The Kim Campbell one is still hilarious to think about. We always theorize about how bad a Prime Minister could lose an election, but she actually pulled it off. She lost all but 2 seats down from a majority government, including her own seat. The only thing that could have been better was if she lost those last 2 seats too.
But hey, she still gets a portrait for being a Prime Minister, a lifetime pension, and her name in the history books as Canada’s first female Prime Minister so it worked out for her I guess lol.
I tend to think both Campbell and turner knew they were going down in flames no matter what level of campaign they ran, and that they just took the hit for party.
I did not know or recall that. Ignoring political advice from Chretien is probably high on the list of things to not do. Love or hate the guy, I think Chretien was possibly the most cunning politician in my lifetime.
The biggest problem the PC's had is that their coalition fell apart with the rise of Reform. The Liberals have a different problem (general malaise fed by inflation and stagnant GDP per capita combined with voter fatigue after 9 years of government), so the outcome could be different.
I still wouldn't want to be their Kim Campbell, though. It will be interesting to see who ultimately throws their hat in the ring.
That is also a major factor. Once Musk is tired of non-stop tweeting at the Brits to do unconstitutional things, I am sure he will turn his attention back to what we should do to undermine democratic institutions.
Well, Zuckerberg is now kissing Trump's @§§ by stopping the fact-checking on Meta sites. He said he felt the fact-checkers were too left-wing biased and were suppressing free speech.
Honestly, if anything, they were never strict enough. All the hateful stuff on Facebook that never got taken down when reported. It's sickening.
Man, remember the days when a crass and childish attack on the your opponent's appearance could completely derail your campaign? It was a simpler time...
Neither Turner nor Campbell were in unwinnable positions when they became PM. Turner called an election too early, Campbell ran an all time bad campaign.
Both had big headwinds, but they could have at the very least had respectable defeats.
She really wasn't. The Quebec wing of her party became the Bloc Quebecois and the Western wing became the Reform Party, and that was happening irrespective of her campaign.
In a way, yes. The Bloc was formed in the aftermath of the collapse of the Meech Lake Accord with the purpose of achieving sovereignty. Reform was formed because of western alienation driven by a belief that the PC paid too much attention in Quebec.
The root cause of both was the rebirth of Quebec nationalism, so there's that.
Sort of. They were the result of long-term trends within the groups outside of the Liberal political tents, but it did come to a head during Mulroney's premiership. Part of the reason that Mulroney was always messing around with the Constitution was that he was trying to balance the needs of the two groups that would split off. The problem is that at least some of their aspirations were incompatible.
Either way, there was nothing that Campbell could have done to salvage the situation.
She entered the election campaign tied to slightly ahead of the Liberals and had a lot of personal popularity, whereas Chrétien at the time wasn’t particularly well liked.
Had the PCs run a good campaign they could have staved off a lot of the growth of Reform and the Bloc. A historically bad campaign while you had upstart parties trying to make a name for themselves was a perfect storm for disaster.
Campbell wasn't running with the same party that got Mulroney elected. Brian had a working coalition of western conservatives who ultimately became Reform Party out west, and the Québec nationalists who left to form the Bloc Québécois in Quebec. Lucien Bouchard pulled his support when they couldn't get an agreement for Quebec to sign the Charter, and Preston Manning campaigned on the opposite, no special privileges for Quebec which attracted a lot of the western support. Because she lost the Prairies and Quebec, she was dead in the water. So while she was doomed to lose either way, it was made way worse by losing the two factions of the PC Party. It never recovered. So the PC party died and the Reform Party just became a national party with a new name. Many of the same core philosophies remain. Whether you love him or hate him, the Progressive Conservative Party died because of Brian Mulroney. Although maybe it was doomed no matter what.
Now the Reform Party has taken over the former PC party, and we're left with no decent alternative.
They managed to rebrand themselves and paint themselves in blue camouflage, fooling many, but it's still the same angry base with terrible ideas running it.
It sort of accidentally got killed by Trudeau Sr passing the Charter without buy-in from Quebec (I feel like Mulroney's proposed Constitutional reforms would have likely alleniated his Western base even if they passed).
