Chapter 2Parliaments and Ministries

Duration of a Parliament and a Ministry

The duration of a Parliament—the period of time between elections during which the institution of Parliament exercises its powers—is calculated from the date set for the return of the writs following a general election to its dissolution by the Governor General. At the same time, the Constitution Act provides that, five years is the maximum lifespan of the House of Commons between general elections, calculated from the date fixed for the return of the writs, and that there must be a sitting of Parliament at least once every 12 months.¹⁹ In addition, revisions to the Canada Elections Act, adopted in 2007, require that a general election be held every four years.²⁰ This legislation provides that a general election must be held on the third Monday in October in the fourth calendar year following a previous general election.²¹ However, the powers of the Governor General, notably the power to dissolve Parliament at his or her discretion, is not affected by the legislation.

The duration of a Ministry, which exercises the practical functions of government, is measured by the tenure of its Prime Minister and is calculated from the day the Prime Minister takes the oath of office to the day the Prime Minister dies, resigns, or is dismissed. A ministry has no fixed maximum duration.

These two timelines—the parliamentary one, which has a maximum duration, and the prime ministerial one, which is open-ended—do not always coincide perfectly.

Duration of Parliaments

Figure 2.1, “Duration of Parliaments”, shows that about one-third of the Parliaments since 1867 have lasted between four and five years, about another third between three and four years, and a final third less than three years.²² Four Parliaments (i.e., the Seventh (1891–96), Seventeenth (1930–35), Nineteenth (1940–45) and Thirty-Fourth (1988–93)) have come close to the limit of the five-year maximum constitutional lifespan, several within days of when the House of Commons would have expired by effluxion of time. One Parliament, the Twelfth (1911–17), was extended.²³ Four Parliaments (i.e., the Fifteenth (1925–26), Twenty-Third (1957–58), Twenty-Fifth (1962–63) and Thirty-First (1979)) have lasted less than one year.

Parliament	Years	Duration
		Years	Months	Days
1	1867–72	4	9	15
2	1872–74	1	4
3	1874–78	4	5	28
4	1878–82	3	5	28
5	1882–87	4	5	9
6	1887–91	3	9	28
7	1891–96	5
8	1896–1900	4	2	27
9	1900–04	3	9	25
10	1904–08	3	9	3
11	1908–11	2	7	27
12*	1911–17	6
13	1918–21	3	7	8
14	1922–25	3	7	23
15	1925–26		6	26
16	1926–30	3	6	29
17	1930–35	4	11	28
18	1935–40	4	2	17
19	1940–45	5
20	1945–49	3	8	22
21	1949–53	3	9	20
22	1953–57	3	6	5
23	1957–58		5	25
24	1958–62	3	11	21
25	1962–63		6	20
26	1963–65	2	4	1
27	1965–68	2	4	15
28	1968–72	4	1	8
29	1972–74	1	5	20
30	1974–79	4	7	27
31	1979		6	4
32	1980–84	4	4
33	1984–88	4		8
34	1988–93	4	8	28
35	1993–97	3	5	13
36	1997–2000	3	4
37	2001–04	3	5	6
38	2004–05	1	4	11
39	2006–08	2	6	27
40	2008–11	2	4	23
41	2011–15	4	2	11
42	2015–

Duration of Ministries

Since Confederation, there have been 29 Ministries, although only 23 individuals have served as Prime Minister. A Prime Minister whose party is re-elected in successive general elections simply continues in office as the head of the same government. For example, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who became Prime Minister in 1896, continued in office through the general elections of 1900, 1904 and 1908 before resigning after his party was defeated in the 1911 general election. On the other hand, a Prime Minister who resigns from office following a party defeat in a general election but who is later returned to power forms a new Ministry. For example, Pierre E. Trudeau first became Prime Minister in 1968, forming the Twentieth Ministry; he resigned from office in 1979. The following year, he was re-elected with a majority; he thus again became Prime Minister, forming the Twenty-Second Ministry. As well, there can be several Ministries within the same Parliament. This was the case for the Seventh Parliament. Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald died in office not long after being re-elected in 1891. From the time of his death to the 1896 election, no fewer than four more administrations took office. Figure 2.2, “Duration of Ministries”, illustrates the sometimes ephemeral, sometimes lengthy duration of Ministries.²⁴

