1980 Canadian federal election

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 budget of the minority Progressive Conservative government led by Prime Minister Joe Clark was defeated in the Commons. As of 2025[update], it remains the most recent election triggered by the defeat of a government budget in the Commons. The Liberal Party under former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau won a narrow majority, returning Trudeau to the Premiership for a fourth and ultimately final term. This is the most recent election – and the first since 1935 – in which a sitting government was defeated at the polls after only one elected term. This is also the most recent election in which the Liberals won more seats in Quebec than in the rest of Canada – since this election, no party has ever bested the Liberals' 74-seat showing in Quebec.

Background

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 27 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 lost all of its seats to Liberal challengers, though all but one of its incumbent MPs posted respectable second-place finishes. After having been the third- or fourth-largest party in the country for most of its existence, Social Credit rapidly declined into obscurity. It would never come remotely close to winning 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

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

• 1979
• 1980

Results by province and territory

xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote.

Notes

• 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
• 32nd Canadian Parliament

Articles on parties' candidates in this election:

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

Further reading

• Byers, R. B., ed. (1982). . Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-7194-2.
• Penniman, Howard, ed. (1981). . Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. ISBN 0844734748.
• Simpson, Jeffrey (1996). . Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-7620-5.

Government reports

• Canada, Chief Electoral Officer (1980). (Report). Ottawa: Queen's Printer.
• Canada, Chief Electoral Officer (1980). (Report). Ottawa: Queen's Printer.

External links