Election 2015: Things Could Get Weird
SAINT JOHN–After a long, long election campaign, Canadians go to the polls today to select our next prime minister.
Except not really.
A federal election is actually 338 separate elections. The party with the most Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons forms government with the leader of that party becoming prime minister. It’s a system that has generally led to majority governments in Canada, with some notable exceptions.
This election has been anything but ordinary.
The three main parties – the incumbent Conservatives, the official opposition New Democrats, the Liberals – started out bunched together in the polls. But as the campaign went on, the Liberals, who suffered an historic defeat in the last election, gradually gained ground as the NDP faltered and the Harper Conservatives struggled to grow beyond their base.
Still, the most recent polls suggest the race remains close with a majority unlikely.
Barring a big surprise, we will end up with a minority government. And that’s where things might get weird.
“Based on constitutional conventions, the prime minister is the prime minister until he or she resigns. Normally prime ministers who lead parties that don’t win the most seats in a federal election will resign and not test the House of Commons in a vote of confidence. When the prime minister resigns the Governor-General will call on the party leader who is most likely to be able to command the confidence of the House – again, this is normally the leader whose party has won the most seats,” said Dr. J.P. Lewis, a professor of political science at the University of New Brunswick Saint John.
But things aren’t looking normal.
“In a hung parliament, where no party holds a majority of the seats, confidence tests become much more precarious because the government will have to find support from the opposition,” he said.
So after the votes are tallied and the dust settles, we will find out what the results really mean. In a very close race, might the Conservatives try to hold on to power even if they hold a few less seats? Prime Minister Harper has the constitutional right to try.
If the Liberals come out on top, will they try to govern alone, or will they go for a formal or informal coalition with the NDP, or even the Bloc Quebecois?
The Governor General could have a big role to play in all this. While we tend to think of the Governor General as a largely ceremonial role, he actually has considerable power in this situation. If one party loses the confidence of the House, the Governor General can ask another to attempt to govern, rather than triggering another election.
So yeah, things might get complicated.
This graphic from the School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Toronto, gives a breakdown of how things work.