1962 Canadian federal election

none September 2023 1962 Canadian federal election Canada 1957 parliamentary no no no 79.0%Pomfret R. Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=ele&dir=turn&document=index&lang=e Elections Canada Elections Canada 23 February 2014 ( 0.4 pp) 1958 Canadian federal election 1958 1963 Canadian federal election 1963 265 seats in the House of Commons 133 June 18, 1962 25th Canadian Parliament 24th Canadian Parliament John Diefenbaker in the Toronto Star, 1962 (cropped).jpg 120 120 160 0 0 CA PC nohash John Diefenbaker December 14, 1956 CA PC name Prince Albert 208 seats, 53.66% 205 116 89 2,865,542 37.22% 16.35 pp Lester_B._Pearson_(1963_ABC_press_photo).jpg 120 120 160 0 0 CA Liberal nohash Lester B. Pearson January 16, 1958 CA Liberal name Algoma East 48 seats, 33.40% 50 99 49 2,846,589 36.97% 3.57 pp SC CA Social Credit nohash Robert N. Thompson July 7, 1961 CA Social Credit name Red Deer 0 seats, 2.59% 0 30 30 894,931 11.62% 9.02 pp Premier Tommy Douglas (F1257 s1057 it2743) (cropped).jpg 120 120 160 0 0 CA NDP nohash Tommy Douglas August 3, 1961 CA NDP name Ran in Regina City (lost) 8 seats, 9.51%ccf compared to CCF results in 1958 9 19 10 1,044,754 13.57% 4.06 ppccf 350px Results by electoral district, shaded by winners' vote share 350px Results by province and territory Prime Minister Prime Minister after election John Diefenbaker CA PC name John Diefenbaker CA PC name Chambre des Communes 1962.png The Canadian parliament after the 1962 election The 1962 Canadian federal election was held on June 18, 1962, to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 25th Parliament of Canada. The governing Progressive Conservative (PC) Party won a plurality of seats in this election, and its majority government was reduced to a minority government. When the writs were issued, PC Prime Minister John Diefenbaker had governed for four years with a 151-seat majority in the House. This election diminished the PCs to a tenuous minority government, winning 92 fewer seats than in the previous election, and losing 89 seats from its dissolution total. The PCs also only won the popular vote by 0.25%, the narrowest popular vote margin between the top two parties in Canadian federal election history. This came directly after the PCs won the largest majority government in Canadian federal election history, and the popular vote by the fourth-largest margin, in 1958. Many factors played a role in this dramatic shift, including economic difficulties such as high unemployment and a slumping Canadian dollar, as well as unpopular decisions such as the cancellation of the Avro Arrow. Despite the Diefenbaker government's difficulties, the Liberal Party, led by Lester B. Pearson, was unable to make up enough ground in the election to defeat the government. This was also the first general election where the former Co-operative Commonwealth Federation contested under their new name, the New Democratic Party, upon affiliating with the Canadian Labour Congress. For the Social Credit Party, routed from the Commons just four years earlier, this election proved a high-water mark - though its share of the popular vote increased slightly in 1963, a split shortly thereafter marked the beginning of a steep decline in Western Canada, with Social Credit losing its last non-Quebec MPs in the 1965 election. This was the first election in which all adult Indigenous peoples in Canada had the right to vote after the passage of a repeal of certain sections of the Canada Elections Act on March 31, 1960.http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indigenous-suffrage/ Canadian Encyclopedia March 31, 2016 April 29, 2018 First Nations and Status "Indians", which included Inuit, had been ineligible to vote under the Indian Act; they were considered "wards of the Crown" and excluded from full Canadian citizenship. They could not vote unless they gave up their treaty status through enfranchisement. On paper, Métis people have held the right to vote since before confederation and were not included in the Indian Act. For the first time ever, the entire landmass of Canada was covered by federal electoral districts as the former Mackenzie River riding was expanded to cover the entire Northwest Territories, and renamed eponymously. Overview During its term of office, the Diefenbaker government had introduced reforms to social programs, a Canadian Bill of Rights, and other changes. The Tories tried to defend the decline in the Canadian dollar by pointing out the benefits to the tourism industry, exports, manufacturing and farming, and employment. They denied that the devaluation affected the price of bread, beef, gasoline and fruit and vegetables, saying that these prices were either set in Canada or were influenced by other factors. The Liberals campaigned