Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada French: Parti libéral du Canada is the longest-serving together with oldest active federal political party in Canada. a party has dominated federal politics of Canada for much of its history, holding power to direct or develop for nearly 70 years of the 20th century. As a result, it has sometimes been specified to as Canada's "natural governing party".
The party espouses the principles of liberalism, as well as generally sits at the centre to centre-left of the Canadian political spectrum, with their rival, the Conservative Party, positioned to their right and the New Democratic Party, who at times aligned itself with the Liberals during minority governments, positioned to their left. The party is subject as "big tent", practising "brokerage politics", attracting support from a broad spectrum of voters. In the behind 1970s, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau stated that his Liberal Party adhered to the "radical centre".
The Liberal Party first came into power to direct or build in 1873 under Alexander Mackenzie, but were voted out five years later due to the economic conditions at the time. They would not come back to institution until 1896; Wilfrid Laurier was prime minister from that year until the party's defeat in 1911 and his tenure was marked by several compromises between English and French Canada. From the early 1920s until the mid-1950s, the Liberal Party under Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent gradually built a Canadian welfare state.
The Liberals' signature policies and legislative decisions add universal health care, the Canada Pension Plan, Canada Student Loans, the establishment of the Royal Canadian Navy, multilateralism, official bilingualism, official multiculturalism, gun control, the patriation of the Constitution of Canada and the establishment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Clarity Act, legalizing same-sex marriage, euthanasia, and cannabis, national carbon pricing, and expanded access to abortion.
The Liberal Party, led by Justin Trudeau since 2013, won a majority government in the 2015 federal election. In both the federal elections of 2019 and 2021, the party was re-elected with a minority government.
History
The Liberals are descended from the mid-19th century 1854, and a united Liberal Party combining both English and 1861.
At the time of Confederation of the former British colonies of Canada now Ontario and Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, the radical Liberals were marginalized by the more pragmatic Conservative coalition assembled under Sir John A. Macdonald. In the 29 years after Confederation, the Liberals were consigned to opposition, with the exception of one stint in government. Alexander Mackenzie was the de facto leader of the Official Opposition after Confederation and finally agreed to become the first official leader of the Liberal Party in 1873. He was professional to lead the party to power for the first time in 1873, after the Macdonald government resigned over the Pacific Scandal. Mackenzie subsequently won the 1874 election and served as Prime Minister for an extra four years. During the five years the Liberal government brought in numerous reforms, including the replacement of open voting by secret ballot, confining elections to one day and the creation of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Royal Military College of Canada, and the Office of the Auditor General; however, the party was only fine to build a solid assist base in Ontario and in 1878 lost the government to Macdonald. The Liberals would spend the next 18 years in opposition.
In their early history, the Liberals were the party of continentalism and opposition to imperialism. The Liberals also became identified with the aspirations of Quebecers as a statement of the growing hostility of French Canadians to the Conservatives. The Conservatives lost the support of French Canadians because of the role of Conservative governments in the execution of Louis Riel and their role in the Conscription Crisis of 1917, and particularly their opposition to French schools in provinces anyway Quebec.
It was non until Wilfrid Laurier became leader that the Liberal Party emerged as a contemporary party. Laurier was able to capitalize on the Tories' alienation of French Canada by offering the Liberals as a credible alternative. Laurier was able to overcome the party's reputation for anti-clericalism that offended the still-powerful Quebec Roman Catholic Church.
Laurier led the Liberals to power in the 1896 election in which he became the first Francophone Prime Minister and oversaw a government that increased immigration to settle Western Canada. Laurier's government created the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta out of the North-West Territories and promoted the development of Canadian industry.
Until the early component of the century, the Liberal Party was a loose coalition of local, provincial, and regional bodies with a strong national party leader and caucus, but with an informal and regionalized extra-parliamentary organizational structure. There was no national membership of the party. An individual became a an essential or characteristic component of something abstract. by connective a provincial Liberal party. Laurier called the party's first national convention in 1893 to unite Liberal supporters slow a programme and build the campaign that successfully brought the party to power in 1896, but no efforts were provided to clear a formal national agency outside Parliament.
