1988 Canadian federal election

1988 Canadian federal election

← 1984 November 21, 1988 1993 →
← outgoing members elected members →
295 seats in the House of Commons 148 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	75.3%[1] ()
First party Second party Third party   Leader Brian Mulroney John Turner Ed Broadbent Party Progressive Conservative Liberal New Democratic Leader since June 11, 1983 June 16, 1984 July 7, 1975 Leader's seat Charlevoix Vancouver Quadra Oshawa Last election 211 seats, 50.03% 40 seats, 28.02% 30 seats, 18.81% Seats before 203 38 32 Seats won 169 83 43 Seat change 34 45 11 Popular vote 5,667,543 4,205,072 2,685,263 Percentage 43.02% 31.92% 20.38% Swing 7.02pp 3.89pp 1.57pp
Popular vote by province, with graphs indicating the number of seats won. As this is an FPTP election, seat totals are not determined by popular vote by province but instead via results by each riding.
The Canadian parliament after the 1988 election
Prime Minister before election Brian Mulroney Progressive Conservative Prime Minister after election Brian Mulroney Progressive Conservative

The 1988 Canadian federal election was held on November 21, 1988, to elect members to the House of Commons of Canada of the 34th Parliament of Canada. It was an election largely fought on a single issue: the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The incumbent prime minister, Brian Mulroney, went on to carry his Progressive Conservative Party to a second majority government. Mulroney became the party's first leader since John A. Macdonald to win a second majority.^[a] The Liberal Party doubled their seat count and experienced a moderate recovery after the 1984 wipeout. The New Democratic Party won the highest number of seats at the time, 43, until they would beat that record in 2011.

The election was the last time until 2011 that a right-of-centre party formed a majority government, as well as the last where a right-of-centre party won the most seats in Quebec. It was also the last election in Canadian history in which only three parties would be elected to Parliament.

Background[]

Free trade[]

Incumbent Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, leader of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party, had signed the agreement on free trade with the US. The Liberal Party, led by John Turner, was opposed to the agreement, as was the New Democratic Party led by Ed Broadbent.

Campaign[]

Support swung back and forth between the Progressive Conservatives and Liberals over free trade. With mid-campaign polls suggesting a Liberal government, this prompted the Conservatives to stop the relatively calm campaign they had been running, and go with Allan Gregg's suggestion of "bombing the bridge" that joined anti-FTA voters and the Liberals: Turner's credibility. The ads focused on Turner's leadership struggles, and combined with over $6 million CAD in pro-FTA ads, managed to stop the Liberals' momentum.

The Liberals reaped most of the benefits of opposing the FTA and doubled their representation to 83 seats to emerge as the main opposition; the NDP had also made gains but finished a distant third with 43 seats. Although most voters opted for parties opposed to free trade, the Tories were returned with a majority government and implemented the deal.

Liberals[]

The Liberal Party led by John Turner was preparing to campaign for the second election under his leadership. Turner faced several challenges. First, his leadership marked the beginning of the decentralization of the Liberal Party, in contrast to his predecessor, Pierre Trudeau, who centralized operation.^[2] Turner envisioned regional independence for the provincial wings of the Liberal Party, and strongly campaigned on that for party leadership in 1984.^[2] Following the Liberal failure in 1984, Turner focused the Liberal machine on bolstering the provincial wings of the party which resulted in gains in Anglophone provincial legislatures across the country.^[3] Despite the provincial success, the Liberal party was in financial and political disarray; by 1986 the party was heavily in debt and the expenses of the national organization continued to rise.^[4] Turner's office experienced significant staff turnover, and leaving members were willing to recount stories of the office's disfunction to the press, resulting in the Turner's leadership being nicknamed a "reign of error".^[4]

The Liberals had some early struggles, notably during one day in Montreal where three different costs were given for the proposed Liberal daycare program. The campaign was also hampered by a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) report that stated there was a movement in the backroom to replace Turner with Jean Chrétien, even though Turner had passed a leadership review in 1986 with 76.3 percent of delegates rejecting a leadership convention.^[3]

Election milestones[]

Until the 2011 federal election, the 1988 election was the most successful in the New Democratic Party's history. The party dominated in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, won significant support in Ontario and elected its first (and, until the 2008 election, only) member from Alberta.

This was the second election contested by the Green Party, and it saw a more than 50% increase in its vote, but it remained a minor party.

The election was the last for Canada's Social Credit Party. The party won no seats, and had an insignificant portion of the popular vote.

This was the first election for the newly founded Reform Party which for this vote only contested seats in Western Canada. The party at this stage was filled to a large extent with former Socreds along with some former PC supporters disaffected at the perceived lack of support from the Mulroney government for western interests. It was led by Preston Manning, who was himself a one time Socred candidate and the son of longtime Alberta Social Credit premier Ernest Manning.

Reform won no seats and was not yet considered a major party at the national level. However, Deborah Grey would win the first seat for Reform, Beaver River in Alberta, in a by-election held four months later. Grey, who had finished a distant fourth running in the same riding in the general election, succeeded rookie Progressive Conservative MP John Dahmer. Dahmer was in office for only five days before dying of pancreatic cancer.

For the Progressive Conservatives, this was the last federal election they would ever win.

