Trudeau triumphs because Tories turfed

Bob Mackin is a Vancouver multimedia journalist who covers news, politics, business and sports for a variety of outlets. He is the author of Red Mittens & Red Ink: The Vancouver Olympics, an e-book about the 2010 Winter Games.

“I am on stage for one reason,” Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau said in his Oct. 19 victory speech in Montreal. “You put me here, and you gave me clear marching orders.”

But did Canadians really send Trudeau into the job his father Pierre held for 15 years? Or did they emphatically fire Conservative Stephen Harper from the job he held since 2006?

Harper designed the marathon 11-week campaign, when he asked Gov. Gen. David Johnston to drop the writ on Aug. 2. But it took until the final two weeks for him to look into the lens at voters in a Conservative TV ad. “It’s not about me,” he said, in a subtle admission that his attempt for a repeat majority government had turned into a referendum about him.

It was such a crushing defeat, that the Conservative Party announced Harper would quit the leadership before he reached the stage in Calgary to make his concession speech.

The previous two times Canadians swept parties out of power so emphatically, it was about the legacy of leaders who quit before voters could issue a verdict.

Vancouver-Quadra’s John Turner had the unenviable task of succeeding Pierre Trudeau, for whom he had served as Justice Minister and Finance minister. Brian Mulroney, a 45-year-old lawyer from Quebec, led the Progressive Conservatives to a 211-seat landslide by winning 50 per cent of the popular vote in the 1984 election that drew a whopping 75.3 per cent turnout.

Turner’s 79 days in office made him the second shortest-serving PM.

Mulroney’s two terms in office included the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and Goods and Services Tax. Amid plummeting popularity, he retired in early 1993 and Defence Minister Kim Campbell became the first female Prime Minister after a party leadership convention.

Jean Chretien returned Canada to Liberal rule, winning 41 per cent of the popular vote on a night when almost 71 per cent of voters turned out to give his party 177 seats. Campbell’s Progressive Conservatives were left with just two seats in Parliament and Campbell’s was not one of those. She lost to Liberal Hedy Fry in Vancouver Centre, becoming only the third sitting Prime Minister to lose a seat.

Filling the opposition vacuum was the secessionist Bloc Quebecois, with 54 seats, just two more than the Reform Party.

Campbell put the loss into perspective: now the entire PC caucus could fit in her aging Honda Civic. “Gee, I’m glad I didn’t sell my car,” she said.

Monday’s election drew a national turnout better than 68 per cent, up seven percentage points from 2011. In B.C., almost 70 per cent of voters cast ballots. The Liberals won a majority 184 seats with 39.5 per cent of the popular vote. The Conservatives fell to 99 seats on 31.9 per cent of the popular vote.

The Trudeau Liberals’ 2015 win sets up a unique grand slam for the so-called “natural governing party of Canada.” Allies with the same brand govern the nation’s three biggest provinces, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.

The B.C. Liberals are actually a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives, but Premier Christy Clark was an aide in the Chretien administration. During the 2013 leadership debate, she named former Liberal Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson as her political role model.

The stars seemed to align for Trudeau, who became the first son of a Canadian Prime Minister to become Prime Minister. He won the day after the 96th anniversary of his father’s birth.

Pierre Trudeau ascended to the Prime Minister’s office in 1968, the year after Canada’s centennial. Justin Trudeau’s Monday-won mandate includes the country’s 2017 sesquicentennial.