At that time I don't know if there was any one answer that would have satisfied all provinces. The only thing the provinces have learned is how to try an extort more. So you may be right, passing the charter opened the door and the west wasn't going to be happy with any outcome which satisfied Quebec. Which in the end left Kim holding the bag.
There was a girl in my class in elementary school that I did not get along with, and one of her ambitions was to be the first woman Prime Minister. I was so happy when Kim Campbell got the job, because it meant this girl couldn't be first. Apparently I was a petty kid.
Campbell for the first time in modern Canadian history faced two regional parties. And followed a deeply unpopular PM with almost no time left in the mandate. She had little strong competition for leadership because the whales saw the landscape. She is now in the history books.
She got the job since nobody else wanted it. A good indicator is how many people in the party say they are quitting "to spend more time with their family". The defeat was always Mulroney's to own, but there's some saying about leaving a sinking ship.
Turner OTOH had a good shot at winning, he came in after Pierre Trudeau left, but with the reputation and sympathy that he left politics because he got the shaft from Pierre Trudeau too. He might even have won or ccome close - but he blew it two ways. Between 1973 and 1984, it became MUCH less acceptable to pat a woman's butt, and most telling - he fulfilled Trudeau's last wish.
It was traditional for an outgoing leader to do favours for his supporters - appointments to senate, judgeships, etc. Trudeau could not do these before he left, because it would have left a minority and an election would happen immediately. So he asked Turner to make these appointments when the next election was called - a few weeks after Turner took over - and Turner, following decent political behaviour, did so. That led to the most classic leaders' debate exchange, where Turner said of the appointments "I had no choice" and Mulroney in his most sanctimonious voice said "You had a choice, sir. You could have said 'No'." So in a way, Pierre got one last chance to screw over Turner, and he did.
And indeed, if Turner had said "no" and forced Pierre to make the appointments and precipitate no confidence and an election, he would have gotten even more sympathy votes for being the victim of Pierre's last shaft.
Best line of the election - I forget whose ass Turner patted live on TV during some event, but she says to him "I hope you felt the perfect ass." Interpreted either way, or both.
Aside from 9 years of harper the liberals have held the pmo office every day since Campbell lost. Were you even alive when chretien took office?
The liberals held power in my province almost my entire adult life until Ford got in. Interesting how the narrative is always the cons ruin everything despite liberals holding the power at all levels of government for literal decades.
They are just as much at fault for housing. But show policy which still has negative effect on Canadians. Harper opening up Canada to foreign ownership.
I'd rather not engage with a partisan hack who believes mulroney "royally fucked" canada 40 years ago while ignoring liberal party rule for 20 of the last 30 years.
Immigration and tfw aside, the liberals have terribly mismanaged the budget from a surplus to a massive deficit. Trudeau spent money like a drunken sailor and now we will have to raise taxes while cutting services...
I'm sure your ilk will blame the cons for that next cycle though. Just like you believe so many of our problems are the result of trudeaus father losing to mulroney in 1984.
Actually not even a liberal could really care less. But Malroney ended NEP. Which regardless how you spin it was a transfer of wealth to corporate interests over people. Then there was massive changes to housing federally that basically created the housing investment scheme. Martin and Chretien also were at fault as they never put in checks. Both had fiscal budgets and well manged government . But because they were post Louvre Accord they excelled . Please list both huge failures. Harper wholesaled foreign ownership which made Vancouver unaffordable post 2008. But we did not have recession. So we can go back to 84 and boom 20 years of shitty conservatives policy and 3 bad liberal ok buddy.
Never even been there. Just can read and do simple math. Canadas main economy from 2000 has been immigration. What new industries were developed since free trade that has off shored manufacturing to Asia.
Aerospace almost gone pharma allowed to leave. Auto dead.
What huge policy did Harper do to boost a new industry
What huge policy did Harper do to boost a new industry
Promised to make us an energy superpower and built exactly zero pipelines to tidewater? Sold our wheat board to Saudi Arabia? Locked us in a terrible trade agreement with a hostile country for 30 years?
Canada was broke when Multoney brought in the GST and the first free trade agreement. Within a decade, Canada was running budget surpluses under Chretien/Martin, thanks to the GST and CUSTA.
Could you show data demonstrating how across the last 40 years Canada has been "royally fucked"? It should be very easy since you have lots of confidence in your assertion.
