Canadian federal election, 1958

Canadian federal election, 1958

1957 ← members March 31, 1958 → 1962 members

265 seats in the 24th Canadian Parliament 133 seats needed for a majority   First party Second party   Leader John Diefenbaker Lester B. Pearson Party PC Liberal Leader since 1956 1958 Leader's seat Prince Albert Algoma East Last election 111 104 Seats won 208 48 Seat change +97 -56 Popular vote 3,908,633 2,432,953 Percentage 53.66% 33.40% Swing +14.85% -7.35%   Third party Fourth party   Leader Major James Coldwell Solon Earl Low Party CCF Social Credit Leader since 1942 1944 Leader's seat Rosetown—Biggar (defeated) Peace River (lost re-election) Last election 25 19 Seats won 8 0 Seat change -17 -19 Popular vote 692,668 188,356 Percentage 9.51% 2.6% Swing -1.20% -4.0%

Prime Minister before election John Diefenbaker PC Prime Minister-designate John Diefenbaker PC

The Canadian federal election of 1958 was the 24th general election in Canada's history. It was held to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 24th Parliament of Canada on March 31, 1958, just nine months after the 23rd election. It transformed Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's minority into the largest ever majority government (by percentage of seats) in Canadian history and the second largest percentage of the popular vote.

Overview

Diefenbaker called a snap election and capitalized on three factors:

• Nationally, the Liberals had just chosen a new leader, Lester Pearson, who had given an ill-advised speech in Commons that asked Diefenbaker to give power back to the Liberals without an election because of a recent economic downturn. Diefenbaker seized on the error by showing a classified Liberal document saying that the economy would face a downturn in that year. This contrasted heavily with the Liberals' 1957 campaign promises, and would make sure the "arrogant" label would remain attached to the Liberal party.

• A turnaround 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 used Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis's Union Nationale party machine, allowing Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives to sweep what had been a Liberal stronghold for a generation.

• A collapse in support for the Social Credit Party which lost all 19 of its seats. Prior to the 1957 election Social Credit were seen as a credible threat to replace the Tories as the main right wing party in the country, but the popularity of the Diefenbaker government persuaded many Social Credit supporters to abandon their party. This allowed the Tories to pick up not only Social Credit seats, but also proved decisive in many seats previously held by the Liberals and CCF due to vote splitting between the Conservatives and Social Credit. Notably, the Tories swept all seventeen seats in Alberta, where they had previously held just three seats to Social Credit's thirteen. Although Social Credit would rebound and win seats in the next two decades, it would never seriously challenge the P.C. party for dominance.

PC handout with "Follow John", the slogan of the 1958 campaign.

National results

The Canadian parliament after the 1958 election.

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
				1957	Elected	% Change	#	%	% Change
	Progressive Conservative	John Diefenbaker	265	111	208	+87.4%	3,908,633	53.66%	+14.85%
	Liberal	Lester B. Pearson	264	104	48	-53.8%	2,432,953	33.40%	-7.35%
	Co-operative Commonwealth	M.J. Coldwell	169	25	8	-68.0%	692,668	9.51%	-1.20%
	Liberal-Labour		1	1	1	0%	11,956	0.16%	-
	Social Credit	Solon Low	82	19	-	-100%	188,356	2.59%	-3.99%
	Independent		9	2	-	-100%	14,211	0.20%	-0.87%
	Independent Liberal		10	2	-	-100%	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	-	-100%	2,097	0.03%	-0.19%
	Socialist		2	*	-	*	1,113	0.02%	*
	Capital familial	H-G Grenier	1	*	-	*	968	0.01%	*
	Radical chrétien		1	*	-	*	687	0.01%	*
	Independent SC		1	-	-	-	361	x	-0.04%
	Ouvrier canadien		1	*	-	*	243	x	*
	Independent Conservative		1	*	-	*	122	x	*
Total			831	265	265	-	7,284,467	100.00%
Sources: http://www.elections.ca History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Notes:

"Previous" refers to standings at previous election, not to standings in the House of Commons at dissolution.

* The party did not nominate candidates 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	NL	NW	YK	Total
	Progressive Conservative	Seats:	18	17	16	14	67	50	7	12	4	2	1	-	208
		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
		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
	Co-operative Commonwealth	Seats:	4	-	1	-	3	-	-	-	-	-			8
		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
		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

See also

Canadian politics portal

• List of Canadian federal general elections
• List of political parties in Canada
• 24th Canadian Parliament

References

External links

• The Elections of 1957 and 1958, by P.E. Bryden