It's the 'most important election of our lifetime.' Just like all these other ones
OTTAWA — In late March, Liberal Leader Mark Carney set foot for the first time in his Ottawa-area riding’s campaign office and began his speech to volunteers with a stark declaration: “This election is the most important election of our lifetime”.
Only time will tell if Carney and the many others — including Conservatives , pollsters , unions and even former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien — who argue that the ongoing federal election is the most important or consequential one in 81.6 years (the average life expectancy in Canada) are correct.
But a deep dive into journalism archives shows that Canada has had the “most important election” of a lifetime roughly once every decade going back to at least 1841. That is, according to someone.
That’s not to say there aren’t key issues at play as Canadians head to the ballot box on April 28. Canada is grappling with a historic tariff war with the U.S., its largest trade partner by far, while U.S. President Donald Trump has openly and repeatedly mused about annexing Canada.
A Leger poll published this week suggests “tariffs, Trump and US aggression” is the top issue of the campaign for 35 per cent of respondents, followed by inflation and health care each at 22 per cent.
As the ongoing election campaign enters the home stretch, National Post dusted off some newspapers, plunged into digital archives and presents you with just some of the previous elections that were once declared to be the most consequential of a lifetime.
1841
Nearly 30 years before Canada became its own nation, it held what a 1857 article in Hamilton’s The Weekly Spectator billed as not only “the most important election that ever occurred” in the country, but also that “ever will occur again”.
There is a solid argument for at least the former part. In 1841, elections were held to form the First Parliament of the Province of Canada. It was the first ever election after the Act of Union that merged Upper and Lower Canada into a single Province of Canada, creating Canada’s first united legislative assembly.
1900
In early October 1900, former Ottawa mayor turned federal candidate Steward McLeod made a bold claim during a “most exhaustive address”: that the Nov. 7, 1900, federal election would be “the most important election since confederation” in 1867.
The federal candidate in Carleton district (now represented by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre) had one thing in mind. As a fierce advocate for building a canal that would link Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay, he promised that the project would be supported by “the great majority” of MPs on all sides of the House of Commons.
McLeod lost the election and despite his advocacy for two decades , the canal was never built.
1962
In April 1962, Liberal leader Lester B. Pearson stood in the auditorium of Queen Charlotte High School in Charlottetown, PEI, and delivered what a Montreal Star reporter billed “one of his best” speeches of the ongoing federal campaign.
“Claiming that this will be the most important election in Canadian peacetime history, Mr. Pearson said that it should be conducted ‘with the highest sense of public duty and morality’,” wrote journalist Peter Desbarats , though he did not explain why Pearson thought that.
If anything, the election is notable for being the first ever fought by the New Democrats under founder Tommy Douglas.
1979
Already nearly 50 years ago, a claim by any — or all, as in 1979 — federal party leader that an election was the most important in Canadian history was considered an “old cliche” by reporters .
In early March, Pierre Trudeau, the “aging champion” of the Liberal Party , said in an interview that his battle with Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark “may be the most important Canadian election in our lifetime”.
Ironically, it would instead lead to one of the shortest-lived governments in Canadian history. Trudeau would lose the election to Clark, (briefly) ending 16 years of Liberal reign. Clark’s PCs campaigned on slogans such as “Let’s get Canada working again” and argued that it’s “Time for a Change”.
Sound familiar?
(This election would ultimately be listed as one of the least important elections in Canada in 2021 by Maclean’s).
1988
There are many similarities between the 1988 federal election and this year’s vote. In 1988, the single biggest issue of the campaign was Canada’s relationship with the United States and if the country should sign what would become the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It was the last election before 2025 in which Canada’s relationship with the U.S. was central to a federal election.
There was also much concern about national unity after the failure by Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government to secure the ratification of the Meech Lake Accord the previous year.
It was also a campaign in which Liberal candidates were legion in swearing that it would be “the most important election in our lifetime.”
One such candidate was Ralph Goodale , who left Saskatchewan politics to run for the Liberals that year, a seat he would hold for the party until 2019. He argued the election was crucial because NAFTA threatened “the security and the future of our way of life”.
Two months after Goodale’s statement, Manitoba Liberal Leader Sharon Carstairs agreed that the Nov. 21 vote was the most important of her lifetime , citing concerns that NAFTA would cause a flood of Canadian-trained doctors to move to the U.S.
1997
The 1997 election is notable largely because it was the first federal campaign after Quebec’s failed 1995 referendum and for the fact it’s the first time five political parties (Liberal, Reform, Bloc Québécois, NDP and PC) were recognized in the House of Commons.
But that didn’t stop Alberta PC candidate Morris Flewwelling from taking out a large ad in the May 9, 1997, edition of the Red Deer Advocate with a screaming headline “THIS IS IT! The Most Important Election in Canada’s History. VOTE FLEWWELLING”.
Flewwelling was not elected as part of the PCs’ paltry 20-seat caucus but would dedicate his life to public service all the same. Later that year, he was invested with the Order of Canada for his “stellar record of community involvement” that included founding Alberta’s first alternative school.
He would later be elected thrice as mayor of Red Deer and be awarded the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2014.
2021
The 2021 election, much like those of 1965 and 2008, is largely seen as a failed attempt by a governing party to convert their minority government into a majority.
For weeks after he called the snap election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced questions as to why Canadians were going to the polls in the first place amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Trudeau was so convinced the election was necessary that on the day he launched his campaign, he breathlessly declared it as “ maybe the most important since 1945 and certainly in our lifetimes”. He called on Canadians to choose the next government that would guide the country out of the pandemic.
Months later, the House of Commons would return with nearly exactly the same composition.
The author of the 2021 Maclean’s list of least important elections, Jason Markusoff, said on Monday that he could add this election to the list in hindsight.
Bonus: 1946 Hamilton city council
Sometimes, the most important election in one’s life is much closer to home than Ottawa.
That was the case for Hamilton City Controller Nora-Frances Henderson and the 1946 Hamilton municipal election. The political situation was tense at the time due the recent bitter 86-day strike at the Stelco plant which had a lasting impact on labour relations in the country .
Henderson was one of the most vocal opponents of the strike, which had been deemed illegal by the federal government. So, on the eve of the Dec. 9 municipal election, she had a stark message for attendees of lecture organized by the Women’s Canadian Club.
“I have no hesitation in saying that this is the most important election we have known in our lifetime,” she’s reported as saying by The Hamilton Spectator.
“In effect, the people of Hamilton are going to the polls to decide whether they desire to live under the rule of law and order or under a government which can set the laws made aside on occasion.”
Henderson, a “true trailblazer” and the first women elected to politics in Hamilton, won her bid for re-election but quit politics the following year and passed away in 1949. That municipal election was likely the most important in her lifetime.
National Post
cnardi@postmedia.com
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