Canadian general election 1993
The 35th Canadian General Election (English. 35th Canadian General Election , French. 35e élection fédérale canadienne ) was held on 25 October 1993. 295 MPs of the Canadian House of Commons (English House of Commons , French Chambre des Communes ) were elected. The election brought an unprecedented change in the political landscape, with over half of the electorate opting for a different party than five years earlier. The previously ruling Progressive Conservative Party of Prime Minister Kim Campbell suffered a downright crash, falling from 169 to just 2 seats. The Liberal Party in particular benefited from this, gaining a comfortable absolute majority (177 seats); The previous opposition leader Jean Chrétien was the new head of government .
On June 25, 1993 Campbell had taken over the chairmanship of her predecessor Brian Mulroney , whose polls were the worst any Canadian head of government had ever achieved. Campbell called a new election on September 8th, hoping to regain popular favor. However, the electoral base of the progressive conservatives turned to a large extent, which led to the worst defeat of a ruling party at the federal level. The Tories never recovered from this blow and finally merged with the Canadian Alliance in 2003 to form the new Conservative Party .
In addition to the liberals, two other parties benefited from the collapse of the progressive conservatives. The Bloc Québécois , led by Lucien Bouchard , had set up with the aim of leading the francophone province of Québec to independence and there it received almost half of all votes. With 54 seats it was the second largest party and thus the "official opposition". The populist Reform Party of Preston Manning maintained 52 seats, but was exclusively in Western Canada successful, but remained insignificant in the east. The worst result in its history was achieved by the New Democratic Party (NDP), which only had 9 seats and for the only time received less than a million votes.
Starting position
In the 1984 election , Brian Mulroney led the Progressive Conservative Party to the largest government majority in Canadian history, with the highest percentage of voters in all ten provinces. Particularly noteworthy was the breakthrough in Québec , where the party had risen from one to 58 seats and completely ousted the Liberals outside Montreal . Mulroney's government was based on a "grand coalition" consisting of socially conservative populists in western Canada , the business wing in the Atlantic provinces and Ontario, and the nationalists in Québec. These factions helped him win the election four years later , albeit with a noticeably lower share of the vote. Over the next five years, Mulroney and his party fell in popularity. The recession of the late 1980s hit the Canadian economy hard, as the unemployment rate rose sharply and the budget deficit grew despite promises made by the federal government. To make up for the deficit, the government introduced the highly controversial and unpopular Goods and Services Tax in 1991 .
Mulroney had also promised to change Canada's constitution in favor of greater provincial autonomy. That promise was the main reason for his party's support in Québec. However, both of the constitutional revisions that had been undertaken failed. The Meech Lake Accord did not materialize because the Newfoundland and Manitoba parliaments missed the ratification deadline. On October 26, 1992, the Charlottetown Accord was rejected in a referendum with 54.3% of the vote, contrary to the recommendation of all provincial prime ministers and most parties. These factors contributed to Mulroney's worst results since public opinion polls were introduced in the 1940s.
The legislature was drawing to a close and the poor poll numbers indicated a certain defeat in the upcoming election, which is why Mulroney announced in February 1993 that he would soon retire from politics. In the internal party vote on June 13th, Justice Minister Kim Campbell prevailed over Environment Minister Jean Charest in the second ballot . On June 25, she became the first woman to take office as party leader and prime minister . After she was sworn in, she temporarily enjoyed great popularity.
The rise of two new parties contributed significantly to the collapse of Mulroney's "grand coalition". After the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, the former minister Lucien Bouchard founded the Bloc Québécois together with progressive-conservative and liberal MPs . This party quickly secured the support of the separatists and the Québécois . In August 1990, Gilles Duceppe won a by-election and the Bloc consistently led the polls in the province of Québec until the general election . The Reform Party was rooted in the West populist party of Preston Manning led (the son of the former prime minister of Alberta , Ernest Manning ). While she initially represented the interests of Western Canada in general , she was soon located on the right edge of the political spectrum. Many Western Canadians felt they were no longer represented by the Liberals and also distrusted the Progressive Conservatives, as they made too many concessions to the Francophones . The Reform Party celebrated its first by-election success in Edmonton in March 1989 ; it gradually took over the role of the Western Canadian protest party traditionally exercised by the NDP .
