Brother Jonathan (A Wikibox TL)

First off, I am honoured that you have written a TL about me :D;) I jest :cool:

Well written and beautifully designs of the Wiki boxes, can I presume that 1979 may see the rise of a Yellow bird in the name of Jeremy Thorpe in a Conservative-Liberal coalition that would put 2010's to shame :)

If Lubbock has somehow risen to the Liberal leadership Thorpe may already have passed out of favour

In OTL the vote was so much in his favour (6 for Thorpe, 3 a piece of Lubbock and Hooson) that he must have done something serious for Lubbock to win.
 
Regardless of his impressive re-election throughout English Canada, Manning found that he could not count on the support of the entirety of his caucus. Although he had passed legislation to stave off any conservative challenge to his leadership of the party, many of the political right still viewed the Prime Minister as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. His biggest critic, ’66 runner up Joseph Ball, had begun to slowly lay the groundwork for a leadership challenge in case the opportunity arose. In spite of the fact he was excluded from the Cabinet, the Minnesota MP had amassed a loyal following amongst some circles in the backbench, many of whom believed the narrative that Manning, having won what many expected to be his final election victory, would resign well before 1975 after serving roughly ten years as leader. The unexpected defeat of the provincial Unionists in Cascadia at the hands of Labour in 1973 caused many to point to the unpopularity of the federal government, who had implemented various austerity measures to lower the budget deficit, ironically in the hopes of balancing the budget in time for the next election. Whilst such a pursuit sat within the ideological parameters of the brand of conservatism espoused by Ball and his colleagues, Manning’s rising unpopularity caused long held ambitions to trump beliefs. Sensing his opponents moves to destabilize his hold on power, Manning called for a leadership spill himself, arguing that he required the party to settle any such matters if the Unionists were to move on from their defeat in Cascadia and slump in the polls. The move worked, catching Ball and his allies’ off-guard and secured the Prime Minister an even larger victory than his previous win a decade ago. Manning declared to reporters that he would eventually step down as leader, but only at a time of his choosing.

dDEiVkn.png


The previous seven years had not been kind to Labour. They had lost power after holding on to it for almost two decades, and since that defeat had gone through three different leaders. On top of that the party was still divided between members who pushed for a more moderate direction, led by former leader Mitchell Sharp, and the Left-wing faction, who now followed the lead of former Shadow Labour Minister George McGovern. Interim leader Byron Allen and the party’s executive scheduled a leadership election, the first non-spill related vote since 1960, for 1973. The final slate of candidates included McGovern, the even more left-wing James Laxer, and the moderate 37-year old Ed Broadbent. Despite McGovern’s former status as the go between for the front and backbench, much of the party’s left-wing faction found support in the views of Laxer, forcing McGovern to reach out to the more moderate Labourites. The first ballot illustrated the deep divisions between the party, with both McGovern and Laxer claiming the support of almost an equal number of their colleague’s support, with Broadbent capturing enough to position himself as the kingmaker of the contest. Backing the Dakota MP, McGovern captured the leadership with a commanding majority of caucus support, enough to temporarily quell the divide within the party. In what would become known as his candid approach to politics, the 51-year old McGovern promised to return to authentic progressive principles once, not if, Labour returned to power.

KpR9Cmc.png


Most of Canada’s political observers expected the federal election to be called sometime in 1975, following the tradition of four years after the previous campaign. When Prime Minister Manning called a press conference that year many assumed that the Unionist leader has decided to fight one more election in spite of his pledge to step down in 1973. Yet Manning kept his promise, telling reporters that he would resign as leader once his party had chosen his successor, meaning that the election would be called and fought sometime in 1976. Much like Labour’s leadership election three years prior, three major candidates emerged for the Unionist caucus to pick, including Industry Minister Clifford Hansen, Cascadian MP and Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources Daniel J. Evans, and Claude Wagner, the party’s leading organizer in Quebec and the only non-MP in the race. While Evans enjoyed the quiet support of the Prime Minister and the more moderate faction of the party, Hansen was endorsed by Joe Ball, Dick Cheney and remainder of the Unionist’s right-wing, once again making the contest a battle over the direction of the Unionist Party’s ideology. Evans, a supporter of official bilingualism and environmental protection, largely avoided any concrete policy announcements while Hansen on the other hand famously told reporters that the contest was not what they were for, but rather what they were against. Once again, much like Labour, the two leading contenders found themselves deadlocked in support and at the mercy of the third place candidate, in this case Claude Wagner. Despite Hansen's promise of making him a key member of his cabinet following the next election, the Quebec strongman backed Evans, later telling reporters that the Cascadian MP was the party’s best hope of a breakthrough in the French speaking province, and ultimately Wagner’s best hope of capturing a seat in the House of Commons. Canada had a new Prime Minister, and many Unionists were confident that he would lead the party to victory in the upcoming campaign.

