Is a majority still within reach of the parties?
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Federal 2021
ByThe election of a majority government becomes more complex as the electorate changes. Already, Canadians have elected four minority governments in Ottawa over the past 20 years. Can Justin Trudeau still hope to take up his bet to restore a majority to the Liberal Party?
“People now, the new generations in particular, no longer adhere en bloc to the ideas of a political party,” observes the scientific director of the Research Chair in Democracy and Parliamentary Institutions, Éric Montigny.
The parties themselves realized this when they saw the decline in their membership. Fewer and fewer supporters support their ideas to the point of affording a membership card.
"The youngest no longer consider politics as a project of social identification for their lives," adds Marc André Bodet, associate professor of political science at Laval University. They cling to public policies and, when they are disappointed, they jump ship. »
This is also what Éric Montigny calls doing politics “à la carte, but without a map”. Voters are no longer as loyal. They support a party as long as they are satisfied, but do not hesitate to change their tune between elections.
"The intention to vote will therefore change or even the will to vote", warns Éric Montigny.
“Previously, there was a civic duty to go and vote, but also a desire to identify oneself,” continues the researcher. This is no longer the case for the new generations. »
Seduce at all costs
This desire of the youngest to choose à la carte influences the strategies of the parties.
They must redouble their efforts to seduce the electorate and convince them to vote. “Election programs are very much based on research,” continues Éric Montigny. They react by targeting specific measures for certain electoral groups. »
The recent federal elections have clearly demonstrated this. Several parties share common or substantially similar promises. This is still the case this year.
“The Liberal Party, in its history, has often drawn on the ideas of the NDP,” recalls Éric Montigny. Just as the Conservatives have positioned themselves this year closer to the trade union and labor milieu, traditionally won over to the New Democrats.
"This is the big problem of political parties," continues Professor Bodet. Voters under 40 no longer have an attachment. They are in a logic of ideas” more than parties and political ideology.
Aim for a majority
In an election, every vote counts, and winning a majority depends on it.
"But with the explosion of the electoral market, it is more and more difficult to obtain majorities," says Marc-André Bodet. The fragmentation of the vote is also fueled by a greater number of parties to choose from.
After a wave of minority governments in the 1960s and 1970s, the House of Commons experienced a return to majorities until the early 2000s.
"The magic number is 38% to 40% of support for a party," explains Jean-François Godbout. That's enough to have a majority. »
The full professor in the department of political science at the University of Montreal believes that this result is still within reach of the parties. But for how long?
"The moment the Liberals or the Conservatives come to the conclusion that they can no longer govern alone, we will change the way we operate and we could even see parties making agreements during the campaign, and perhaps even before the campaign, and potentially afterwards”, replies Marc André Bodet.
Collaborate to govern better
Will we see coalition governments emerge at the federal level?
The proposal returns with each election, but few parties are ready to consider it during the campaign or even once elected.
“In Canada, it's not the tradition. Even minority governments do not form coalitions,” recalls Éric Montigny.
This has never happened in the House of Commons.
However, these would force the parties in power to compromise on the government program, and to integrate proposals from each of the political parties, for example.
They are doing so unofficially for the time being, mainly to ensure the survival of the government and to postpone the moment when Canadian voters will be called back to the polls.
European style
Government coalitions are more common in Europe, where proportional or mixed voting systems have been rooted in tradition since the beginning of the 20th century.
"Politicians have developed the habit of negotiating, of getting along with others," says Marc André Bodet. And voters accepted this idea that their favorite party was going to compromise with other parties. »
If, in Canada, the compromise is seen as a sign of weakness, he continues, in Europe, it is the opposite. “There, negotiation is part of the rules of the game.”
For Marc André Bodet, it is a matter of time before the way of doing politics in Canada adapts to the new reality of the electorate. However, he believes more in the formation of parliamentary coalitions than governmental ones.
“I have the impression that it is more towards that that we are going, he launches. We enter into a logic that is closer to a negotiation around a public policy. »
In this type of coalition, a party, in exchange for carrying out certain measures, provides support for certain votes of confidence in the party in power, for a given time. But it can continue to oppose the government on other issues that were not provided for in the initial agreement.
"As long as the major parties have hope of obtaining a majority and of governing alone, negotiations with the other parties will be seen as a sign of weakness," he believes. They are not yet ready to go in that direction. »
In the meantime, the two researchers point out that our parliamentary system already provides opportunities for the opposition to better advance its ideas.
"There are parliamentary mechanisms that would increase the opposition's ability to impose the parliamentary program, whether the government is majority or minority," explains Éric Montigny, without risking seeing the country plunge into an election campaign. every two years (the average survival time of a minority government).
Already, the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Justin Trudeau, has brandished the threat of a government that could fall in 18 months if another minority government is elected. Both the leaders of the Conservative Party, Erin O'Toole, of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, and of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, agree that they should, on the contrary, work together to respect the four-year mandate. provided for in the law on fixed-date elections. But none is committed to the path of a coalition.
To stay in power, a minority government sometimes has to make compromises. Some votes, such as on the Speech from the Throne and the budget, are subject to the confidence of the House and they can lead to the fall of the government if the support of the opposition parties is not there.
The ruling party also has the option of dissolving the House, without losing a vote of confidence, as Justin Trudeau did in asking Governor General Mary Simon to call a federal election in hopes of returning to power with a majority and manage to govern without compromise.
And why not reform the voting system?
This proposal constantly comes up in public debate.
“Changing the voting system is what would stir the apple tree the most, according to Marc André Bodet. But I don't see any change in the near future in Canada. »
The Liberal Party made it a campaign promise in 2015. He said he wanted to put the “citizen at the center of democracy”. But this reform was abandoned less than two years after he succeeded in electing a majority government, one of the few of the 21st century at the federal level.
He hasn't spoken about it since, to the chagrin of the opposition parties who finally hoped to be better represented in the House of Commons with a new voting system.
The current system means that when voting, many voters opt for a compromise "which does not really suit them", concedes Marc André Bodet.
He adds that “the Chamber that is formed after an election is therefore often not a very good representation of what people really think”.
“With proportional representation, all votes count, whereas with the first-past-the-post system, almost half of the votes are wasted since they are not used to elect the candidate of their choice,” recalls Denis Monière.
The reality is even more striking when the race is tight in a riding, according to the professor in the Department of Political Science at the Université de Montréal.
“This waste is even higher when there are more than two competing parties, he specifies, because a deputy can be elected with 30% of the votes and the 70% who voted for another candidate lose their vote. , as the saying goes. »
Only the New Democratic Party and the Green Party still include in their electoral program a desire to replace the first-past-the-post system with a mixed proportional system “which better represents the voters”.
This voting system approximates the number of MPs elected to the percentage of votes obtained by a party in an election. It also has the beneficial effect, according to Denis Monière, of improving voter turnout.
Knowing that the vote has "more value", more voters turn out to vote.
Éric Montigny does not believe that the reform of the ballot is the miracle solution.
“An ideal political system is a system that is in tune with the values of its society, he believes. There is no single model or holy grail of democracy. »
“But democracy is still the least worst system,” he adds, quoting former UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
It remains to be seen how the voting intentions will manifest themselves on September 20.
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