Regional Forces at Play: The 1910 Drummond-Arthabaska By-Election

Before and after Monday's by-election, Canadian pundits spent pages upon pages debating whether it would simply maintain the status quo or if it was an important sign of things to come for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's majority government. The results were boringly predictable, with the Conservatives winning the two seats they were predicted to win and the Liberals winning the other two. The large number of votes that the Liberals gained in Western provinces was matched by a competitive NDP in Toronto and Montreal, which, before Jack Layton, was the party that received a lot of votes only when Canadians were frustrated with the Liberals – not a contender for 24 Sussex Drive. The answer to the question “Do these results matter?” seems to sway between partisan beliefs. If you're Conservative, they do not. If you're Liberal or NDP, they do. In honour of all this partisan jockeying, let's take a look at one of Canada's most famous by-elections: the Drummond-Arthabaska byelection of 1910.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier first became Prime Minister in 1896 after defeating the Conservatives, who were languishing through a series of lacklustre leaders who succeeded the indomitable Sir John. A. Macdonald. They are often the most forgettable Prime Ministers, up there with the first Liberal PM Alexander Mackenzie. The Conservative Prime Ministers of the 1890s were unlucky (such as Sir John Abott who retired from ill health or Sir John Thompson who died of a heart attack), incompetent (Sir Mackenzie Bowell), or unnecessary (Sir Charles Tupper, who never sat in Parliament as Prime Minister).

Laurier's campaign slogan “Sunny Ways” was a purposeful contrast to a Conservative party that had been in power since 1878 and grown stagnant. Compared to Sir Charles Tupper, born in 1821, the relatively young Wilfrid Laurier (b. 1841) seemed like a good alternative. Laurier's win that year owed a lot to the province of Quebec. He had spent more than a decade convincing French Canadian voters that they could trust the liberals (small l-liberals) not to attack the Catholic Church and also defend their linguistic and cultural rights. Of course, Laurier being a French Canadian himself certainly helped. We might say today that Laurier was “their guy.”

By 1910, Laurier had won his record-setting 4th majority in 1908 but his support in Quebec was slipping. Henri Bourassa had a growing influence on Quebec voters. Bourassa was a passionate French Canadian nationalist who had been a Liberal MP (and protégé) under Laurier in the 1896 election, but had left in 1899 over Canadian participation in the Boer War. He believed that Canada had no obligation to support Britain in an imperial conflict, let alone one against the Boer Republics of present-day South Africa who had done nothing but oppose British imperial expansion. Unable to temper his principles to support the party line, Bourassa resigned and was re-elected as an independent. In those days, if you quit a party, a by-election was immediately called to decide whether you had the confidence of the voters to remain sitting in the House. Laurier generously did not run a Liberal candidate against Bourassa, allowing him an easy victory. Still, Bourassa was convinced that the future of Canada lay far and away from the British Empire.

Afterwards Bourassa helped found the Ligue Nationaliste, a group of Quebec intellectuals who advocated nationalist policies. In the early 20th century a Canadian nationalist was more often a natonaliste canadien and supported a Canadian nation as opposed to a Canadian Dominion. As historian Réal Belanger quotes, Bourassa and his nationalists believed that “the fatherland, for us, is Canada as a whole, that is to say a federation of distinct races and autonomous provinces. The nation ... is the Canadian nation, composed of French Canadians and English Canadians.” To them, Laurier's support for the British Empire at best represented a failure to defend his native province, and at worst a traitor to it.

So by 1910, Laurier's support in Quebec was shaky. Bourassa founded his landmark paper, Le Devoir, in January and immediately began writing editorials attacking the Liberals over their decision to create a Canadian Navy in support of Britain. The Naval Crisis erupted as Britain sought to maintain naval superiority over the up-and-coming naval power of Germany. The Empire asked its Dominions to build naval ships to help carry the burden of the “weary titan.” Bourassa saw this as yet another step towards closer ties with Britain and rejected it outright. Strangely, he received funding from Conservatives in the province for his newspaper that eschewed their position as well as Laurier’s. After nearly 15 years out of power, the Conservatives under Robert Borden were looking for any weaknesses they could find. Bourassa, for his part, wanted to use Conservative funds to elect a group of nationalist MPs who would vote for Quebec rather than one of the federal parties – a regional campaign that is very familiar to us today. He had learned from the 1908 election when he had remained neutral and Laurier had won another majority. This time he was actively campaigning against his former leader.

