Those who do not remember history (II)

From the Prime Minister’s remarks to the Conservative caucus this morning, a slight adjustment to yesterday’s line.

As you all know, at the best of times, it is rare for governing parties to pick up seats in by-elections...

Indeed. While governments of the last 40 years have retained about 60% of their own seats in by-elections and won about 40% of by-elections overall, I count only a dozen pick-ups for the governing party of the day (four each for the governments of Trudeau, Chretien and Harper).