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The 1984 Canadian federal election 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.
Issues
 Popular vote of the 1984 election with provincial bar graphs for seat results The election was won fought almost entirely on the record of the governing Liberals. 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. 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.
National results
 The House of Commons after the 1984 election The election was a landslide victory for the Progressive Conservatives. They 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 under Ed Broadbent also did very well: voters in the manufacturing areas of Ontario and on the prairies gave them thirty 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
| Party
| Party Leader
| # of cands
| Seats
| Popular Vote
|
| Before
| After
| % Change
| #
| %
| Change
|
| Progressive Conservative
| Brian Mulroney
| 282
| 100
| 211
| +111%
| 6,278,818
| 50.03%
| +17.59%
|
| Liberal
| John Turner
| 282
| 135
| 40
| -70.4%
| 3,516,486
| 28.02%
| -16.32%
|
| New Democratic
| Ed Broadbent
| 282
| 31
| 30
| -2.3%
| 2,359,915
| 18.81%
| -0.97%
|
| No Affiliation (1)
| 20
| -
| 1
|
| 39,298
| 0.31%
| +0.29%
|
| Rhinoceros
| Cornelius the First
| 88
| -
| -
|
| 99,178
| 0.79%
| -0.22%
|
| Parti nationaliste du Québec
| Denis Monière
| 74
| -
| -
|
| 85,865
| 0.68%
| n.a.
|
| Confederation of Regions
| Elmer Knutson
| 55
| -
| -
|
| 65,655
| 0.52%
| n.a.
|
| Green
| Trevor Hancock
| 60
| -
| -
|
| 26,921
| 0.21%
| n.a.
|
| Libertarian
|
| 72
| -
| -
|
| 23,514
| 0.19%
| +0.05%
|
| Independent
| 65
| 1
| 0
|
| 22,067
| 0.18%
| +0.04%
|
| Social Credit
| Ken Sweigard
| 51
| -
| -
|
| 16,659
| 0.13%
| -1.56%
|
| Communist
| William Kashtan
| 51
| -
| -
|
| 7,479
| 0.06%
| +x
|
| Commonwealth
| Gilles Gervais
| 66
| -
| -
|
| 7,007
| 0.06%
| n.a.
|
| Vacant
| 15
| 282
|
|
|
| 1,449
| 282
| 282
| 12,548,721
| 100.0
|
|
| Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867 (http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/process/house/hfer/hfer.asp?Language=E)
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Notes:
(1) 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.
"Before" refers to standings in the House of Commons at dissolution, and not to standings at previous election.
n.a.= not applicable - party was not recognized in the previous election.
x - less than 0.05% of the popular vote
Results by province
| Party Name
| BC
| AB
| SK
| MB
| ON
| QC
| NB
| NS
| PE
| NL
| NT
| YK
| Total
|
| Progressive Conservative
| Seats:
| 19
| 21
| 9
| 9
| 67
| 58
| 9
| 9
| 3
| 4
| 2
| 1
| 211
|
| Popular Vote:
| 46.6
| 68.8
| 41.7
| 43.2
| 47.6
| 50.2
| 53.6
| 50.7
| 52.0
| 57.6
| 41.3
| 56.8
| 50.0
|
| Liberal
| Seats:
| 1
| -
| -
| 1
| 14
| 17
| 1
| 2
| 1
| 3
| -
| -
| 40
|
| Vote:
| 16.4
| 12.7
| 18.2
| 21.8
| 29.8
| 35.4
| 31.9
| 33.6
| 41.0
| 36.4
| 26.9
| 21.7
| 28.0
|
| New Democratic
| Seats:
| 8
| -
| 5
| 4
| 13
| -
| -
| -
| -
| -
| -
| -
| 30
|
| Vote:
| 35.1
| 14.1
| 38.4
| 27.2
| 20.8
| 8.8
| 14.1
| 15.2
| 6.5
| 5.8
| 28.2
| 16.1
| 18.8
|
| No affiliation
| Seats:
| -
| -
|
|
| 1
| -
|
|
| -
|
|
|
| 1
|
| Vote:
| xx
| 0.2
|
|
| 0.8
| xx
|
|
| 0.4
|
|
|
| 0.3
|
| Total seats:
| 28
| 21
| 14
| 14
| 95
| 75
| 10
| 11
| 4
| 7
| 2
| 1
| 282
|
| Parties that won no seats:
|
| Rhinoceros
| Vote:
| 0.4
| 0.4
| 0.2
| 0.2
| 0.1
| 2.4
|
| 0.3
|
|
|
| 1.1
| 0.8
|
| Parti nationaliste du Québec
| Vote:
|
|
|
|
|
| 2.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 0.7
|
| Confederation of Regions
| Vote:
| 0.2
| 2.2
| 1.3
| 6.7
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 0.5
|
| Green
| Vote:
| 0.6
| 0.3
| 0.1
|
| 0.3
| 0.1
|
|
| 0.1
|
|
|
| 0.2
|
| Libertarian
| Vote:
| 0.3
| 0.1
|
| 0.4
| 0.3
| 0.1
| 0.1
|
|
| 0.1
|
| 4.4
| 0.2
|
| Independent
| Vote:
| 0.1
| 0.5
| 0.1
| 0.4
| 0.1
| 0.1
| 0.3
| 0.1
| 0.1
| 0.1
| 3.5
|
| 0.2
|
| Social Credit
| Vote:
| 0.2
| 0.6
|
|
| 0.1
| 0.2
| 0.1
|
|
|
|
|
| 0.1
|
| Communist
| Vote:
| 0.1
| 0.1
|
| 0.1
| 0.1
| 0.1
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 0.1
|
| Commonwealth
| Vote:
|
|
|
|
|
| 0.2
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 0.0
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Notes
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