Can-Challenge: Beat Mackenzie King's record

Have a Canadian Prime Minister serve longer than 22.5 years, consecutively or otherwise. No butterflying Mulroney to extend Trudeau. No "Sir John A. lives."
 
How about having Mulroney survive the scandals of the late 80's early 90's, survive the 1992ish recession and get re-elected in 1992/3. And then have him keep going until at least 2006-7, possibly even to the present? Just think, no Reform Party, no Bloc Quebecois, no PM Jean Chretien, no PM Paul Martin, Jr. and the old Progressive Conservative is still going. Plausible or ASB?
 
Not unless Meech or Charlottetown pass. Those were the catalysts for the Bloc. No effect on Parizeau winning the 1994 provincial election. Parizeau on bread-and-butter wasn't much worse than Johnson Jr anyhow. Even if you butterfly Bou-Bou's leukemia, very tough to get a third consecutive term. No one broke the "ghost 22nd" from 07/09/59 until last December.
 
Not unless Meech or Charlottetown pass.

Just need one Manitoba MLA (Elijah Harper) to either vote for it or abstain and Meech passes. A couple of changes, (such as a "Triple E" Senate) and a better campaign by it's supporters and Charlottetown would have passed.

Those were the catalysts for the Bloc. No effect on Parizeau winning the 1994 provincial election. Parizeau on bread-and-butter wasn't much worse than Johnson Jr anyhow.
The PQ actually helped get Mulroney elected in 1984 and re-elected in 1988. If they had felt that he'd kept his end of the (unspoken) bargain and made that worth their while, they'd have quietly dumped sovereignty and become a "Quebec-first" political party. And there would have been no Bloc Quebecois. Instead the Tories would have swept Quebec yet again. Keeping the west is harder, but With senate reform is doable.

Even if you butterfly Bou-Bou's leukemia, very tough to get a third consecutive term. No one broke the "ghost 22nd" from 07/09/59 until last December.
 
What about Clyde Wells?

Had Meech passed in Manitoba, Mr. Wells and the Newfoundland legislature would have been overridden. Or if M.r Wells had come to a different decision, choosing instead to back the Tory government over his ideological kin (not unusual for Newfoundland politics- look at Tory Premier Danny Williams' relationship with Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper) in the Liberal Party, Elijah Harper's vote in Manitoba would have been irrelevant.
 
Well this might not be valid considering that it takes place BEFORE King but...

WI Laurier wins the Election of 1911? Say he arranges a better campaign, the US senator doesn't make those annexationist remarks, a successful naval compromise is worked out etc...

Anyways he say he wins a majority placing the next election in 1916. 1914, the war breaks out Laurier remains firm on the issue of Conscription (anti). Throughout the war he attempts to forge a compromise between the English Canadians and the French Canadians. Unfortunately the Laurier machine has run out of steam and he is unable to. So instead he postphones the election until after the war.

The election itself is held in 1919 giving Laurier in TTL a 23 year unbroken tenure as PM.
 
Well this might not be valid considering that it takes place BEFORE King but...

WI Laurier wins the Election of 1911? Say he arranges a better campaign, the US senator doesn't make those annexationist remarks, a successful naval compromise is worked out etc...

Anyways he say he wins a majority placing the next election in 1916. 1914, the war breaks out Laurier remains firm on the issue of Conscription (anti). Throughout the war he attempts to forge a compromise between the English Canadians and the French Canadians. Unfortunately the Laurier machine has run out of steam and he is unable to. So instead he postphones the election until after the war.

The election itself is held in 1919 giving Laurier in TTL a 23 year unbroken tenure as PM.

That's a good one, Shame I didn't think of it.

I already did Mulroney...

So, the only other real candidates would be Trudeau (disqualified in the OP), Borden (needs to avoid WWI/conscription, or at least be more political and less willing to sacrifice his party's future success to help win the war), St. Laurent (needs to be less connected to Mackenzie King, needs not to be perceived as being senile in 1957...), and Diefenbaker. (Just have him avoid the scandals or actually win the 1962 election. The only thing that could keep him from beating out Mackenzie King would that in OTL he died in 1979... But that can be butterflied too... He'll be like King in another way, once he quits, he wont be long for this earth.)
 
Jean Chretien decides not to try and get away with the sponsorship scandal, thereby making it a non-issue since it never would have happened. In that case, he continues to govern in Canada.
 
Jean Chretien decides not to try and get away with the sponsorship scandal, thereby making it a non-issue since it never would have happened. In that case, he continues to govern in Canada.

Chretien got elected in 1993. 16 years ago this November. To get him past Mackenzie King you have to keep Johnny-boy around until April of 2016...:eek:
 
Laurier died in January 1919 at the age of 78. With the wear and tear that goes with the job, likely he dies in office. Mulroney is the best bet, unless the PM has truly Nixonian political instincts...
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Jean Chretien decides not to try and get away with the sponsorship scandal, thereby making it a non-issue since it never would have happened. In that case, he continues to govern in Canada.

