Cabinetry

A new book sums up the challenges for any leader building a government

John Bengough, “Sir John A.’s New Marionettes”

Imagine the challenge Wilfrid Laurier faced, elected in 1896 to head a new Liberal government on his second try.

It was only the second Liberal government since Confederation, 18 years after Sir John A. Macdonald’s comeback ended the first, led by dour Sandy Mackenzie. The Laurier Liberals didn’t win a resounding victory, only 117 seats to 86 for the Conservatives under Charles Tupper. The Liberals actually came a distant second in the popular vote, 48% to 41%. Laurier needed to use his first cabinet to strengthen his shaky grip on power, cement his legitimacy.

He did it, in part, by how he built his cabinet. Four ministers in that first 1896 cabinet were former provincial premiers, and from Confederation’s founding provinces to boot: Oliver Mowat from Ontario, William Fielding from Nova Scotia, Andrew George Blair from New Brunswick, and Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière from Quebec. Leaders of today, who sometimes worry that somebody in their government might outshine them, should contemplate Laurier’s example instead of just name-checking him.

Even after laying down that opening hand, Laurier wasn’t done cabinet-making. The Manitoba schools question was the big social and religious issue of the day, and Laurier pestered Manitoba’s attorney-general, Clifford Sifton, until Sifton moved to federal politics in November 1896.

“While there have been moments when prime ministers have reached outside of their caucus or to the provinces, no one elese has pursued the approach so aggressively,” J.P. Lewis writes in the chapter on Laurier’s cabinets in a fascinating new book, Statecraft: Canadian Prime Ministers and their Cabinets (University of Toronto Press), edited by Carleton University’s Stephen Azzi and Toronto Metropolitan University’s Patrice Dutil.

The book’s 20 chapters, written mostly by political scientists and in a few latter-day cases by political practitioners, look at the way most of the country’s longer-lasting prime ministers have sought to advance their agendas by designing, appointing and managing their cabinets.

Azzi and Dutil are careful to note that Macdonald once listed his occupation as “cabinet-maker” when checking in to a hotel. But they make no claim that cabinetry is the only key to a government’s success or even the most important. Only that it’s received little sustained academic attention “because it is notoriously difficult to qualify and quantify.”

Prime ministers make their appointments in private, or with only their most trusted advisors. They often kid themselves about their motives. If it goes well they will be tempted to hog the credit, if poorly to shift the blame. “There has always been a tension between the personal clout of the prime minister and the collegial requirements of cabinet government,” the editors write mildly. Sometimes the tension exacts a sacrifice: John Turner, Lucien Bouchard, Mike Chong, Maxime Bernier, Jody Wilson-Raybould, Steven Guilbeault, all fell or were pushed from their perches, often a bit of both.