While Canadians knew shortly after the election that they would soon be welcoming a Liberal-NDP coalition government into office (only the second coalition government in Canadian history), the uncharted nature of the government’s formation (at least, uncharted in the modern-era) meant that most Canadians were unsure what the exact formation would be, or even how it would operate. Indeed, even prominent members of both parties struggled to grasp how the coalition would operate, until the exact details of the Liberal-NDP deal were revealed. In the first few weeks following the election, Gerard Kennedy, Pat Martin, and their respective inner circles met repeatedly to hammer out an agreement. These negotiations proved to be somewhat difficult at first; while both Kennedy and Martin were somewhat committed to the idea of a coalition, both wanting Bernard Lord’s government out of office and the NDP in particular relishing the idea of finally governing (albeit only partially) on a national level, some of Martin’s demands initially proved a bit too much for Kennedy to handle. The first major issue was the actual size and composition of the cabinet itself. A rough cabinet outline consisting of 24 members caused disagreement between the two, with Martin insisting the NDP have 6 cabinet ministers (including himself). While that was roughly equal to the NDP’s share of the seats in the government, Kennedy (and, perhaps more importantly, his caucus) was still somewhat reluctant to give the NDP that much influence in government. With Martin refusing anything less than six members of cabinet, the two eventually reached a solution: the cabinet would be composed of 30 members, 24 Liberals to 6 New Democrats (the latter making up 20%). Martin would keep his 6 members, while Kennedy would be able to placate his caucus, and with the addition of six more minor cabinet roles, predominantly going to Liberals, the NDP, beneath the surface, wasn’t really losing that much of their influence. Dividing up the profiles became the next major debate between the two sides. While some positions were easy enough to divide (for instance, the Liberals, being the larger of the two parties, would get more senior roles, such as Foreign Affairs and Finance, while the NDP, given its party history and social-justice background, would get portfolios such as Labour and Health), there were still some headaches. For one thing, Martin was determined the NDP be put in charge of an important financial portfolio, in large part an effort to shed the party’s image as being poor managers of the economy and to give the party credibility on the economic front. Kennedy, and more importantly right-wing members of his caucus and inner-circle, were hesitant to this idea given the financial state of the country, and not wanting to run the risk (either economically or simply in terms of image) of giving the NDP control over part of the government’s finances. Another headache came in the form of the Environment ministry, with Martin seemingly expecting the NDP to be put in charge of it automatically (citing the party’s seemingly stronger commitment to environmental policy) and Kennedy determined to keep the position in Liberal hands (more specifically, those of celebrated environmental activist and two-term Liberal MP Briony Penn). Eventually, the two came to an agreement: while the NDP would not be given the role of Environment minister, the Liberals in exchange gave them the role of Treasury Board President, with an understanding that they would essentially work as a deputy to the Finance minister (a Liberal). In addition, the NDP were put in charge of Employment and Labour, Health, Transport, Indigenous Affairs, and the more minor role of Small Business and Tourism. At Martin’s insistence the NDP would also be put in charge of Democratic Reform, a long-standing policy of the NDP. Aside from the close cooperation between the Finance minister and Treasury Board President, the two further agreed that, for the most part, they would leave the other party to their own devices, barring any major disagreements. Thus, Martin, as Deputy Prime Minister, would for the most part have complete control over the actions of the five additional New Democrats in cabinet, with Kennedy having control over the remaining 24.
With the deal finally having been hammered out, the cabinet was finally revealed on October 31, 2012. For the Liberals, prominent names appointed to cabinet included Bob Rae in Foreign Affairs, Ralph Goodale in Finance, and Justin Trudeau in Citizenship and Immigration. For the NDP, Martin, in addition to appointing himself as Treasury Board President and Minister of Democratic Reform, appointed Lorne Nystrom as Employment, Workforce Development and Labour minister, Libby Davies as Health minister, Olivia Chow (widow of former NDP leader Jack Layton) as Transport minister, Linda Duncan (the government’s only MP from Edmonton) as Indigenous Affairs minister, and former Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton as Small Business and Tourism minister. For the most part, the cabinet would stay the same up until the 2015 election, though there naturally ended up being a few changes. International Development minister Ruby Dhalla became the first casualty of the government, after a controversial tenure and poor performance resulted in her being dropped from cabinet in 2013 and replaced by Eric Hoskins. The Liberal side of the cabinet was shuffled in the summer 2014, with poor performers or retiring MPs being shuffled out or moved to different portfolios, with the NDP side of the cabinet shuffling twice: once that same year as a result of Chow’s resignation to run for Mayor of Toronto (a race she ultimately won, defeating incumbent Mayor John Tory), and once in early 2015 as a result of Lorne Nystrom’s announcement he would not contest the next election.
