Liberals, New Democrats and the rise of the third party: an age-old tradition
Will the century-old progressive coalition hold?
It’s election day! By many accounts, the 2021 federal election has been something of a snooze-fest. The late-summer campaign seems to have flown under the radar of many Canadians, and if polls are to believed, we may be headed towards a result that looks a lot like the Parliament we had before the election. We may well wake up on Tuesday morning asking ourselves “what was the point of that exactly?”
But while the history books may record the 2021 election as a fairly unremarkable one, I want to talk a bit about a different ‘21 election - one that was arguably far more consequential than today’s contest will prove to be. One that changed the course of Canadian politics forever more. One that really shook things up. I am talking, of course, about the 1921 federal election.
You see, 1921 was the first Canadian election in which a significant third party emerged to win a sizeable vote share and capture seats in parliament. Prior to that election, Canadian democracy was largely a straightforward contest between two established parties: the Conservative Party of John A Macdonald in one corner, and the Liberal Party of Wilfrid Laurier in the other. Five-dollar bills versus tenners. In the 50-odd years after Canadian confederation, these two old parties were fairly evenly matched with the Tories having a bit of an edge, especially in the early days. Of the 13 federal elections held prior to 1921, The Conservatives would win eight to the Liberals’ five. But all of that would change in the roaring twenties with the advent of what would become a permanent feature of Canadian politics: the rise of the protest party.
Step with me for a moment, a century back in time, and I promise I’ll return to the present day before too long.
The 1921 federal election saw the Progressive Party of Canada, a left-leaning coalition of farmers’ groups based in the prairie provinces with connections to the labour and socialist movements of that time, burst on to the scene, garnering over 21% of the vote and 58 seats in parliament. While the Progressive Party would ultimately fizzle within a decade, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) would emerge as its worthy successor during the depths of the Great Depression. The socialist-inspired CCF (who under Tommy Douglas would form government in Saskatchewan in 1944 and pioneer Canada’s universal single-payer health insurance system) advocated tirelessly for better working conditions for labourers and farmers and a robust welfare state. And so grew the Canadian tradition of the rabble-rousing protest party as a fixture on the political landscape. The CCF would eventually merge with organized labour groups to form the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961, a full four decades after the Progressive Party first made its debut. And in the 100 years and 30 federal elections since 1921, Canada would never again see a parliament with fewer than three parties represented. On that cold wintry day in December 1921, Canada’s two-party system died.
While no third party has ever formed government in Canada, it is no coincidence that in the hundred years that’ve passed since 1921, the edge once held by Sir John A’s Tories has shifted decisively towards the Liberal Party. Of the 30 elections since then (including 1921 itself), 20 of them resulted in Liberal governments, and those governments have held power for roughly two thirds of that hundred-year period. In my view, the rise of the leftist protest party and the century of relative Liberal dominance are intimately connected. The transformation of the political landscape from a two-party system, with one on the left and one on the right, to a three-horse race with a party on the right, left and centre, has decidedly favoured the centrist Liberals as the perennial “goldilocks” option.
But while the Liberal Party is the most centrist of the three major parties, it does not sit precisely at the centre of the traditional spectrum- the Grits are just a teeny bit to the left of it. It is in this respect that Canada’s political culture is peculiar amongst democratic countries. In most places, the political mainstream tends to coalesce around two dominant options- one on the centre-left and one on the centre-right. This is broadly true in Canada, except that we have a perennial third party that complicates the picture. The Liberals are the dominant centre-left option, and yet the NDP persists- even in spite of a punishing electoral system that systematically disadvantages third parties. What gives?
First, let’s establish that the Liberals, despite what New Democrats say, are in fact a progressive, if moderate, party in the minds of most Canadian voters. While certainly no socialists, the Liberals generally promote progressive causes like greater levels of government intervention in the economy, higher public spending, more progressive stances on social issues and issues of race, gender and sexuality, and more aggressive action on climate change than most conservatives would be comfortable with.
So the Liberal Party is a centre-left party that competes with the Conservative Party, a centre-right party. Except that the Conservative Party, in the absence of an established competitor party on its right flank, occupies a space further to the right of centre than the Liberals do on the left. That’s because the left wing has been, since 1921, occupied by the NDP and its forerunners. Thus, the Liberals sit in a most enviable place on the Canadian political spectrum: they are just far enough left of centre to lure progressive voters to their camp from the NDP and ensure that the New Democrats remain a perpetual third party, and yet they are closer to the political centre of gravity than the Conservatives, making them the more popular of two governing alternatives. The result is that the NDP, despite never forming government, contribute to a unique interplay that ensures the centre-left Liberals govern more habitually than the right-leaning Conservatives do. Put another way: by pulling the political discourse to the left, the NDP and its predecessor parties have shifted the political centre towards the Liberals and away from the Conservatives, ensuring that progressive governments in Canada are the rule - either in the form of a moderate Liberal majority, or a Liberal minority that relies on support from the NDP - with shorter periods of conservative reign as the exception.
