The Representative System and the Calling of Elections

Abstract

Sometime between 30 October 1972 and the spring of 1973, the government led by the Rt. Hon. Pierre Trudeau, with fewer than half the members of the House of Commons belonging to the Liberal party, discovered that, unless it was prepared to use maps based on the 1961 census, one of the courses not immediately available to it was the dissolution of Parliament and the calling of another general election. The handicap (and it must also have particularly affected the strategy of the New Democratic party), was not for any constitutional reason; nor was it based on the possibility that the governor general might refuse the prime minister a dissolution. That possibility existed, although no one in the cabinet or Commons appears to have recognized it. Eugene Forsey concluded years ago, after his exhaustive study of the prerogatives governing dissolution: “Even where a great new issue of public policy has arisen, the Crown would be justified in refusing dissolution if Supply had not been voted, or a redistribution or franchise Act had not yet had time to come into operation, provided an alternative Government could be found, or provided the issue was not one which brooked no delay, e.g. a mandate for the despatch of troops overseas.” Two of the conditions noted by Dr Forsey three decades ago existed in 1972–3: a redistribution act had not yet had time to come into operation, and an alternative government could be found.