pZqBj1o.png


List of Prime Ministers of Canada
Sir John A. Macdonald (Liberal Conservative) 1869-1877
Sir Edward Blake (Liberal) 1877-1882
Sir John A. Macdonald (Liberal-Conservative) 1882-1891
Sir Mackenzie Bowell (Liberal-Conservative) 1891-1892
Sir Hector Louis Langevin (Liberal-Conservative) 1892-1894
Sir Wilfred Laurier (Liberal) 1894-1906
Sir Frederick W. A. G. Haultain (Conservative) 1906-1915
Sir Hugh John Macdonald (National Government/Conservative) 1915-1919
Hugh Guthrie (Conservative) 1919-1923
Thomas Crerar (Labour) 1923-1930
Robert Manion (Conservative) 1930-1932
Thomas Crerar (Labour) 1932-1934
Robert Manion (Unionist) 1934-1938
Charles Avery Dunning (Labour) 1938-1945
Arthur B. Langlie (Unionist) 1945-1949
Adélard Godbout (Labour) 1949-1956
Brooke Claxton (Labour) 1956-1960
Hubert Humphrey (Labour) 1960-1966
Ernest Manning (Unionist) 1966-1976
Daniel J. Evans (Unionist) 1976-
 
Last edited:
Good series, but I'm really not sure about trade union supporter and New Deal Hack Scoop Jackson being in TTL's Conservative Party.
 
Good series, but I'm really not sure about trade union supporter and New Deal Hack Scoop Jackson being in TTL's Conservative Party.

Well he did support Labour Unions. ;) *coughs at own bad joke*

Anyways, I think his main "right-wing" beliefs lay in his hawkishness and support in Liberal Interventionism. Otherwise he was fairly left-wing, he supported social welfare, civil rights, and other American Liberal programs. While I can see him being a Red Tory, I'm not sure how much he would mesh with a Ernest Manning-run Party.
 
Well he did support Labour Unions. ;) *coughs at own bad joke*

Anyways, I think his main "right-wing" beliefs lay in his hawkishness and support in Liberal Interventionism. Otherwise he was fairly left-wing, he supported social welfare, civil rights, and other American Liberal programs. While I can see him being a Red Tory, I'm not sure how much he would mesh with a Ernest Manning-run Party.

I guess Scoop as a Red Tory is possible but I don't think he'd be the standard bearer of the Unionist right against Daniel Evans.
 
Didn't think there would be so much opposition to Scoop. I'm keeping him as Defence Minister, but I've removed him as Evans chief opponent.
 
By the time of the 1976 campaign the Unionists had been in power for a decade, a length of time that had quickly become the standard for the amount of patience and support voters were willing to grant a Prime Minister, if not his entire party. Since the last campaign both the Unionists and Labour had found new leaders, in the forms of Daniel Evans and George McGovern, respectively, and both planned on campaigning on platforms directed towards economic management. Since he had been left little time by his predecessor to carve out his own record, Prime Minister Evans planned to run on what he would do if his party garnered another mandate from voters, whilst Labour prepared to remind voters of every single scandal, misstep and broken promise made by the Unionists in their 10-year long rule. Meanwhile, in a continuation of their own long held strategy, the National Liberals, once again led by Mark Hatfield, hoped to take enough support from the major parties and hold the balance of power, as they had done under Clarence Dill and Wayne Morse in years prior. So too, much like the beginning of the 1970 campaign, initial polling suggested that the Unionists trailed Labour somewhere between 6 and 10 per cent, with voters preferring McGovern as Prime Minister over Evans by a margin of 15 per cent.

Hoping to draw back centrist voters leaning towards the two opposition parties, the Unionist leader, much to the chagrin of his more conservative colleagues, pledged to introduce stricter environmental protection policies within the first hundred days of his mandate. The move expectedly was met with opposition by the more conservative elements of the party, with members such as Henry Jackson and Joseph Ball publically condemning the policy, which in turn created a very clear sense of Unionist disunity to voters. Evans, nervous that any such mid-campaign insurrection would inflict a fatal blow on the government’s re-election chances, promised in a speech to not only balance the budget by 1980, but by accomplishing it in such a manner that would not raise taxes. Opponents to the pledge highlighted the fact that with unemployment steady at 7 per cent and the economy once again in a moderate recession, such a move would prove impossible.

Under McGovern Labour drew some of its largest crowds since Brooke Claxton’s majority victory back in 1957. The Dakotan MP presented a platform to guarantee a minimum wage increase across the country, create a new ministry directed towards federal-provincial relations, a 30 per cent reduction in spending in the departments of defence, and most controversially to repatriate the constitution from Great Britain. Opponents of constitutional repatriation labeled the Labour leader a republican in disguise who would be unable to find consensus among Canada’s Premiers. McGovern would find an ally in the two of the National Liberals leading figures, namely Hatfield and Ontario Premier Bill Davis.

