mulroney and the start of the Reform Party. However post 1993 one story that is not often reported is that the Federal Conservatives/Reform/Alliance have been used quite often as a dumping ground by the likes of the BC Liberals and Gordon Campbell and the Stelmach/Klein Alberta PC’s to get rid of neocon teabagger types the don’t want hanging around provincial politics. Thus Alberta and BC at the provincial level don’t seem any more conservative than say Ontario at the provincial level despite being hard right at the federal.
Tim: Good point. I live in AB. Here, provincial politicians like to pretend to thumb their noise at the Feds or tell the Feds to lay off provincial jurisdictions every so ofter. Especially when they want to distract the electorate from inconvenient issues. But they can’t risk spending too much time and energy on it. The populace demands that the province keep things running; health care, transportation, schools, etc…People pay attention to that sort of stuff. The Feds, on the other hand, largely deal with stuff that doesn’t directly affect people in their day to day lives. So they can afford to go off on tangents that don’t matter and not immediately feel the wrath of the electorate.