Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Canadian federal election, 1940
The 1940 Canadian federal election was the 19th General Election in Canadian history. It was held March 26, 1940. William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal Party was re-elected to their second consecutive majority government.
The election was overshadowed by the Second World War, which caused many Canadians to rally around the government. In response to this the Conservative Party of Robert Manion ran on a platform advocating the creation of an all-party national unity government and ran under the name National Government in this election. Though Manion was personally opposed to conscription, the Liberals faced intense pressure in Quebec on the question and promised not to institute the measure. This promise was to haunt the Liberals as they faced increasing pressure from the military and especially from English Canada to bring in the measure. To release him from his 1940 promise, King called a plebiscite in 1942 on the question. See also Conscription Crisis of 1944
Social Credit ran jointly with the New Democracy movement of William Duncan Herridge.
Some candidates of the Conservative and Social Credit parties insisted on running under the traditional names, however.
National results
| Party | Party Leader | # of candidates | Seats | Popular Vote | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Previous | After | % Change | # | % | Change | |||
| Liberal | 242 | 173 | 177 | +2.3% | 2,365,979 | 51.32% | +6.64% | |
| National Government (1) | 199 | 39 | 36 | - | 1,348,260 | 29.24% | +2.28% | |
| Conservative (1) | 8 | 3 | 53,799 | 1.17% | ||||
| Cooperative Commonwealth | 93 | 7 | 8 | +14.3% | 388,103 | 8.42% | -1.07% | |
| Social Credit | 9 | 17 | 7 | -58.3% | 46,271 | 1.00% | -1.51% | |
| New Democracy | 17 | n.a. | 3 | n.a. | 73,083 | 1.59% | n.a. | |
| Liberal-Progressive | | 4 | 4 | 3 | -25.0% | 27,815 | 0.60% | -0.07% |
| Independent Liberal | | 32 | 1 | 2 | +100% | 147,216 | 3.19% | +1.96% |
| Independent | | 19 | 1 | 1 | - | 57,247 | 1.24% | +0.85% |
| Independent Conservative | | 5 | 1 | 1 | - | 10,431 | 0.23% | +0.21% |
| Unity | | 2 | n.a. | 1 | n.a. | 12,337 | 0.27% | n.a. |
| United Reform Movement | | 1 | n.a. | 1 | n.a. | 13,868 | 0.30% | n.a. |
| Independent National | | 2 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 12,710 | 0.28% | n.a. |
| Unknown | | 2 | - | - | - | 4,622 | 0.10% | +0.02% |
| Communist | 8 | - | - | - | 8,699 | 0.19% | -0.27% | |
| Farmer-Labour | | 2 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 8,126 | 0.18% | n.a. |
| National Unity | | 1 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 7,534 | 0.16% | n.a. |
| NDP (2) | | 2 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 6,761 | 0.15% | n.a. |
| United Farmers of Ontario - Labour | | 1 | - | - | - | 4,761 | 0.10% | -0.06% |
| Labour | | 1 | - | - | - | 3,916 | 0.08% | -0.25% |
| United Progressive | | 1 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 2,727 | 0.06% | n.a. |
| National Liberal Progressive | | 1 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 2,434 | 0.05% | n.a. |
| National Labour | | 1 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 2,354 | 0.05% | n.a. |
| Anti-Conscriptionist | | 1 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 642 | 0.01% | n.a. |
| Canadian Labour | | 1 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 398 | 0.01% | n.a. |
| United Reform | | 1 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 269 | 0.01% | n.a. |
| Social Credit-National Unity | | 1 | n.a. | - | n.a. | 241 | 0.01% | n.a. |
| Total | | 638
| 245
| 243
| -0.8%
| 4,610,603
| 100.00%
| |
| Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867 | ||||||||
Notes:
(1) "Change" and "% Change% figures compare total of "National Government" and "Conservative" to 1935 Conservative vote.
