Electoral history of John Turner

This article is the Electoral history of John Turner, the seventeenth Prime Minister of Canada.

A liberal, Turner served one term as prime minister (June 30 to September 17, 1984), as successor to Pierre Trudeau.

He had the second shortest-tenure of office of all the prime ministers, with only Charles Tupper having a shorter term.

Turner led the Liberal Party of Canada in two general elections (1984) and (1988), and lost both to Brian Mulroney.

He resigned the party leadership following the 1988 general election, and was succeeded by Jean Chrétien.

Turner ranks twenty-second out of twenty-three prime ministers for time in office, serving one term of 79 days.

[1] Like Tupper, Turner never sat in the House of Commons as prime minister.

Turner is the first of two prime ministers from British Columbia, the other being Kim Campbell.

[2] Turner had contested the Liberal Party leadership in 1968 when Pearson retired, but was defeated by Trudeau, who became prime minister.

Brian Mulroney won the largest majority in the Commons (in number of seats) in Canadian history, and the Liberals won only ten more seats than the third party, the New Democratic Party.

While they were again defeated by Mulroney, under Turner's leadership they more than doubled their seats in the Commons, outstripping the NDP to remain the dominant second party.

In the 1984 general election, he won a seat in the Commons, but Parliament was not recalled until after the change in government.

[2] After his second general election defeat, Turner resigned as leader of the Liberal Party in 1990, being succeeded by Chrétien.

In his first election as leader, Turner led the Liberals to a major defeat, winning only forty seats in the Commons.

Mulroney won the largest majority (in seat numbers) in Canadian history.

In his second general election as leader, Turner doubled the Liberal Party standings in the House of Commons, but remained in Opposition.