canadian federal election, 1979

The Canadian federal election of 1979 was held on May 22, 1979 to electmembers of the Canadian House of Commons. It resulted in the defeat of Liberal Party of Canada after 11 years in power under Pierre Trudeau. Joe Clark lead the Progressive Conservative Party to power, but with only a minority of seats in the House of Commons. The Trudeau Liberals had become very unpopular during their last term in government because of large budget deficits, high inflation, and high unemployment. Although elections in Canada are normally held four years apart, Trudeau deferred calling an election until five years after the previous election in the hope that the Liberal Party would be able to recover some of the support that it had lost. The effort was unsuccessful, however, and the Liberals lost 27 seats. Several high-profile cabinet ministers were defeated. Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader following the election. 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 MPs in the province's 75 ridings. Clark, a 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 Asia in order to show his ability to handle foreign affairs issues, his luggage was lost, and Clark apepared to be uncomfortable with the issues being discussed. Clark's minority government lasted less than nine months. It was defeated in the House of Commons in a vote of non-confidence over a budget bill that proposed to increase the excise tax on gasoline by 18 cents per Imperial gallon. This resulted in the 1980 election, in which the PCs were defeated by the resurgent Trudeau Liberals.

National results

Clark won the popular vote in eight provinces, but because his Tories could only muster 2 seats in Quebec, he only won a minority government. The Liberals won only one seat west of Manitoba. This 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.

owspan="2" colspan="2"\|Party	rowspan="2"\|Party Leader	rowspan="2"\|# of candidates	colspan="3"\|Seats	colspan="3"\|Popular Vote
lign="center"\|Previous¹	align="center"\|After	align="center"\|% Change	align="center"\|#	align="center"\|%	align="center"\|% Change	Progressive Conservative	Joe Clark	align="right"\|282	align="right"\| 95	align="right"\| 136	align="right"\|+43.2%	align="right"\| 4,111,606	align="right"\| 35.89%	align="right"\|+0.43%	Liberal	Pierre Trudeau	align="right"\|282	align="right"\|141	align="right"\|114	align="right"\|-19.1%	align="right"\| 4,595,319	align="right"\| 40.11%	align="right"\|-3.04%	New Democratic	Ed Broadbent	align="right"\|282	align="right"\| 16	align="right"\| 26	align="right"\|+62.5%	align="right"\| 2,048,988	align="right"\| 17.88%	align="right"\|+2.45%	Social Credit	Fabien Roy	align="right"\|103	align="right"\| 11	align="right"\| 6	align="right"\|-45.5%	align="right"\| 527,604	align="right"\| 4.61%	align="right"\|-0.46%	Rhinoceros	Cornelius I	align="right"\|63	align="right"\|	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 62,601	align="right"\| 0.55%	align="right"\|	colspan="2"\|Independent	align="right"\|48	align="right"\| 1	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|-100%	align="right"\| 30,518	align="right"\| 0.27%	align="right"\|-0.14%	colspan="2"\|Unknown	align="right"\|19	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|-	align="right"\| 21,268	align="right"\| 0.19%	align="right"\|+0.01%	Union Populaire	align="right"\|69	align="right""\|	align="right"\| -	align="right""\|	align="right"\| 19,514	align="right"\| 0.17%	align="right""\|	Libertarian	align="right"\|60	align="right""\|	align="right"\| -	align="right""\|	align="right"\| 16,042	align="right"\| 0.14%	align="right""\|	Marxist-Leninist	Hardial Bains	align="right"\|144	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 14,231	align="right"\| 0.12%	align="right"\|-0.05%	Communist	William Kashtan	align="right"\|71	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 9,141	align="right"\| 0.08%	align="right"\|-0.05%	colspan="2"\| No affiliation	align="right"\|1	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|-	align="right"\| 176	align="right"\| x	align="right"\|x
colspan="3"\|Total	align="right"\| 1,424	align="right"\| 265	align="right"\| 282	align="right"\|+6.8%	align="right"\| 11,457,008	align="right"\| 100.00%	align="right"\|
align="center" colspan="10"\|Sources: http://www.elections.ca History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Notes: ¹ "Previous" refers to the results of the previous election, not the party standings in the House of Commons prior to dissolution. x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote.

Results by province

align="center" colspan="3"\|Party Name	align="center"\|BC	align="center"\|AB	align="center"\|SK	align="center"\|MB	align="center"\|ON	align="center"\|QC	align="center"\|NB	align="center"\|NS	align="center"\|PE	align="center"\|NL	align="center"\|NT	align="center"\|YK	align="center"\|Total	rowspan="2"\|Progressive Conservative	Seats:	align="right"\|19	align="right"\|21	align="right"\|10	align="right"\|7	align="right"\|57	align="right"\|2	align="right"\|4	align="right"\|8	align="right"\|4	align="right"\|2	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|136	Popular Vote:	align="right"\|44.3	align="right"\|65.6	align="right"\|41.2	align="right"\|43.4	align="right"\|41.8	align="right"\|13.5	align="right"\|40.0	align="right"\|45.4	align="right"\|52.8	align="right"\|29.7	align="right"\|32.3	align="right"\|40.6	align="right"\|35.9	rowspan="2"\|Liberal	Seats:	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|2	align="right"\|32	align="right"\|67	align="right"\|6	align="right"\|2	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|4	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|114	Vote:	align="right"\|23.0	align="right"\|22.1	align="right"\|21.8	align="right"\|23.5	align="right"\|36.4	align="right"\|61.7	align="right"\|44.6	align="right"\|35.5	align="right"\|40.6	align="right"\|40.6	align="right"\|34.1	align="right"\|36.4	align="right"\|40.1	rowspan="2"\|New Democratic	Seats:	align="right"\|8	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|4	align="right"\|5	align="right"\|6	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|26	Vote:	align="right"\|31.9	align="right"\|9.9	align="right"\|35.8	align="right"\|32.7	align="right"\|21.1	align="right"\|5.1	align="right"\|15.3	align="right"\|18.7	align="right"\|6.5	align="right"\|29.7	align="right"\|31.9	align="right"\|23.1	align="right"\|17.9
rowspan="2"\|Social Credit	Seats:	align="right"\|-	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|6	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|6	Vote:	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|1.0	align="right"\|0.5	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|16.0	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|4.6
colspan="3"\|Total seats:	align="right"\|28	align="right"\|21	align="right"\|14	align="right"\|14	align="right"\|95	align="right"\|75	align="right"\|10	align="right"\|11	align="right"\|4	align="right"\|7	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|282
olspan=16\|Parties that won no seats	Rhinoceros	Vote:	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|1.9	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.5	Independent	Vote:	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|1.1	align="right"\|0.7	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.3	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.3	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|1.6	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.3	Unknown	Vote:	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|0.5	align="right"\|	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.2	Union Populaire	Vote:	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.6	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.2	Libertarian	Vote:	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.3	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.1	Marxist-Leninist	Vote:	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.1	Communist	Vote:	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.1	No affiliation	Vote:	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|xx

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: 31st Canadian parliament for a full list of MPs elected in this election.

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