Imagine...he could walk around with a backwards helmet on in Afghanistan, too...he could spread his peculiar brand of doofusness throughout the world's warzones!
Not just to Balkan dictators, but now he's going to talk incoherently to the terrorists to!

It'd make Bush's speech look better, though...
 
How about having Mulroney survive the scandals of the late 80's early 90's, survive the 1992ish recession and get re-elected in 1992/3. And then have him keep going until at least 2006-7, possibly even to the present? Just think, no Reform Party, no Bloc Quebecois, no PM Jean Chretien, no PM Paul Martin, Jr. and the old Progressive Conservative is still going. Plausible or ASB?

I doubt it. Like, really really doubt it. It's hard to butterfly away a 209-seat collapse, and even if Mulroney wins in '93 he's had three terms, parties just don't tend to last much longer than that. King hung on because a) he was a ridiculously straight arrow, which can't be said of Mulroney*; b) the grits kept sticking him on the ticket time after time after time, something which doesn't happen too much these days, where it's one strike and you're out for the major parties; and c) between the Depression and the war, King had three practically freebie elections back to back, something you can't particularly plausibly give Brian.

*Not that he was particularly more corrupt than, say, his successor; just that King was noticeably less, and for mere mortals, after a decade in power, scandals tend to accumulate.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
I doubt it. Like, really really doubt it. It's hard to butterfly away a 209-seat collapse, and even if Mulroney wins in '93 he's had three terms, parties just don't tend to last much longer than that. King hung on because a) he was a ridiculously straight arrow, which can't be said of Mulroney*; b) the grits kept sticking him on the ticket time after time after time, something which doesn't happen too much these days, where it's one strike and you're out for the major parties; and c) between the Depression and the war, King had three practically freebie elections back to back, something you can't particularly plausibly give Brian.

*Not that he was particularly more corrupt than, say, his successor; just that King was noticeably less, and for mere mortals, after a decade in power, scandals tend to accumulate.

Oh, Mulroney...there were the Airbuses that were bought for the air force as midair refuelers, which he took one and fitted out for a government airliner.
Then there was the whole "giving contracts for Bison upgrades and light armoured vehicle building deals to my shady friends in Montreal" thing.

Fucking Mulroney. He should be lucky they didn't find out about that LAV deal until a little while ago.
 
I doubt it. Like, really really doubt it. It's hard to butterfly away a 209-seat collapse, and even if Mulroney wins in '93 he's had three terms, parties just don't tend to last much longer than that. King hung on because a) he was a ridiculously straight arrow, which can't be said of Mulroney*; b) the grits kept sticking him on the ticket time after time after time, something which doesn't happen too much these days, where it's one strike and you're out for the major parties; and c) between the Depression and the war, King had three practically freebie elections back to back, something you can't particularly plausibly give Brian.

*Not that he was particularly more corrupt than, say, his successor; just that King was noticeably less, and for mere mortals, after a decade in power, scandals tend to accumulate.

King, like Chretien, also benefited from a seriously divided opposition... Which is the biggest reason that the Liberals were in power for 22 consecutive years, from 1935 to 1957. King got tossed out twice: once by the Governor General in 1925 and once by the electorate in 1930. In both cases the Tories screwed up and King got voted back in.

Now, for an out of there possibility, why not have Joe Clark either win a majority in 1979 or win in 1980. Trudeau's Liberals were very unpopular then and for all of Trudeau's luck in '79 and more so in '80, he could have been decisively dumped in either election. Clarck would have to keep winning elections to even have a remote chance. (He'd have to stay in power until 2002! to beat out King)

Another out of there possiblity would have to be Turner, who inherited the (doomed) Liberal Party from Trudeau in 1984. to win the election he'd have to throw Trudeau to the wolves. (In 1984, a popular move...) And then (somehow) keep winning and stay in power until at least 2006/7.

If Clark, Mulroney or Turner were the kind of leaders who could pull a Mackenzie King... Well... Clark, Mulroney, or Turner would still be in power today! The new record would be either 25 years (Mulroney or Turner) or 30 years (Clark) which would be more like something you see in a third world tin pot dictatorship...
 
If Clark, Mulroney or Turner were the kind of leaders who could pull a Mackenzie King... Well... Clark, Mulroney, or Turner would still be in power today! The new record would be either 25 years (Mulroney or Turner) or 30 years (Clark) which would be more like something you see in a third world tin pot dictatorship...

That was going to be my second suggestion... Mulroney declares himself Prime Minister For Life, nobody can mess with him because Internal Security Minister Kim Cambell has tanks. ;)
 
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