NB: This is the next in our series of posts on the men and women who make up our 40th Parliament.
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."
It's an oft-repeated proverb and one that applies to over a quarter of the MPs in our 40th Parliament.
While collecting data on the MPs of the 40th Parliament, we found interesting nuggets we hadn't anticipated at the project's outset. One of the most intriguing was the number of MPs who just didn't take an electoral “no” for an answer. The Parliament of Canada's website records all of an MP's previous attempts at running for office, successful or not.
27 per cent of MPs, or 84 of the 308, were defeated at least once prior to winning the seat they currently hold. And as you'll see below, the figures vary quite dramatically by party.
initially this number struck me as a bit low, as it means that about three quarters of MPs were elected on their first try. But given the strength of Canada's party system, in many ridings the nomination race can have a greater bearing on who will win a seat than the actual election itself.
Some ridings are almost completely safe seats. For example, in southern Alberta, the riding of Crowfoot was measured as the least competitive riding in Canada, with the Conservative party winning by an average margin of 74 per cent over the last three elections. The Liberals have some pretty safe seats, too. Mount Royal in Quebec has elected a Liberal MP in every election since WWII (1940).
As I mentioned above, the average number of "persistent" MPs, 27.3 per cent, conceals considerable variation among the parties. Here's a breakdown by party:
| NDP |
48.7% |
| Conservative |
29.0% |
| Liberal |
20.8% |
| Bloc Québécois |
16.7% |
Of the current crop of MPs, New Democrats are, by a wide margin, the most persistent. Nearly half have lost a previous attempt at winning a seat in the House of Commons. Blocquistes, on the other hand, seem to have luck on their side or are perhaps less likely to try again if they lose the first time around. The Conservatives sit slightly above the average, but the Liberals currently in the House haven't faced too much adversity getting elected. Or maybe this new batch of Liberal MPs have been taking over safe seats as the last of the Chretien/Martin era retire. A more granular analysis would be required to suss that out.
Of course, we shouldn't read too much into these numbers (there is, admittedly, survivorship bias). Yet this persistence in the face of defeat is very interesting, especially in light of some of the findings of The Accidental Citizen?, namely the pretty clear dissatisfaction with the nomination process expressed by former MPs. Rereading that section of the report, it makes me wonder why some MPs felt like they ought to put themselves through the process all over again (and again, and again, in a couple of cases).
Yet you've got to give those MPs some credit for sticking with it, particularly those from the NDP who weren't ever competing for power. Their persistence paid off.