The National Liberals, with Canada’s largest province in their corner, expected that Canadian’s were more willing to give their party a serious look. Campaigning in Quebec, Hatfield announced that his party would introduce a bill to make French an official language of the country, as well as to make it a necessity in any future constitutional debate. While popular in the Labour stronghold of Quebec, bilingualism was generally unpopular across rural Canada, which in turn allowed the Unionists to recoup momentum in regions such as Montana, Alberta, Saskatchewan and parts of Ontario.

The leader’s debate proved to be of little consequence to the final election result. All three of the major party leaders stuck to their scripted responses, and little damage was done to Labour’s momentum heading into the final week of the campaign. On Election Day voters rewarded McGovern’s positivity and hope by giving Labour its first majority government in 19-years and giving Mark Hatfield his best result in his almost decade long run as National Liberal leader. The Unionists were reduced back to the opposition benches, with the now former Prime Minister promising to stay on as leader of a bitterly divided and fractured political party.

bDCwaGF.png


List of Prime Ministers of Canada
Sir John A. Macdonald (Liberal Conservative) 1869-1877
Sir Edward Blake (Liberal) 1877-1882
Sir John A. Macdonald (Liberal-Conservative) 1882-1891
Sir Mackenzie Bowell (Liberal-Conservative) 1891-1892
Sir Hector Louis Langevin (Liberal-Conservative) 1892-1894
Sir Wilfred Laurier (Liberal) 1894-1906
Sir Frederick W. A. G. Haultain (Conservative) 1906-1915
Sir Hugh John Macdonald (National Government/Conservative) 1915-1919
Hugh Guthrie (Conservative) 1919-1923
Thomas Crerar (Labour) 1923-1930
Robert Manion (Conservative) 1930-1932
Thomas Crerar (Labour) 1932-1934
Robert Manion (Unionist) 1934-1938
Charles Avery Dunning (Labour) 1938-1945
Arthur B. Langlie (Unionist) 1945-1949
Adélard Godbout (Labour) 1949-1956
Brooke Claxton (Labour) 1956-1960
Hubert Humphrey (Labour) 1960-1966
Ernest Manning (Unionist) 1966-1976
Daniel J. Evans (Unionist) 1976

George McGovern (Labour) 1976-
 
Good update - though the Unionist Leadership election in 1976 seems to suggest that Evans' position is not that steady...
 
Hope I did this right.

Prime Minister McGovern fully planned to pass a major piece of legislation during Parliaments fall session before the winter break. Many within his party felt that such a bold move would not only cement their status as the dominating force in parliament, but remove any possible fallout before the next campaign. As well, the move made sense considering the large Quebec contingency in the Labour party, many of who would have caused potential problems for McGovern had he pushed the passage of the act to a later date.

Bilingualism had long been a controversial issue in Canadian politics. The Unionists and their Conservative ancestors had, with the exception of Hector Louis Langevin in the late 19th Century, been exclusively led and managed by English Canadians, many of whom who were bitterly opposed to ceding any ground to French Canada. Labour on the other hand was seen by voters and the vehicle which represented, among other things, Quebec and the country’s French population. The National Liberals, the former home of Wilfred Laurier and Arthur Cardin, had since seen their former allies abandon them in favour of Labour, prompting the party to simultaneously support factions in favour and opposed to the concept of bilingualism.

In Parliament McGovern spoke of his grand vision to unite the country under a common history, granting Canadians the right to receive federal service in the language of their choice, thus making French equal to English in the eyes of the federal government. In terms of jobs within the public service, some would be classified as Anglophone, Francophone, or Bilingual. The water mark of the Act, which also included a governing council to implement regulations and receive complains, would stand at 7 per cent of the local population, a common sense approach the Prime Minister hoped would swing crucial moderate support from the House and across the country. The last thing Labour insiders wanted was for their leader to be responsible for country becoming bitterly divided. Maintaining just enough support from his colleagues to hang on, Daniel Evans announced his support for the legislation, much to the displeasure of the ever-growing conservative faction. The National Liberals also pledged their support for the bill, making the passage of the Bill near-universal in the House. In the Senate, however, Unionist, particularly those appointed by their provincial Premiers, announced their intentions to block any such Bill, once again igniting a potential leadership crisis within their party. Albertan Premier Gordon Taylor, Idaho Premier Butch Otters, Cascadian Premier Bill Bennett and Minnesota Unionist leader James Goetz all publically came out against the act, forcing Evans to demand an increase of the threshold for bilingual services from 7 to 12 per cent.

