Just One Vote: From Jim Walding’s Nomination to Constitutional Defeat

On January 12, 1986, Jim Walding was nominated as the New Democratic Party candidate for the Manitoba constituency of St. Vital. Although Walding had been an MLA for fifteen years, he had fallen out of favour with key elements in his party, and won the nomination by only a single vote. Walding went on, in turn, to bring down his own government by a single vote, marking the only time in the history of Canadian politics that a majority government was brought down from within.

Combining data drawn from archives, interviews, and the media, Just One Vote is a vivid and exceptionally detailed study of the nomination process. Ian Stewart outlines the geographic, social, and political backdrop behind Walding’s contested party nomination, the unusual chain of events triggered by the contestation, including the fall of the Pawley government and the NDP’s defeat in the 1988 provincial election, and examines the fallout from these events on Manitobans and Canadians.