While the government dealt with the new post-election reality quickly and somewhat smoothly, for the Conservatives it took a bit more of an adjustment. Suddenly finding themselves out of power, despite initially looking to return to government when the results rolled in, took some time to accept (to say the least). While the party made a brief fight to try and stay in government, trying to rally public opinion to their side, it was an effort doomed to fail. Not only did polls show that Canadians approved of the proposed coalition, but the Conservatives were easily outnumbered in the House of Commons and, quite frankly, Lord didn’t really have the fight left in him. While Lord certainly would’ve liked to stay on as Prime Minister, the prospect of a long-term fight in public opinion and the House of Commons, for an inevitable snap-election a few months later at best, was not an idea that appealed to Lord, and once it became clear that he would be out of the Prime Minister’s Office he made it clear to the party that he would be resigning as leader after 8 years at the helm and 2 (or 3, depending on how you counted 2012) elections wins under his belt. While there was briefly speculation that Lord would stay on as leader until his successor was chosen he instead opted to resign as leader immediately, being replaced on an interim basis by former Foreign Affairs minister Brian Pallister, himself a rumoured leadership candidate prior to becoming interim leader and ruling out a run. With the party’s leadership race being set for early June of 2013, the field quickly became apparent, with prominent names including former Environment minister Tom Mulcair, former Canadian Heritage minister James Moore, and former Treasury Board President Maxime Bernier all throwing their hats into the ring. The initial frontrunner, however, was Jim Prentice, the former Minister of Finance (among others) who had resigned from both cabinet and the House of Commons in 2011, paving the way for Green Party leader Chris Turner’s surprise electoral breakthrough but managing to distance himself from Lord’s increasingly unpopular government.
Prentice’s campaign soon began experiencing difficulties, however. While entering the race as the frontrunner had clearly given him some advantages, the expectation was that he wouldn’t have to put up much of a fight in order to be elected leader, and thus his campaign found itself poorly prepared to respond when they found themselves under increasing attacks from his opponents. Prentice’s decision to retire in 2011 had additionally led to him gaining some enemies in the party. Aside from Lord, Prentice had arguably been the government’s most prominent member, and his surprise resignation hurt people’s confidence in the government, and led some in the party to feel he was looking after his own ambition more than the health of the party. While Mulcair, as one of the more prominent members in the leadership race, tried to take advantage of Prentice’s difficulties, he too had his own problems. While Mulcair was somewhat beloved among Red Tory’s and in his home province of Quebec, the fact was that there simply weren’t enough Red Tory’s to hand him the leadership and just being popular in Quebec wouldn’t be enough either. While Mulcair was always poised to put up a strong performance, winning the leadership seemed to be out of his grasp, as Mulcair struggled to win over the trust, let alone votes, of westerners and right-wing Conservatives wary of or against his moderation. Moreover, Mulcair and Prentice shared a similar problem: they were both too closely tied to the Lord government. While it had allowed them to rise to prominence and become some of the more notable Conservative politicians in the country, the simple fact was that much of the Conservative membership didn’t exactly have many fond memories of Lord’s government. Sure, his government was better than the alternatives, but throughout Lord’s 7 years it felt, to many in the party, that he wasn’t even listening to their views. Sure, taxes had been lowered and all that sort of thing, and Conservatives were generally pleased with Lord’s record in terms of foreign affairs, but he refused to even tread into socially-conservative territory (quickly shutting down attempts at reviving the debates on gay marriage, abortion, and so forth), had strengthened environmental policies that right-wing party members had previously rallied against (another reason for them to not trust Mulcair), and for many of these members at times it seemed like Lord was governing more like a liberal than as a conservative.