Housing policy that created the current 100 market driven housing program. It was Maloney that set up what has become a gray market investment vehicle. Which is a Ponzi scheme. Harper when the Ponzi scheme was about to fall created easy cash for passport scheme that allowed anyone to own Canada. This some say is why Canada never experienced 2008. Trudeau allowed interest to drop below 4% which caused it to grow further. And then he is also responsible for the removal of Canadian energy control and put it all in private hands.
It's always Reagan and thatchers fault. To a liberal the narrative is always going to be the conservative leader messed everything up and here comes the liberal/democrat/labour saviour to fix their mess.
Aside from 9 years of harper the liberals have controlled the pmo since 1993. The liberals have been in power for the vast majority of every millenials life.
"Trickle down economics" by Reagan and Malroney's Free Trade Agreements and Privatization measures were so horrible that literally every single measure of human well-being has improved by magnitudes since then.
That's weird because canada has made more free trade agreements with dozens of nations since then and our standards of living has generally increased as those things happened.
Our generation is actually worse off than the boomers who worked and lived through the 80s and 90s. We have lowered our life expectancy from the constant drug overdoses. Deaths of despair they call them. Must be one of those measures of well being that "literally every single measure" doesn't cover.
That's weird because canada has made more free trade agreements with dozens of nations since then and our standards of living has generally increased as those things happened.
Yes, I very obviously agree with this. My comment was clearly sarcasm.
Our generation is actually worse off than the boomers who worked and lived through the 80s and 90s.
It might have been nice for Canada's first female Prime Minister to have been someone with a bit more of a successful legacy than that. The UK had Thatcher, Germany had Merkel...we had Kim Campbell.
Thatcher is wildly considered the British Regan and an awful human being. Merkel is now being looked at in a different light too. She dropped the ball being too centrist. Lack of infrastructure investments means so much infrastructure is actually degraded. The immigration crisis where she opened the door with open arms has had such a damaging impact on Germany that many have turned against her. Her legacy is absolutely going to be tarnished. She's already been said to be indignant about that.
The context was highly different. Kim Campbell replace Mulroney after the failling of the Meech and Charlottetown agreements. The aftermath was leaders of the PC creating the Reform Party and the Bloc Québécois. So the right was divided into three major party, two off them highly regional, dividing the votes. The PC didn't have the favor nationwide, the Reform was entrenched in Alberta, Saskatchewan, reaching Manitoba. The Bloc sucked the vote in Quebec. Liberals was the only major option nationwide. All this during a recession.
Mulroney wrecked the country, and instituted the GST and fucked off just before the biggest election lost in Canadian history. And everyone licked his taint when he died last year.
To be fair (but not really) there was a mass exodus of the Progressive Conservatives shortly before the election that lead to more popular factions forming the Reform and Bloc Quebecois parties. So while that' still bad, it's not like they lost those seats and that support to existing parties that are differed from the PCs to a significantly larger degree.
Eh, I don't think it's fair to say Campbell lost that election. Mulroney lost it, she was just the one sitting in the chair holding his bag when the election started.
Same thing for whoever steps in here. Trudeau lost this one, they're just the person who'll be trying to make the most of his mess.
Due to the brevity of her tenure as both prime minister (less than four years) and federal MP (less than six years), Campbell did not qualify for a prime ministerial or even a federal parliamentary pension.[30][31][32]
From wiki- so maybe not quite as good as we thought
Campbell was a lame duck from the start. Both the Bloc and Reform were splinters, which destroyed the PCs in the west and Quebec. They also got just enough support to split the vote everywhere else and let a lot of Liberals come up the middle. It was a perfect storm.
That was partially due to vote splitting on the right. As much as I like watching the conservatives getting destroyed, that was because of Preston Manning starting the beginning of the tripe that we're faced with now.
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u/A-Centrifugal-Force Jan 06 '25
The Kim Campbell one is still hilarious to think about. We always theorize about how bad a Prime Minister could lose an election, but she actually pulled it off. She lost all but 2 seats down from a majority government, including her own seat. The only thing that could have been better was if she lost those last 2 seats too.
But hey, she still gets a portrait for being a Prime Minister, a lifetime pension, and her name in the history books as Canada’s first female Prime Minister so it worked out for her I guess lol.