Election campaign
The Liberal Party had been preparing for the election campaign for a long time. On September 19, they published their 112-page party manifesto , which the media quickly dubbed the Red Book ("Red Book"). It detailed what a liberal government would do if elected. It had worked for several years on what was unprecedented for a Canadian party. A few days later, the Tories responded by publishing a hastily compiled “taxpayer agenda,” but it was the Liberals who were able to raise their profile as a party with ideas. They were also consistently well organized and able to present their message in a clear and understandable way. In contrast, the Tories' election campaign was "the most incompetent in modern political history," according to The Globe and Mail . For example, the local sections did not receive any campaign material, so the candidates had to have their own brochures printed and therefore could not appear with a united voice.
While the Bloc Québécois benefited from a sharp rise in support from the separatists and openly advocated Québec's independence, the Reform Party offered itself as an alternative for disappointed conservative voters in western Canada. She called for a democratically elected and regionally more balanced Senate and advocated increased citizen participation through more popular votes and referenda. Another factor behind the Reform Party's growing popularity were demands for less bureaucracy and lower taxes, as well as socially conservative values. The reform party had little money, so the campaign workers stayed in cheap hotels and only flew in economy class, which made them popular with frugal conservatives.
From October the progressive conservatives fell behind the liberals in the opinion polls and it became increasingly apparent that a change of government would take place. Nor were Kim Campbell's popularity ratings higher than that of Jean Chrétien . The Tories campaign leaders decided to produce a series of TV spots that personally attacked the opposition leader and appeared to make fun of the partial paralysis of his face. The public, including representatives from all political camps, reacted indignantly to the offensive negative campaign, whereupon Campbell had the spots canceled. As a result, Chrétien's polls skyrocketed.
Consequences for the parties
The election, in which 70.9% of the electorate took part, was disastrous for the progressive conservatives. The share of the vote shrank from 43 to 16%, and they were only able to win in two constituencies. Both in absolute numbers and in percentage terms, they suffered the worst defeat of any ruling party at the federal level. It is also one of the rare cases in the world in which a ruling party fell to the point of almost insignificance in free elections. The electorate in the West turned largely to the Reform Party, in Québec to the Liberals and the Bloc Québecois, in the Atlantic provinces and in Ontario mostly to the Liberals. The Tories received more than two million votes, but nowhere was support enough to result in significant constituency gains. The party was heavily indebted after the election and without parliamentary group status it was excluded from government financial support. Kim Campbell lost in her own constituency in Vancouver . It was the third time this had happened to an incumbent prime minister (before her Arthur Meighen was defeated in 1921 and 1926). All other members of her cabinet lost their seats in parliament, with the exception of Jean Charest . Besides Charest, Elsie Wayne , the mayor of Saint John , was the only successful candidate. Various ministers such as Michael Wilson , John Crosbie and Joe Clark did not even run for election.
The Liberal Party won all of the seats in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island , nine out of ten in New Brunswick, and all but one in Ontario. It benefited from the support of so-called Red Tories (social liberal conservatives), for whom the reform party was too extreme. In the west, the Liberals dominated Manitoba (12 out of 14 seats). They also won seats in Saskatchewan and Alberta for the first time since 1974 and 1968, respectively . On the other hand, they did not succeed in regaining their once dominant position in Québec, even though the party chairman came from there. This was mainly due to Jean Chrétien's fierce opposition to the Meech Lake Accord. Thus, the progressive-conservative voters largely overflowed to the Bloc Québécois. The result in British Columbia was also somewhat below average . Nevertheless, the Liberals achieved the third-best result in their party history with a total of 177 seats. They were also the only party that had MPs from all provinces in their ranks.