In the face of Prentice’s problems (and Mulcair’s, to a degree), a fifth candidate, Etobicoke North MP Rob Ford, would soon rise to the top-tier of the leadership race. Ford, who had served briefly as Lord’s Transport minister following his election in 2008 before retiring to the backbenches as a result of health problems (which had subsequently subsided), ran a populist campaign that challenged the party establishment and was quickly able to win over the support of much of the party’s right-wing. Ford used his time on the backbenches to his advantage, portraying himself as an outsider candidate unaffiliated and upset with the Lord government, and promising to crack down on government excess that, he argued, had characterized the Lord government and now looked set to characterize the Kennedy government. Ford’s support from the right-wing of the party, combined with strong support in his native Ontario (particularly the Greater Toronto Area) resulted in Ford obtaining a strong coalition of supporters (dubbed “Ford Nation” by the media, a name they themselves would quickly embrace) and quickly catching up to Prentice, and by spring of 2013 momentum was clearly on Ford’s side. While Ford’s opponents, Prentice in particular, tried to use Ford’s personal problems and past scandals against him, the strength of Ford’s populist campaign meant these attacks failed to stick to him, and an increasingly inept campaign on Prentice’s part only helped Ford’s chances. While some still held out hope that Prentice would be able to eke out a victory, when Ford was ultimately revealed to have won the leadership after only a single ballot, nobody was really all that surprised. The populist right-wing of the party, long frustrated by Lord’s moderation, responded, and in a blow to the Lord-era establishment named Ford their new leader.
To say that Ford significantly changed the Conservative Party the moment he was elected leader is a bit of an understatement. Ford’s election brought about an immediate shift in the party from the moderation of Lord’s leadership toward a more right-wing, though populist more than anything else, direction. Furthermore, Ford’s leadership changed the dynamics of the party’s support. While Ford was very popular in urban Ontario, for instance (most prominently the GTA), his personal issues (including a 1999 Florida DUI charge that had been unearthed during the leadership campaign) made some of the party’s more traditional rural supporters a bit apprehensive. Conservatives in Quebec, meanwhile, were the most worried, fearing that Ford’s right-wing policies and abrasive campaign style would alienate Quebecers in particular, and it was because of this that, one by one, Conservative MPs in the province (at least many of the more prominent or moderate ones) began distancing themselves from Ford. Mulcair himself was one of these MPs, politely declining a spot in Ford’s shadow cabinet and establishing a more independent-minded presence from the backbenches. While some initially worried that Ford’s election would significantly hurt the party in the polls, he didn’t actually cause all that much movement, although in some ways this could be blamed on issues with the government balancing out Ford’s controversial leadership.
While the coalition government had initially started out fairly harmonious, cracks slowly began to emerge. Over the course of their term, each party slowly began disagreeing more and more with the actions of the other party, and inter-government tensions began to pile up, the most notable (and public) being over the issue of democratic reform, with the two parties significantly disagreeing on both the alternative and on the method, with the Liberals favouring implementing the alternative vote system without a referendum (rationalizing that they had campaigned on the system during the previous election) the NDP favoured mixed-member proportional representation with a referendum. Public spats between the two parties over the issue hurt the government’s approval rating, though the two sides eventually agreed to a compromise: Kennedy agreed to hold two referendums, the first one held concurrent with the next election. The first would simply ask whether or not the current electoral system needed to be changed (with polls at the time showing that a large majority of Canadians felt it did), and the second, being held sometime after in the event of a yes vote in the first, asking Canadians to pick between AV or MMP. While the compromise effective ended the debate between the two parties over the issue (while giving the Liberals the unintended bonus of reducing Martin’s profile), it did not stop further cracks from emerging, largely as a result of personal differences between Kennedy and Martin, with Kennedy later writing that Martin seemed eager to start a fight for no particular reason. While both parties made it clear that they would abide by the terms of the coalition agreement and see it through until 2015 (when the agreement was to expire), it also became clear that neither party would play nice with the other in the upcoming election, and that they both would be running strong campaigns against the other. Unfortunately for the NDP, though, the government was actually fairly popular among voters, and it was the Liberals who were getting the credit and not the NDP. In particular, people who voted for the NDP in 2012 by and large approved of Kennedy’s government, and increasingly began wondering what the point was in voting for the NDP (which, to a lot of people, were increasingly being viewed as hampering government decisions) when you could vote for the real thing (i.e. Kennedy)? With past NDP voters generally approving of Kennedy and more and more voters blaming the government’s internal difficulties on Martin, the NDP soon fell in the polls as the Liberals rose.
