2004 Canadian general election
The 38th Canadian General Election ( English 38th Canadian General Election , French 38e élection fédérale canadienne ) took place on June 28 of 2004. 308 deputies were elected the Canadian House of Commons (Engl. House of Commons , fr. Chambre des Communes ). Although the ruling Liberal Party of Prime Minister Paul Martin remained the strongest force, it lost an absolute majority of the seats and formed a minority government. The strongest opposition party was the Conservative Party , led by Stephen Harper , which emerged from the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance .
The vote
On the advice of the Prime Minister, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson dissolved parliament on May 23, 2004, just under six months before the end of the legislative period. For a long time, political observers had assumed that Martin would secure the fourth consecutive majority rule for the Liberals. In February 2004, however, the so-called sponsorship scandal began to move into the public eye: In an effort to bind the province of Québec more closely to the rest of Canada after the narrowly failed independence referendum in 1995 , the federal government launched numerous image campaigns to strengthen the feeling of togetherness carried out. Many orders went to advertising companies belonging to members of the Liberal Party. Opinion polls showed falling approval ratings for the Liberals. With the announcement of an early election , Martin hoped to be able to form at least a minority government before the scandal spread even further.
At the end of 2003, the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance were far behind in opinion polls; they covered roughly the same political spectrum. In order to overcome the fragmentation in the right-wing camp that had existed for a decade, both parties merged on December 6, 2003 to form the new Conservative Party . This was headed by Stephen Harper from March 2004 . The social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) also elected a new chairman in January 2003, Jack Layton . The separatist Bloc Québécois entered the race again with Gilles Duceppe in the lead.
Although the liberals remained the strongest force, they did not get an absolute majority (as predicted in the opinion polls). In theory, they could have formed a coalition with the NDP and an independent, but it would have been unstable with just one vote above the absolute majority. Martin preferred to form a minority government and to work with different parties on a case-by-case basis. Although the Conservatives were over eight percentage points below the cumulative result of the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance four years earlier, 21 seats were won due to the fact that there was no fragmentation. Harper became opposition leader. Both the Bloc Québécois and the NDP could improve.
The turnout was 60.9% and was lower than ever before.
Results
Overall result
| Political party | Chairman | candidates data |
Seats 2000 |
upon dissolution |
Seats 2004 |
+/- | be right | proportion of | +/- | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal Party | Paul Martin | 308 | 172 | 168 | 135 | - 37 | 4,982,220 | 36.73% | - 4.12% | |
| Conservative Party 1 | Stephen Harper | 308 | 78 | 72 | 99 | + 21 | 4,019,498 | 29.63% | - 8.05% | |
| Bloc Québécois | Gilles Duceppe | 75 | 38 | 33 | 54 | + 16 | 1,680,109 | 12.39% | + 1.67% | |
| New Democratic Party | Jack Layton | 308 | 13 | 14th | 19th | + 6 | 2,127,403 | 15.68% | + 7.17% | |
| Independent / non-partisan | 64 | 10 | 1 | + 1 | 64,864 | 0.48% | + 0.05% | |||
| Green party | Jim Harris | 308 | 582,247 | 4.29% | + 3.48% | |||||
| Christian Heritage | Ron Gray | 62 | 40,335 | 0.30% | + 0.30% | |||||
| Marijuana party | Marc-Boris Saint-Maurice | 71 | 33,276 | 0.25% | - 0.27% | |||||
| Progressive Canadian Party | Ernie Schreiber | 16 | 10,872 | 0.08% | + 0.08% | |||||
| Canadian Action Party | Connie Fogal | 44 | 8,807 | 0.06% | - 0.15% | |||||
| Marxist-Leninists | Sandra L. Smith | 76 | 8,696 | 0.06% | - 0.03% | |||||
| Communist Party | Miguel Figueroa | 35 | 4,426 | 0.03% | - 0.06% | |||||
| Libertarian party | Jean-Serge Brisson | 8th | 1,949 | 0.01% | + 0.01% | |||||
| vacant | 4th | |||||||||
| total | 1,683 | 301 | 301 | 308 | + 7 | 13.564.702 | 100.0% | |||
1 Compared to the cumulative results of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party in 2000.
Result by provinces and territories
| Political party | BC | FROM | SK | MB | ON | QC | NB | NS | PE | NL | NU | NW | YK | total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal Party | Seats | 8th | 2 | 1 | 3 | 75 | 21st | 7th | 6th | 4th | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 135 | |
| Percentage ownership % | 28.6 | 22.0 | 27.2 | 33.2 | 44.7 | 33.9 | 44.6 | 39.7 | 52.5 | 48.0 | 51.3 | 39.4 | 45.7 | 36.7 | ||
| conservative | Seats | 22nd | 26th | 13 | 7th | 24 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 99 | ||||||
| Percentage ownership % | 36.3 | 61.7 | 41.8 | 39.1 | 31.5 | 8.8 | 31.1 | 28.0 | 30.7 | 32.3 | 14.4 | 17.2 | 20.9 | 29.6 | ||
| Bloc Québécois | Seats | 54 | 54 | |||||||||||||
| Percentage ownership % | 48.9 | 12.4 | ||||||||||||||
| New Democratic Party | Seats | 5 | 4th | 7th | 1 | 2 | 19th | |||||||||
| Percentage ownership % | 26.6 | 9.5 | 23.4 | 23.5 | 18.1 | 4.6 | 20.6 | 28.4 | 12.5 | 17.5 | 15.2 | 39.1 | 25.7 | 15.7 | ||
| Independent / non-partisan | Seats | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||||
| Percentage ownership % | 1.0 | <0.1 | <0.1 | 0.1 | ||||||||||||
| Green party | Percentage ownership % | 6.3 | 6.1 | 2.7 | 2.7 | 4.4 | 3.2 | 3.4 | 3.3 | 4.2 | 1.6 | 3.3 | 4.3 | 4.6 | 4.3 | |
| Christian Heritage | Percentage ownership % | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 0.5 | <0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 0.3 | |||||
| Marijuana party | Percentage ownership % | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 2.4 | 0.2 | ||||||
| Progressive Canadian Party | Percentage ownership % | <0.1 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.1 | |||||||||||
| Canadian Action Party | Percentage ownership % | 0.3 | 0.1 | <0.1 | <0.1 | <0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | ||||||||
| Marxist-Leninists | Percentage ownership % | 0.1 | <0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | |||||||||
| Communist Party | Percentage ownership % | 0.1 | <0.1 | 0.9 | <0.1 | <0.1 | <0.1 | |||||||||
| Libertarian party | Percentage ownership % | 0.1 | <0.1 | <0.1 | <0.1 | |||||||||||
| Independent | Percentage ownership % | 0.3 | <0.1 | 4.6 | <0.1 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 15.7 | 0.3 | ||||
| Total seats | 36 | 28 | 14th | 14th | 106 | 75 | 10 | 11 | 4th | 7th | 1 | 1 | 1 | 308 | ||
Web links
- Elections Canada (Electoral Authority)
Individual evidence
- ^ Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums. Elections Canada, February 18, 2013, accessed August 28, 2015 .
