The 1997 Canadian election held on June 2, 1997 saw Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party of Canada win a second majority government. The Reform Party of Canada replaced the Bloc Québécois as the Official Opposition.
The election closely reflected the pattern that had been set out in the 1993 election The Liberals swept Ontario, the Bloc took much of Quebec, Alberta and much of the west was won by Reform. The major change was that the NDP and the Progressive Conservative Party all but wiped out the Liberals in the Maritimes. Maritime voters upset over cuts to employment insurance and other programs led to the defeat of two cabinet ministers. David Dingwall, Minister of Transportation from Nova Scotia, and Doug Young, Minister of Defence from New Brunswick, both lost to NDP candiates in a major blow to the Liberals. Because of loses in the Maritimes the Liberal majority shrunk considerably from the 1993 total. Mostly because of these wins in the maritimes the Jean Charest's Tories and Alexa McDonough's NDP both regained official party status. Independent member John Nunziata, who had been expelled from the Liberal Party for opposing the GST was reelected in his riding outside Toronto.
12 985 964 Canadians, 66.7% of those eligible, voted in one of the lowest ever federal election turnouts.
| Party | Party Leader | Seats | Popular Vote | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bloc Québécois | Gilles Duceppe | 44 | 1,385,821 | 10.7 | |
| Canadian Action Party | Paul Hellyer | 0 | 17,502 | 0.1 | |
| Christian Heritage Party of Canada | 0 | 29,085 | 0.2 | ||
| Liberal Party of Canada | Jean Chrétien | 155 | 4,994,277 | 38.5 | |
| Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada | 0 | 11,468 | 0.1 | ||
| Natural Law Party of Canada | 0 | 37,085 | 0.3 | ||
| New Democratic Party | Alexa McDonough | 21 | 1,434,509 | 11.0 | |
| Progressive Conservative Party of Canada | Jean Charest | 20 | 2,446,705 | 18.8 | |
| Reform Party of Canada | Preston Manning | 60 | 2,513,080 | 19.4 | |
| The Green Party of Canada | 0 | 55,583 | 0.4 | ||
| Independent | 1 | 34,507 | 0.3 | ||
| No affiliation | 0 | 26,252 | 0.2 | ||
| Total | 301 | 12 985 964 | 100 | ||
| Source: http://www.elections.ca | |||||
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Preceded by: 1993 Canadian election | Canadian federal elections |
Followed by: 2000 Canadian election |
