When it’s Time to Pack Your Bags and Head for Stornoway

There was a lot of discussion during the minority Harper years about how Parliament works – or at least should work. The Harper Conservatives have tried to advance the clear and simple notion that the party that wins the most seats wins the election – period – as if gaining the confidence of Parliament did not have to be taken into account. Of course, this is silly.

However, I also find it silly to consider other extremes – that when the clear will of the people is to eject a government and install a new one, the ‘will’ of Parliament can change all of that.

Let’s turn to history’s most well-used example. The Liberal government of William Lyon Mackenzie King bested Conservative Arthur Meighen in the election of 1921 with a minority of seats in the Commons (Liberal (116); Progressive (50); Conservative (63); Labour (3); and Other (3).

Fine. A clear minority government for King.

Meighen then spent the next few years building bridges, learning French, attacking King at small town picnics and quoting Hamlet and King Lear.

In 1925, King asked the Governor General, Lord Byng, to dissolve parliament so that an election might return a majority government to the House of Commons. However, the election of 1925 did not give King the result he was after. In fact, the Conservatives under Meighen won the day (Conservative (114); Liberal (102); Progressive (24); Labour (2); and Other (3).

The result was a clear victory for the Conservatives, just seven seats short of a majority. The Tories also captured 46 percent of the popular vote compared to their 31 percent in the previous election. Their support was also widespread, with Tories elected everywhere except Saskatchewan. As well, Mackenzie King even lost his own seat.

So what did King do? After weighing the results, he decided that this just wasn’t clear enough for him. We know the rest of the story. He worked with Progressives to stay in power and then fought a constitutional battle with Lord Byng in the next election.

The outcome of the 1925 election was, to me, a travesty of common sense. This brings me to a thought. How about a Rule of Three built into our parliamentary system?

If you are the sitting prime minister of any party and your party:

1) Does not capture the most seats

2) Loses the popular vote

3) And the leader loses his or her own seat…

…then it’s time to pack your bags and head for Stornoway.

In the 1925 election, the people clearly voted for change. Our system does not serve us well when the popular vote moves against the party in power, the leader is turfed and the party is turfed but things get to go on as if nothing ever happened.

2 Comments to When it’s Time to Pack Your Bags and Head for Stornoway:

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Christopher Dummitt on Friday, March 09, 2012 11:44 AM

This is a great blog. Very thoughtful stuff. Let me offer a different view of this particular post though. The 1925 election, for me, proves the exact opposite point of the one you're trying to make here. It's true that the Conservatives came out with the most seats. Meighen should have been given the chance to form a government. But it's also clear that he wouldn't have succeeded. He got the chance less than a year later in 1926 when King's government fell in the midst of the horrid Customs Affair. In that scandal, it became clear that the Customs Department was essentially cooperating with smugglers all with Ministerial consent if not enrichment. And what did King do? He put the minister, Bureau, into the Senate. In the midst of a whole mess of motions and amendments, King ended up resigning and Meighen got his chance to form a government. And what happened? Even with all the evidence of Liberal corruption and backhanded dealing, the Progressives and Labour group still wouldn't back up Meighen. They were too fundamentally apart on what mattered to them (and voters). What does that tell us? It means that most Canadians voted for parties that weren't Conservative and which wouldn't cooperate with the Conservatives. But they didn't give any party a majority. It is then up to those who Canadians did vote for to try to find some way of creating a stable government. Meighen wasn't up to the task. He couldn't cooperate with the Progressives or the Liberals. Most Canadians didn't want a Conservative government. And they didn't get a Conservative government. The system worked. (The bizarre shenanigans of King in the 1926 election, and his lying about Byng, are something else altogether, I'll grant you.) Perhaps the greater tragedy, and here's where we could maybe come together, is with an electoral system that continually gives a virtual dictatorship (via majority government) to parties (lib and Cons) who only get about 40% of the vote. The majority of Canadians never get what they want. It is a major and, for the moment, seemingly unsolvable problem which directly diminishes faith in our democracy. Of course, it should do this. The democracy is horribly flawed, and has been ever since the advent of strict party discipline and a three (or more) party system. Thanks for the great blog. I'll be sure to follow from now on.

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	Roderick Benns on Sunday, March 11, 2012 3:52 PM Christopher, thank you for your thoughtful post on the 1925 election. You are absolutely correct on our agreement about our electoral system being demonstrably flawed. And I agree with you that a majority of people in the 1925 election did not want to vote for the Conservatives, although they had made substantive inroads. It is a historical certainty that Meighen had the flexibility of steel. A clear majority did not want Mackenzie King as their leader and representative either, but with our system of government he was simply able to try again in a different geographic region. I am not entirely comfortable with this scenario, either, but it certainly echoes that leaders are accountable to their party, not their constituents. Again, thanks for your comments and look forward to reading your blog as well.

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