While Roy cited a prior precedent in then-leader Réal Caouette having the party abstain in a motion of non-confidence in the government of Lester B. Pearson in 1968, his doing the same would prove to be a disastrous and, ultimately, fatal miscalculation. Whereas the make-up of the 1968 parliament had been such that the motion of non-confidence in Pearson had little realistic chance of succeeding (and Caouette's abstention definitively ended any chance of it doing so), the margins in the 1979 parliament were sufficiently tight that, had the Socreds supported the government and even one of the absent Progressive Conservative MPs been present, the motion of non-confidence would have tied on votes and, according to tradition, been defeated by the speaker's casting vote. Moreover, both of the party's major bases of support were alienated by the abstention, with the Quebec nationalist faction seeing Socreds as being ineffective at representing the province's interests, and the social conservative faction being enraged that the party had effectively offered former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who had intended to resign as Liberal Party leader until Clark's government fell, a route back into power. In the 1980 election the Socreds' popular vote fell to 1.7 percent, and it lost its remaining seats.http://archives.cbc.ca/clip.asp?page=1&IDClip=6515&IDCat=328&IDCatPa=260
