What Happens if Canada’s Conservatives Lose?
On Oct. 19, Canadian voters will go to the polls to elect a new House of Commons and bring about a likely change of government. The most recent polling shows little chance that Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party will gain the 170 seats it needs to continue as a majority government. Neither, however, will the Liberals or the New Democratic Party (NDP) have enough votes to govern on their own. The Liberals, led by Justin Trudeau, son of the former prime minister, last held the government from 2004 to 2006 under Paul Martin. The New Democratic Party (NDP), formed in 1961 with strong labor union support, has never been in government. Next week’s results most likely will lead to a return of a minority Conservative government with Harper depending on Liberal or NDP votes to pass most legislation.
For the Conservatives at least, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 2011, 30 new seats were added to the House of Commons, bringing the total to 338 seats. This meant a majority now requires 170 seats, rather than the previous 155. (Harper’s party is currently projected to pick up only about 154 seats.) At the time, observers thought this gave an advantage to the Conservatives, as most of the new seats were added to provinces that tended to vote Conservative, such as Alberta and British Columbia. But half of the seats went to growing urban areas in Ontario, where the Conservatives have a harder time picking up votes.
What sort of demands would Liberals and the NDP make on a downsized Harper government? For starters, a minority Conservative government may be forced to dial back international security commitments, especially those involving military force. Under Harper, Canada has continued to provided troops for Afghanistan, supported Israel, and last year deployed jet fighters to Iraq to take part in coalition bombing attacks against the Islamic State. At the time Trudeau criticized Harper for “whipping out our CF-18s to show [the Iraqis] how big they are” and argued that Canada’s “best contribution” to the fight against the Islamic State was not to fight. Instead, he said, Canadian help should come in the form of “non-combat roles.” While Trudeau supports keeping military trainers in Iraq, he said in June that he would cease Canadian bombing missions against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The NDP is less nuanced. When Harper deployed troops to help fight the Islamic State in Iraq last year, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair demanded that the government “put a clear mandate for Canada’s military deployment to a vote of … Parliament.” In an interview last month he said that there would be “no question” about pulling out of the fight against the Islamic State if the NDP has anything to say about it. “Asked whether [the Islamic State] poses a threat to Canada,” according to CBC news, “Mulcair said that it’s war in the region for the last 35 years that has posed the true threat.”
On a positive note, military spending — surprisingly low for a Conservative government — could rise. Canada’s 2014 defense budget of $18.4 billion is only 1 percent of GDP — the lowest ratio in NATO. In inflation adjusted terms military spending is lower than when Harper took office in 2006. The Liberal platform charges that the Harper government’s “mismanagement has left Canada’s armed forces underfunded and ill-equipped” and vows to “reinvest in building a leaner, more agile, better-equipped military.” Although Trudeau has vowed to scrap the F-35 program he still wants to replace Canada’s aging fighter jets. The NDP platform calls for giving Canadian forces more personnel, equipment, and training, building new ships, and also for replacing CF-18’s. Although Harper has proposed boosting the size of the Special Forces and the Reserves, he may find the parties on his left urging him to do more.
On trade, specifically the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Trudeau has hinted the Liberals would back the deal, which the Harper government has strongly supported. Not so with the NDP. Earlier this month Mulcair said his party would not “be bound by Stephen Harper’s secret deals.” There is a much stronger political pro-trade consensus in Canada than in the United States, so it is doubtful that the NDP could block TPP approval in Parliament. But black swans do exist. If a hamstrung Harper minority government were to end up walking away from TPP, all bets are off. It would both feed into our presidential election and seriously damage the chances of passage by the U.S. Congress.
Finally, there exists the possibility of a Liberal-NDP coalition government, an outcome favored by about half of Canadian voters. But Liberal leader Julian Trudeau has repeatedly ruled out any type of formal coalition. “There are a number of issues,” he said in July, “on which the Liberal Party and NDP disagree on quite a fundamental level.” That does not mean they would not work together, as they have in the past. In fact, from 1972 to 1974 the NDP supported a minority Liberal government led by Pierre Trudeau, but did not enter into a coalition.
So odds are that the Harper government soldiers on. But’s its minority status may make it a less certain ally for the United States on trade deals and international security. Of course, given our current crop of U.S. presidential candidates Canada’s political class may be thinking the very same thing about us.
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