For Canada, minority governments are more likely to be the norm rather than the exception. And the abbreviated shelf life and the attending short attention span of minority parliaments comes at a price, Chantal Hébert writes.
MONTREAL—Over the last 17 years, five out of seven federal elections have resulted in minority governments. On average those have lasted about two years. Over that same period, the electorate has become more fragmented.
As soon as the losing party or parties have selected new leaders — usually over the first 12 months after the election — the countdown to the next campaign starts. The overall result has been a public policy process that operates in fits and starts and an increasingly truncated political conversation not only between politicians and voters but also within the parties themselves.
But at this juncture there is no federal consensus as to the desirability of electoral reform or the best formula to achieve it. Together the New Democrats and the Liberals earned the support of 50.4 per cent of voters. Their joint plan is based on common ground between the two parties’ platforms that will be familiar to those who supported them last fall.
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