Canadian provincial elections, 1990 (Cinco De Mayo)

The Canadian provincial elections of 1990 were a series of coordinated elections staged during November of 1990 to elect members to the newly-formed Legislative Assemblies of the provinces and territories, the first (and last) time that all provinces called elections roughly at the same time. The elections were called to end Direct Rule and the interim governments thereafter in the various provinces since 1982 and were the first locally held democratic elections in much of Canada since the 1920s. Even more so than the federal election of 1989 that ended the rule of the Worker's Party, the 1990 polls were watershed as they were the first elections called under the Constitution of 1990 that had been approved in June of the same year. Provisional Head of State Paul D. Manson appointed Governors to the provinces on September 1, 1990 and then asked the interim First Ministers of the various provinces to recommend elections to the Governors with election dates to be scheduled no later than November 30 and with the election to be officially called no more than forty-five days prior to the date.

Mirroring the results of the 1989 election, the Progressive Conservatives won power in almost every province excluding British Columbia, where the SDP formed a minority government, and Nova Scotia, where the Liberals formed a majority government. The most important victory came in Ontario, where Bill Davis' OPC won a majority, and in Québec, where André Asselin won a minority government with only a small number of seats over the surprisingly well-organized Parti Québecois led by Jacques Parizeau.