The 1973 Quebec general election was held on October 29, 1973 to elect members to National Assembly of Quebec, Canada. The incumbent Quebec Liberal Party, led by Premier Robert Bourassa, won re-election, defeating the Parti Québécois, led by René Lévesque, and the Union Nationale (UN). The Liberals won the largest majority government in the province's history, with 102 seats. In the process, they reduced the opposition to just eight seats (six PQ, two créditistes) in total. The Parti Québécois held its own, losing only one seat, and despite having fewer seats, became the official Opposition, although PQ leader René Lévesque failed to win a seat in the Assembly. The Union Nationale, which had held power until the previous 1970 general election, was wiped off the electoral map, losing all 17 of its seats. It would be the first time since the UN's founding in 1935 that the party was without representation in the legislature. However, UN candidate Maurice Bellemare later won a seat in a 1974 by-election. The popular vote was not as lopsided as the seat count would indicate, even though the Liberals won 54 percent of the popular vote. The Parti Québécois, for instance, won 30% of the popular vote, a significant improvement over their previous showing of 23% in the 1970 election. However, their support was spread out across the entire province, and was not concentrated in enough areas to translate into more seats. Quebec elections have historically produced significant disparities in seat counts.

Legislative reforms (1970–1973)

Abolition of protected ridings

Upon Confederation in 1867, section 80 of the British North America Act, 1867 provided for the following ridings in the Legislative Assembly to be protected from having their boundaries altered without the consent of the majority of the members representing them: Consent by a majority of the members of the 18 districts concerned was finally secured in December 1970, and the constitutional restrictions were accordingly revoked. Work would then proceed on a comprehensive redistribution for the next ensuing election.

Redistribution of ridings

A 1972 Act increased the number of MNAs from 108 to 110 through the following changes:

Campaign

The Liberals, Unionists and péquistes all fielded full slates, while the créditistes failed to nominate a candidate only in Saint-Laurent (because a traffic accident prevented that candidate from presenting his nomination papers before the deadline), so virtually all constituencies experienced at least four-way contests:

Results

! colspan=2 rowspan=2 | Political party ! rowspan=2 | Party leader ! colspan=4 | MNAs ! colspan=4 | Votes ! Candidates !1973 !± !# ! ± !% ! ± (pp) ! colspan="3" style="text-align:left;" | Total ! " colspan="2"|110 ! " colspan="2"|2,970,978 ! " colspan="2"| 100.00%

Synopsis of results

Analysis