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The Canadian federal election of 1984 was held on September 4 of that year to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 33rd Parliament of Canada. The Progressive Conservative Party, led by Brian Mulroney, won the largest landslide majority government (by total number of seats) in Canadian history, while the Liberals suffered what at that time was the worst defeat for a governing party at the federal level. Only the Progressive Conservatives would face a larger defeat in 1993. The election marked the end of the Liberals' long dominance of federal politics in Quebec, a province which had been the bedrock of Liberal support for almost a century. This election was also the last time that the winning party received over 50% of the national popular vote. ==Background== The election was fought almost entirely on the record of the Liberals, who had been in power for all but one year since 1963. Pierre Trudeau, who had been Prime Minister from 1968 to 1979 and since 1980, retired from politics in early 1984 after polls indicated that the Liberals would almost certainly be defeated at the next election had he remained in office. He was succeeded by John Turner, a former Cabinet minister under both Trudeau and Lester Pearson. Turner had been out of politics since 1975. Upon assuming the leadership, he made immediate changes in an attempt to rebuild the Liberals' tattered reputation. For example, he announced that he would not run in a by-election to return to the House of Commons, but would instead run in the next general election as the Liberal candidate in Vancouver Quadra, British Columbia. This was a sharp departure from usual practice, in which the incumbent in a safe seat resigns to allow a newly elected party leader a chance to get into Parliament. The Liberal Party had lost favour with western Canadians, and policies such as the National Energy Program only aggravated this sentiment. Turner's plans to run in a western Canada riding were in part an attempt to rebuild support in that region. Going into the election, the Liberals held only one seat west of Ontario—that of Lloyd Axworthy, from Winnipeg—Fort Garry, Manitoba. More seriously, there was great disaffection in Quebec with the Liberal government, even though Trudeau was a Quebecer. The province was highly annoyed at being left out of the 1982 repatriation of the Canadian constitution. Although Quebec had not ratified the new Constitution Act, 1982; the Supreme Court of Canada had ruled that Quebec was bound by it. However, hope for success there was one of the main reasons businessman Brian Mulroney, a fluently bilingual Quebecker, had been chosen as party leader. Although Turner was not required to call an election until 1985, internal polls showed that the Liberals had regained the lead in opinion polls. He requested that Queen Elizabeth II delay her tour of Canada, and asked Governor-General Jeanne Sauvé to dissolve Parliament on July 4. In accordance with Canadian constitutional practice, Sauvé granted the request and set an election for September 4. The initial Liberal lead began to slip as Turner made several gaffes that caused voters to see him as "yesterday's man". In particular, he spoke of creating new "make work programs", a concept from the 1970s that had been replaced by the less patronizing "job creation programs". He also was caught on camera patting Liberal Party President Iona Campagnolo on her posterior. Turner defended this action as being a friendly gesture, not recognizing that it was seen by many women as being condescending. Other voters turned against the Liberals due to their mounting legacy of patronage and corruption. An especially important issue was Trudeau's recommendation that Sauvé appoint over 200 Liberals to patronage posts just before he left office. The appointments enraged Canadians on all sides. Although Turner had the right to advise that the appointments be withdrawn (something that Sauvé would have had to do according to constitutional convention), he didn't do so. In fact, he himself appointed more than 70 Liberals to patronage posts despite a promise to bring a new way of politics to Ottawa. He cited a written agreement with Trudeau, claiming that if Trudeau had made the appointments, the Liberals would have almost certainly lost the election. However, the fact that Turner dropped the writ a year early hurt his argument. Turner found out that Mulroney was allegedly setting up a patronage machine in anticipation of victory. At the English-language televised debate between Mulroney, Turner and New Democratic Party leader Ed Broadbent, Turner started to attack Mulroney on his patronage plans, comparing them to the patronage machine run by old Union Nationale in Quebec. However, Mulroney turned the tables by pointing to the raft of patronage appointments made on the advice of Trudeau and Turner. Claiming that he'd gone so far as to apologize for making light of "these horrible appointments," Mulroney demanded that Turner apologize to the country for not cancelling the appointments advised by Trudeau and for recommending his own appointments. Turner was visibly surprised, and could only reply that "I had no option" except to let the appointments stand. Mulroney famously responded: "You had an option, sir. You could have said, 'I am not going to do it. This is wrong for Canada, and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price.' You had an option, sir--to say 'no'--and you chose to say 'yes' to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party. That sir, if I may say respectfully, that is not good enough for Canadians." Turner, clearly flustered by this withering riposte from Mulroney, could only repeat "I had no option." A visibly angry Mulroney called this "an avowal of failure" and told Turner, "You had an option, sir. You could have done better." Mulroney's counterattack led most of the papers the next day; it was often paraphrased as "You had an option, sir; you could have said 'no'." Many observers saw this as the end of any realistic chance for Turner to stay in power. The last days of the campaign saw one Liberal blunder piled on another. Turner continued to speak of "make work programs" and made other gaffes that caused voters to see him as a relic from the past. Turner rehired much of Trudeau's staff during the final weeks in an attempt to turn the tide, but this did nothing to reverse the Liberals' sliding poll numbers. Trudeau himself did not campaign for Turner, instead only showing up to support Liberal candidates. Besides the Tories, the NDP also benefited from the slip in Liberal support. Under Broadbent, the party had seen greater support in opinion polling than ever before, and had actually replaced the Liberals as the second party in much of the west. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Canadian federal election, 1984」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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