(2) Two candidates appear to have run under the New Democratic Party banner. It is unlikely that this was related in any way to the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation's adoption of this name in 1960. This may be a mis-reporting of party label - these candidates may have been New Democracy candidates.
"Previous" refers to the results from the previous election, and not to the standings in the House of Commons at dissolution.
n.a. = not applicable - the party was not recognized in the previous election
x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote
Results by province
| Party Name | BC | AB | SK | MB | ON | QC | NB | NS | PE | YK | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | Seats: | 10 | 7 | 12 | 13 | 56 | 62 | 3 | 10 | 4 | - | 177 |
| Popular Vote: | 37.4 | 37.9 | 43.0 | 43.5 | 50.3 | 64.4 | 54.6 | 50.4 | 55.3 | 46.4 | 51.3 | |
| National Government | Seats: | 4 | - | 2 | 1 | 22 | - | 5 | 1 | - | 1 | 36 |
| Vote: | 28.8 | 13.0 | 14.1 | 26.2 | 40.2 | 18.0 | 43.4 | 40.1 | 44.7 | 53.6 | 30.0 | |
| Conservative | Seats: | - | - | 3 | - | 3 | ||||||
| Vote: | 0.2 | 1.7 | 2.2 | 1.1 | 1.2 | |||||||
| Cooperative Commonwealth | Seats: | 1 | - | 5 | 1 | - | - | - | 1 | 8 | ||
| Vote: | 28.4 | 13.0 | 27.5 | 19.6 | 3.8 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 6.0 | 8.6 | |||
| Social Credit | Seats: | 7 | - | 7 | ||||||||
| Vote: | 16.5 | 0.6 | 1.0 | |||||||||
| New Democracy | Seats: | - | 3 | - | - | - | 3 | |||||
| Vote: | 0.1 | 18.0 | 3.3 | 0.4 | 0.9 | 1.6 | ||||||
| Liberal-Progressive | Seats: | 2 | 1 | 3 | ||||||||
| Vote: | 4.7 | 0.8 | 0.6 | |||||||||
| Independent Liberal | Seats: | - | - | 2 | - | - | 2 | |||||
| Vote: | xx | 1.0 | 10.2 | 1.6 | 3.3 | 3.3 | ||||||
| Independent | Seats: | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | |||
| Vote: | 3.0 | 0.2 | 1.0 | 3.4 | 0.4 | 2.1 | 0.2 | 1.3 | ||||
| United Reform Movement | Seats: | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Vote: | 3.7 | 0.3 | ||||||||||
| Unity | Seats: | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Vote: | 3.3 | 0.3 | ||||||||||
| Independent Conservative | Seats: | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Vote: | 0.9 | 0.2 | ||||||||||
| Total Seats | 16 | 17 | 21 | 17 | 82 | 65 | 8 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 234 | |
| Parties that won no seats: | ||||||||||||
| Independent Nat. Gov. | Vote: | 0.1 | 1.1 | 0.3 | ||||||||
| Communist | Vote: | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.6 | xx | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.2 | ||||
| Farmer-Labour | Vote: | 0.5 | 0.2 | |||||||||
| National Unity | Vote: | 2.0 | 0.2 | |||||||||
| NDP (?) | Vote: | 1.6 | xx | 0.2 | ||||||||
| UFO-Labour | Vote: | 0.3 | 0.1 | |||||||||
| Unknown | Vote: | 1.2 | xx | 0.1 | ||||||||
| Labour | Vote: | 0.3 | 0.1 | |||||||||
| United Progressive | Vote: | 1.0 | 0.1 | |||||||||
| National Liberal Progressive | Vote: | 0.2 | 0.1 | |||||||||
| National Labour | Vote: | 0.2 | 0.1 | |||||||||
| Anti-Conscriptionist | Vote: | 0.1 | xx | |||||||||
| Canadian Labour | Vote: | xx | xx | |||||||||
| United Reform | Vote: | 0.1 | x | |||||||||
| United Reform | Vote: | 0.1 | xx | |||||||||
xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote
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