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1980 Canadian federal election

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1980 Canadian federal election
← 1979 February 18, 1980[a] 1984 →
282 seats in the House of Commons
142 seats needed for a majority
Turnout69.3%[1] (Decrease6.4pp)
  First party Second party
 
Leader Pierre Trudeau Joe Clark
Party Liberal Progressive Conservative
Leader since April 6, 1968 February 22, 1976
Leader's seat Mount Royal Yellowhead
Last election 114 seats, 40.11% 136 seats, 35.89%
Seats before 114 136
Seats won 147 103
Seat change Increase33 Decrease33
Popular vote 4,855,425 3,552,994
Percentage 44.34% 32.45%
Swing Increase4.23pp Decrease3.44pp
  Third party Fourth party
 
SC
Leader Ed Broadbent Fabien Roy
Party New Democratic Social Credit
Leader since July 7, 1975 March 30, 1979
Leader's seat Oshawa Beauce[b]
(lost re-election)
Last election 26 seats, 17.88% 6 seats, 4.61%
Seats before 27 5
Seats won 32 0
Seat change Increase5 Decrease5
Popular vote 2,165,087 185,486
Percentage 19.77% 1.70%
Swing Increase1.89pp Decrease2.91pp
Prime Minister before election

Joe Clark
Progressive Conservative

Prime Minister after election

Pierre Trudeau
Liberal

The 1980 Canadian federal election was held on February 18, 1980, to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 32nd Parliament of Canada. It was called when the minority Progressive Conservative government led by Prime Minister Joe Clark was defeated in the Commons.

Clark and his government had been under attack for its perceived inexperience, for example in its handling of its 1979 election campaign commitment to move Canada's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the hotly disputed territory of Jerusalem.[2]

Clark had maintained uneasy relations with the conservative-populist Quebec-based Social Credit Party (nicknamed the Socreds), who were the fourth largest party in the House of Commons. While he needed support from the party's six MPs to get legislation passed, he was unwilling to agree to the conditions they imposed for their support. Clark recruited one Social Credit MP, Richard Janelle, to join the PC caucus.

In December 1979, just six months after the 1979 election, Clark's government could not collect enough votes in the House of Commons to survive. Clark's Minister of Finance, John Crosbie, introduced an austere government budget that proposed to increase the excise tax on gasoline by 18¢ per Imperial gallon (about 4¢ a litre) to reduce the federal government's deficit. The New Democratic Party's finance critic, Bob Rae, proposed a subamendment to the budget motion, stating that the House of Commons did not approve of the budget.[3] The NDP's 32 MPs were set against the budget. The five remaining Social Credit MPs abstained, upset that the revenues from the increased gas tax were not allocated to Quebec.

In addition, one Tory MP (Alvin Hamilton) was too ill to attend the vote while two others (Flora MacDonald and Lloyd Crouse) were abroad. Meanwhile, the Liberals assembled all but one member of their caucus (Serge Joyal), even going as far as to take two MPs (Maurice Dionne and Claude Lajoie) out of the hospital for the vote.[4] Rae's subamendment was adopted by a vote of 139–133, bringing down the government and forcing an election.

Former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who had served since 1968, had announced his resignation as leader of the Liberal Party following its defeat in 1979. However, no leadership convention had been held when Clark's Progressive Conservative government fell. Trudeau quickly rescinded his resignation and led the party to victory, winning 33 more seats than in 1979. That enabled the Liberals to form a majority government.

Clark's Tories campaigned under the slogan, "Real change deserves a fair chance," but less than a third of voters voted to give Clark another chance. The loss of the budget vote just seven months into his mandate and his subsequent defeat in the February 18 general election resulted in his ouster as leader by Brian Mulroney in 1983.

The Socreds' abstention on the crucial budget vote, even if not decisive (the vote would still have passed by 139–138 had they opposed it), contributed to a perception that the party had become irrelevant since the death of iconic leader Réal Caouette in 1976. In 1980 it ran 20 fewer candidates than it had run in 1979 and lost more than three-fifths of its vote share. It won no seats—Liberal challengers defeated all of the incumbent SC MPs—although four of its incumbent MPs did post respectable second-place finishes. Having lost its presence in the House of Commons for the first time since the 1958 Canadian federal election, Social Credit rapidly declined into obscurity. It was never a serious contender to win seats again, although the party nominally continued to exist until 1993.

