Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Those who do not remember history

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 12:42pm - 138 Comments

From the Prime Minister’s statement today on last night’s by-election results.

“Though it is rare for a governing party to win by-elections, we are buoyed by the fact that the Conservative Caucus in the House of Commons has increased.”

As noted previously, and according to Wikipedia’s records, heading into last night 31 seats last held by the incumbent government have been contested in by-elections over the last 30 years, 22 of those—71%—remaining with the government.

Since taking office in 2006, the Harper government has now picked up four seats that were held by opposition parties. The Chretien government won an equal number of opposition seats between 1988 1993 and 2004. The Mulroney government retained six two of its nine six seats and picked up two opposition seats.*

You have to go back to the The Trudeau government to find an incumbent administration that significantly struggled in by-elections—between 1968 and 1979 1984, 20 25 Liberal government seats were contested, 11 13 of those going to the opposition by my count. Over But over the same period, the Liberals picked up three four opposition ridings.

Going back to 1968 then, a total of 57 53 seats last held by an incumbent government have been contested, 34 32 of those retained by the incumbent. Over that same period, the governing party has picked up a dozen seats held by opposition parties.

*Wells checked my math and it seems I took a slightly wrong turn somewhere in the 80s. Larger trend still holds.

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  • PeterboroDave

    Talking points.

    Talking points?

    Talking points!

    Good lord, I have met the enemy and he is me.

  • Crit_Reasoning

    Hey Wherry:

    While you're at it, could you please fact-check the following?

    1. Harper is the only prime minister since Confederation who contested byelections and never lost a seat.

    2. Harper has picked up more seats in byelections than any other prime minister in Canadian history.

    If these facts are correct, wouldn't this mean that Harper's byelection success rate is not only rare, but completely unprecedented?

    • Matlock

      "Harper is the only prime minister since Confederation who contested byelections and never lost a seat."

      This is a considerably less remarkable feat given that only 1 out of 16 byelections since 2006 even had a Conservative incumbent to begin with… and given the contest was Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette to replace Inky Mark, it's hardly an impressive statistic.

      Somewhat akin to saying a baseball minor-league injury call up who went 4 for 4 and was immediately sent back to the minors has the highest career batting average of all time.

      "Harper has picked up more seats in byelections than any other prime minister in Canadian history."

      I do find this interesting, although I suspect it is easier to pick up more seats when your existing number of seats is smaller to begin with (compared to previous majority governments).

      • LdKitchenersOwn

        That's an interesting point. "Never lost a seat in 16 by-elections" is considerably less impressive when immediately followed by "only had 1 seat at risk in 16 by-elections".

      • s_c_f

        I do find this interesting, although I suspect it is easier to pick up more seats when your existing number of seats is smaller to begin with

        That's a non-sequitur. You're saying a party is more popular the less popular it is. Or perhaps you're saying it's less popular the more popular it is. Or perhaps you're saying those that lose a lot, win a lot. What stupendous Wherry-esque logic.

        • Matlock

          That is not what I was getting at, my apologies for my suspect wordsmithing.

          Let me try this way:

          "Harper has picked up more seats in byelections than any other prime minister in Canadian history."

          Supposing any given governing party is likely to win % percent of their byelections, I suspect this is easier to accomplish when one has a chance to increase their seat total in 15 out of 16 byelections.

        • LdKitchenersOwn

          I think you're missing his point. Think of the extremes as an example. If you only have one seat, then almost every by-election is an opportunity to pick up a seat. If you have 307 seats, then there's only one riding in the country in which you could ever possibly get an opportunity to pick up a seat. The fewer seats you have, the more likely it is that a by-election will happen in a riding that you don't already hold. If 15 of the 16 by-elections were in ridings previously held by the opposition, then the Tories had an opportunity to pick up a seat in 93.75% of the by-elections, and were only at risk of losing a seat in one of the races . If they'd already held more than one of those 16 seats there would have been less opportunities to make gains.

          So, sure, the Tories picked up some seats in by-elections, but the fact remains that in order to have not done so, they'd have needed to lose 15 out of those 16 races.

          • no more non-partisan

            Attention, attention: Would LKO please report to Mr Wells's office.
            Wells: LKO, LKO, my good fellow, this is not proving that Harper is a liar. Facts are for that purpose only. Mr Wherry and I only blog about that "stinkin' liar Harper" thing. And besides we choose the facts that will be used for this purpose. You and Crit, if you're going to debate these other facts, get your own blog. That's all for now.

  • frobisher

    Keeps the lights on.

  • PeterboroDave

    I see your point.

    I think I'm even more depressed.

  • s_c_f

    Fact: this is just one more in a long line of misleading and partisan posts by Wherry, the king of misleading, partisan, boilerplate, mischievous, bland, back-handed, unintelligent, ill-begotten and deceptive commentary that Wherry is now famous for, the kind of trite fluff that his merry band of partisan leftist commenters love to defend.

    The fact that he does it so often makes it rather pointless and trivial.

    • MostlyCivil

      "The fact that he does it so often makes it rather pointless and trivial."

      And yet, you've heroically looked past the triviality to make sure to right the ledger, yet again.

      Huzzah for your relentless battle against trivial blog posts, sir. You're an inspiration.

      • s_c_f

        I'll be more of a hero as I point out how your commentary is similar to Wherry's. You're welcome.

        The fact is, if you want to mislead people, you have to pick your spots, otherwise it has little effect.

        • MostlyCivil

          Goodness. That sounds like advice being offered by an expert. I'm all ears.

  • s_c_f

    Wells checked my math and it seems I took a slightly wrong turn somewhere in the 80s. Larger point still holds.

    This is the funniest thing of all.

    1. Wherry points out flaw in Harper words, Wherry exclaims "Those who do not remember history".

    2. Wells points out flaws in Wherry words, Wherry exclaims "I took a slightly wrong turn … Larger point still holds".

    So Wherry can mislead all he likes, it doesn't matter, when trying to point out that Harper is misleading. Wherry-esque!

    • LdKitchenersOwn

      Just out of curiosity, has there been a correction from the PMO indicating that the PM misspoke when he said that "it is rare for a governing party to win by-elections", but that he believes that his larger point stands nonetheless?

    • http://canadiansense.blogspot.com/ CanadianSense

      When left with crumbs the "L" club need these blog posts. Reality has been very cruel.

  • Hedges

    Maybe it's time to put this accomplishment to the test…..general election time!!!

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