Canadian federal election, 1940

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Provincial results

The Canadian parliament after the 1940 election

The Canadian federal election of 1940 was the 19th general election in Canadian history. It was held March 26, 1940 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons. 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
Party		Party Leader	# of candidates	1935	Elected	% Change	#	%	% Change
	Liberal	Mackenzie King	242	173	177	+2.3%	2,365,979	51.32%	+6.64%
	National Government ¹	Robert Manion	199	39	36	-	1,348,260	29.24%	+2.28%
	Conservative ¹	Robert Manion	8		3		53,799	1.17%
	Cooperative Commonwealth	J. S. Woodsworth	93	7	8	+14.3%	388,103	8.42%	-1.07%
	Social Credit	J.H. Blackmore	9	17	7	-58.3%	46,271	1.00%	-1.51%
	New Democracy	W.D. Herridge	17	*	3	*	73,083	1.59%	*
	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	*	1	*	12,337	0.27%	*
	United Reform Movement		1	*	1	*	13,868	0.30%	*
	Independent National		2	*	-	*	12,710	0.28%	*
	Unknown		2	-	-	-	4,622	0.10%	+0.02%
	Communist	Tim Buck	8	-	-	-	8,699	0.19%	-0.27%
	Farmer-Labour		2	*	-	*	8,126	0.18%	*
	National Unity		1	*	-	*	7,534	0.16%	*
	NDP ²		2	*	-	*	6,761	0.15%	*
	United Farmers of Ont.-Labour		1	-	-	-	4,761	0.10%	-0.06%
	Labour		1	-	-	-	3,916	0.08%	-0.25%
	United Progressive		1	*	-	*	2,727	0.06%	*
	National Liberal Progressive		1	*	-	*	2,434	0.05%	*
	National Labour		1	*	-	*	2,354	0.05%	*
	Anti-Conscriptionist		1	*	-	*	642	0.01%	*
	Canadian Labour		1	*	-	*	398	0.01%	*
	United Reform		1	*	-	*	269	0.01%	*
	Social Credit-National Unity		1	*	-	*	241	0.01%	*
Total			638	245	243	-0.8%	4,610,603	100%
Sources: http://www.elections.ca — History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Notes:

* The party did not nominate candidates in the previous election.

x – less than 0.005% of the popular vote

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.

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
	Liberal	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
	National Government	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
	Conservative	Vote:			0.2	1.7	2.2	1.1					1.2
	Cooperative Commonwealth	Seats:	1	-	5	1	-	-	-	1			8
	Cooperative Commonwealth	Vote:	28.4	13.0	27.5	19.6	3.8	0.7	0.4	6.0			8.6
	Social Credit	Seats:		7		-							7
	Social Credit	Vote:		16.5		0.6							1.0
	New Democracy	Seats:	-	3	-	-		-					3
	New Democracy	Vote:	0.1	18.0	3.3	0.4		0.9					1.6
	Liberal-Progressive	Seats:				2	1						3
	Liberal-Progressive	Vote:				4.7	0.8						0.6
	Independent Liberal	Seats:	-				-	2	-	-			2
	Independent Liberal	Vote:	xx				1.0	10.2	1.6	3.3			3.3
	Independent	Seats:	1	-	-	-	-	-		-			1
	Independent	Vote:	3.0	0.2	1.0	3.4	0.4	2.1		0.2			1.3
	United Reform Movement	Seats:			1								1
	United Reform Movement	Vote:			3.7								0.3
	Unity	Seats:			1								1
	Unity	Vote:			3.3								0.3
	Independent Conservative	Seats:						1					1
	Independent Conservative	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								xx

xx – less than 0.05% of the popular vote

Preceded by:
1935 federal election

Canadian federal elections

Followed by:
1945 federal election

Categories: Canadian federal elections | 1940