This is a list of Prime Ministers defeated by a parliamentary motion of no confidence.
Prime Ministers defeated by votes of no confidence
Other leaders defeated in no confidence votes
Presidents
Notes
- ^ The vote of no confidence against Fraser was in unique circumstances. The Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, had dismissed Gough Whitlam and his Labor government after their failure to secure supply in the Senate in the constitutional crisis of 1975, despite a clear, stable Labor majority in the House of Representatives, and appointed Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser Prime Minister. Fraser then advised the dissolution of both houses and the calling of an early election. Between Fraser's advice and the formal dissolution of parliament, Whitlam responded by going to the House of Representatives and passing a motion of no confidence in Fraser, but by the time the motion was formally received by the Governor-General he had formally enacted the dissolution and so this gesture made no difference. At the ensuing elections Fraser and the Liberals won a landslide victory.
- ^ Trudeau lost a motion of confidence when he failed to pass the 1974 budget. However, it was later revealed that this was done purposely by Prime Minister Trudeau in a successful attempt to win a majority government. This is the only time the tactic has been used in federal Canadian politics, but it established a precedent. Such a tactic is now called "engineering the defeat of one's own government", and the practice is widely frowned upon.
- ^ While Meighen, Diefenbaker and Trudeau were toppled by loss of supply, and Joe Clark was defeated by the passage of a subamendment to a budget bill that read "that this House has lost confidence in the government," only Paul Martin lost an actual motion of no confidence put forward by the opposition parties.
- ^ The Grand Council of Fascism passed a resolution asking the king to resume his full constitutional powers, which amounted to a vote of no confidence in Mussolini.
See also
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