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1980 Canadian federal election

← 1979 February 18, 1980 1984 →
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282 seats in the House of Commons 142 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	69.3% (6.4pp)
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 33 33 Popular vote 4,855,425 3,552,994 Percentage 44.34% 32.45% Swing 4.23pp 3.44pp   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 (lost re-election) Last election 26 seats, 17.88% 6 seats, 4.61% Seats before 27 5 Seats won 32 0 Seat change 5 5 Popular vote 2,165,087 185,486 Percentage 19.77% 1.70% Swing 1.89pp 2.91pp
Results by electoral district Results by province and territory
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.

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. 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. 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

National polling showed:

Quebec

National results

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

Results by province and territory

xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote.

Notes

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.

• Number of parties: 9
  • First appearance: none
  • Final appearance: Union populaire
  • Final appearance before hiatus: Marxist–Leninist Party of Canada (returned in 1993)

See also

• List of Canadian federal general elections
• List of political parties in Canada
• 33rd Canadian Parliament

Articles on parties' candidates in this election:

• Independent
• Liberal
• Libertarian
• New Democrats
• Progressive Conservative
• Rhinoceros

References

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. ^ "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. ^ "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

• Byers, R. B., ed. (1982). Canadian annual review of politics and public affairs. 1980. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-7194-2.
• Penniman, Howard, ed. (1981). Canada at the Polls, 1979 and 1980: A Study of the Federal General Elections. Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. ISBN 0844734748.
• Simpson, Jeffrey (1996). Discipline of Power: the Conservative Interlude and the Liberal Restoration. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-7620-5.

External links

• Riding map
• The Elections of 1979 and 1980, by Robert Bothwell

• 1980 Canadian federal election
• February 1980 events in Canada
• 1980 elections in Canada
• Joe Clark