alternatehistory.com

...By 1979, Pierre Trudeau and his government had become deeply unpopular. Ballooning budget deficits, steady rate of inflation and lackluster employment numbers became the albatross around the neck of the Liberals, who had been in charge for the last 16 years, 11 of them under Trudeau. The prime minister himself had lost a great deal of popularity and the poor economic conditions alongside the continuing drama with Quebec and its increasing independentist sentiment, characterized by the victory of the Parti Québécois in Quebec's 1977 provincial election.

The Progressive Conservatives had done an about-face after Stanfield had resigned in the wake of the 1974 defeat, selecting right-wing Albertan Jack Horner to be their new leader in a crowded leadership race. Horner was a perfect foil to Trudeau: an English-speaking, Albertan farmer compared to the French-speaking Quebecois professor. The election looked like it would be extremely polarizing and indeed it was: the PCs won the popular vote by only 35,000 votes out of 11.5 million cast.

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Horner won a workable majority, and the New Democratic Party returned with a vengeance, more than doubling their caucus as a result of Liberal disaffection and swing voters. The Social Credit Party gained seats, but effectively ran as a single-vote party on the issue of independentism in Quebec. The party would dissolve between elections as a result of vicious infighting between those who approved of the independentist change and those who didn't, with a majority of their MPs choosing to sit as independents.