While Ford’s leadership and the popularity of the government, both in terms of Liberal performance and that of the NDP, would be tested several times over the course of parliament as a result of by-elections, perhaps one of the better examples of the new political landscape came when long-time Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis resigned his riding of Scarborough—Agincourt to run for Toronto City Council in the spring of 2014. While Karygiannis had consistently been re-elected fairly easily since first winning the riding in 1988, not only was the riding in the heart of the so-called “Ford Nation” but Karygiannis, who had increasingly taken on more right-leaning stances, at times seemed to be more of a Ford Conservative than a Kennedy Liberal. Though the Liberals would’ve been expected to easily hold the riding under normal circumstances, thanks to polls showing them with a moderate lead over the Conservatives provincially, Ford’s strength in Toronto and the GTA led many to feel that the Conservatives, despite trailing province-wide, stood a strong chance at winning the seat, if not being favoured. The Conservatives nominated Jerry Bance [1], a strong Ford supporter and past candidate for the party in the neighbouring riding of Scarborough—Rogue River, with the Liberals nominating businessman Muraly Srinarayanathas. Though Srinarayanathas ran a strong campaign for the Liberals, Bance nevertheless managed to come out on top, and with a 16-point lead at that. The riding’s increasingly Conservative trend, combined with Ford’s overwhelming popularity/loyalty in Toronto (particularly the Etobicoke, North York, and Scarborough city districts) were enough to hand Bance the win and showcase Ford’s Toronto-area strength. While the results were naturally disappointing to the Liberals, they were able to look to the performance of NDP candidate Alex Wilson as a consolation prize, with the NDP falling over 11 points in the popular vote and being reduced to just over 4% of the vote. The Greens, while never expecting to do all that well in the riding, also saw the NDP’s performance as a consolation prize, with disaffected NDP supporters instead switching to the Greens, boosting the party to 10% and third-place overall.
While nationwide the Liberals still had a moderate lead over the Conservatives, Bance’s by-election victory helped give Ford a bit of momentum and allowed him to (at least partially) shut down inter-caucus disagreements regarding his leadership. An mid-2015 slump in oil prices, occurring with only a few months left until the election, further boosted Conservative spirits, allowing the party to claim that the government was unfit to handle the nation’s finances and contrasting the Liberal-NDP record with that of the Lord government. While these problems did do
some damage to the government, Ford’s increasingly problematic and scandalous personal life meant the Conservatives were unable to take advantage of the government’s perceived weakness, and instead of the Liberals falling in the polls it was the Conservatives. Ford’s problems began to intensify following accusations emerging in the summer of 2014 that he had smoked crack cocaine, possibly even becoming addicted to it, since being elected an MP in 2008. While Ford vehemently denied these accusations, and no proof ever emerged until long after the election, the accusations and public interest surrounding them led to a far greater examination of Ford’s personal activities. Almost one after the other, new scandals concerning Ford began to emerge, ranging from Ford’s poor driving (caught several times reading while driving) and treatment of his staff to things like repeated instances of Ford being caught intoxicated while out in public (in many cases at formal events). While Ford continually brushed such scandals off, for instance refusing to hire a driver and downplaying reports of his public drunkenness (oftentimes stating that he simply had a few drinks the night before), these repeated controversies nevertheless began to take their toll on the party. While Ford Nation loved him as much as ever, staunchly supporting him and rallying to his side in the face of what they argued was a pro-Liberal media trying to knock him down, the party began losing the support of swing-voters and, more notably, the support of many of their rural “traditional values” supporters, who increasingly found themselves alienated by Ford’s controversial personal life.