The End of a Ministry

The end of a Ministry is triggered by the death, resignation or dismissal of the Prime Minister.²⁵ It does not necessarily lead to the dissolution of a Parliament. While the operation of the confidence convention can lead and has led to early dissolution of a Parliament,²⁶ there are examples of multiple Ministries during the same Parliament.²⁷ The procedural consequences of the end of a Ministry vary depending on how it ends.²⁸

Ministry	Prime Minister	Years	Duration
			Years	Months	Days
1	Macdonald	1867–73	6	4	5
2	Mackenzie	1873–78	4	11	2
3	Macdonald	1878–91	12	7	21
4	Abbott *	1891–92	1	5	9
5	Thompson	1892–94	2		8
6	Bowell *	1894–96	1	4	7
7	Tupper	1896		2	8
8	Laurier	1896–1911	15	2	26
9	Borden	1911–17	6		2
10	Borden **	1917–20	2	8	28
11	Meighen	1920–21	1	5	19
12	King	1921–26	4	6
13	Meighen	1926		2	27
14	King	1926–30	3	10	13
15	Bennett	1930–35	5	2	16
16	King	1935–48	13		23
17	St-Laurent	1948–57	8	7	6
18	Diefenbaker	1957–63	5	10	1
19	Pearson	1963–68	4	11	29
20	P.E. Trudeau	1968–79	11	1	15
21	Clark	1979–80		8	29
22	P.E. Trudeau	1980–84	4	3	27
23	Turner	1984		2	18
24	Mulroney	1984–93	8	9	7
25	Campbell	1993		4	10
26	Chrétien	1993–2003	10	1	8
27	Martin	2003–06	2	1	25
28	Harper	2006–15	9	8	29
29	J. Trudeau	2015–

Death of a Prime Minister

The death of a Prime Minister holds few procedural implications and does not result in the end of a Parliament.²⁹ If death occurs during a session of Parliament while the House is sitting, tributes may be made in the House or the House may adjourn for an extended period.³⁰ Since Confederation, only two Prime Ministers have died in office: Sir John A. Macdonald, in 1891, during a session, and Sir John Thompson, in 1894, while Parliament was prorogued.³¹

Resignation of a Prime Minister

Resignation may be prompted by a defeat in a general election, by the operation of the confidence convention alone, by the operation of the confidence convention followed by a defeat in a general election, or by other reasons, including the Prime Minister’s desire to retire from public life.

Defeat in a General Election

If the Ministry resigns when Parliament is dissolved, there are of course no procedural implications. This is typically the case for governments which are defeated at the polls and subsequently resign in the days that follow.³² It falls to the new government to convene the new House.

In an unusual and controversial case, following the general election of 1925, the Mackenzie King government lost its majority status when the Liberals received fewer seats than the former Official Opposition party, the Conservatives.³³ Nevertheless, it decided to meet the House to test its confidence, and did so successfully until June 1926. For further details of this case, see below.

Operation of the Confidence Convention

The role of procedure in the operation of the confidence convention revolves around the decision-making process in the House of Commons. When the government is defeated on a vote on a question of confidence in the House, it is understood that the Prime Minister must either resign³⁴ or seek a dissolution of Parliament.

The Speaker does not decide what constitutes a matter of confidence. Successive Speakers have stated that it is not for the Chair to interfere to prevent debate, or a vote, on a question relating to the issue of confidence, unless the motion being put forward is clearly out of order on procedural grounds.³⁵ Naturally, when the results are close, the procedural implications of pairing and the manner in which a vote is recorded become critically important.³⁶

Six governments have been defeated in a vote in the House on a clear, uncontested question of confidence. In 1926, the three-day-old Meighen minority government lost a vote (96-95) on what amounted to a motion of censure of the government.³⁷ In 1963, the Diefenbaker minority government was defeated by a wide margin (142-111) on a supply motion.³⁸ In 1974, the P.E. Trudeau minority government and, in 1979, the Clark minority government both lost a vote on a budget motion subamendment (137-123 and 139-133 respectively).³⁹ In 2005, the Martin minority government was decisively defeated (171-133) on an explicitly worded non-confidence motion moved by the Official Opposition on a supply day,⁴⁰ as was the Harper minority government in 2011 (156-145).⁴¹ All six Prime Ministers sought and obtained a dissolution of Parliament following defeat in the House. Of the six governments, the Meighen, Diefenbaker, Clark and Martin governments were subsequently defeated in general elections and, in each case, the Prime Minister resigned without meeting the new House. Only the P.E. Trudeau and Harper governments were returned with a majority and convened the House.

