Canadian federal election, 1984
The 33rd Canadian House elections ( engl. 33rd Canadian General Election, French 33e élection fédérale canadienne ) took place on 4 September 1984. Were elected 282 Members of the Canadian House of Commons (English House of Commons, French Chambre des Communes ). Cited by Brian Mulroney Progressive Conservative Party could unite more than half of all votes and won the election with the largest absolute majority of seats in Canada ever reached the one party. The Liberal Party of Prime Minister John Turner, however, suffered the heaviest defeat of a ruling party.
The choice
Since 1963, the Liberals had had Canada ruled almost continuously. Pierre Trudeau - Prime Minister from 1968 to 1979 and since 1980 - had resigned in June 1984, as opinion polls showed that the Liberals would almost certainly lose with him at the head of the elections. In it, the former Minister of Justice John Turner, who went into politics after nine years of interruption followed. Contrary to the usual practice renounced Turner it to move an inexperienced deputies from a safe constituency to resign and to take over the vacant seat in a by-election. Just ten days after taking office, he called a general election.
The election campaign the Liberals has been poorly organized and unable to compensate the caused by detection of clientelism and corruption, massive unpopularity. As one of his last official acts Pierre Trudeau had occupied more than 200 well-paid items ( senators, judges, directors of state enterprises ) with loyal party members. These appointments triggered outrage across the political spectrum. Turner could have made these appointments canceled without further ado, but took before even 70 more appointments. Brian Mulroney, leader of the opposition Progressive Conservative Party, confronted Turner in the TV debates with this fact and brought him thus in strong distress.
Turner's inability to pent-up anger of the voters against Trudeau overcome, as well as his own mistakes resulted in a debacle for the Liberals. They lost more than a third of their previous voters and suffered in comparison with 1980, the loss of 107 seats. Most dramatic was the result in the previous stronghold of Quebec, where they fell back from 74 to only 14 seats. Although Turner managed to enter parliament, but eleven ministers were voted out.
In contrast to his predecessors, Mulroney spoke to not only the social conservatives in Western Canada and the fiscal conservatives in the Atlantic provinces. He also managed to draw the nationalist voters in Quebec to his side by promising comprehensive constitutional reforms, which would take into account the special situation of francophone Canadians better. The Progressive Conservatives scored in each province and in each territory the best result; they were more than half of all voters unite and won the elections with the largest absolute majority of seats in Canadian history.
The turnout was 75.3 %.