It was a good day to be a federal Liberal on this date in 1974. When the polls closed on election night Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who had barely squeaked by with a minority victory only two years before, had captured 141 seats (32 more than in the 1972 election), while Bob Stanfield’s Tories had taken 95 seats (a reduction of 11 from the previous election). This victory would be the third of four election wins Pierre Trudeau would have during his career as Liberal leader. His government had survived a perilous minority parliament for two years with the support of David Lewis and the NDP. (The NDP's 'reward' in the 1974 election was seeing their seat count reduced from 31 to 16.) An important part of the 1974 campaign was Trudeau’s attack on Stanfield’s call for wage and price controls to combat the inflation that was ravaging Canada and other western nations. A year after the election Trudeau imposed the controls that Stanfield had advocated. Oh, the 1970s!
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.