Yet due to Labour large majorities in both the Upper and Lower chambers, the passage of the Act as originally designed by the party’s policy makers was never in doubt. If anything the episode caused more damage to the Unionists, whose leader simply wished to expand his party’s base and instead further gave ammunition to the ideological right. Expectedly opinion polls showed Canadians divided on the issue, with support for bilingualism highest in Quebec and Ontario while overwhelmingly opposed in Alberta, Cascadia, Idaho and Wyoming.

After limited debate the Act passed 258 to 29 in the House of Commons whilst in the Senate 78 to 42.

katPhBY.png
 
Awesome! Prime Minister Mcgovern! Please continue, I am curious to see what other awesome things you to ITTL.
 

LeinadB93

Monthly Donor
Nice :)

Official bilingualism for the win! Can't help but worry that it might create more issues than it solves...

Is Ottawa the capital of Canada ITTL?
 
In the two years since becoming leader Daniel Evans had lost an election, seen countless public and private actions of division within the Unionist party, and had seen both his favorable and those of his party tumble in Ontario, Minnesota, and Cascadia. Since their election Labour had passed the Official Bilingualism Act and created the crown corporation Petro Canada, with plans to begin the process of patriating of the constitution before the 1980 election. With their majorities in both the House of Commons and the Senate, as well as the support of the National Liberals on matters such as repatriation, the Unionists found themselves locked out of all decision making and governmental influence. Needless to say by 1977 it had become clear to himself and those around him that his time as leader was at an end.

Speaking at the annual Unionist policy convention, Evans announced his intent to resign as leader of the party following the selection of his successor. The party’s executive council scheduled the leadership election, the third since 1973, for February 28, 1978, and a good two years before the next federal election campaign. From the outset many Unionists expected leadership runner-up Henry Jackson to seek the leadership against token opposition from the moderate-to-liberal-wing of the party. To the shock of many, however, Jackson opted not to run for the leadership, citing age and health as factors. Conservatives, seeking a standard bearer, began to flock around former Cabinet Minister Jack Horner of Alberta. Horner, who had separately served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and Minister of Transportation under Manning and Minister of Energy under Daniel Evans, embraced the support and in turn became the frontrunner to become the next leader. The Albertan MP’s opposition to bilingualism and ideological bend worried some caucus members, many of whom viewed Horner as an electoral liability to the Unionists. These factions coalesced around former candidate Claude Wagner, who hoped a leader from Quebec could maintain support across traditional party strongholds while growing the base across Canada’s most populous provinces. While Wagner was supported by the moderate-wing, both candidates were considered to be right-wing candidates.

As the frontrunner, Horner worked behind the scenes, using his supporters in caucus to garner the support of undecided members. The former Minister pledged that under his leadership his door would always be open to backbench members, and promised free votes for the party with the exception of his frontbench. Wagner on the other hand promised none of the sort, insisting that if the party wished to avoid losing more seats throughout the country, he was the party’s only choice. The Quebec MP’s refusal to cut significant deals hurt his chances amongst the undecided, with many suggesting Wagner was too arrogant to be leader.

On the first ballot it was a foregone conclusion that Horner would win. He had played the game, made the concessions, pledged to consult the party room more carefully, and some internal party polls suggested that the party had a better chance at defeating McGovern under him than Wagner, who had become the topic of rumours regarding his health, with some insiders insisting the former party organizer was hiding a severe illness. Horner won, Wagner lost, and once again the Unionist party was led by an Albertan.

teolZXN.png


List of Prime Ministers of Canada
Sir John A. Macdonald (Liberal Conservative) 1869-1877
Sir Edward Blake (Liberal) 1877-1882
Sir John A. Macdonald (Liberal-Conservative) 1882-1891
Sir Mackenzie Bowell (Liberal-Conservative) 1891-1892
Sir Hector Louis Langevin (Liberal-Conservative) 1892-1894
Sir Wilfred Laurier (Liberal) 1894-1906
Sir Frederick W. A. G. Haultain (Conservative) 1906-1915
Sir Hugh John Macdonald (National Government/Conservative) 1915-1919
Hugh Guthrie (Conservative) 1919-1923
Thomas Crerar (Labour) 1923-1930
Robert Manion (Conservative) 1930-1932
Thomas Crerar (Labour) 1932-1934
Robert Manion (Unionist) 1934-1938
Charles Avery Dunning (Labour) 1938-1945
Arthur B. Langlie (Unionist) 1945-1949
Adélard Godbout (Labour) 1949-1956
Brooke Claxton (Labour) 1956-1960
Hubert Humphrey (Labour) 1960-1966
Ernest Manning (Unionist) 1966-1976
Daniel J. Evans (Unionist) 1976

George McGovern (Labour) 1976-
 
Top