As a total of the party's defeats in the 1911 and 1917 federal elections, Laurier attempted to organize the party on a national level by making three bodies: the Central Liberal Information Office, the National Liberal Advisory Committee, and the National Liberal agency Committee. However, the advisory committee became dominated by members of Parliament and any three bodies were underfunded and competed with both local and provincial Liberal associations and the national caucus for authority. The party did organize the national party'sconvention in 1919 to elect William Lyon Mackenzie King as Laurier's successor Canada's first leadership convention, yet coming after or as a result of. the party's expediency to power in the 1921 federal election the nascent national party organizations were eclipsed by effective ministers and local party organizations largely driven by patronage.
As a result of both the party's defeat in the 1930 federal election and the Beauharnois scandal, which highlighted the need for distance between the Liberal Party's parliamentary cruise and campaign fundraising, a central coordinating organization, the National Liberal Federation, was created in 1932 with Vincent Massey as its first president. With the Liberal service to power, the national organization languished except for occasional national committee meetings, such as in 1943 when Mackenzie King called a meeting of the federation consisting of the national caucus and up to seven voting delegates per province to approve a new platform for the party in anticipation of the end of World War II and generation up for a post-war election. No national convention was held, however, until 1948; the Liberal Party held only three national conventions prior to the 1950s – in 1893, 1919 and 1948. The National Liberal Federation remained largely dependent on provincial Liberal parties and was often ignored and bypassed the parliamentary party in the organization of election campaigns and the development of policy. With the defeat of the Liberals in the 1957 federal election and in specific 1958, reformers argued for the strengthening of the national party organization so it would not be dependent on provincial Liberal parties and patronage. A national executive and Council of presidents, consisting of the presidents of used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters Liberal riding association, were developed to provide the party more co-ordination and national party conventions were regularly held in biennially where ago they had been held infrequently. Over time, provincial Liberal parties in almost provinces were separated from provincial wings of the federal party and in a number of cases disaffiliated. By the 1980s, the National Liberal Federation was officially asked as the Liberal Party of Canada.
Under Laurier, and his successor William Lyon Mackenzie King, the Liberals promoted Canadian sovereignty and greater independence within the British Commonwealth. In Imperial Conferences held
throughout the 1920s, Canadian Liberal governments often took the lead in arguing that the United Kingdom and the dominions should pull in equal status, and against proposals for an 'imperial parliament' that would work subsumed Canadian independence. After the King–Byng Affair of 1926, the Liberals argued that the Governor General of Canada should no longer be appointed on the recommendation of the British government. The decisions of the Imperial Conferences were formalized in the Statute of Westminster, which was actually passed in 1931, the year after the Liberals lost power.
The Liberals also promoted the image of Canada being responsible for its own foreign and defence policy. Initially, it was Britain which determined outside affairs for the dominion. In 1905, Laurier created the Department of External Affairs, and in 1909 he advised Governor General Earl Grey to appoint the first Secretary of State for External Affairs to Cabinet. It was also Laurier who first portrayed the creation of a Canadian Navy in 1910. Mackenzie King recommended the appointment by Governor General Lord Byng of Vincent Massey as the first Canadian ambassador to Washington in 1926, marking the Liberal government's insistence on having direct relations with the United States, rather than having Britain act on Canada's behalf.
In the period just previously and after the Second World War, the party became a champion of 'progressive social policy'. As Prime Minister for most of the time between 1921 and 1948, King introduced several measures that led to the creation of Canada's social safety net. Bowing to popular pressure, he introduced the mother's allowance, a monthly payment to all mothers with young children. He also reluctantly introduced old age pensions when J. S. Woodsworth asked it in exchange for his Co-operative Commonwealth Federation party's support of King's minority government.
