UPDATED: No Commons For Old MPs? 2008 MPs by Year First Elected
[UPDATE: Thanks to an anonymous commenter for reminding us that Ralph Goodale was first elected in the 1974 general election. I've updated the table, and added to the post below to reflect this correction.]
If incumbency is worth something, and the 1993 election represented such a huge turnover in the composition of the House, then we may be set for another big turnover in the House of Commons next time the country goes to the polls, based on the year many MPs were first elected, and the likelihood that some of them with long years of service may be set to retire soon.
In the wake of this past week's by-election loss, more than one commentator referred to the Bloc Québécois as being a little "long in the tooth". Elsewhere, Liberal pundit Andrew Steele writing for the Globe and Mail online has noted that the average age of his party's caucus is over 60. The fact is that 47 of the 308 MP's elected in 2008 were first elected 15 or more years ago.
Many of them arrived in the pivotal 1993 election, where more than two-thirds of those elected were rookies (199/295 or 67.5%), an above-average number of incumbents did not run for reelection (66 of 285 or 23.2%, with another 10 seats vacant), and the vast majority of incumbents who did run were defeated (129 of 220 or 58.6%). Two new parties appeared and elected large numbers of MPs (the Bloc Québécois in Québec and the Reform Party out west), while the NDP and Progressive Conservative parties took a beating from populist voters over their participation in the elite-driven constitutional negotiations, and the perceived role of their provincial cousins in the pain of the last recession. An unprecedented number of small parties also ran candidates, including the National Party of Mel Hurtig, the Natural Law Party of the transcendental meditation movement and many many others.
So the conditions which saw those new incumbents elected in 1993 were very different from the current environment in which their replacements will be seeking fresh mandates.
Most recent analysis focusing on MP's length of service has taken a different tack. For example, the Sun chain's Greg Weston wrote a frequently-cited column last spring assessing MPs' willingness to defeat the government based on their pension eligibility, and Mike De Souza documented for Canwest in the fall which MPs were not yet pensionable.
Still, the age and years of service of a number of MPs has opened them up to constant rumours about their impending retirement, including Commons Speaker and Liberal M.P. Peter Milliken (Class of 1988), Edmonton East Conservative M.P. Peter Goldring (Class of 1997), and more recently Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe himself (Class of a 1990 by-election) as documented in Elizabeth Thompson's blogpost late in the summer.
The MPs continue to deny the rumours, but sooner or later they're all going to retire, and parties are already looking to develop candidates in those ridings now, for some future election when the seat opens up.
So while Jeffrey Simpson was right several months ago when he wrote about the contours of current stalemate in federal electoral politics, in fact the coming retirement of a large number of incumbents certainly contains the potential for shifting one or more of the "four blocks" he referred to.
-------------------------------
Anyway, as I'm working through the election data from 1988 to 1996 elections for inclusion into the Pundits' Guide, I thought this might be a good time to list the MPs elected in 2008 by year of first election. First come the counts, and then the list of MPs for 1993 and earlier.
47 of the 308 members elected in 2008 were first elected in or before the 1993 General Election, with a further 3 elected in by-elections between 1993 and 1997. If you examine the list closely, you'll notice that the 4 by-election seats (marked with an asterisk) were all held by MPs elected in 1993 or earlier. So this is the list of ridings to watch for any future potential retirements, whether in the forthcoming election or the one after that. And probably the longer this Parliament runs, the greater the likelihood of more retirements.
I haven't looked it up yet, but we could probably also calculate the average age of each Class of MPs as well. Eventually this data will be included in the Guide for searching purposes as well.
The "Dean" of the House of Commons, by the way, is the M.P. with the longest period of uninterrupted service. This explains why now-Bloc Québécois M.P. Louis Plamondon (first elected as a Progressive Conservative in 1984) holds that honour; rather than [UPDATE: Liberal M.P. Ralph Goodale who was elected for a term from 1974-79, but defeated and not reelected until 1993, or ...] now-Liberal M.P. Bob Rae who was first elected in a by-election in 1978 as a New Democrat but resigned to run for the provincial leadership of his then-party; or Rob Nicholson who was first elected as a Progressive Conservative in 1984, but was defeated in 1993 and did not return to the Commons until 2004.
