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. But in the 130 years from 1896 to 2026, the Conservatives have governed only 40 years, while the Liberals did so for the remaining 90, which is why the latter have been called (and view themselves as) the “natural governing party.”
This alternation of power between parties is normal. Even when the shifts are dramatic and sharp, like the ones that occurred in Ottawa in 1958 and 1984, they were still only the result of change elections. Such changes, whether they are subtle or sharp, occur due to the wear of power, or siesmic events such as the Great Depression of the 1930s, to which only a few governments were able to withstand.
In PoliCan, for an election to be considered pivotal, it should have marked:
Click on the name of a jurisdiction below to unfold the text about its pivotal elections.
After having distinguished between change and pivotal elections and set aside the drama of the former kind, it becomes clear that Canada, federally, has had only two elections that fundamentally changed its political spectrum.
1921 — 14th Parliament.
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, coupled with the rise of an increasingly organized labour movement within those urban industries, paved the way for a third 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 the Progressives, surprised by their success and having no interest in forming the official opposition, 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 democratic socialist CCF, predecessor of today’s social democratic NDP, but it’s more complicated than that. It is important to remember that many of the “Progressives” were originally Conservatives. Although some, referred to as the “Ginger Group,” did go to the left, a larger number — especially among those who had been elected — veered to the right and joined the Liberals, which at the time were arguably more conservative than the Conservatives themselves. Nevertheless, 1921 was a pivotal election because it was the witness of the transition from a binary to a multi-party political landscape.
1993 — 35th Parliament.
You’re probably thinking to yourself, “Wait a minute! The Reform Party doesn’t still exist...” Yet it most certainly does.
After being reduced from a governing majority to only two seats, the PCs won 20 in 1997 but went back down to 12 (behind the NDP’s 13) in 2000. For its part, the Reform Party won 52 seats in 1993, 60 in 1997, and, rebranded as the Conservative Alliance, 66 in 2000. The PCs, whose votes had become unperforming, had practically no leverage in the 2003 negotiations with the Alliance that led to the creation of the Conservative Party of Canada that we know today. Some former PCs, like Peter MacKay, like to think of the merger as a marriage; others, like Joe Clark, referred to it as a death in the family. But without a doubt, the Reform Party, which itself had some of its roots in the remnants of the Social Credit Party and then became the Canadian Alliance in 2000 to attract more voters east of Manitoba, is the parent of today’s Conservative Party, with the PCs being its adopted children. So, in that sense, the Reform Party still exists today, while the PCs are defunct federally and exist in name only in Manitoba eastward (except in Québec). In the end, the emergence of the Reform Party, now disguised as Conservatives, has caused the entire Canadian political spectrum to drift rightward in the last 33 years, making the Liberals “Conservatives Lite” and the NDP centrists.
As for the Bloc Québécois, it has had its ups and downs in 33 years, failing to achieve party status in Parliament in 2011 and 2015. But its presence in Parliament could be noteworthy should the Parti Québécois form a majority government in Québec in 2026, as the latter is promising to hold a third referendum on sovereignty during its first mandate. And we all remember how the second referendum came close to succeeding, with the help of Lucien Bouchard, then leader of the Bloc as well as the official opposition, although it’s difficult to imagine Yves-François Blanchet having as much influence as leader of the second opposition...
For many years following their entrance into Confederation, British Columbians have tended to view themselves separately from “The Canadians.” While that may not be as true today, politics in that province has always been very dissimilar to politcs elsewhere in the country.
1903 — 10th Legislature.
From the first assembly formed in 1871 to the eighth formed in 1898, this legislature was intended to be non-partisan, and political “movements,” if they could be called that, focused on individual leaders. MLAs could easily switch their allegiance through the course of a legislature, and many did, frequently... which by the late 19th century could lead to the so-called government having only a few supporters. What’s more, when someone ran for election, they declared themselves as “Government” or “Opposition”... or Independent. But if, following a general election, more people voted for opposition candidates, they would then become “Government.” To put it mildly, trying to understand this form of “non-partisan” governance can lead to head cramps.
