1980 Liberal Party of Canada leadership election

1980 Liberal leadership election

Date	March 21-23, 1980 (cancelled)
Convention	Winnipeg
Resigning leader	Pierre Trudeau
Won by	convention cancelled
Ballots	-
Candidates	-

A Liberal leadership convention was called for early 1980 as a result of Pierre Elliot Trudeau announcing on November 21, 1979 that he would resign as Liberal Party of Canada leader as soon as a leadership convention was held to choose his successor. The announcement came several months after the Trudeau government's defeat in the May 22, 1979 federal election. The party executive called a convention to be held in Winnipeg in late March 1980 as per Trudeau's requested timeline.

On December 10, 1979, former finance minister John Napier Turner, who has left federal politics in 1975, made a surprise announcement that he would not be a candidate for leadership.

Donald Stovel Macdonald, also a former finance minister, who had retired from parliament in late 1977, had not yet declared but was considered the front runner. Former senior cabinet minister and sitting MP Jean Chretien and newly elected MP Lloyd Axworthy were also considering running for the leadership as were former cabinet ministers and sitting MPs Herb Gray and Robert Andras.

Former Minister of Supply and Services Pierre de Bané, High River, Alberta shop owner Madeline Hombert, and London, Ontario housewife Denise Seguin were the only declared candidates when, on December 13, 1979, the Progressive Conservative minority government of Joe Clark was defeated in parliament by a non-confidence vote plunging the country into an early election. The party executive and caucus cancelled the convention after persuading Trudeau to rescind his resignation and lead the party into the February 18, 1980 federal election in which the Liberals were elected with a majority government that returned Trudeau to the prime ministership.