Pivot or Pirouette?: The 1993 Canadian General Election

Tom Flanagan

oct 2022 · UBC Press

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Pivot or Pirouette? covers both the backstory and the aftermath of the strangest election in Canadian history, as told by an insider who was involved in the events before, during, and after the ballots were cast.

In the early 1990s, a pan-Canadian coalition of Tory voters had been splintered by constitutional politics. Discontented voters flocked to new regional parties; the Conservatives attempted to turn the tide by choosing the first female prime minister, but their efforts fell flat. In the 1993 election, the party was reduced to two seats, the separatist Bloc Québécois became the official opposition, and the Reform Party swept the West. Although the shocking results seemed pivotal, ultimately the pivot turned into a full pirouette as Canadian politics returned to historical norms: new parties shake up the system but are eventually absorbed into it, bringing innovation but not transformation. You can’t understand modern Canadian politics without understanding the 1993 election.

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Tom Flanagan is a professor emeritus in political science at the University of Calgary. His book First Nations? Second Thoughts received the Donner Prize and the Canadian Political Science Association’s Donald Smiley Prize. From 1991 to 2012, he worked for Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, and Danielle Smith in various advisory capacities and as campaign manager. His experiences on the campaign trail are detailed in his book Winning Power: Canadian Campaigning in the Twenty-First Century.