The night the 'natural governing party' fell to third place
In short: For most of the 20th century, the Liberal Party was Canada’s political mainstay. That changed on May 2, 2011. In a seismic shift, they plummeted to third place, while the New Democratic Party surged into history-making territory and the Conservatives secured a decisive majority.
The 2011 election was defined by a dramatic realignment of the Canadian political landscape. After five years of minority rule, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party vaulted to a majority government, winning 166 seats—a gain of 23. While the Conservatives were predicted to win, they surpassed expectations by capturing nearly 40 percent of the popular vote. This victory was bolstered by an 'orange wave' from the New Democratic Party (NDP), which saw Jack Layton lead the party to a historic high of 103 seats, becoming the Official Opposition for the first time.
The most shocking casualty was the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party experienced a devastating defeat during Michael Ignatieff's tenure, where their seat count fell from 77 in 2008 to merely 34, while securing under 20 percent of the total vote. This marked the first time since Confederation that the Liberals finished third. Simultaneously, the Bloc Québécois collapsed from 49 seats to just 4, losing its official party status for the first time since 1993 and forcing leader Gilles Duceppe to resign after his own defeat.
The path to this result was paved by a failed attempt at coalition government. In late 2008, opposition parties pledged to replace Harper with a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition. However, public interest in such a move remained low. When the Liberals eventually withdrew support for the government in August 2009, Ignatieff's subsequent push for an earlier election was widely viewed as a miscalculation. By the time the May 2011 vote arrived, Harper had successfully framed the choice as one of stability versus risky coalition rule.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Canadian Federal Election of 2011 | Results, Issues & Impact | Britannica
- Also: 2011 Canadian federal election
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