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When Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said he would resign in the wake of last week’s provincial election, he became the latest addition to a big group of Canadian party leaders to get only one kick at the electoral can.
Conservative leaders Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole only got one shot. Liberal leaders Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff were afforded just one opportunity each. Iain Rankin in Nova Scotia and Andrew Wilkinson in B.C. each only had a single chance to win.
Almost all of those leaders resigned. But it certainly appeared they were quitting, amid internal party pressures, to avoid the embarrassment of being ousted.
It’s not so for every leader. On the same night that Del Duca resigned after one election as leader, Andrea Horwath resigned after four atop Ontario’s NDP. Stephen Harper lost his first election, before winning the next three. Robert Stanfield got three strikes before Joe Clark took over the federal Tories. The most extreme examples, Wilfrid Laurier and Mackenzie King, each led their parties in seven elections, with a few losses sprinkled in among the victories.
These days, party leaders who lose elections often (but not always) resign. Winning no doubt helps with longevity, but for those who lose, is the cutthroat “one-and-done” model on the rise?
Western University political scientist Cristine de Clercy says, while there is a general lack of patience with leaders these days, it doesn’t make sense to think of it as a one-way trend.
“I think we’re just in another period, as we’ve had in the past, where public and party expectations around leaders are very stringent. And if leaders can’t win, then they’re out,” she said.
Great expectations
The reason, de Clercy says, comes down to expectations. Leaders who fail to live up to the promise they represented to the party are left by the wayside, which is why Del Duca bowed out, she says.
The Liberals went from seven seats in 2018 to only eight seats in the recent Ontario election, and again came in third.
“The magnitude of the results last week simply were not expected,” de Clercy said. “Just to sketch out an alternate hypothesis, if the Liberals had believed that they would receive no seats last week and they got eight seats, he looks like a hero.”
She emphasizes that the expectations set by parties are not always “necessarily reasonable” — so it’s not all about the leader’s performance.
Alex Marland, a political scientist at Memorial University of Newfoundland, agrees that expectations are the main variable that determine whether a party leader has to face the music after a losing campaign.
But he also says the stakes are now generally higher for leaders, given their expanded role in politics and being more tied up with the party brand.
And with the advent of social media and more political coverage overall, Canadians may simply get overexposed to leaders who then “lose their shine” more quickly, he said.
WATCH | Horwath steps down:
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath announces her resignation
10 days ago
Duration 1:49
The Hamilton politician, who won re-election on Thursday, was emotional after failing to become Ontario’s premier in her fourth attempt
“Political leaders have a shorter shelf life than they used to,” he said. “People just get tired of seeing the same leaders all the time.”
They’re also subject to the simple ebbs and flows of partisan popularity, or voter fatigue with a certain leader or party, he says.
And, generally, different parties have different expectations. While federal Liberal or Conservative leaders may be expected by their respective supporters to form government in any given election, the same might not be true for New Democrats, leading to some relative stability.
“Many of [the NDP’s] leaders have suffered terrible losses, but fought a principled campaign. And the membership is expecting that and is happy with it,” de Clercy said. “Whereas in contrast, for the Liberals and Conservatives, it’s about power, it’s about winning.”
Marland says each party has developed its own unique culture of leadership, with the NDP often happy to be the “moral conscience of Parliament.”
Women tend to have more precarious leaderships
De Clercy also says not all leaders receive the same level of charity when it comes to meeting expectations. Women, she says, tend to be more precarious in their leadership.
“They are not always, but often, more prone to be challenged and jettisoned,” she said. “And once there’s a case to replace them … things unfold pretty quickly.”
Many female politicians also face what’s called the “glass cliff” phenomenon — being handed the reins at a particularly weak moment for the party.
Marland says Conservatives have recently turned particularly unforgiving toward losing candidates. The party will pick a new leader this fall. And whoever that is, their fortunes will depend greatly on who is leading the federal Liberals into the next election.
If Justin Trudeau decides not to run, the new Tory leader’s future will be a bit of a wildcard, Marland says.
But if Trudeau leads the Liberals once more, as he’s said he will, the stakes are even higher because, after 10 years out of power, the Conservatives feel they’re due for a win.
“If Trudeau is contesting the next election … and is returned as prime minister, I think the Conservatives would just be so angry that they would need to blame somebody, and they’d blame whoever is leader.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
