Федеральные выборы в Канаде 1997 года

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The 1997 Canadian federal election was held on June 2, 1997, to elect members to the House of Commons of the 36th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party won a second majority government. The Reform Party replaced the Bloc Québécois as the Official Opposition. The election results closely followed the pattern of the 1993 election. The Liberals swept Ontario, while the Bloc won a 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 rump Progressive Conservative Party. The Liberal victory was not in doubt, though some commentators on election night were predicting that the party would be cut down to a minority government and that Chrétien might lose his seat. Chrétien narrowly won his riding, and the Liberals maintained a nine 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. This was the first time that five political parties held official party status in a single session of Canada's Parliament, and the only time to date that five different parties have won the popular vote in at least one of the provinces and territories of Canada.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced his approved request by Governor General Roméo LeBlanc to dissolve Parliament on April 26, 1997, with an election to be held on June 2 of that year. Chrétien's election call came three years and five months into Parliament's life, short of both the maximum five year duration and the typical four years between elections. This represented the earliest election call in a majority Parliament since the 1911 election. 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 platform was called Securing Our Future Together. The Liberal Party was attacked by the opposition parties for failing to keep many of the promises that the party campaigned on in the 1993 federal election. The Liberals attacked the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform Party for prematurely calling for tax cuts while a deficit still remained while attacking the New Democratic Party for proposing to increase government spending while Canada faced a deficit. Their platform was titled the Fresh Start for all Canadians. The Reformers ran a full slate of candidates in Quebec, making this the first and last election in which it would run candidates in every region of Canada. Reform's campaign ran into multiple problems. The party was repeatedly accused by other parties and the media of holding intolerant views due to comments made by a number of Reform MPs during the writ period. Some Reform supporters were frustrated by the party's decision to expand its political base into Quebec, as they continued to believe that the party should represent English speaking Canada, and others from the right wing and populist faction of the party were angry that Manning punished MPs Bob Ringma and David Chatters for outbursts. During the campaign the Reform Party released a controversial television advertisement where the faces of four Quebecers, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest, and Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard, were crossed out, followed by a message saying that Quebec politicians had dominated the federal government for too long and that the Reform Party would end this favoritism towards Quebec. The advertisement was harshly criticized by the other party leaders including accusations that Manning was "intolerant" and a "bigot" for having permitted the advertisement to be aired. The results for Reform were a generally considered a minor tactical success. The party won 60 seats to displace the Bloc as Official Opposition, largely by building on its already heavy concentration of support in Western Canada. Strategically, Reform failed to make inroads into eastern Canada and lost its one seat in Ontario, leaving it effectively perceived as a Western regional party, despite making their first significant inroads into rural Ontario.

The Bloc Québécois, under the leadership of Gilles Duceppe, lost its position of Official Opposition, falling to third place. The party's founding leader, Lucien Bouchard, had resigned in the aftermath of the 1995 Quebec referendum in order to become Premier of Quebec. Bouchard had been replaced by Michel Gauthier, but a lack of direction and party infighting caused their poll numbers to plummet, leaving them in danger of being overhauled by both the Liberals and the resurgent Progressive Conservatives. Duceppe, who took over as leader after Gauthier resigned, nonetheless made progress by emphasizing the lack of possibility of constitutional reform. While the party only finished 1.2 percentage points ahead of the Liberals in the province's popular vote, a more efficiently distributed vote (the Liberal vote was too concentrated in and around Montreal; elsewhere, they split the vote with the Progressive Conservatives) still allowed them capture a comfortable majority of 44 out of Quebec's 75 seats.

The New Democratic Party under the leadership of Alexa McDonough regained official party status that the party lost in the 1993 Canadian federal election. The party won the fourth largest share of total votes and won 21 seats. Notably, the party made a substantial showing in Atlantic Canada, a region where it had only elected three MPs in its entire history prior to the election.

The Progressive Conservative Party under Jean Charest campaigned on securing national unity in Canada by recognizing Quebec as being a distinct society within Canada, along with the proposal of a "New Covenant" for Canadian confederation to be negotiated between the Federal and Provincial governments. The party's platform included the novelty of being publicly distributed on CD ROM. Charest and the PCs benefited from rapidly rising in popularity amongst all language groups in Quebec, where voters were found to have preferred Charest over Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Bloc Québécois. The Progressive Conservatives faced multiple difficulties, as the party was not able to apply for federal financial assistance due to it not being an official party. The party's results in their previous bastion of Western Canada remained anemic, and the Reformers remained the dominant conservative political force in the west. Reform also made inroads into rural central and southern Ontario — traditionally the heartland of the Tories' provincial counterparts. The Progressive Conservatives won the third largest number of the total votes and improved their situation in the House of Commons, regaining official party status after winning 20 seats. Despite finishing about half a point behind Reform in the nationwide popular vote, their only heavy concentrations of support were in Atlantic Canada and Quebec. Elsewhere, like in 1993, their support was too spread out to translate into victories in individual ridings. They only won one seat each in Ontario and Manitoba, and none west of Manitoba. The result, a disappointment for Charest, would lead to his resignation and eventual assumption of leadership of the Liberal Party of Quebec.

Support for the Green Party of Canada was 79% higher than at the previous election, with its greatest success in British Columbia, where it received 2% of the vote. The Green Party remained almost entirely off the national media's radar. At 0.43% of the vote, and 1.64% of the vote in the ridings it contested, the Green Party remained a small but growing movement.

Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS: Peter Stoffer, NDP def. Ken Streatch, PC by 41 votes
Bellechasse—Etchemins—Montmagny—L'Islet, QC: Gilbert Normand, Lib def. François Langlois, BQ by 47 votes
Selkirk—Interlake, MB: Howard Hilstrom, Ref def. Jon Gerrard, Lib by 66 votes
Cardigan, PE: Lawrence MacAulay, Lib def. Dan Hughes, PC by 99 votes
Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles de la Madeleine—Pabok, QC: Yvan Bernier, BQ def. Patrick Gagnon, Lib by 179 votes
Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK: Jim Pankiw, Ref def. Dennis Gruending, NDP by 220 votes
Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NF: Gerry Byrne, Lib def. Art Bull, PC by 232 votes
Chicoutimi, QC: André Harvey, PC def. Gilbert Fillion, BQ by 317 votes
Frontenac—Mégantic, QC: Jean Guy Chrétien, BQ def. Manon Lecours, Lib by 465 votes
Simcoe—Grey, ON: Paul Bonwick, Lib def. Paul Shaw, Ref by 481 votes