All of these forces moving against Laurier came into play after Louis Lavergne was appointed to Senate. Lavergne was Laurier's former law partner and represented the riding of Drummond-Arthabaska – a riding where Laurier had lost an election in 1877 but had turned Liberal in 1887. A by-election was called and the Liberal candidate J.E. Perrault was chosen to replace Lavergne. The Conservatives, rather than supporting a Conservative candidate, threw their support behind the Nationalist candidate, a farmer named Arthur Gilbert. Many political “celebrities” of the day came out to rally their side. Bourassa and his fellow nationalist, Armand Lavergne (Louis Lavergne's nephew!) campaigned alongside Quebec Conservatives F.D. Monk, P.E. Blondin and Albert Sévigny. The Conservatives, who were effectively an imperialist party, allied with the anti-imperialist nationalists for the chance to displace the party of the powerful Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The main issue of the election was the creation of a Canadian Navy, despite the fact that the Conservatives in Ottawa actually wanted to create a larger navy than Laurier.

Like many by-elections, it was a no-holds-barred contest. Results were more important than political finesse. The “Laurier Navy” was a danger to all French Canadians, said the Liberal’s opponents. French Canadians would be conscripted for overseas service for the British Empire if it was created. Uniformed men went through the countryside asking for the names of those over 18, allegedly so that they could be conscripted in some future war. It was blatant fear-mongering at its worst. For those complaining about the hostility of the recent by-elections in 2013, they are lucky that the worst Canadians encounter today is name-calling and robocalls. (Though thankfully we live in a far better and more regulated political environment!)

In the end, the nationalist candidate won the November 3 by-election by 207 votes. Liberals across the country were stunned. Bourassa believed it was a sign that he could in fact form a bloc of nationalist candidates to hold sway over the House of Commons. Borden and the Conservatives had found the weak chink in Laurier's base in Quebec. For his part, Laurier was a veteran of political campaigns and esteemed statesman and was not too worried about the loss. He was confident in his ability to win another election, though unfortunately that attitude helped him lose the federal election of 1911. But that is a story for another day.

Drummond-Arthabaska could be considered a weather vane for the impending Liberal defeat in 1911. The forces at play in that byelection presaged the forces that unravelled Laurier's power in Quebec. While clearly not every byelection is a sign of things to come, they can serve as testing grounds for messages and ideas that might succeed against the government in a national contest. Perhaps Drummond-Arthabaska was simply a prophetic riding. Laurier's loss in 1877 suggested Quebec was not yet ready for Liberals. Later in 1887, it was won by Joseph Lavergne's (Louis Lavergne's brother, and Armand Lavergne's father), a sign of rising Liberal fortunes in the province. In 1910, it was won by the Nationalists. In the 1957 federal election, the incumbent MP Armand Cloutier who had represented the riding since 1940, lost as the Liberals under Louis St. Laurent went down in defeat. In 1963, it returned to the Liberals as they regained their support in the province and their leader, Lester B. Pearson became Prime Minister. The riding was amalgamated into other ridings in 1966. Maybe the Liberals did not realise its prophetic potential.

For the most recent byelections of 2013, it's clear that the results themselves have not changed much. The Conservatives held onto their seats in the west and the Liberals held onto their seats in the east. With such low voter turnout, it's natural to wonder if the votes cast really represent the results we might see in the next federal election of 2015. Still, like the 1910 byelection, we have been given a peek at the regional forces that will be at play in the next election. The Conservatives' attack ads against Trudeau clearly did not influence the voters of Brandon-Souris and Provencher. The NDP alternative to the Liberals and Conservatives still has support, but is it enough to displace them? The Liberals, who most say “won” the byelections, should perhaps be more interested in the failure of their opponents' message. Positioning Justin Trudeau as the moral alternative to Stephen Harper and the rational alternative to Thomas Mulcair worked well while undermining his opponents' strategy of attack. If these messages remain popular among Canadians until 2015, many predict a Trudeau victory. Of course, historians only make predictions when we already know the results, so expect a prediction about 2015 here at Clio's Current in a couple of years!