The Bloc Québécois, which ran exclusively in Québec, achieved a 49.3% share of the vote there and won in 54 of 75 constituencies. This was the best “third party” result since 1921, when the Progressive Party won 58 seats. The success of the Bloc Québécois was very impressive, as the party had only been founded three years earlier. Due to the fragmentation in the other provinces, the Bloc Québécois became the second largest party in the lower house. As the strongest opposition force (“official opposition”), it enjoyed considerable privileges.
The reform party achieved the breakthrough by largely taking over the Tories' electoral base in the West and addressing a number of disappointed NDP voters. It dominated British Columbia and Alberta, with a few seats in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. With the exception of one constituency in Ontario, however, it was unsuccessful in the east because its agenda was perceived as too extreme and regionalist. In Québec she did not even appear; But it cannot be assumed that it would have been successful there: Preston Manning spoke French poorly , and then there was the uncompromising federalism and the rejection of official bilingualism . The concentration in the West brought the Reform Party 52 seats. Although the Bloc Québécois was actually the official opposition, the Liberals saw the Reform Party as their main competitor on all non-Québec issues.
The NDP only won nine seats, three fewer than were necessary to form a parliamentary group. Compared to the result of 1988, the proportion of voters has decreased by two thirds. The NDP provincial governments of Bob Rae in Ontario and Mike Harcourt in British Columbia, whose unpopularity rubbed off on the federal party , were primarily responsible for this defeat . Another factor was “tactical voting,” in which NDP supporters chose a liberal candidate to ensure that a progressive-conservative candidate was unsuccessful. A significant proportion of the NDP voters in the West, who, unlike the federal party, rejected constitutional reforms, took a liking to the reform party's populism. The attempts of party leader Audrey McLaughlin to establish the party in Québec contributed to the resentment in the western Canadian strongholds.
Results
Overall result
| Political party | Chairman | candidates data |
Seats 1988 |
upon dissolution |
Seats 1993 |
+/- | be right | Share of voters |
+/- | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal Party | Jean Chrétien | 295 | 83 | 79 | 177 | + 94 | 5,647,952 | 41.24% | + 9.32% | |
| Bloc Québécois | Lucien Bouchard | 75 | 10 | 54 | + 54 | 1,846,024 | 13.52% | + 13.52% | ||
| Reform party | Preston Manning | 207 | 1 | 52 | + 52 | 2,559,245 | 18.69% | + 16.60% | ||
| New Democratic Party | Audrey McLaughlin | 294 | 43 | 44 | 9 | - 34 | 939,575 | 6.88% | - 13.50% | |
| Progressive-Conservative Party | Kim Campbell | 295 | 169 | 154 | 2 | - 167 | 2,186,422 | 16.04% | - 26.99% | |
| Independent | 129 | 3 | 1 | + 1 | 60,434 | 0.73% | + 0.56% | |||
| National party | Mel Hurtig | 170 | 187.251 | 1.38% | + 1.38% | |||||
| Natural Law Party | Neil Paterson | 231 | 84,743 | 0.63% | + 0.63% | |||||
| Not partisan | 23 | 48,959 | 0.09% | - 0.10% | ||||||
| Green party | Chris Lea | 79 | 32,979 | 0.24% | - 0.12% | |||||
| Christian Heritage | Heather Stillwell | 59 | 30,358 | 0.22% | - 0.56% | |||||
| Libertarian party | Hilliard Cox | 52 | 14,630 | 0.11% | - 0.14% | |||||
| Abolitionist party | John Turmel | 80 | 9,141 | 0.07% | + 0.07% | |||||
| Canada Party | Joseph Thauberger | 56 | 7.506 | 0.06% | + 0.06% | |||||
| Commonwealth Party | Gilles Gervais | 59 | 7,316 | 0.06% | ||||||
| Marxist-Leninists | Hardial Bains | 51 | 5,136 | 0.04% | + 0.04% | |||||
