6 things you need to know if there's a minority government
'We're not electing a party,' says Acadia University political scientist
A minority government is becoming a more likely scenario, polls suggest, as Canadians get ready to vote Oct. 19.
The Liberals and Conservatives are in a tight race, each with about 32 per cent support in CBC's latest Poll Tracker results. The NDP trails at 24 per cent.
CBC Radio's Mainstreet spoke with Erin Crandall, a political scientist at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., about how Canada's government works when no party wins a majority.
Most seats doesn't necessarily mean the top job
The party with the most seats doesn't automatically have its leader become prime minister, Crandall said.
"We're not electing a party," she said. "What we're electing is a Parliament."
You vote to elect your local representative. That person's job is to help figure out which party leader has enough support in the House of Commons to govern, Crandall said.
Harper and a minority
Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper may have told CBC's Peter Mansbridge he would quit as prime minister if his party loses by a seat, but he would have the right to try to stay, Crandall said.
Former Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King did this after the 1925 election. King's Liberals won 15 fewer seats than the Conservatives. King even lost his own seat, until he won in a byelection.
But the long-serving prime minister stayed in the job, as long as he kept the support of members in the third place Progressive Party.
When is Parliament recalled?
An election doesn't mean they'll get back to work right away. Should Harper win a minority, he could wait months before recalling Parliament, Crandall said.
"It should not be an excessively long period, but there's nothing to stop a prime minister from waiting several months before summoning the House back," she said.
Parliament tests new minority government
The minority government has to pass a popularity test of sorts, Crandall said.
It puts forward its plan in a throne speech. The minority government could lose the confidence — "a key question," Crandall said — of the House if a majority of MPs vote against it.
"It's not the party that has the most seats. It's not the party that had the largest proportion of the voter share during the last election.
"It's the party that is able to push through its agenda in the House by getting the endorsement of at least 50 percent plus one."
New election can't be called, at least not right away
Even if a prime minister loses a confidence vote in the House, he or she doesn't necessarily get to go back to the electorate right away.
When former Prime Minister Mackenzie King lost the support of the Progressives, he asked the Governor General to dissolve Parliament. The Governor General refused and let the Conservative leader form a government instead.
"We have a convention in Canada that states if we've had an election within relatively recent times — say, six months or a year — then opposition parties will have the opportunity to try to form a government, rather than going to another election," Crandall said.
Unwritten rules 'complicated'
Much of this isn't written down, and instead considered "constitutional conventions," Crandall said. They're unwritten rules, many inherited from Great Britain, and can determine how a minority government works.
"This makes it a little bit complicated, particularly if you have a body of citizens who are not particularly aware that these constitutional conventions even exist," Crandall said.
"You can't go to a court to ask somebody to make sure that a constitutional convention is followed. It's up to citizens to enforce it."
To "punish" infractions, voters only have election day, Crandall said.
"If we have a citizenry that isn't familiar with these rules of government ... then there's a likelihood that political parties will be able to manipulate the rules of the game."