When the election was finally called for December 7, 2015, the Liberals had the wind in their sails. While their popularity had taken a bit of a dent as a result of the drop in oil-prices and the economic slump that occurred as a result, by and large they were still fairly popular, and looked set to eat into most of the NDP’s support. Ford’s personal problems further helped the party, with the Liberals characterizing Ford as a dangerous choice for Prime Minister and unable to handle the problems of the country. Ford, meanwhile, despite entering the campaign relatively far behind the Liberals and embroiled in personal scandals, still nevertheless managed to run a strong campaign. His strongly populist and somewhat unconventional campaign style managed to give his approval rating a bit of a boost, with even his strongest critics admitting that Ford, by virtue of being so obviously genuine, speaking what’s on his mind and not being handled by dozens of advisors, did have an understandable popularity, whether they agreed with it or not. All in all, Ford’s election campaign, much like his entire leadership, was somewhat divisive. While Ford’s bluntness and populism won him new and enthusiastic supporters while on the campaign trail, for many others his campaign only reaffirmed their negative opinion of him and gave them even more of a reason not to vote for him. While Ford managed to increase Conservative support while on the campaign trail, it was never enough to really put him into a position of victory. For the NDP, meanwhile, the campaign was a disaster. Not only was Kennedy sweeping up the support of past NDP voters, and not only was the NDP increasingly being blamed for the government’s internal divisions, but Martin’s abrasive leadership, barely noticeable in 2012, increasingly began to show through. A disastrous performance in the second English debate, with Martin snapping at Kennedy, further hurt the party, with Martin being seen as hot-tempered and unlikeable and Kennedy being seen as calm and reasonable. While Kennedy’s Liberals emerged as the prime benefactors of the NDP’s problems, the Greens were also able to increase their support as well. With the large prominence and likability of Green leader Chris Turner since the 2012 election, the elections of a steady stream of provincial MLAs leading up to the election, and an overall stellar campaign, Turner spent much of the latter-part of the campaign increasingly poised to surpass the NDP in the popular vote. For the Bloc Quebecois, the last of the five main parties, the campaign (once again under the leadership of Real Menard) was somewhat of a mixed bag, though admittedly better in comparison to their previous few performances. While Ford’s troubles in Quebec had given the Bloc a bit of a boost in the province, preventing the party from experiencing continual losses to the Conservatives, they had been unable to really take advantage of this situation, with Kennedy’s Liberals managing to win over the majority of these dissatisfied Conservatives, and often times Menard found himself drowned out by the other four parties and struggling to get attention.
When the results came in, Kennedy’s Liberals had been re-elected with a strong majority government of 183 seats in the newly-expanded 338-seat House of Commons, with a victory largely owed to the abysmal performance of the NDP and Ford’s struggles among some more traditional, rural-voters, which allowed the Liberals to make unexpected gains like Brandon—Souris, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, and the majority of the British Columbia Interior. The Conservatives fell to 117 seats and 28.5% of the vote (a drop of 4.5 points), though in a major win for the party in an otherwise poor election Ford’s popularity in Toronto and the GTA allowed the Conservatives to win a fair number of ridings previously held by the Liberals, including most notably the riding of York Centre, which had been held by the Liberals non-stop for over half a century. The NDP suffered one of the worst performance in its history, dropping to only 11 seats (losing official party status as a result) and 11.1% of the vote, only narrowly more than the Greens, which won 10.4% of the vote and elected 5 MPs, two in Calgary (where the party picked up a seat neighbouring Turner’s own riding) and three on Vancouver Island (where the election of two provincial MLAs in 2013 had significantly boosted party fortunes). The Bloc, meanwhile, jumped to third-place in the House of Commons as a result of the NDP’s woes, though remained stagnant at 22 seats and only experiencing minor gains in the popular vote. In the concurrent electoral reform referendum, Canadians did in fact vote for changing the electoral system, leading Kennedy’s government to handle organizing the second referendum and determining the exact change the country will make.
[1] If you’re unfamiliar, I really recommend googling him.
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One update left! And I only have three days to write it, too, so I better hurry up...