| vacant | 4th | |||||||||
| total | 2,155 | 295 | 295 | 295 | 13,667,671 | 100.0% | ||||
Result by provinces and territories
| Political party | BC | FROM | SK | MB | ON | QC | NB | NS | PE | NL | NW | YK | total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal Party | Seats | 6th | 4th | 5 | 12 | 98 | 19th | 9 | 11 | 4th | 7th | 2 | 177 | ||
| Percentage ownership % | 28.1 | 25.1 | 32.1 | 45.0 | 52.9 | 33.0 | 56.0 | 52.0 | 60.1 | 67.3 | 73.0 | 23.2 | 41.2 | ||
| Bloc Québécois | Seats | 54 | 54 | ||||||||||||
| Percentage ownership % | 49.3 | 13.5 | |||||||||||||
| Reform party | Seats | 24 | 22nd | 4th | 1 | 1 | 52 | ||||||||
| Percentage ownership % | 36.4 | 52.3 | 27.2 | 22.4 | 20.1 | 8.5 | 13.3 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 6.1 | 13.1 | 18.7 | |||
| New Democratic Party | Seats | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 9 | |||||||||
| Percentage ownership % | 15.5 | 4.1 | 26.6 | 16.7 | 6.0 | 1.5 | 4.9 | 6.8 | 5.2 | 3.5 | 6.0 | 43.4 | 6.9 | ||
| Progressive-Conservative Party | Seats | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||||||||
| Percentage ownership % | 13.5 | 14.6 | 11.3 | 11.9 | 17.6 | 13.5 | 27.9 | 23.5 | 32.0 | 26.7 | 12.7 | 17.7 | 16.0 | ||
| Independent | Seats | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Percentage ownership % | 0.3 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 1.1 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 0.7 | ||||||
| National party | Percentage ownership % | 4.1 | 2.4 | 1.0 | 3.1 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 2.1 | 1.4 | ||
| Natural Law Party | Percentage ownership % | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.9 | 0.2 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.6 | ||
| Green party | Percentage ownership % | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 1.4 | 0.2 | ||||||
| Christian Heritage | Percentage ownership % | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.2 | |||
| Libertarian party | Percentage ownership % | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | ||||||||||
| Abolitionist party | Percentage ownership % | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.1 | |||||||||||
| Canada Party | Percentage ownership % | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.1 | ||||||||
| Commonwealth Party | Percentage ownership % | 0.2 | 0.1 | ||||||||||||
| Marxist-Leninists | Percentage ownership % | 0.1 | <0.1 | ||||||||||||
| Totally sit | 32 | 26th | 14th | 14th | 99 | 75 | 10 | 11 | 4th | 7th | 2 | 1 | 295 | ||
Web links
- Elections Canada (Electoral Authority)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Bliss: Right Honorable Men: The Descent of Canadian Politics from Macdonald to Mulroney . HarperCollins, New York 1996, ISBN 0-00-639484-1 , pp. 312 .
- ^ Bliss: Right Honorable Men: The Descent of Canadian Politics from Macdonald to Mulroney. P. 308.
- ^ Peter C. Newman : The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister . Random House Canada, Toronto 2005, ISBN 0-679-31352-4 , pp. 363 .
- ↑ Stephen Clarkson: The Canadian General Election of 1993 . Ed .: Alan Frizzell. Carlton University Press, Ottawa 1994, ISBN 0-88629-228-X , pp. 36 .
- ^ Fill in the blanks. In: The Globe and Mail. September 25, 1993, p. D6.
- ↑ Peter Woolstencroft, Alan Frizzell (Eds.): The Canadian General Election of 1993. p. 17.
- ^ Faron Ellis, Alan Frizzell (Eds.): The Canadian General Election of 1993. p. 67.
- ^ Gordon Donaldson: The Prime Ministers of Canada . Doubleday Canada, Toronto 1997, ISBN 0-385-25454-7 , pp. 367 .
- ^ Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums. Elections Canada, February 18, 2013, accessed June 24, 2015 .