under the slogan, "Take a stand for tomorrow," and attempted to portray the Diefenbaker government as "feeble," with a divided cabinet. The Liberals criticized the PCs for their "reckless mismanagement of finances," the slowdown in the Canadian economy, a lack of confidence in government policies, job losses, and a lower standard of living than in 1956. The Liberals also argued that the steep devaluation in the Canadian dollar was increasing the cost of living for Canadians. The 1962 election was the first contested by the social democratic New Democratic Party, which had been formed from an alliance between the old Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress. The party chose longtime Premier of Saskatchewan Tommy Douglas as its first leader. The new party recovered ground lost by the CCF in the 1958 federal election, when it was nearly wiped out. It won almost 50% more votes than the CCF had ever managed, but it failed to achieve the major breakthrough that had been hoped for when the party was created. The NDP was shut out in Saskatchewan, its political base, where Douglas failed to win his own seat. Douglas's campaign was hurt by chaos in Saskatchewan brought about by the introduction of Medicare and a resulting strike by the province's doctors. Douglas was forced to enter the House of Commons through a by-election in British Columbia. Despite the initial problems, Medicare proved popular, spread throughout the country, and is considered the NDP's (and Douglas') major contribution to the Canadian social fabric. Social Credit returned to the House of Commons after being shut out in the 1958 election. While leader Robert N. Thompson and three other Socreds were elected in the party's traditional base in western Canada, the party's real success came in Quebec. Réal Caouette led the party's Quebec wing to victory in 26 ridings. Indeed, their win of 30 seats overall represented the party's greatest federal showing ever. They would never again equal, let alone surpass, that number—though the party gained its highest share of the vote in the 1963 election (1962 being its second-highest by a very close margin), it had a net loss of six seats. The Socreds' success in Quebec was the result of several factors. Diefenbaker's poor French impaired the Tories' ability to communicate their message to francophone voters. In 1958, the PCs had successfully compensated for that handicap by using the powerful electoral machine of the Union Nationale government under Maurice Duplessis. By 1962, Duplessis was dead and the Union Nationale had been toppled, replaced by a Liberal government led by Jean Lesage, a former cabinet minister under Louis St. Laurent. Nevertheless, many francophone Quebecers remained hostile to the Liberals, and others had not yet warmed to the anglophone Pearson. Additionally, the controversy surrounding the new Liberal provincial government's radical agenda of the Quiet Revolution badly hurt the Liberal brand in rural Quebec. Nevertheless, while the Liberals actually lost significant vote share in Quebec (they scored more than six percentage points less compared to 1958), the split in the centre-right vote meant they still managed a plurality there both in popular vote and seats. The Liberals actually gained ten seats in the province, despite the decline in vote share. In the end, despite their large losses the Tories' major saving grace was that the Liberals were all but invisible in the west, winning only seven seats west of Ontario. This election thereby began a pattern of the Tories dominating the provinces west of Ontario by large margins (with only occasional breakthroughs by the Liberals and NDP), forcing the Liberals to rely on Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces to garner a majority. That pattern would continue until the Tories' demise as a party of government three decades later. The Tories remained in power with the tacit support of the Socreds, as the two parties held enough seats between them to command a parliamentary majority. However, Diefenbaker declined to negotiate a more formal alliance between the two parties, which would ultimately prove costly and helped lead to the fall of his government the following year. National results center|300px Voter turn-out was 79.0%.http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/compilations/ElectionsAndRidings/ResultsParty.aspx ParlInfo Has Moved www.parl.gc.ca 3 April 2018 dead 29 March 2014 https://web.archive.org/web/20140329190035/http://www.parl.gc.ca/ParlInfo/Compilations/ElectionsAndRidings/ResultsParty.aspx PartyParty leader# ofcandidatesSeatsPopular vote 1958Elected% Change#%pp Change CA PC row Progressive Conservative John Diefenbaker 265 208 116 -44.2% 2,865,542 37.22% -16.35 CA Liberal row Liberal Lester B. Pearson 263 48 99 +106.3% 