The new House was very regionally polarized. The Liberals were shut out of seats west of Manitoba, although receiving more than 20 percent of the vote in each western province. The Liberal party piled up massive seat counts in the two most populous provinces to achieve their victory. Liberal candidates collected more than two thirds of the votes cast in Quebec, and the party took half its seats in just that one province. The Tories won only one seat out of 75 in Quebec, though they took 12 percent of the vote there. The Tories won 43 percent of the seats in the four Atlantic provinces, which helped them elect more than a hundred MPs overall. All but 14 of them were elected in ridings west of Quebec.

Opinion polling

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Opinion polling for
Canadian federal elections
1979
Opinion polls
1980
Opinion polls
1984
Opinion polls
1988
Opinion polls
1993
Opinion polls

National polling showed:

Evolution of voting intentions at national level
Polling firm Last day
of survey 		Source LPC PC NDP SC Other ME Sample
Election 1980 February 18, 1980 44.34 32.45 19.77 1.70 1.74
Gallup February 1980 [5] 48 28 23 — — — —
CTV February 15, 1980 [5] 43 33 22 — — — 2,000
CTV February 1, 1980 [6] 46 33 17 — 4 — 2,039
Gallup January 1980 [7] 49 28 20 — — — —
Gallup September 1979 [8] 41 37 19 — 3 4.0 —
Gallup July 1979 [8] 43 38 20 — 3 4.0 —
Gallup June 1979 [9] 40 38 18 — — — —
Election 1979 May 22, 1979 40.11 35.89 17.88 4.61 1.51

Quebec

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Evolution of voting intentions at national level
Polling firm Last day
of survey 		Source LPC PC NDP SC Other ME Sample
Election 1980 February 18, 1980 68.2 12.6 9.1 5.9 4.2
QIPO December 22, 1979 [10] 74 11 11 4 — 4 699
Election 1979 May 22, 1979 61.7 13.5 5.1 16.0 3.7

National results

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Party Party leader # of
candidates 		Seats Popular vote
1979 Dissolution Elected % Change # % Change
  Liberal Pierre Trudeau 282 114 114 147 +28.9% 4,855,425 44.34% +4.23pp
  Progressive Conservative Joe Clark 282 136 136 103 -24.3% 3,552,994 32.45% -3.44pp
  New Democratic Party Ed Broadbent 280 26 27 32 +23.1% 2,165,087 19.77% +1.89pp
Social Credit Fabien Roy 81 6 5 - -100% 185,486 1.70% -2.91pp
Rhinoceros Cornelius I 121 - - -   110,597 1.01% +0.46pp
Marxist–Leninist Hardial Bains 177 - - - - 14,728 0.13% +0.01pp
Libertarian   58 - - - - 14,656 0.13% -0.01pp
Union populaire   54 - - - - 14,474 0.13% -0.04pp
  Independent 55 - - - - 14,472 0.13% -0.13pp
  Unknown 41 - - - - 12,532 0.11% -0.07pp
Communist William Kashtan 52 - - - - 6,022 0.05% -0.02pp
  No affiliation 14 - - - - 3,063 0.03% +0.03pp
Total 1,497 282 282 282 - 10,949,536 100%  

Sources: Elections Canada,History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Notes:

"% change" refers to change from previous election.

Changes to party standings from previous election: Social Credit MP Richard Janelle crossed the floor to join the PC Party. PC MP John Diefenbaker died during the parliamentary session. New Democrat MP Stan Hovdebo was elected in the subsequent by-election.

