canadian federal election, 1984

The Canadian federal election of 1984 was called on July 4, 1984, and held on September 4 of that year. It resulted in the Progressive Conservative Party winning a large majority government, the first for the party in twenty-one years and the largest majority at the federal level in Canadian history.

Issues

The election was won fought almost entirely on the record of the governing Liberal Party. The party's new leader John Napier Turner had at first managed to distance himself from the policies of his predecessor Pierre Trudeau, but as the campaign wore on, he became closely attached to these faults. The Liberal Party had lost favour with Western Canadians, and policies such as the National Energy Policy only aggravated this sentiment. A change from earlier elections was the great disaffection in Quebec with the Liberal government. The Conservatives had not won significant support in that province in decades, but hope for success there was one of the main reasons Brian Mulroney had been chosen as party leader. Mulroney was a fluently bilingual Quebecer who promised a new deal for Quebec. The province, annoyed at being left out of the 1982 repatriation of constitution, shifted dramatically to support him. The Liberal Party had entered the campaign with a lead in the polls following the selection of Turner as leader. That lead began to slip as Turner, who had been out of politics since he had resigned as Minister of Finance in 1975, made several mistakes that caused voters to see him as "yesterday's man". In particular, he spoke of "make work programs", a concept from the 1970s that had been replaced by the less patronizing "job creation programs". He also was caught on camera patting Liberal Party President Iona Campagolo on her posterior. Turner defended this action as being a friendly gesture, not recognizing that it was seen by many women as being condescending. Other voters turned against the Liberals due to their mounting legacy of patronage and corruption. An especially important issue was that of 79 patronage appointments Trudeau made in the days before leaving office. Turner, despite promising a new way of doing politics, refused to cancel these appointments. During the English-language televised debate between Mulroney, Turner and New Democratic Party leader Ed Broadbent, Turner defended the appointments by saying, "I had no option". Mulroney effectively attacked Turner saying, "You had an option, sir; you could have said 'no'". This was a key turning point of the campaign, and cemented the view of many voters that Turner did not represent change from the discredited Liberal Party of Pierre Trudeau.

National results

The election was a landslide victory for the Progressive Conservative Party, which won half the popular vote and 211 out of 282 seats. The party won a majority of the ridings in every province. The New Democratic Party also did very well: voters in the manufacturing areas of Ontario and on the prairies gave it 30 seats. At the time, many pundits thought Canada was moving towards the British model of a Labour/Tory division. All numerical results from Elections Canada's Official Report on the Thirty-Third Election