National results[]

The Progressive Conservatives won a reduced but strong majority government with 169 seats. Despite the Liberals' improved standing, the results were considered a disappointment for Turner, after polls in mid-campaign predicted a Liberal government. In an ironic reversal of most prior federal elections, the Liberals were kept out of power by their inability to make any headway into the overwhelming Tory majority in Quebec. Indeed, the Liberals actually lost five seats in Quebec, many of which they had only retained in 1984 due to vote-splitting between the Tories and the since-defunct Parti nationaliste du Québec. This election loss sealed Turner's fate; he would eventually resign in 1990, and was succeeded by Jean Chrétien, who proved to be a more effective leader.

Had the Progressive Conservatives won a minority government, there would have been a strong possibility of the Liberals forming government with the New Democratic Party holding the balance of power, as these two left-of-centre parties would have made up the majority of seats in the House of Commons.

For a complete list of MPs elected in the 1988 election see 34th Canadian Parliament.

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats				Popular vote
				1984	Dissol.	Elected	% Change	#	%	Change
	Progressive Conservative	Brian Mulroney	295	211	203	169	-19.9%	5,667,543	43.02%	-7.02pp
	Liberal	John Turner	294	40	38	83	+107.5%	4,205,072	31.92%	+3.89pp
	New Democratic Party	Ed Broadbent	295	30	32	43	+34.4%	2,685,263	20.38%	+1.57pp
	Reform	Preston Manning	72	*	-	-	*	275,767	2.09%	*
	Christian Heritage	Ed Vanwoudenberg	63	*	-	-	*	102,533	0.78%	*
	Rhinoceros	Cornelius I	74	-	-	-	-	52,173	0.40%	-0.39pp
	Green	Seymour Trieger	68	-	-	-	-	47,228	0.36%	+0.14pp
	Confederation of Regions	Elmer Knutson	51	-	-	-	-	41,342	0.31%	-0.68pp
	Libertarian	Dennis Corrigan	88	-	-	-	-	33,135	0.25%	+0.06pp
	No affiliation		100	-	-	-		24,516	0.19%	-0.12pp
	Independent		55	1	4	-	-	22,982	0.17%	-0.01pp
	Commonwealth of Canada		58	-	-	-	-	7,467	0.06%	-0.21pp
	Communist	George Hewison	51	-	-	-	-	7,066	0.05%	-0.01pp
	Social Credit	Harvey Lainson	9	-	-	-	-	3,407	0.03%	-0.10pp
	Vacant				5
	Total		1,573	282	282	295	+4.6%	13,175,494	100%

Note:

"% change" refers to change from previous election

Vote and seat summaries[]

A number of unregistered parties also contested the election. The Western Canada Concept party, led by Doug Christie, fielded three candidates in British Columbia. The Western Independence Party ran one candidate in British Columbia, seven in Alberta, and three in Manitoba (although one of the Manitoba candidates appears to have withdrawn before election day).

The Liberal candidate in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Emmanuel Feuerwerker, withdrew from the race after suffering a heart attack, resulting in the Liberals not running a candidate in all 295 ridings during this election.

The Marxist–Leninist Party fielded candidates in several ridings.

Blair T. Longley campaigned in British Columbia as a representative of the "Student Party". Newspaper reports indicate that this was simply a tax-avoidance scheme.

The moribund Social Credit Party fielded nine candidates, far short of the 50 required for official recognition. However, the Chief Electoral Officer allowed the party's name to appear on the ballot by virtue of its half-century history as a recognized party. It would be the last time that the party, which had been the third-largest or fourth-largest party in Canada at its height, would fight an election under its own name. The party was deregistered before the 1993 election after it failed to nominate enough candidates to keep its registration.

Results by province[]

xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote.

Note: Parties that captured less than 1% of the vote in a province are not recorded.

Notes[]

• Number of parties: 11
  • First appearance: Christian Heritage Party, Reform Party
  • Final appearance: Confederation of Regions Party, Social Credit Party
  • Final appearance before hiatus: Communist Party (returned in 2000), Rhinoceros Party (returned in 2006)

10 closest ridings[]

1. London-Middlesex, ON: Terry Clifford (PC) def. Garnet Bloomfield (Lib) by 8 votes
2. Northumberland, ON: Christine Stewart (Lib) def. Reg Jewell (PC) by 28 votes
3. Hamilton Mountain, ON: Beth Phinney (Lib) def. Marion Dewar (NDP) by 73 votes
4. York North, ON: Maurizio Bevilacqua (Lib) def. Micheal O'Brien (PC) by 77 votes
5. Rosedale, ON: David MacDonald (PC) def. Bill Graham (Lib) by 80 votes
6. London East, ON: Joe Fontana (Lib) def. Jim Jepson (PC) by 102 votes
7. Haldimand-Norfolk, ON: Bob Speller (Lib) def. Bud Bradley (PC) by 209 votes
8. Hillsborough, PE: George Proud (Lib) def. Thomas McMillan (PC) by 259 votes
9. Cariboo—Chilcotin, BC: Dave Worthy (PC) def. Jack Langford (NDP) by 269 votes
10. Vancouver Centre, BC: future Prime Minister Kim Campbell (PC) def. Johanna Den Hertog (NDP) by 269 votes

See also[]

• 1911 Canadian federal election, an election similarly contested over free trade with the United States.
• List of Canadian federal general elections
• List of political parties in Canada

Articles on parties' candidates in this election:

References[]

Notes[]

Party platforms[]

Further reading[]

External links[]

• Riding map
• Election 1988, by Stephen Azzi
• Debate '88