Vote and seat summaries

[edit]
Popular vote
Liberal
 
 44.34%
PC
 
 32.45%
NDP
 
 19.77%
Social Credit
 
 1.70%
Others
 
 1.74%
Seat totals
Liberal
 
 52.12%
PC
 
 36.52%
NDP
 
 11.34%

Results by province and territory

[edit]
Party name BC AB SK MB ON QC NB NS PE NL NT YK Total
  Liberal Seats: - - - 2 52 74 7 5 2 5 - - 147
  Popular Vote: 22.2 22.2 24.3 28.0 41.9 68.2 50.1 39.9 46.8 47.0 35.8 39.6 44.3
  Progressive Conservative Seats: 16 21 7 5 38 1 3 6 2 2 1 1 103
  Vote: 41.5 64.9 38.9 37.7 35.5 12.6 32.5 38.7 46.3 36.0 24.7 40.6 32.4
  New Democratic Party Seats: 12 - 7 7 5 - - - - - 1 - 32
  Vote: 35.3 10.3 36.3 33.5 21.8 9.1 16.2 20.9 6.6 16.7 38.4 19.8 19.8
Total seats: 28 21 14 14 95 75 10 11 4 7 2 1 282
Parties that won no seats:
Social Credit Vote: 0.1 1.0 xx   xx 5.9             1.7
Rhinoceros Vote: 0.4 0.7 0.1 0.4 0.2 3.0 0.5 0.2     1.1   1.0
Marxist–Leninist Vote: 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.2 xx xx xx 0.1     0.1
Libertarian Vote:     xx   0.3 0.1 xx           0.1
Union populaire Vote:           0.5             0.1
  Independent Vote: 0.3 0.3 0.1 xx 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.4 0.3 0.1     0.1
  Non-Affiliated Vote: xx 0.5 0.2 0.1 xx 0.2 0.3     0.1     0.1
Communist Vote: 0.1 0.1 xx 0.1 0.1 xx             0.1
  No affiliation Vote:         xx 0.1 0.1           xx

xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote.

Notes

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  1. ^ In Frontenac, the election was postponed to March 24 following the death of Social Credit candidate Nelson Lassard.
  2. ^ After being defeated in Beauce, Roy was a candidate in the delayed election in Frontenac, which was postponed to March 24 following the death of Social Credit candidate Nelson Lassard. Roy was also defeated in this riding.

See also

[edit]

Articles on parties' candidates in this election:

References

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  1. ^ Pomfret, R. "Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums". Elections Canada. Elections Canada. Retrieved January 11, 2014.
  2. ^ Thompson, Elizabeth (December 7, 2017). "Secret 1979 documents shed new light on why Joe Clark broke Jerusalem embassy promise". CBC News. Retrieved September 8, 2024.
  3. ^ "House of Commons Journals, 31st Parliament, 1st Session". Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources. Queen's Printer for Canada. December 13, 1979. Retrieved July 9, 2016. Debate was resumed on the motion of Mr. Crosbie (St John's West), seconded by Mr. MacDonald (Egmont),-That this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the Government. And on the motion of Mr. Gray, seconded by Mr. Lalonde, in amendment thereto,-That all the words after the word 'That' be deleted and the following substituted therefor: 'this House condemns the Government for its budget which will place and unfair and unnecessary burden of higher gasoline prices, higher fuel oil prices, and higher taxes on middle and lower income Canadians.' And on the motion of Mr. Rae, seconded by Mr. Knowles, in amendment to the amendment,-That the amendment be amended by changing the period at the end thereof to a comma, and by adding immediately after the words: 'and this House unreservedly condemns the Government for its outright betrayal of election promises to lower interest rates, to cut taxes, and to stimulate the growth of the Canadian economy, without a mandate from the Canadian people for such a reversal.'
  4. ^ "Emotions fill the Commons as the gov't goes down in defeat". Regina Leader-Post. The Canadian Press. December 14, 1979. p. 51. Archived from the original on June 21, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2024.
  5. ^ a b "Each leader takes solace from polls at campaign end". The Globe and Mail. February 18, 1980. p. 1.
  6. ^ "Undecided vote soaring in wake of Iran 'caper'". The Citizen. February 4, 1980. p. 1.
  7. ^ Fraser, John (January 30, 1980). "Tories have trouble: Student views on politics differ little from parents'". The Globe and Mail. p. P9.
  8. ^ a b "Liberals still Canadian favorite: Gallup". The Citizen. October 13, 1979. p. 1.
  9. ^ "'Time for change'". The Citizen. July 11, 1979. p. 10.
  10. ^ Doucet, Ray (December 26, 1979). "58% to vote for Trudeau: Quebec poll". The Montreal Gazette. p. 1.

Further reading

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