by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)
In Canada, power alternates between two parties even though there are now several in the offering. Federally in 1867, the Conservatives, who favoured Confederation, formed government; the Liberals, who opposed it, were the official opposition. All Nova Scotian MPs but one were explicitly "Anti-Confederation"; originally Liberals, they split nearly evenly between the Liberals and Conservatives after their party collapsed. The Conservatives held the reins of power until 1896, except from late 1873 to September 1878. However, in the 128 years since then to 2024, the Conservatives have governed only 40 years, while the Liberals did so for the remaining 88, which is why the latter have been called (and view themselves as) the "Natural Governing Party."
This alternation of the governing party — even as sharp and dramatic as the ones that occurred in 1958 and 1984 — is merely the result of a change election. Such elections tend to occur almost naturally due to the wear of power, or siesmic events such as the Great Depression of the 1930s, to which few governments, federally or provincially, were able to withstand.
In Polican, for an election to be considered pivotal, it should have marked:
Canada.
After having distinguished between change and pivotal elections and set aside the drama of the former, it becomes clear that Canada, federally, has had only two elections that fundamentally changed its political spectrum.
1921 — 14th Parliament.
The 1921 general election marked the first time a significant number of elected members were neither "Liberal" nor "Conservative."
In the conscription debate of 1917 just prior to the general election, Borden's Conservative government accepted to exempt the sons of farmers as an acknowledgement of their inherent contribution to the wartime effort. But when the government ended the exemption in April 1918, farmers, who had voted massively for Unionist-Conservatives, felt betrayed. Also, while Canada's economy was primarily resource-based, urbanization and continuing industrialization, along with the rise of an increasingly organized labour movement within those urban industries, paved the way to the formation of a third, alternate axis on the political spectrum.
Even prior to the 1921 general election, several former Conservatives joined what was being called the Progressive Party, while several new MPs arrived to Parliament under that banner following by-elections, to the point that there were 10 Progressives at the dissolution of the 13th assembly. But once the votes were counted after the 1921 election, the group that finished second was the Progressive-Farmers-Labour coalition, winning 62 of the 235 seats at the time against the Liberals' 117. The National Liberal-Conservative Party had only 49 seats, but given that the Progressives, surprised by their success, had no interest in forming the official opposition, they allowed the NLCP to play that role.
It would be tempting to assume that this pivot marked the dawn of what would later become the CCF, predecessor of today's NDP, but it's more complicated than that. Although some, referred to as the "Ginger Group," did go in that direction, a larger number veered right and joined the Liberals. So, in reality, 1921 was a pivotal election because it marked the move away from a binary political spectrum to one with greater complexity.
1993 — 35th Parliament.
It might also be tempting to think of the 1984 Progressive Conservative landslide as the beginning of the rightward shift of Canada's political spectrum, but the really pivotal election occurred in 1993, when those same PCs as well as the NDP were decimated, and two new political parties that still exist today made a massive entrance in Parliament: the Reform Party and the Bloc Québécois.
You're probably thinking to yourself, "Wait a minute! The Reform Party doesn't still exist..." But hear me out.
British Columbia.
For many years following its entrance into Confederation, British Columbians tended to view themselves separately from "The Canadians." While that may not be as true today, politics in that province has always been very much dissimilar to politcs elsewhere in the country.
1903 — 10th Parliament.
We could say that 1903 marks the first pivotal moment in British Columbia. From the first assembly formed in 1871 until the eighth formed in 1898, this legislature was intended to be non-partisan. Political parties began to be recognized informally at the formation of the assembly of 1900, but they became officially recognized in 1903. Thus began an alternance between the Liberal-Conservative Party (first) and the Liberal Party, as was the case at the federal level and the other provinces (apart from New Brunswick).
The second....
Alberta.
Given that Alberta has had a 44-year dynasty with the Progressive Conservative Party, it might be hard to think of that province as having had many (or any) pivotal elections, yet nothing could be further from the truth.
1921 — 5th Parliament.
1935 — 8th Parliament.
1971 — 17th Parliament.
1993 — 23rd Parliament.
2012 — 28th Parliament.
Saskatchewan.
Manitoba.
Ontario.
Québec.
New Brunswick.
Nova Scotia.
Prince Edward Island.
Newfoundland and Labrador.
Yukon.
Northwest Territories.
Nunavut.
North-Western Territories.