1958 Canadian election - Definition

Politics of Canada

The 24th general election was held just nine months after the 23rd and transformed Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's minority into the largest ever majority government in Canadian history.

Diefenbaker had called a snap election to capitalize on two factors:

nationally: the Liberals had just chosen a new leader, Lester Pearson, who, though well known around the world because of his work for the United Nations, was not well known by Canadians.

in Quebec: Quebec had been largely Liberal since the Conscription Crisis of 1917, but upon the resignation of former Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, the province had no favourite son leader, as they had since 1948, and were open to new options. Diefenbaker formed an alliance with Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis and his conservative Union Nationale party allowing Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives to sweep what had been a Liberal stronghold for a generation.

National results

Party	Party Leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular Vote
Party	Party Leader	# of candidates	Previous	After	% Change	#	%	Change
Progressive Conservative	John Diefenbaker	265	111	208	+87.4%	3,908,633	53.66%	+14.85%
Liberal	Lester B. Pearson	264	104	49	-53.8%	2,432,953	33.40%	-7.35%
Cooperative Commonwealth	M.J. Coldwell	169	25	8	-68.0%	692,668	9.51%	-1.20%
Liberal-Labour		1	1	1	-	11,956	0.16%	-
Social Credit	Solon Low	82	19	-		188,356	2.59%	-3.99%
Independent		9	2	-		14,211	0.20%	-0.87%
Independent Liberal		10	2	-		12,054	0.17%	-1.25%
Labour Progressive	Tim Buck	18	-	-		9,769	0.13%	+0.02%
Candidats des électeurs	Réal Caouette	1	-	-		8,276	0.11%	-0.01%
Independent PC		5	1	-		2,097	0.03%	-0.19%
Socialist		2	-	-		1,113	0.02%	n.a.
Capital familial	H-G Grenier	1	-	-		968	0.01%	n.a.
Radical chrétien		1	-	-		687	0.01%	n.a.
Independent SC		1	-	-		361	x	-0.04%
Ouvrier canadien		1	-	-		243	x	n.a.
Independent Conservative		1	-	-		122	x	n.a.
Total		831	265	265	-	7,284,467	100.00%
Sources: http://www.elections.ca History of Federal Ridings since 1867 (http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/process/house/hfer/hfer.asp?Language=E)

Notes:

"Previous" refers to to standings at previous election, not to 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

Party Name		BC	AB	SK	MB	ON	QC	NB	NS	PE	NL	NW	YK	Total
Progressive Conservative	Seats:	18	17	16	14	67	50	7	12	4	2	1	-	208
Progressive Conservative	Popular Vote:	49.4	59.9	51.4	56.7	56.4	49.6	54.1	57.0	62.2	45.2	54.5	42.8	53.7
Liberal	Seats:	-	-	-	-	14	25	3	-	-	5	1	-	48
Liberal	Vote:	16.1	13.7	19.6	21.6	32.1	45.6	43.4	38.4	37.5	54.4	43.3	57.2	33.4
Cooperative Commonwealth	Seats:	4	-	1	-	3	-	-	-	-	-			8
Cooperative Commonwealth	Vote:	24.5	4.4	28.4	19.6	10.5	2.3	1.8	4.5	0.3	0.2			9.5
Liberal-Labour	Seats:					1								1
Liberal-Labour	Vote:					0.5								0.2
Total Seats		22	17	17	14	85	75	10	12	4	7	1	1	265
Parties that won no seats:
Social Credit	Vote:	9.6	21.6	0.4	1.8	0.3	0.6	0.7						2.6
Independent	Vote:			xx	xx	0.1	0.6							0.2
Independent Liberal	Vote:						0.6				0.2			0.2
Labour Progressive	Vote:	0.4	0.3	0.1	0.4	0.1	0.1							0.1
C. des électeurs	Vote:						0.4							0.1
Independent PC	Vote:		0.1			0.1								xx
Socialist	Vote:					xx	xx							xx
Capitale familiale	Vote:						xx							xx
Radical chrétien	Vote:						xx							xx
Independent SC	Vote:		0.1											xx
Ouvrier canadien	Vote:						xx							xx
Ind. Conservative	Vote:											2.3		xx

xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote

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