2,846,589 36.97% +3.57 CA Social Credit row-name R.N. Thompson 231 - 30   894,931 11.62% +9.03 CA NDP row New Democratic Party1 Tommy Douglas 218 8 19 +137.5% 1,044,754 13.57% +4.06 CA Liberal row Liberal-Labour 1 1 1 - 15,412 0.20% +0.04 CA Independent rowIndependent Liberal 7 - - - 10,406 0.14% -0.03 CA Independent rowIndependent 12 - - - 9,032 0.10% -0.03 CA Communist row-name2 Leslie Morris 12 - - - 6,360 0.08% -0.05 CA Independent row Unknown 3* - * 1,385 - * CA Independent row Independent PC 4 * - * 2,713 0.04% * CA Independent row Candidat libéral des electeurs 1 * - * 1,836 0.02% * CA Independent row Capital familial H-G Grenier 1   -   393 0.01% -0.01 CA Independent row Co-operative Builders 1 * - * 261 x * CA Independent row All Canadian 1 * - * 189 x * CA Independent row Ouvrier Indépendant 1 * - * 152 x *Total 1,016 265 265 -7,699,901 100%  Sources: Canada Open GovernmentHistory of the Federal Electoral Ridings, 1867-2010 Open Government Canada.ca https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/ea8f2c37-90b6-4fee-857e-984d3060184e March 4, 2022Results include the general election held June 18, 1962, as well as results from the election in the riding of Stormont on July 16, 1962, delayed due to the death of the Liberal candidate. Notes: * Party did not nominate candidates in previous election. x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote. 1 compared to Co-operative Commonwealth Federation results from previous election. 2 compared to Labor-Progressive Party results from previous election. Vote and seat summaries Ternary plots - shift of electoral support (1958-1962) 350 200 yes center Electoral districts identified by colours of winning parties File:Ternary CA1958.svg 1958 Ternary plot of 1958 results File:Ternary CA1962.svg 1962 Ternary plot of 1962 results Popular vote #ddd 600px 410px PC #9999FF 37.22 Liberal #F08080 36.97 NDP #F4A460 13.57 Social Credit CA Social Credit 11.60 Others #DCDCDC 0.64 Seat totals #ddd 600px 410px PC #9999FF 43.77 Liberal #F08080 37.35 Social Credit CA Social Credit 11.32 NDP #F4A460 7.16 Others #DCDCDC 0.40 Results by province Party nameBCABSKMBONQCNBNSPENLNWYKTotal CA PC rowProgressive Conservative Seats: 6 15 16 11 35 14 4 9 4 1 - 1 116 CA PC row Popular Vote: 27.3 42.8 50.4 41.6 39.2 29.6 46.5 47.3 51.3 36.0 42.3 54.9 37.2 CA Liberal rowLiberal Seats: 4 - 1 1 43 35 6 2 - 6 1 - 99 CA Liberal row Vote: 27.3 19.4 22.8 31.3 41.0 39.2 44.4 42.4 43.3 59.0 45.0 46.2 37.0 CA Social Credit rowSocial Credit Seats: 2 2 - - - 26 - - - -     30 CA Social Credit row Vote: 14.2 29.2 4.6 6.8 1.8 26.0 3.6 0.8 0.2 0.1     11.6 CA NDP rowNew Democrats Seats: 10 - - 2 6 - - 1 - -     19 CA NDP row Vote: 30.9 8.4 22.1 19.7 17.2 4.4 5.3 9.4 5.2 4.9     13.6 CA Liberal rowLiberal-Labour Seats:         1             1 CA Liberal row Vote:       0.6              0.2   Total Seats  22 17 17 14 8575 10 12 47 1 1 265Parties that won no seats:CA Independent row Independent Liberal Vote:   0.1       0.5 0.2           0.1 CA Independent rowIndependent Vote: xx 0.1   0.3 0.1 0.2         11.41   0.1 CA Communist row-name Vote: 0.2   0.1 0.6 0.1 xx             0.1 CA Independent row Unknown Vote:         0.1 xx   0.1         xx CA Independent row Independent PC Vote:           0.1             xx CA Independent row Candidat libéral des electeurs Vote:           0.1             xx CA Independent row Capitale familiale Vote:           xx             xx CA Independent row Co-operative Builders Vote:         xx               xx CA Independent rowAll Canadian Vote:  xx                     xx CA Independent row Ouvrier Indépendant Vote:           xx             xx xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote See also Canada Politics List of Canadian federal general elections List of political parties in Canada 25th Canadian Parliament Notes References Further reading Saywell John T. John Saywell Canadian Annual Review for 1962 1963 University of Toronto Press Toronto https://archive.org/details/canadianannualre0000unse_p7j9 registration LeDuc Lawrence Pammett Jon H. McKenzie Judith L. Turcotte André Dynasties and Interludes: Past and Present in Canadian Electoral Politics 2010 Dundurn Press Toronto 978-1-55488-886-3 https://archive.org/details/dynastiesinterlu0000unse registration Meisel John Papers on the 1962 Election 1964 University of Toronto Press Toronto 978-1-4875-8146-6 Beck James Murray James Murray Beck Pendulum of Power; Canada's Federal Elections 1968 Prentice-Hall of Canada Scarborough 978-0-13-655670-1 https://archive.org/details/pendulumofpower0000unse registration Canada, Chief Electoral Officer Twenty-Fifth General Election, 1962: Report of the Chief Electoral Officer 1962 Queen's Printer Ottawa 2027/uc1.a0004484481 free Category:1962 elections in Canada 1962 Category:June 1962 in Canada