page_title: Federal minority governments in Canada
section_title: Pierre E. Trudeau
hierarchical_section_title: Federal minority governments in Canada / Pierre E. Trudeau
caption_attribution_description: English: Canadian House of Commons composition in 1972. Each square represents one member. Français&#160;: Composition de la Chambre des communes du Canada en 1972. Chaque carré représente un député.
context_page_description: During the history of Canadian politics, twelve minority governments have been elected at the federal level. There have also been two minority governments resulting from governments being replaced between elections, for a total of fourteen federal minority governments in twelve separate minority parliaments. There have been historical cases where the governing party had fewer than half of the seats but had the support of independents who called themselves members of the party; these cases are not included, as there was never any serious chance of the government falling.
  In a minority situation, governments must rely on the support of other parties to stay in power, providing less stability than a majority government. At the federal level, no minority government has lasted a standard four-year term. Most minority governments have lasted less than two years. The average duration of completed minorities in Canada is 479 days or approximately 1 year, 140 days counting only that part of the 14th Parliament that was a minority, or 1 year, 207 days counting the entire duration of it.
context_section_description: Seats short of a majority 1972: 23². Term of office 1 year, 221 days/586 days.
  In the 1972 election, the Liberals under Pierre Trudeau won only two seats more than the Tories. It was the second election for Trudeau as party leader. However, even though the Liberals entered the election strong in the polls, the Trudeaumania buzz had all but ended, and the party was further damaged by a weak economy. With few issues to campaign on and one of the weakest campaigns in Canadian history, they were again forced to rely on the NDP to remain in power. In this instance, the NDP demanded the creation of Petro-Canada among other things to support the Liberals. The government fell on May 8, 1974, on a sub-amendment to the budget (thus a question of confidence). The Trudeau Liberals won a large majority government in the resulting 1974 federal election.
  ²Speaker was elected as independent
caption: Liberal minority after the 1972 election
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