Ontario general election, 1948

George Drew (right) in the offices of the Ontario Department of Transportation the day after his party's election victory

The Ontario general election of 1948 was held on June 7, 1948, to elect the 90 members of the 23rd Legislative Assembly of Ontario (Members of Provincial Parliament, or "MPPs") of the Province of Ontario, Canada.

The Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, led by George Drew, won a third consecutive term in office, winning a solid majority of seats in the legislature—53, down from 66 in the previous election.

Despite winning a majority, Drew lost his own seat to temperance crusader Bill Temple. Instead of seeking a seat in a by-election, Drew left provincial politics to run for, and win, the leadership of the federal Progressive Conservative Party.

Drew was replaced as Ontario PC leader and premier by Thomas Kennedy on an interim basis, and then by Leslie Frost.

The Ontario Liberal Party, led by Farquhar Oliver, increased its caucus from 11 to 14, but lost the role of official opposition. Only one of the three Liberal-Labour MPPs sitting with the Liberal caucus, James Newman, was re-elected.

The social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section), led by Ted Jolliffe, formed the official opposition by increasing its caucus from 8 to 21 seats.

Two Toronto seats were won by Labour-Progressive Party MPPs J. B. Salsberg and A.A. MacLeod. The LPP was the official name of the Communist Party of Ontario. The LPP only ran two candidates, Salsberg and MacLeod, in 1948 down from 31 candidates in 1945.

Results

	Party	Leader	1945	Elected	% change	Popular vote
						%	change
	Progressive Conservative	George Drew	66	53	-19.7%	41.5%	-2.8%
	Co-operative Commonwealth	Ted Jolliffe	8	21	+163%	27.0%	+4.6%
	Liberal	Farquhar Oliver	11	13	+18.2%	29.8%	-
	Liberal-Labour		3	1	-66.7%
	Labour-Progressive Party		2	2	-	1.0%	-1.4%
Total			90	90	-	100%

See also

• Politics of Ontario
• List of Ontario political parties
• Premier of Ontario
• Leader of the Opposition (Ontario)