If incumbency is worth something, and the 1993 election represented such a huge turnover in the composition of the House, then we may be set for another big turnover in the House of Commons next time the country goes to the polls, based on the year many MPs were first elected, and the likelihood that some of them with long years of service may be set to retire soon.
In the wake of this past week's by-election loss, more than one commentator referred to the Bloc Québécois as being a little "long in the tooth". Elsewhere, Liberal pundit Andrew Steele writing for the Globe and Mail online has noted that the average age of his party's caucus is over 60. The fact is that 47 of the 308 MP's elected in 2008 were first elected 15 or more years ago.
Many of them arrived in the pivotal 1993 election, where more than two-thirds of those elected were rookies (199/295 or 67.5%), an above-average number of incumbents did not run for reelection (66 of 285 or 23.2%, with another 10 seats vacant), and the vast majority of incumbents who did run were defeated (129 of 220 or 58.6%). Two new parties appeared and elected large numbers of MPs (the Bloc Québécois in Québec and the Reform Party out west), while the NDP and Progressive Conservative parties took a beating from populist voters over their participation in the elite-driven constitutional negotiations, and the perceived role of their provincial cousins in the pain of the last recession. An unprecedented number of small parties also ran candidates, including the National Party of Mel Hurtig, the Natural Law Party of the transcendental meditation movement and many many others.
So the conditions which saw those new incumbents elected in 1993 were very different from the current environment in which their replacements will be seeking fresh mandates.
Most recent analysis focusing on MP's length of service has taken a different tack. For example, the Sun chain's Greg Weston wrote a frequently-cited column last spring assessing MPs' willingness to defeat the government based on their pension eligibility, and Mike De Souza documented for Canwest in the fall which MPs were not yet pensionable.
Still, the age and years of service of a number of MPs has opened them up to constant rumours about their impending retirement, including Commons Speaker and Liberal M.P. Peter Milliken (Class of 1988), Edmonton East Conservative M.P. Peter Goldring (Class of 1997), and more recently Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe himself (Class of a 1990 by-election) as documented in Elizabeth Thompson's blogpost late in the summer.
The MPs continue to deny the rumours, but sooner or later they're all going to retire, and parties are already looking to develop candidates in those ridings now, for some future election when the seat opens up.
So while Jeffrey Simpson was right several months ago when he wrote about the contours of current stalemate in federal electoral politics, in fact the coming retirement of a large number of incumbents certainly contains the potential for shifting one or more of the "four blocks" he referred to.
-------------------------------
Anyway, as I'm working through the election data from 1988 to 1996 elections for inclusion into the Pundits' Guide, I thought this might be a good time to list the MPs elected in 2008 by year of first election. First come the counts, and then the list of MPs for 1993 and earlier.
47 of the 308 members elected in 2008 were first elected in or before the 1993 General Election, with a further 3 elected in by-elections between 1993 and 1997. If you examine the list closely, you'll notice that the 4 by-election seats (marked with an asterisk) were all held by MPs elected in 1993 or earlier. So this is the list of ridings to watch for any future potential retirements, whether in the forthcoming election or the one after that. And probably the longer this Parliament runs, the greater the likelihood of more retirements.
I haven't looked it up yet, but we could probably also calculate the average age of each Class of MPs as well. Eventually this data will be included in the Guide for searching purposes as well.
