The Canadian federal election of 1980 was held on February 18, 1980 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons. It was called when the minority Progressive Conservative government led by Joe Clark was defeated on a motion of no confidence in the Commons. Clark and his government had been under attack for its perceived inexperience, for example, in its handling of its 1979 election campaign commitment to move Canada's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Clark had maintained uneasy relations with the fourth largest party in the House of Commons, Social Credit. While he needed the six votes that the conservative-populist Quebec-based party had in order to get legislation passed, he was unwilling to agree to the conditions they imposed for their support. Clark had managed to recruit one Socred MP, Richard Janelle, to join the PC caucus.

Clark's Minister of Finance, John Crosbie, introduced an austere government budget in late 1979 that proposed to increase the excise tax on gasoline by 18 cents per Imperial gallon to reduce the federal government's deficit. The five remaining Social Credit MPs demanded that the revenues raised be allocated to Quebec, and decided to abstain from a vote of non-confidence introduced by the New Democratic Party. This resulted in the defeat of the government in the House of Commons, and new elections to be called. Clark's Tories campaigned under the slogan, "Real change deserves a fair chance", but the voters were unwilling to give Clark another chance.

Former Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau had resigned from the leadership of the Liberal Party following its defeat in 1979. Trudeau quickly came out of retirement to lead the party to victory, winning 34 more seats than in the 1979 federal election. This enabled the Liberals to form a majority government that would last until its defeat in the 1984 election.

The Social Credit Party lost its last five seats in the House of Commons, and rapidly declined into obscurity after this election.

National results

Despite winning at least one seat in every province and territory, the Progressive Conservatives lost to the Liberals, who won a majority government. This was mainly because the Liberals won all but one seat in Quebec, and won a majority of the seats in Ontario, Canada's two most populous provinces. The Liberals were shut out west of Manitoba.

Party		Party Leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular Vote
				Previous1	After	% Change	#	%	% Change	Liberal	Pierre Trudeau	282	114	147	+28.9%	4,855,425	44.34%	+4.23%	Progressive Conservative	Joe Clark	282	136	103	-24.3%	3,552,994	32.45%	-3.44%	New Democratic	Ed Broadbent	280	26	32	+23.1%	2,165,087	19.77%	+1.89%	Social Credit	Fabien Roy	81	6	-	-100%	185,486	1.70%	-2.91%	Rhinoceros	Cornelius I	121	-	-		110,597	1.01%	+0.46%	Marxist-Leninist	Hardial Bains	177	-	-		14,728	0.13%	+0.01%	Libertarian		58	-	-		14,656	0.13%	-0.01%	Union Populaire		54	-	-		14,474	0.13%	-0.04%	Independent		55	-	-		14,472	0.13%	-0.13%
	Unknown		41	-	-		12,532	0.11%	-0.07%	Communist	William Kashtan	52	-	-		6,022	0.05%	-0.02%
	No affiliation		14	-	-		3,063	0.03%	+0.03%
Total			1,497	282	282	-	10,934,475	100.0
Sources: http://www.elections.ca,History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Note:

¹ "Previous" refers to the results of the previous election, not the party standings in the House of Commons prior to dissolution.

Results by province

Party Name			BC	AB	SK	MB	ON	QC	NB	NS	PE	NL	NT	YK	Total
	Liberal	Seats:	-	-	-	2	52	74	7	5	2	5	-	-	147
		Popular Vote:	22.2	22.2	24.2	28.0	41.9	68.2	50.1	39.9	46.8	47.0	35.8	39.6	44.3
	Progressive Conservative	Seats:	16	21	7	5	38	1	3	6	2	2	1	1	103
		Vote:	41.5	64.9	38.9	37.7	35.5	12.6	32.5	38.7	46.3	36.0	24.7	40.6	32.4
	New Democratic	Seats:	12	-	7	7	5	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	32
		Vote:	35.3	10.3	36.3	33.5	21.8	9.1	16.2	20.9	6.6	16.7	38.4	19.8	19.8
Total seats:			28	21	14	14	95	75	10	11	4	7	2	1	282
Parties that won no seats:
	Social Credit	Vote:	0.1	1.0	xx		xx	5.9							1.7
	Rhinoceros	Vote:	0.4	0.7	0.1	0.4	0.2	3.0	0.5	0.2			1.1		1.0
	Marxist-Leninist	Vote:	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.1	0.2	xx	xx	xx	0.1			0.1
	Libertarian	Vote:			xx		0.3	0.1	xx						0.1
	Union Populaire	Vote:						0.5							0.1
	Independent	Vote:	0.3	0.3	0.1	xx	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.4	0.3	0.1			0.1
	Unknown	Vote:	xx	0.5	0.2	0.1	xx	0.2	0.3			0.1			0.1
	Communist	Vote:	0.1	0.1	xx	0.1	0.1	xx							0.1
	No affiliation	Vote:					xx	0.1	0.1						xx

xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote.

Notes

• Number of Parties: 9
  • First appearance: none
  • Final appearance: Union Populaire
  • Final appearance before hiatus: Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada (returned in 1993)