Political parties began to be recognized informally at the formation of the assembly of 1900, but they became officially recognized in 1903, which is what makes this election pivotal. Thus began an alternance between two parties — the Liberal-Conservatives and the Liberals — similar to the federal level and the other provinces (except New Brunswick, whose assembly remained non-partisan until 1935).
1941 — 20th Legislature.
Entering the election with a majority, the Liberals were reduced to a minority with 21 seats to the CCF’s 14 and the Conservatives’ 12, but with the CCF winning the popular vote. Alarmed by the rise of the CCF, the business community urged the rival Liberals and Conservatives to form a coalition to counter it, using the war as a pretext for requiring a stable government. But the common purpose of keeping the CCF at bay was not enough to make the relationship between the (former?) rivals smooth. The coalition did go on to win massive majorities in 1945 and 1949, but the Liberals, feeling they had regained their pre-1941 strength, dissolved it in October 1951. The Liberals’ hubris, combined with the Conservatives’ butthurt from 10 years of having been made to feel like the coalition’s junior partner, blinded both parties to the rise of a political dynasty that would muzzle them for decades.
And no, it was not the reviled CCF.
Indeed, as a result of their panic about of the socialist democrats, the Liberals and Conservatives sowed the seeds in 1941 that would relegate them to minor-party status — for 50 years in the case of the Liberals, and 70 years in the case of the Conservatives.
Given how Alberta had a 44-year dynasty with the Progressive Conservative Party from 1971 to 2015, 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.
Formed in 1970, this assembly practiced a form of non-partisan consensual government like in the Northwest Territories until 1978. It started with only 7 seats, gradually evolving to 21 in 2025. Because of its small size and the relatively short time it has existed, it is not possible to speak of pivotal elections. However, a more interesting exercise consists of observing how the alternation of power has occurred between all three parties, as illustrated in this table.
| Year | Gov’t | Oppo1 | Oppo2 | Oppo3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1978  |
YPC | YLP | IND | NDP |
| 1982 |
YPC | NDP | IND | |
1985  |
NDP | YPC | YLP | |
| 1989 |
NDP | YPC | ||
| 1992 |
YP | NDP | IND | YLP |
| 1996 |
NDP | YP | YLP | |
| 2000 |
YLP | NDP | YP | |
| 2002 |
YP | NDP | YLP | |
| 2006 |
YP | YLP | NDP | |
| 2011 |
YP | NDP | YLP | |
| 2016 |
YLP | YP | NDP | |
| 2021 |
YLP | YP | NDP | |
| 2025 |
YP | NDP | YLP |
This baffling table can lead us to tentatively conclude that:
| Legend | |
|---|---|
| Score | Outcome |
| 4.65–5.75 | Government |
| 3.65–4.64 | Opposition 1 |
| 2.65–3.64 | Opposition 2 |
| 1.65–2.64 | Opposition 3 |
| 0.65–1.64 | Opposition 4 |
| 0.00–0.64 | Shut out |
| n/a | Opposition X |
| null | Absent |
Indeed, we can see that the blue line for the “conservatives” dominates the second chart, dipping only once below 4 in 2000 and tending to be very close to the government party’s score when they were the official opposition. But for its part, the oscillating red line for the Liberals shows that the three governments they formed were never among the strongest, this exploit being achieved only by the “conservatives.”
Formed in 1951, this assembly practices a form of non-partisan consensual government. Therefore, there cannot be pivotal elections as defined by PoliCan in this jurisdiction.
Formed at the creation of the territory in 1999 from the northeastern portion of what was until then the Northwest Territories, this assembly practices a form of non-partisan consensual government. Therefore, there cannot be pivotal elections as defined by PoliCan in this jurisdiction.
The North-West Territories, the southern part of which became Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905, had its own legislature from 1888 onward, in which the area north of the 60th parallel had no representation. This assembly existed for only 17 years, so it cannot be considered to have had any pivotal election, especially since it presented itself as non-partisan for most of its existence. However, two turning points can be highlighted:
