1979 Canadian Federal Election
May 22, 1979 · The Trudeau years · 282 seats, 142 for a majority
Joe Clark became, at 39, the youngest Prime Minister in Canadian history, his 136 seats short of a majority. Trudeau's Liberals won the popular vote by four points but piled up wasted majorities in Quebec.
Prime Minister before
Pierre Trudeau
Liberal
Prime Minister after
Joe Clark
Progressive Conservative
Government formed
Progressive Conservative
minority government
Turnout
75.7%
The result
| Share of House | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Progressive Conservative | Joe Clark | 136 | +38 | 4,111,606 | 35.9% | +0.4 | |
| Liberal | Pierre Trudeau | 114 | -19 | 4,595,319 | 40.1% | -3.0 | |
| New Democratic | Ed Broadbent | 26 | +9 | 2,048,988 | 17.9% | +2.5 | |
| Social Credit | Fabien Roy | 6 | -3 | 527,604 | 4.6% | -0.5 |
The result by province & territory
Seats won and vote share in each province and territory. Blank cells mean the party did not contest the province; the results table splits allied labels (Liberal-Conservatives, farmers' candidates, independents) that the headline figures group together.
| Progressive Conservative | 1944.3% | 2165.6% | 1041.2% | 743.4% | 5741.8% | 213.5% | 440.0% | 845.4% | 452.8% | 227.7% | 132.3% | 140.6% | 13635.9% |
| Liberal | 123.0% | 022.1% | 021.8% | 223.5% | 3236.4% | 6761.7% | 644.6% | 235.5% | 040.6% | 441.7% | 034.1% | 036.4% | 11440.1% |
| New Democratic | 831.9% | 09.9% | 435.8% | 532.7% | 621.1% | 05.1% | 015.3% | 118.7% | 06.5% | 130.6% | 131.9% | 023.1% | 2617.9% |
| Social Credit | 00.2% | 01.0% | 00.5% | 00.2% | 0<0.1% | 616.0% | 64.6% | ||||||
| Total seats | 28 | 21 | 14 | 14 | 95 | 75 | 10 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 282 |