If current public opinion polls hold true on Ontario’s forthcoming provincial election, neither politicians nor public will be sure on election night who will govern them in the months or years to follow.
If current public opinion polls hold true on Ontario's forthcoming provincial election, neither politicians nor public will be sure on election night who will govern them in the months or years to follow.
Both may assume that the party that wins the largest number of seats will necessarily be invited by the Lieutenant-Governor to form a government. History shows, however, that it does not have to work that way. When it does, it can be due to personality factors more than constitutional ones.
In August, 1943, George Drew found the electoral finish so tight that he told supporters crowding into his Bloor Street West headquarters that all he knew for certain was that he had been elected MPP for High Park (cheers!) and the Liberal government had been defeated (louder cheers!). But the CCF (as the NDP was then known) was so close behind the Progressive Conservatives – only two seats separating them at that hour – that the game was still open.
And not for the last time.
In 1975 and 1977, the voters again denied the PCs a majority, and their Liberal and NDP opponents could readily have agreed on either of two constitutionally valid ways of denying the Tory front-runners the chance to enjoy the fruits of a victory they had not won.
They could have formed a two-party coalition with one of the leaders becoming premier. Or they could have agreed that the party with the greater number of seats would become the government but would have to accept some policy requirement by the other party.
So why did they choose neither option neither time? No fully satisfying explanation has ever been given and when the PCs lost the lead again in the l985 election, many of them assumed history would repeat itself.
On defeated premier Frank Miller telling former premier William Davis that the PCs had lost their majority, Mr. Miller was assured by his former chief: "Don't worry about that. You'll be premier a long time." And Mr. Miller tried to be just that. He even appointed one of his ministers to scout the opposition to see who would demand what for their support. But it did not turn out that way at all. Instead the NDP agreed to support a Liberal government. Why did one propose it? Why did the other accept it?
Maybe both were so tired of sitting across the floor from Tories for 42 years, they just thought it was time for a change. Any change. And change is what Ontario got.
Since 1985, the province has been governed by each of the parties. And once again, each of them has a chance to form a government after Oct. 6 or to decide who will. The prospect need not agitate any of us. The Brits have a coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Israel has never had anything but coalition governments since the country was formed in 1947. So who's to worry in Ontario.
As Yogi Berra said of a baseball game: "It ain't over till it's over."
Reginald Stackhouse is a former member of Parliament.