Two Cheers for Minority Government

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By Matthew Piggott on 11 January 2009 - 5:53pm

Back in December Elizabeth May did a blog that made reference to the book "Two Cheers for Minority Government" by Canadian political scientists from the University of Toronto, Peter H. Russell. The basic idea of this book is that minority government is the best option in Canada's parliamentary democracy because it promotes compromise and policy dialogue between parties and it avoids the virtual dictatorship a majority government receives under our current system.

After requesting the book from my library and being on the waiting list for one month I was finally able to read it. There are many good points of which I'll share a few. Many people must be interested in it because I was only given a week to read the book and have to bring it back tomorrow!

The Main Points:
-Since 1921 True Majority government(where a party has 50%+ of votes AND seats) have only occured 3 times

-False majorities(where a party gets less than 50% of the vote but 50%+ seats) have been just as common as minority governments (13 times each)

-Many Prime Ministers have had to lead minority governments (McKenzie King, John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark, Paul Martin, and Stephen Harper)

-What really defines a minority government is the ability of leaders to compromise. If the right people are in power then minority governments work quite well.

- There is actually quite a bit of misunderstanding about how our political system works. Education on this issue is much needed, and fixed election dates could help with this.

-Electoral Reform is the ultimate stabilizer

THE CONCLUSION: Minority governments are not something to be scared of. Some of our most innovative policies have come with minority governments (for example Universal Health Care). They've happened quite often in Canada and in the rest of the world.

Switching to PR would help legitimize minority governments. What really makes a minority government unstable is leaders who think by winning just a few more % of the vote they can get a FALSE majority. Remove that possibility and much of the instability would disappear.

If the popularity of this book shows anything, maybe Canadians are starting to positively shift their thinking toward minority government.

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All good, but it shouldn't take away from Electoral Reform

Submitted by Mark Kersten on 11 January 2009 - 7:17pm.

Thanks for this briefing on this Matthew! Two Cheers for Minority Government is being used now as a university text book for Canadian history classes.

I completely agree with Russell's premise and the main thrust of his book. Additionally I think that Stephen Harper has clearly shown that minority governments can be just as "effective" as majority governments in this day in political age. His last government passed a tremendous number of legislation and looked and acted, at many times, much more like a majority government.

With regards to supporting minority governments, I think it's important not to lose sight of what our political system truly needs - electoral reform (whatever your brand). So although I am happy if Canadians shift their sentiments positively towards the idea of minority governments (and if they have some fear of minority governments they get over them), I would not like to see them accept that as the status quo with the possible result of increased apathy or citizen engagement.