The King government in 1925–26 faced a more complex set of circumstances following the 1925 general election. In power since 1921, King held an election on October 29, 1925. Previously, his Liberal government held a bare majority of 118 of 235 seats. The number of seats he held had fluctuated throughout the Fourteenth Parliament, giving him sometimes a majority, sometimes a minority.⁴² The election returned 101 Liberals, 116 Conservatives, 24 Progressives, 2 Labour and 2 Independents.⁴³ Parliament met on January 7, 1926. The King government did not resign, but instead chose to meet the House, despite having received fewer seats than the Conservative Party. With the support of the Progressive Party, it retained the support of the House until June 1926 when the Official Opposition moved an amendment to a motion to concur in a committee report that was seen as a censure of the government. The King government was unable to command the support of the House on a series of procedural motions meant to set aside the censure amendment.⁴⁴ Before the censure amendment was ever put to a vote, Prime Minister King announced his resignation to the House on the afternoon of Monday, June 28, 1926. He stated that, having sought and been refused a dissolution, he was resigning.⁴⁵ In any case, the events leading to the government’s resignation illustrate that it is not always clear what constitutes a question of confidence. The case has been cited by some as one of a resignation due to the operation of the confidence convention,⁴⁶ although King himself stated that he resigned because he did not obtain the dissolution he had sought.⁴⁷

After the announcement, the House adjourned. The next morning, Arthur Meighen, the Leader of the Opposition, was asked by the Governor General to form a new government. When the House convened later the same day, the government and the Official Opposition had changed sides in the House and acting House Leader Sir Henry Drayton made a statement announcing changes to the Ministry.⁴⁸ The House then resumed its business. Two days later, the Meighen government lost a vote on a motion of censure.⁴⁹

Not all government defeats on a vote are automatically considered matters of confidence.⁵⁰ Under the Pearson government, on February 19, 1968, a motion for the third reading of a tax bill was defeated by a vote of 82-84.⁵¹ Prime Minister Pearson did not agree that this defeat constituted an expression of non-confidence in the government, as some were arguing. The government introduced a motion “That this House does not regard its vote on February 19th in connection with third reading of Bill C-193, which had carried in all previous stages, as a vote of non-confidence in the Government”. This motion was carried on February 28, 1968 by a vote of 138-119.⁵² From February 20 to February 28, 1968, all House business was concerned with the resolution of this matter, and in fact, the House conducted no business at all from February 20 to 22, 1968.⁵³

Similarly, on December 20, 1983, a clause of a bill amending the Income Tax Act and other acts was defeated in a Committee of the Whole by a vote of 28-67.⁵⁴ The Official Opposition claimed that this constituted a defeat of the P.E. Trudeau government on a question of confidence and demanded that the government resign or seek a dissolution. The government disagreed.⁵⁵ As in other similar circumstances, this was not a procedural matter upon which the Chair could rule.⁵⁶

Starting in 2005, both Martin and Harper governments lost votes on several motions, but did not interpret the defeats as expressions of a loss of confidence.⁵⁷ In addition, the opposition parties, first the Conservative Party in 2005 and then the Liberal Party from 2006 to 2008, resorted to wholesale abstention during several key votes, thus allowing successive governments to survive.⁵⁸

The issue of confidence was particularly contentious in May 2005 when, as had been done in 1926, the opposition used motions to concur in committee reports as a means of testing the confidence of the House in the Martin minority government. On April 22, May 2 and again on May 9, 2005, amendments were put forward to motions for concurrence in committee reports, proposing wording which instructed the committees to revise their reports to include recommendations that the government resign.⁵⁹ On May 10, 2005, such an amendment was adopted as was the main motion,⁶⁰ and while opposition parties called upon the government to resign, the Government House Leader stated that the motion was simply an instruction to a committee and not a matter of confidence.⁶¹ In the days that followed, the government lost a series of procedural votes⁶² and was not able to put the issue of confidence to rest until May 19, 2005, narrowly winning a confidence vote on the second reading of its Budget implementation bill when the Speaker used his casting vote to break a tie (153–152).⁶³