We can observe this in another way by looking at the combined vote share of the Liberals and the NDP in past elections (the total “progressive vote”) and comparing it to the combined vote share of the Conservatives and other small-c conservative parties. It is worth noting here that while the Progressive/ CCF/ NDP tradition has formed the dominant “third party” in Canadian politics for many decades, there have been various periods of relatively strong third parties on the right as well- the most notable of which were the Social Credit parties that were influential in the 1940s through the 1970s, and the Reform/ Alliance movement of the 1990s. In general though, Social Credit was never as influential on the right as the CCF/NDP were on the left, only once briefly holding the balance of power next to John Diefenbaker’s PC government in 1962. (In contrast, the Progressives/CCF/NDP durably supported Liberal governments in at least six different parliaments, contributing to the adoption of many signature progressive policies including medicare and the Canada Pension Plan.) And while it’s true that the Reform Party was influential in the 1990s, the fluid dynamics of that era meant that it quickly ceased to be a third party, ultimately swallowing the historic PC party whole in the process of uniting under the modern Conservative Party banner.
Below is a table showing the combined vote shares of the two progressive parties (Liberals and NDP) and the combined vote shares of the one or more conservative parties over the last 30 federal elections.
Looking at the table, there are some striking findings. The first is that the combined progressive vote share is consistently, reliably greater than the combined conservative vote share. On average over the past century, the Liberals and New Democrats (and their predecessors) have captured a solid majority of over 53% of votes between them. In 18 of the 30 elections, the two progressive parties took a majority of all votes cast. In contrast, the Conservative Party and other right-wing outfits like Social Credit and Reform have averaged a little less than 40% of votes between them, and only managed to exceed the 50%-mark twice, in 1958 under Diefenbaker and in 1984 under Brian Mulroney. That solid 13-point spread between the progressive and conservative averages goes a long way to explaining the Liberals’ presumptive status as Canada’s “natural-governing party.” More often than not, their moral authority to govern on behalf of the majority is earned (at least partially) on the back of the NDP.
Another way to state the magnitude of difference between the progressive and conservative coalitions is that of the last 30 federal elections, conservative parties have been less popular than progressive parties in 28 of them.
The progressive vote share would be even higher had I included votes for the Green Party. I did not, simply because for most of the last 100 years the Greens didn’t exist. But they are certainly a progressive party, and adding their numbers would only serve to bolster the point that Canadians, on average, are more progressive than conservative. I also did not include parties whose ideologies are difficult to place on a traditional left-right spectrum - most notably the Bloc Québecois (a difficulty which I wrote about here), which explains why the two averages don’t add up to 100%.
So what does all of this portend for today’s election? Well, I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can confidently predict a couple of things. One is that, as per tradition, the combined vote share of the Liberals and the NDP will exceed that of the Conservatives and the upstart People’s Party (the latest, ugliest iteration of the right-wing protest party). The progressive vote will likely come close to 50% and almost certainly exceed it when Green votes are included. This means that, in the event of a minority parliament, the Liberals will have a greater moral authority to govern than the Conservatives - not to mention a more viable dance partner in the form of the NDP, who appear poised to make gains in the seat count.
And if that eventuality comes to pass, the Liberals will be obliged to work with the NDP to implement a progressive agenda including signature policies like universal childcare, strong action on climate change and meaningful steps towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Notwithstanding the bluster and posturing of the leaders on the campaign trail, I predict that such an arrangement can continue to produce positive outcomes for Canada’s progressive majority. It did under Lester B. Pearson with the help of Tommy Douglas in the 1960s, under Pierre Trudeau and David Lewis in the 1970’s, and most recently during the Covid-19 pandemic when Justin Trudeau’s Liberals relied on Jagmeet Singh’s NDP to implement the suite of pandemic response programs and supports.
It’s too tight of a race to predict the outcome with much confidence, but if we do end up with more of the same in this 2021 federal election, it would continue a long tradition of dominance for Canada’s progressive coalition. And a minority government with strong, stable third-party support would surely be a fitting way to honour the centennial anniversary of 1921, the year when Canada’s multi-party system was born.