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The Canadian federal election of 1997 was held on June 2, 1997, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 36th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party of Canada won a second majority government. The Reform Party of Canada replaced the Bloc Québécois as the Official Opposition. The election results closely reflected the pattern that had been set out in the 1993 election. The Liberals swept Ontario while a divided Bloc managed to win a reduced majority in Quebec. Reform made sufficient gains in the West to allow Preston Manning to become Leader of the Official Opposition, but lost its only seat east of Manitoba. The most significant change was major gains in Atlantic Canada by the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The Liberals faced major losses, including two cabinet ministers; David Dingwall, Minister of Public Works from Nova Scotia, and Doug Young, Minister of National Defence from New Brunswick, both of whom lost to NDP candidates. The Liberals' performance was not in doubt, though some commentators on election night were predicting that the Liberals would be cut down to a minority government, and/or that Chrétien would lose his seat. Chrétien did narrowly win his riding and the Liberals would manage a four-seat majority thanks to gains in Quebec at the expense of the Bloc. Jean Charest's Tories and Alexa McDonough's NDP both regained official party status in the House of Commons. A change of 718 votes in just five ridings (Bonavista—Trinity—Conception, Simcoe—Grey, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, Cardigan, and Bellechasse—Etchemins—Montmagny—L'Islet) from the Liberals to the second place candidate would have resulted in a minority government. This marked the first time in Canadian history that five political parties held official party status in a single session of Parliament. Voter turnout was 67.0%, generally low at the time for Canadian elections. ==Campaign== Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced his approved request by Governor General Romeo Leblanc to dissolve Parliament on April 26, 1997, with an election to be held on June 2 of that year. Chrétien's election call was one year and a half before the mandate of the government would expire, and aside from the 1911 election, the earliest called by a party with a majority. Opinion polls at the time predicted that the Liberal Party was expected to win a landslide victory capturing at least 180 to 220 of the 301 seats in the House of Commons, with the fragmentation of the opposition meaning that one party was not expected to be able to defeat the government.〔 The election call was controversial both for being early and for occurring during Manitoba's recovery from the Red River Flood earlier in the year. Reg Alcock and several others inside the Liberal Party had opposed the timing of the vote, and the poor results prompted Paul Martin's supporters to organize against Chrétien. 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, 1997」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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