Ontario general election, 1981

1977 ←

March 19, 1981

→ 1985

125 seats in the 32nd Legislative Assembly of Ontario 63 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party
		LIB
Leader	Bill Davis	Stuart Smith	Michael Cassidy
Party	Progressive Conservative	Liberal	New Democratic
Leader since	February 12, 1971	January 25, 1976	February 5, 1978
Leader's seat	Brampton	Hamilton West	Ottawa Centre
Last election	58	34	33
Seats won	70	34	21
Seat change	12	0	12
Percentage	44.4%	33.7%	21.1%
Swing	4.7pp	2.2pp	6.9pp

Premier before election

Bill Davis
Progressive Conservative

Premier-designate

Bill Davis
Progressive Conservative

The Ontario general election of 1981 was held on March 19, 1981, to elect members of the 32nd Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada.

The governing Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, led by William Davis, was re-elected for a twelfth consecutive term in office. The PCs finally won a majority government after winning only minorities in the 1975 and 1977 elections. The Liberal Party, led by Stuart Smith, was able to maintain its standing in the Legislature, while the New Democratic Party, led by Michael Cassidy, lost a significant number of seats, allowing the Tories to win a majority.

¹ Includes T. Patrick Reid, a Liberal MPP who was re-elected in 1977 as a Liberal-Labour candidate (he had previously been elected as Liberal-Labour in 1967 but was re-elected in 1971 and 1975 as a straight Liberal). In 1981 he ran again and was re-elected as a straight Liberal.

A number of unregistered parties also fielded candidates in this election.

There were a number of Rhinoceros Party candidates in the Toronto area, and the party may have also fielded candidates elsewhere in the province. The Workers Communist Party (Marxist–Leninist) a single candidate, Judy Darcy. Ronald G. Rodgers, founder of the Détente Party of Canada, contested a Toronto constituency.

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