Canadian federal election, 1979
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The 1979 Canadian federal election was held on May 22, 1979, to elect members of the
House of Commons of Canada The House of Commons of Canada (french: Chambre des communes du Canada) is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada. The House of Common ...
of the 31st Parliament of Canada. It resulted in the defeat of the
Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada (french: Parti libéral du Canada, region=CA) is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism,McCall, Christina; Stephen Clarkson"Liberal Party". ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' ...
after 11 years in power under Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau ( , ; October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), also referred to by his initials PET, was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada The prime mini ...
. Joe Clark led the Progressive Conservative Party to power but with only a minority of seats in the House of Commons. The Liberals, however, beat the Progressive Conservatives in the overall popular vote by more than 400,000 votes (40.11% to 35.89%). Taking office on the eve of his 40th birthday, Clark became the youngest prime minister in Canadian history.


Overview

The PC Party campaigned on the slogans, "Let's get Canada working again", and "It's time for a change – give the future a chance!" Canadians were not, however, sufficiently confident in the young Joe Clark to give him a majority in the House of Commons. Quebec, in particular, was unwilling to support Clark and elected only two PC Members of Parliament (MPs) in the province's 75 ridings. Clark, relatively unknown when elected as PC leader at the 1976 PC Party convention, was seen as being bumbling and unsure. Clark had had problems with certain right-wing members of his caucus. In particular, when Clark's riding was merged into the riding of another PC MP during a redistribution of ridings, the other MP refused to step aside, and Clark ended up running in another riding. Also, when Clark undertook a tour of the Middle East to show his ability to handle foreign affairs issues, his luggage was lost, and Clark appeared to be uncomfortable with the issues being discussed. The Liberals tried to make leadership and Clark's inexperience the issue by arguing in their advertising, "This is no time for on-the-job training" and "We need tough leadership to keep Canada growing. A leader must be a leader." The Social Credit Party of Canada, which had lost its mercurial leader, Réal Caouette, who died in 1976, struggled to remain relevant. After a series of interim leaders, including Caouette's son, the party turned to
Fabien Roy Fabien Roy (born April 17, 1928) is a former Canadian politician who was active in Quebec in the 1970s. Roy was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec and the House of Commons of Canada, and advocated social credit theories of monetary refo ...
, a popular member of the National Assembly of Quebec, who took the reins of the party just before the beginning of the campaign. The party won the tacit support of the separatist '' Parti Québécois'', which formed the government of Quebec. Social Credit attempted to rally the separatist and nationalist vote: Canadian flags were absent at its campaign kick-off rally, and the party's slogan was ''C'est à notre tour'' ("It's our turn"), which was reminiscent of the popular separatist anthem '' Gens du pays'', which includes the chorus, "''C'est votre tour, de vous laisser parler d'amour''". The party focused its platform on constitutional change, which promised to fight to abolish the federal government's constitutional power to disallow any provincial legislation and stated that each province has a "right to choose its own destiny within Canada." The Socreds' support from the Parti Québécois was not welcome by everyone; for instance, Gilles Caouette publicly denounced what he called '' péquistes déguisés en créditistes'' ("péquistes disguised as Socreds"). What remained of its support outside Quebec virtually disappeared, and while the party only suffered a marginal loss in its overall Quebec vote share, its support was much less efficiently distributed than before. The party managed some increase of votes in péquiste areas, but also lost many votes in areas of traditional Socred strength while much of the reduced PC vote share went to the Liberals. The end result was a drop from eleven to six seats. ''(See also: Social Credit Party candidates, 1979 Canadian federal election.)'' Clark's
minority government A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and Cabinet (government), cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or Coalition government, coalition of parties do ...
lasted less than nine months. Clark required support from the Socreds to pass the 1979 budget but refused to work with them on ideological grounds, opting instead to "govern as though he had a majority." None of their demands being met, the Socreds refused to prop up the government. That resulted in the 1980 election in which the PCs were defeated by the resurgent Trudeau Liberals.


National results

Clark won the popular vote in seven provinces, while losing the popular vote nationwide, and because his party won only two seats in Quebec, he won only a minority government. The Liberals won only one seat west of Manitoba. The election was the last in which the Social Credit Party of Canada won seats. An unusual event occurred in the Northwest Territories: the Liberals won the popular vote in the territory but won neither seat. Notes: "% change" refers to change from previous election. ''x'' − less than 0.005% of the popular vote.


Vote and seat summaries


Results by province

xx – less than 0.05% of the popular vote.


Notes

* Number of parties: 9 ** First appearance: Libertarian Party of Canada, Union populaire ** Reappearance after hiatus: Rhinoceros Party of Canada ** Final appearance: ''none''


See also

*
List of Canadian federal general elections This article provides a summary of results for Canadian general elections (where all seats are contested) to the House of Commons, the elected lower half of Canada's federal bicameral legislative body, the Parliament of Canada. The number of se ...
* List of political parties in Canada ''Articles on parties' candidates in this election:'' *
Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
* Liberal * Progressive Conservative * Social Credit


References


Further reading

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External links


Riding mapThe Elections of 1979 and 1980, by Robert Bothwell''History on the Run: The Media and the '79 Election''
a documentary film by
Peter Raymont Peter Raymont (born February 28, 1950) is a Canadian filmmaker and producer and the president of White Pine Pictures, an independent film, television and new media production company based in Toronto. Among his films are ''Shake Hands with the De ...
, National Film Board of Canada {{DEFAULTSORT:Canadian Federal Election, 1979