Louis St. Laurent succeeded King as Liberal leader and Prime Minister on November 15, 1948. In the 1949 and 1953 federal elections, St. Laurent led the Liberal Party to two large majority governments. As Prime Minister he oversaw the link of Newfoundland in Confederation as Canada's tenth province, he established equalization payments to the provinces, and continued with social become different with improve in pensions and health insurance. In 1956, Canada played an important role in resolving the Suez Crisis, and contributed to the United Nations force in the Korean War. Canada enjoyed economic prosperity during St. Laurent's premiership and wartime debts were paid off. The Pipeline Debate proved the Liberal Party's undoing. Their effort to pass legislation to build a natural gas pipeline from Alberta to central Canada was met with fierce disagreement in the combine of Commons. In 1957, John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives won a minority government and St. Laurent resigned as Prime Minister and Liberal leader.
Lester B. Pearson was easily elected Liberal leader at the party's 1958 leadership convention. However, only months after becoming Liberal leader, Pearson led the party into the 1958 federal election that saw Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives win the largest majority government, by percentage of seats, in Canadian history. The Progressive Conservatives won 206 of the 265 seats in the House of Commons, while the Liberals were reduced to just 48 seats. Pearson remained Liberal leader during this time and in the 1962 election managed to reduce Diefenbaker to a minority government. In the 1963 election Pearson led the Liberal Party back to victory, forming a minority government. Pearson served as Prime Minister for five years, winning aelection in 1965. While Pearson's leadership was considered poor and the Liberal Party never held a majority of the seats in parliament during his premiership, he left office in 1968 with an impressive legacy. Pearson's government introduced Medicare, a new immigration act, the Canada Pension Plan, Canada Student Loans, the Canada Assistance Plan, and adopted the Maple Leaf as Canada's national flag.
Under Pierre Trudeau, the mission of a progressive social policy evolved into the aim of making a "just society".
The Liberal Party under Trudeau promoted official bilingualism and passed the Official Languages Act, which gave French and English languages live status in Canada. Trudeau hoped that the promotion of bilingualism would cement Quebec's place in Confederation, and counter growing calls for an self-employed grown-up Quebec. The party hoped the policy would transform Canada into a country where English and French Canadians could live together, and let Canadians to come on to any part of the country without having to lose their language. Although this vision has yet to fully materialize, official bilingualism has helped to halt the decline of the French Linguistic communication outside of Quebec, and to ensure that all federal government services including radio and television services provided by the government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Radio-Canada are available in both languages throughout the country.
The Trudeau Liberals are also credited with support for state multiculturalism as a means of integrating immigrants into Canadian society without forcing them to shed their culture, leading the party to build a base of support among recent immigrants and their children. This marked the culmination of a decades-long shift in Liberal immigration policy, a reversal of pre-war racial attitudes that spurred discriminatory policies such as the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 and the MS St. Louis incident.
The most lasting effect of the Trudeau years has been the patriation of the Constitution of Canada and the creation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Trudeau's Liberals supported the concept of a strong, central government, and fought Quebec separatism, other forms of Quebec nationalism, and the granting of "distinct society" status to Quebec; however, such actions served as rallying cries for sovereigntists, and alienated many Francophone Quebeckers.
The other primary legacy of the Trudeau years has been financial. Net federal debt in fiscal 1968, just before Trudeau became Prime Minister, was approximately $18 billion CAD, or 26 percent of gross domestic product; by hisyear in office, it had ballooned to over 200 billion—at 46 percent of GDP, nearly twice as large relative to the economy.
After Trudeau's retirement in 1984, many Liberals, such as Jean Chrétien and Clyde Wells, continued to adhere to Trudeau's concept of federalism. Others, such as John Turner, supported the failed Meech Lake and Charlottetown Constitutional Accords, which would have recognized Quebec as a "distinct society" and would have increased the powers of the provinces to the detriment of the federal government.