Why did Trudeau win in 1974?

[Hodgson]

We got a minority of two seats in 72 and it looked like people where disillusioned with the Truedaumania at that point.

Why the massive majority two years later?

[Godwin]

We got a minority of two seats in 72 and it looked like people where disillusioned with the Truedaumania at that point.

Why the massive majority two years later?

Canada had a minority Liberal govt in 72 with the Liberals having two seats more than the PCS. The NDP received a signicant number of seats and propped up tye Liberals.

In 74 the Liberals increased by 19 seats in Ontario alone.

In both elections the PCs supported Wage and Price controls. So voting for Trudeau was voting for the free markets party
For the many people who complain that Canadians destroyed th country by voting Liberal, it would appear at election time they were the lesserevil. (we know Canada got wage and price controls anyways)

A lesson perhaps for the vote the lesser evil bloc. They are all the same. Don't vote it only encourages them.

[Angleland]

Trudeau would never have gotten to take over as a siting PM in 1968 if Stanfield had not blown his chance to bring Pearson down in February and force an April election (longer writ period).

Stanfield then got clobbered in the 1968 ekection which Trudeau called in April fofr June. An election in April would have been a catastrophe according to the Lins but June was just peachy.

Stanfield got a second chance in 1972 after a crappy first term Trudeau government. 2 seat difference. If Stanfield wanted the thing he should have made the deal with the NDP himself but then he let the chance slip away.

The PCs did not have a focused attack in their new strengthened position. When the Liberals were ready, they let themselves get defeated in the House by pissing off theor NDP pals.

The Tories ran an unfocused campaign. The wage and price control thing may have had an logic for the day but it soon became the main thing people focused on.

The Liberals picked up seats in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario and BC. The PC's lost seats in Atlantic Canada, held on to some of their gains in Ontario from 1972 although falling back some and consoldiated their support in the Prairies and gained seats in BC. The NDP lost big time and Social Credit lost offical status (winning 11 - needed 12 for offical status) and began their death spiral which would be complete after 1980.

[LAR]

Did Trudeau win? I was watching Kojak.

[Charles J. White]

The Progressive Conservatives were so out of touch when it came to promoting, fighting for, and demanding Price and Wage Controls, the very basis of communust ideas that they turned off a lot of people, and left others confused. And there was a general feeling that that from everything starting with the FLQ Crisis, the creation of the PQ, and the 1980 referendum that no Progressive Conservative knew how to put a separatist in their place - it was almost as if they wanted Canada to fail. The other factor was that Stanfield was viewed as being out of touch with the regular guy paving roads and that sort of thing, which of course is true. I don't think he knew who the Beatles were, or Elvis for that matter.

[RedDog]

Because central and eastern Canadians are weak? I get tired of this same answer.

[tinknee]

Ya, What Red Dog said only not so polite.

[RedDog]

Well, I had to temper my thoughts. I'm trying to be civil.

[Hodgson]

The whole wage and price control thing dumbfounds me.

It's hard to realize just how insanely leftist the world was in the 1970's. I mean wage and price controls? It's just so insane.

[Charles J. White]

The whole wage and price control thing dumbfounds me.

It's hard to realize just how insanely leftist the world was in the 1970's. I mean wage and price controls? It's just so insane.

But that is why Trudeau won, because conservative type guys like me would listen to people like Stanfield spend 8 full months leading up to an election demanding that Price and Wage Controls be forced on the people, and that Quebec be allowed to rip up the country and given special status, and of course conservative type guys would think why bother voting for Stanfield? So they would vote for Trudeau or Social Credit or even NDP just to keep a guy like Stanfield away from the keys of power. Plus Stanfield, unlike Mulroney or Trudeau or Harper or Chretien, was completely out of touch with society around him. He had no idea who the Beatles were, or Elvis, most likely never had any kind of wild sex with a woman including his wife ever in his life, and people saw through it. He was an economic communist with a social conservative agenda, and the combination of that was just the most horrible thing and so he was never elected Prime Minister.

The guy who paves the roads for a living sitting on some machines on the highway, or drives a B-Train Tractor Trailer of jet fuel to the airport everyday has to have some sort of common connection with the Prime Minister now, and Stanfield was a robot not connected to the world around him.

With Harper for example, people know he loves rock n roll, enjoys a good hockey game or curling match, plays a bit of guitar and piano, and likes a beer once a in a while, and that his wife likes riding motorcycles so he appeals to people much more over say Iggy, or Dion, or Martin. And so he became Prime Minister. Stanfield, was just a horrible man who was disconnected from society at large much like Joe Clark…

[Smaug]

Trudeau won the 1972 election because a press vulture snapped a picture of Stanfield fumbling a football in the Ottawa stadium and the picture promptly made the front pages nation wide.


Just saying, so you don't have to make a thread for that election too.

[Smaug]

And while we are at it, why not a thread asking why Laurier lost the 1911 election? After all, the 1911 wipeout of the Liberals was the defining election of the century as far as Canada was concerned .... an electoral wipeout so bad that no one dared to raise the central issue again for another 77 years.

[Charles J. White]

And while we are at it, why not a thread asking why Laurier lost the 1911 election? After all, the 1911 wipeout of the Liberals was the defining election of the century as far as Canada was concerned .... an electoral wipeout so bad that no one dared to raise the central issue again for another 77 years.

Look I agree, Laurier is most likely the most important Prime Minister Canada has ever had, and the one I have most in common with. Stanfield was just a weird guy and robot like.

[Hodgson]

74 and 80 are the elections I didn't really understand. They were both before my time.
The other two...Trudeaumania, and football...less necessary.

[Angleland]

The football picture was form 1974. The PC's came close in 1972 - closer than predicted.