The 1980s saw political change in Canada and Ontario seldom witnessed before or since. Legislation and lessons learned then are applicable now.
In Ottawa, Liberal leader Pierre Trudeau retired as Prime Minister in early 1984 and Conservative Brian Mulroney defeated Trudeau’s successor, John Turner, in September that year to take over leadership of the country.
Mulroney set as a priority negotiations to achieve free trade with the United States, and the ongoing debate over national unity on the heels of Trudeau’s National Energy program in 1980 and repatriating the constitution in 1982 without Quebec’s involvement would clutter the political agenda through the ‘80s.
Change also impacted the calendar at Queen’s Park, where Stuart Smith, a Montreal-trained psychiatrist turned McMaster University professor, struggled to lift his Ontario Liberals out of third party status. His efforts to “liberalize” the party and shift it off its rural base helped him regain the long-held Liberal position of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in the 1981 general election, ahead of the New Democrats. But the party stalled at 33 seats.
That allowed William Grenville Davis, after winning two brief terms in minority at the head of the Progressive Conservative party (1975, 1977), to reclaim a majority government under a Tory banner and extend the party’s grip on power to almost 40 years. But change was coming.
This site picks up that story with the May 2,1985 general election and its aftermath that less than two months later led to the June 26 swearing-in of the Peterson Liberal government to be supported for two years by the New Democratic Party. The 42-year reign of the Progressive Conservatives had come to an end.
It is the story of everything that happened between that vote and the election five years later that defeated the Peterson government, told by many of those who were there.
This site is a work in progress that we anticipate will expand in content in the coming months. To that end, if you have memories, reflections, photos or documents you think we should include, please forward them with a note of explanation to contributions@thepetersonyears.ca .
