CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTION, 1974

The 'Canadian federal election of 1974' was held on July 8, 1974 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 30th Parliament of Canada. The governing Liberal Party won its first majority government since 1968, and gave Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau his third term. The Progressive Conservatives, led by Robert Stanfield, did well in the Atlantic provinces, and in the West, but the Liberal support in Ontario and Quebec ensured a majority Liberal government.

A key issue in the election was controlling spiralling inflation. Stanfield had proposed a "90-day wage and price freeze" to break the momentum of inflation. Trudeau had ridiculed this policy as an intrusion on the rights of businesses and employees to set or negotiate their own prices and wages with the catch-phrase, "Zap! You're frozen!" In 1975, Trudeau introduced his own wage and price control system under the auspices of the "Anti-Inflation Board".
The New Democratic Party, led by David Lewis, lost less than two-and-a-half percentage points in popular vote, but almost half of their seats in the House of Commons.
The Social Credit Party of Canada, led by Real Caouette, continued to lose ground, and fell to 11 seats, one short of the number required to be recognized as a party in the House of Commons (and therefore qualify for research funds and parliamentary committee memberships). This status was nonetheless extended to the party by the governing Liberals, who believed that Social Credit's support came primarily at the expense of the Tories.
One seat was won in New Brunswick by independent candidate Leonard Jones. Jones, the former mayor of Moncton, had secured the Progressive Conservative nomination, but PC leader Stanfield refused to sign Jones' nomination papers because he was a vocal opponent of official bilingualism, which the PC Party supported. Jones had opposed providing services in French in the City of Moncton even though 30% of the city's population was francophone. Jones ran and won as an independent. After the election, Social Credit leader Caouette invited Jones to join the Socred caucus, which would have given that party enough members for official status. Caouette justified the invitation on the basis that Jones agreed with providing bilingual education at the primary school level. Jones declined Caouette's invitation, and sat as an independent.

Contents

National results

Results by province

Notes

National results

'141'	'95'	'16'	'11'	'1'
				'O'

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats				Popular vote
				1972	Dissolution	'Elected'	% Change	#	%	Change	Liberal	Pierre Trudeau	264	109	109	'141'	+29.4%	4,102,853	43.15%	+4.73%	Progressive Conservative	Robert Stanfield	264	107	106	'95'	-11.2%	3,371,319	35.46%	+0.44%	New Democratic Party	David Lewis	262	31	31	'16'	-48.4%	1,467,748	15.44%	-2.40%	Social Credit	Real Caouette	152	15	15	'11'	-26.7%	481,231	5.06%	-2.49%	Independent		63	1	-	'1'	-	38,745	0.41%	-0.18%	Unknown		28	-	-	-	-	17,124	0.18%	-0.15%	Marxist-Leninist	Hardial Bains	104			-		16,261	0.17%		Communist	William Kashtan	69			-		12,100	0.13%		No affiliation		3	1	1	-	-100%	551	0.01%	-0.24%
	Vacant				2
	'Total'		'1,209'	'264'	'264'	'264'	'-'	'9,507,932'	'100%'
'Sources:' http://www.elections.ca History of Federal Ridings since 1867

'Note:'
"% change" refers to change from previous election

Results by province

Party name			BC	AB	SK	MB	ON	QC	NB	NS	PE	NL	NT	YK	Total	Liberal	Seats:	8	-	3	2	55	60	6	2	1	4	-	-	141	Popular Vote (%):	33.8	24.8	30.7	27.4	45.1	54.1	47.2	40.7	46.2	46.7	24.7	33.5	43.2	Progressive Conservative	Seats:	13	19	8	9	25	3	3	8	3	3	-	1	95	Vote:	41.9	61.2	36.4	47.7	35.1	21.2	33.0	47.5	49.1	43.6	33.2	47.1	35.5	New Democratic Party	Seats:	2	-	2	2	8	-	-	1	-	-	1	-	16	Vote:	23.0	9.3	31.5	23.5	19.1	6.6	8.7	11.2	4.6	9.5	42.1	19.5	15.4	Social Credit	Seats:	-	-	-	-	-	11	-	-		-			11
Vote:	1.2	3.4	1.1	1.1	0.2	17.1	2.9	0.4		0.1			5.1	Independent	Seats:		-	-	-	-	-	-	1			-			1	Vote:	0.1	0.2	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.3	8.1			0.1			0.4
'Total seats:'			'23'	'19'	'13'	'13'	'88'	'74'	'10'	'11'	'4'	'7'	'1'		'1'	'264'
'Parties that won no seats:'																Unknown	Vote:	xx	1.0.		0.1	0.1	0.3			0.1				0.2	Marxist-Leninist	Vote:	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.4	xx	0.1					0.2	Communist	Vote:	0.3	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1							0.1	No affiliation	Vote:					xx	xx							xx

xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote.

Notes

★ 'Number of Parties': 6

★
★ 'First appearance': Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada

★
★ 'Final appearance': ''none''