owspan="2" colspan="2"\|Party	rowspan="2"\|Party Leader	rowspan="2"\|# of candidates	colspan="3"\|Seats	colspan="3"\|Popular Vote
lign="center"\|Before¹	align="center"\|After	align="center"\|% Change	align="center"\|#	align="center"\|%	align="center"\|% Change	Progressive Conservative	Brian Mulroney	align="right"\|282	align="right"\|100	align="right"\|211	align="right"\|+111%	align="right"\|6,278,818	align="right"\|50.03%	align="right"\| +17.59%	Liberal	John Turner	align="right"\|282	align="right"\|135	align="right"\|40	align="right"\|-70.4%	align="right"\|3,516,486	align="right"\|28.02%	align="right"\|-16.32%	New Democratic	Ed Broadbent	align="right"\|282	align="right"\|31	align="right"\|30	align="right"\|-2.3%	align="right"\|2,359,915	align="right"\|18.81%	align="right"\|-0.97%	colspan="2"\|No Affiliation²	align="right"\|20	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|39,298	align="right"\|0.31%	align="right"\|+0.29%	Rhinoceros	Cornelius the First	align="right"\|88	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|99,178	align="right"\|0.79%	align="right"\|-0.22%	Parti nationaliste du Qubec	Denis Monire	align="right"\|74	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|85,865	align="right"\|0.68%	align="right"\|n.a.	Confederation of Regions	Elmer Knutson	align="right"\|55	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|65,655	align="right"\|0.52%	align="right"\|n.a.	Green	Trevor Hancock	align="right"\|60	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|26,921	align="right"\|0.21%	align="right"\|n.a.	Libertarian	Victor Levis	align="right"\|72	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|23,514	align="right"\|0.19%	align="right"\|+0.05%	colspan="2"\|Independent	align="right"\|65	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|22,067	align="right"\|0.18%	align="right"\|+0.04%	Social Credit	Ken Sweigard	align="right"\|51	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|16,659	align="right"\|0.13%	align="right"\|-1.56%	Communist	William Kashtan	align="right"\|51	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|7,479	align="right"\|0.06%	align="right"\|+x	Commonwealth	Gilles Gervais	align="right"\|66	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|7,007	align="right"\|0.06%	align="right"\|n.a.
owspan="2"\|	colspan="3"\|Vacant	align="right"\|15	align="center" colspan="5"\|N/A
colspan="2"\|Total	align="right"\|1,449	align="right"\|282	align="right"\|282	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|12,548,721	align="right"\|100.0	align="right"\|
align="center" colspan="10"\|Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Notes: ¹ "Before" refers to standings in the House of Commons at dissolution, and not to standings at previous election. ² Tony Roman was elected in the Toronto-area riding of York North as a "coalition candidate", defeating incumbent PC MP John Gamble. Roman drew support from Progressive Conservatives were were upset by Gamble's extreme right-wing views, and Liberals who were upset when their candidate punched his campaign manager's wife. n.a.= not applicable - party was not recognized in the previous election. x - less than 0.05% 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"\|9	align="right"\|9	align="right"\|67	align="right"\|58	align="right"\|9	align="right"\|9	align="right"\|3	align="right"\|4	align="right"\|2	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|211	Popular Vote:	align="right"\|46.6	align="right"\|68.8	align="right"\|41.7	align="right"\|43.2	align="right"\|47.6	align="right"\|50.2	align="right"\|53.6	align="right"\|50.7	align="right"\|52.0	align="right"\|57.6	align="right"\|41.3	align="right"\|56.8	align="right"\|50.0	rowspan="2"\|Liberal	Seats:	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|14	align="right"\|17	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|2	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|3	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|40	Vote:	align="right"\|16.4	align="right"\|12.7	align="right"\|18.2	align="right"\|21.8	align="right"\|29.8	align="right"\|35.4	align="right"\|31.9	align="right"\|33.6	align="right"\|41.0	align="right"\|36.4	align="right"\|26.9	align="right"\|21.7	align="right"\|28.0	rowspan="2"\|New Democratic	Seats:	align="right"\|8	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|5	align="right"\|4	align="right"\|13	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|30	Vote:	align="right"\|35.1	align="right"\|14.1	align="right"\|38.4	align="right"\|27.2	align="right"\|20.8	align="right"\|8.8	align="right"\|14.1	align="right"\|15.2	align="right"\|6.5	align="right"\|5.8	align="right"\|28.2	align="right"\|16.1	align="right"\|18.8	rowspan="2"\|No affiliation	Seats:	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|-	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|1	Vote:	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.8	align="right"\|xx	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.4	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.3
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"\|2	align="right"\|1	align="right"\|282
colspan="16"\|Parties that won no seats:	Rhinoceros	Vote:	align="right"\|0.4	align="right"\|0.4	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|2.4	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.3	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|1.1	align="right"\|0.8	Nationaliste	Vote:	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|2.5	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.7	Confederation of Regions	Vote:	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|2.2	align="right"\|1.3	align="right"\|6.7	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.5	Green	Vote:	align="right"\|0.6	align="right"\|0.3	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.3	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.2	Libertarian	Vote:	align="right"\|0.3	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.4	align="right"\|0.3	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|4.4	align="right"\|0.2	Independent	Vote:	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.5	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.4	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.3	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|3.5	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.2	Social Credit	Vote:	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|0.6	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.1	Communist	Vote:	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|0.1	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.1	Commonwealth	Vote:	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.2	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|	align="right"\|0.0

Notes

Number of Parties: 11

First appearance: Confederation of Regions Party of Canada, Green Party of Canada, Party for the Commonwealth of Canada
Final appearance: none
First-and-only appearance: Parti Nationaliste du Qubec

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