Later that same year, on November 21, 2005, a New Democratic Party opposition motion was adopted calling on Prime Minister Martin to seek dissolution of the House during the week of January 2, 2006, and to set the date of the next election as Monday, February 13, 2006. It also requested that the Speaker transmit the text of the motion to the Governor General.⁶⁴ Following the vote, the government stated that it would ignore the resolution since it only suggested a course of action and did not explicitly state that the House had lost confidence in the government.⁶⁵ On November 28, 2005, the Martin government was finally defeated on a motion of confidence.⁶⁶

The issue of confidence also arose in late November 2008 under the Harper minority government when, following a controversial economic statement to the House by the Minister of Finance on November 27, the three opposition parties (a majority of Members) announced that they were intent on defeating the government at the earliest opportunity through an opposition motion to be moved the following supply day.⁶⁷ In reaction to this prospect, on November 28, the government announced that it was postponing to December 8 the supply day that had been scheduled for December 1. On December 1, the Leader of the Opposition wrote to the Governor General to inform her that all three opposition parties had lost confidence in the government and that two of the three parties had agreed to form a new government with the support of the third, should the opportunity arise for her to exercise her constitutional authority and call on him to form a government.⁶⁸ On December 4, Prime Minister Harper sought and obtained a prorogation, little more than two weeks after the opening of the Fortieth Parliament.⁶⁹

Resignation Due to Other Causes

Several Prime Ministers have resigned for reasons other than those referred to above. Most have done so out of a stated desire to retire from public life.⁷⁰ There are, however, a few cases where the departure was prompted by other reasons.

For example, in 1873, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, who was embroiled in a scandal, resigned rather than face the near-certain defeat of his government on a non-confidence motion.⁷¹ According to an eyewitness, on November 5, 1873, “Sir John got up and briefly announced that the Government had resigned. The announcement was received in perfect silence. The Official Opposition, directly [after] it was over, crossed the House to their new desks”.⁷² The Leader of the Opposition, Alexander Mackenzie, formed a new government and Parliament was prorogued on November 7, 1873.⁷³ On January 2, 1874, he sought and obtained a dissolution without having met the House with a legislative program.

A second example is that of Prime Minister Senator Sir Mackenzie Bowell, who, in 1896, faced a serious Cabinet revolt (seven Ministers—half the Cabinet—resigned) and ultimately, he himself resigned on April 27 of that year, three days after he had been granted a dissolution.⁷⁴ He was succeeded by Sir Charles Tupper, who resigned shortly thereafter following his defeat in the election.⁷⁵

Dismissal of a Prime Minister

The power to dismiss a Prime Minister, which has existed since Confederation, is set out in section 5 of the Letters Patent Constituting the Office of Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada (1947)⁷⁶ and is among the discretionary powers and prerogatives of the Governor General. In Canada, this power has never been exercised at the federal level,⁷⁷ and it has not been exercised at the provincial level since 1903.⁷⁸ In the United Kingdom, no Prime Minister has been dismissed since 1783.⁷⁹ In Australia, in 1975, the Governor General impeached the Prime Minister because of the constitutional crisis between the House of Representatives and the Senate.⁸⁰

The circumstances that might give rise to dismissal have nevertheless been the subject of considerable academic debate.⁸¹

Ministerial Crisis

There have been cases where the House was sitting when the composition of the Ministry was being changed in circumstances of ministerial crisis. It was normal for the House to adjourn from day to day (unless it decided otherwise) until such time as the changes were complete.⁸² In such cases, the House normally transacts only routine business on the days it meets and questions may be asked concerning the progress being made in reconstituting the Ministry.⁸³ When a new Ministry is to be formed following the death, resignation or dismissal of the Prime Minister, it is likewise appropriate for the House to adjourn from day to day (again, unless it decides otherwise),⁸⁴ but no questions may be asked as to the progress being made, there being no Ministry.⁸⁵ However, party leaders may make statements.⁸⁶ When the ministerial crisis is resolved, it is usual for a leading Member of the government caucus to make a statement explaining the ministerial changes to the House.⁸⁷

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