1979 Alberta general election
The 1979 Alberta general election was the nineteenth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on March 14, 1979, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, which had been expanded to 79 seats.
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79 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta 40 seats were needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Progressive Conservative Party of Peter Lougheed won its third consecutive term in government. During the campaign, some Progressive Conservatives spoke of winning "79 in '79", i.e., all 79 seats in the legislature. This harkened back to Social Credit's unofficial slogan from the 1963 election, "63 in '63". The Tories came up short of this goal, and actually lost over five percentage points of the popular vote. Nonetheless, they still won an overwhelming majority, with 74 seats.
Social Credit held on to the four seats they had won in the 1975 election, and formed the official opposition in the legislature. Grant Notley, leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party, was the only other opposition member.
Results
| Party | Party leader | # of candidates |
Seats | Popular vVote | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 | Elected | % Change | # | % | % Change | ||||
| Progressive Conservative | Peter Lougheed | 79 | 69 | 74 | +7.2% | 408,097 | 57.40% | -5.25% | |
| Social Credit | Robert Curtis Clark | 79 | 4 | 4 | - | 141,284 | 19.87% | +1.70% | |
| New Democrats | Grant Notley | 79 | 1 | 1 | - | 111,984 | 15.75% | +2.81% | |
| Liberal | Nicholas Taylor | 78 | - | - | - | 43,792 | 6.16% | +1.18% | |
| Independent | 8 | - | - | - | 3,430 | 0.48% | +0.37% | ||
| Independent Conservative | 3 | - | - | - | 1,613 | 0.23% | +0.05%1 | ||
| Independent Christian | 1 | * | - | * | 403 | 0.06% | * | ||
| Communist | 7 | - | - | - | 357 | 0.05% | -0.08% | ||
| Total | 334 | 75 | 79 | +5.3% | 710,963 | 100% | |||
| Source: Elections Alberta | |||||||||
Notes:
1 Percent compared to Independent Progressive Conservative during the 1975 Election.
* Party did not nominate candidates in the previous election.
Members elected
For complete electoral history, see individual districts.
See also
| General elections | |
|---|---|
| By-elections | |
| Senate nominee elections | |
| Municipal elections | |
| Referendums | |
See also: Elections in Canada | |