The "Dean" of the House of Commons, by the way, is the M.P. with the longest period of uninterrupted service. This explains why now-Bloc Québécois M.P. Louis Plamondon (first elected as a Progressive Conservative in 1984) holds that honour; rather than [UPDATE: Liberal M.P. Ralph Goodale who was elected for a term from 1974-79, but defeated and not reelected until 1993, or ...] now-Liberal M.P. Bob Rae who was first elected in a by-election in 1978 as a New Democrat but resigned to run for the provincial leadership of his then-party; or Rob Nicholson who was first elected as a Progressive Conservative in 1984, but was defeated in 1993 and did not return to the Commons until 2004.
2008 MPs, Counts by Party and Year First Elected
| Class of | Lib | NDP | BQ | Cons | Ind | ALL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | 77 | 37 | 49 | 143 | 2 | 308 |
| 1978 By | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 1984 GE | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| 1987 By | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 1988 GE | 7 | 1* | 3 | 1* | 12 | |
| 1990 By | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 1993 GE | 11 | 9* | 10 | 30 | ||
| 1995 By | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 1996 By | 2 | 2 | ||||
| 1997 GE | 7 | 5 | 1 | 11 | 24 | |
| 1998 By | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 1999 By | 3 | 3 | ||||
| 2000 By | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 2000 GE | 8 | 1 | 4 | 10 | 23 | |
| 2002 By | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| 2003 By | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 2004 GE | 15 | 8 | 16 | 36 | 75 | |
| 2005 By | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 2006 By | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 2006 GE | 3 | 8 | 8 | 34 | 1 | 54 |
| 2007 By | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| 2008 By | 2 | 1 | 3 | |||
| 2008 GE | 14 | 11 | 6 | 34 | 66 |
2008 MPs elected prior to the 1997 GE, by Year First Elected
Labels: MPs Year First Elected
posted by The Pundits' Guide at
7:24 AM
8 Comments:
Bill Casey Ind-NDP may be a typo?
No, if you check the column header, that column describes the contest in 2008. In CCMV in the 2008 general election, the seat was won by an Independent, and the NDP came second.
But it never hurts to double-check my work, so I always appreciate the commentary!
Thanks AF,
I read it the column incorrectly.
Fascinating. Good work.
One correction. Ralph Goodale is class of '74.
Whoa, you're good, Anon. I had completely forgotten about his earlier term. Thank you very much; I'm correcting now. Good catch!
These are great numbers. One caveat is that long-serving MPs tend to be elected from safe seats. A party should be able to retain a safe seat even if a long serving MP retires.
Canada has high personal votes for a parliamentary system, so for example the Liberals should be worried about losing Wascana if Goodale retires. So its important to distinguish long serving MPs that have piled up high personal votes in otherwise marginal seats, to MPs that are long serving because they represent a riding that is not at all marginal.
Also relevant is the age of the MP. Its not a bad job, and someone elected in their early thirties might decide to stay for three decades, if the voters let him.
Hi Ed, and thanks for the comment.
In my experience, a seat's safeness is in the eye of the beholder, and thus I usually consider rating them that way off-limits for a non-partisan blog.
Certainly, however, other parties are eye-ing non-traditional seats, and no doubt Mr. Goodale's would be on the list of at least two other parties.
Also being looked at, I believe, are the Kingston seat, Kootenay-Columbia, Laurier Ste-Marie, La Pointe-de-l'Ile, Drummond, Beaches East York, Halifax West, Cardigan, Malpeque, Vancouver Centre, Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, and Vancouver Island North. I've also noticed that the Conservatives have nominated early in the north Toronto and 905 seats with longer-serving Liberal MPs.
I'd also agree with you about the MP's age ... but that's another data collection project for another day, isn't it!
An interesting side-project (although I know PG is effectively a full-time job, and for which, my sincere thanks) would be to do some kind of study showing what age MPs stepped down at, and I don't mean them being hurried out the door by scandal/party fortunes. And how many died in harness, as it were.
If some broad age range could be worked out, then us poli-watchers could apply it to today's HoC and begin to make informed guesses about who might step down and when. And, ooh, does party affliation have any bearing on the matter?
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home