After 57 years of waiting in the Ontario legislature, the NDP was elected to form the government on September 8, 1990, with Bob Rae as the new Premier. NDPers were elected in 74 of the 130 ridings. The seemingly unassailable Liberal Party under David Peterson, which had been swept into power with a 95 seat landslide a mere three years earlier, lost 59 of those seats, leaving it with 36. The Progressive Conservatives, until a mere five years ago still the mighty blue machine which ruled Ontario for over 40 years until 1985, were happy with 20 seats. This was up three from the 17 they held over from 1987, despite the fact that their popular cote percentage decreased once again.
Other parties, including the Family Coalition Party (FCP) received no seats but their percentage of the vote went up from 2.3 in 1987 to 7 per cent in 1990.
How the parties fared
1987 Seats 1990 Seats
Popular Vote Popular Vote
LIB 47.2% 95 32% 36
PC 24.7% 16 23% 20
NDP 25.8% 19 38% 74
Other 2.3% 0 7% 0
Total 130 130
The overall number of ballots cast was 3,995,857 – 66 per cent of eligible voters going to the polls. The highest turnout since 1975 when it reached 67.8 per cent.
Tories take Manitoba
Conservative Premier Gary Filmon won a slim majority in the Manitoba provincial election September 11, taking 30 seats. Liberal leader Sharon Carstairs saw her part fall to third place, shrinking from 21 seats to seven.
The final tally
1990 1988
Tories 30 25
NDP 20 12
Liberals 7 20
Popular vote
Tories 204,870 (42%)
NDP 139,853 (29%)
Liberals 137,248 (28%)
Other 5,179 ( 2%)
Pro-life concerns were not an issue because at the time of the election, Manitoba had no pro-life political action groups. Recently, however, Campaign Life Coalition, set up an organization in that province.
