Canadian federal election, 1926
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| Politics of Canada |
Politics of Canada |
The Canadian federal election of 1926 was called following an event known as the King-Byng Affair. In the 1925 federal election, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal Party of Canada won fewer seats in the Canadian House of Commons than the Conservative Party of Arthur Meighen. Mackenzie King, however, was determined to continue to govern with the support of the Progressive Party. The combined Liberal and Progressive caucuses gave Mackenzie King a majority in the House of Commons.
The coalition collapsed, however, following a scandal, and Mackenzie King approached the Governor-General, Baron Byng of Vimy, to seek dissolution of the Parliament. Byng refused on the basis that the Conservatives had won the largest number of seats in the prior election, and called upon Meighen to form a government.
Meighen's government was soon defeated in a vote of no confidence, and Byng agreed to dissolve Parliament and call new elections. Mackenzie King effectively campaigned against Byng in the election instead of against Meighen, and won the largest number of seats in the House of Commons despite receiving a smaller proportion of the popular vote than the Tories. (The Liberals did not run candidates in all ridings, with an informal electoral pact with the Progessives and Liberal-Progressives. Note in particular the election results in Manitoba, where Meighen's party captured almost 40 percent of the vote, twice the vote share of any other party, but no seats.) He was able to govern with the support of Liberal-Progressive Members of Parliament. Byng returned to Britain at the end of the year and was raised to the rank of Viscount as an expression of confidence in him.
Results
National
| Party | Party Leader | # of candidates | Seats | Popular Vote | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before | After | % Change | # | % | Change | |||
| Liberal | 202 | 116 | 1,393,653 | 42.80% | +3.06% | |||
| Conservative | <center> Arthur Meighen | 232 | 91 | 1,476,834 | 45.35% | -0.78% | ||
| Progressive | <center> Robert Forke | 28 | 11 | 128,060 | 3.93% | -4.52% | ||
| United Farmers of Alberta | <center> | 12 | 11 | 60,740 | 2.01% | +1.61% | ||
| Liberal-Progressive | <center> | 12 | 8 | 63,144 | 1.94% | +1.83% | ||
| Labour | <center> | 18 | 4 | 55,661 | 1.71% | -0.10% | ||
| Independent | <center> | 10 | 2 | 25,821 | 0.79% | +0.28% | ||
| Independent Liberal | <center> | 5 | 1 | 18,627 | 0.57% | -0.42% | ||
| United Farmers of Ontario | <center> | 1 | 1 | 6,909 | 0.21% | +0.21% | ||
| Independent Conservative | <center> | 3 | 0 | 10,164 | 0.31% | -0.23% | ||
| Progressive-Conservative | <center> | 2 | 0 | 7,088 | 0.22% | +0.18% | ||
| Liberal-Labour | <center> | 1 | 0 | 4,187 | 0.13% | +0.13% | ||
| Unknown | <center> | 1 | 0 | 3,378 | 0.10% | -0.55% | ||
| Labour-Farmer | <center> | 1 | 0 | 1,441 | 0.04% | -0.11% | ||
| Socialist | <center> | 1 | 0 | 672 | 0.02% | -0.04% | ||
| Protectionist | <center> | 1 | 0 | 129 | x | +x | ||
| Total | <center> | <center> 530 | <center> | <center> 245 | <center> | <center> 3,256,508 | <center> 100.00% | <center> |
| Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867 | ||||||||
x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote
Province by Province breakdown
| Party Name | BC | AB | SK | MB | ON | QC | NB | NS | PE | YK | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | Seats: | 1 | 3 | 16 | 4 | 24 | 59 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 116 | |
| Popular Vote (%): | 37.0 | 22.3 | 51.3 | 18.4 | 35.3 | 61.3 | 46.1 | 43.5 | 52.7 | 44.1 | 42.8 | |
| Conservative | Seats: | 12 | 1 | 53 | 4 | 7 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 91 | ||
| Vote: | 54.2 | 31.5 | 27.5 | 39.7 | 54.9 | 34.0 | 53.9 | 53.7 | 47.3 | 55.9 | 45.4 | |
| Progressive | Seats: | 4 | 4 | 3 | 11 | |||||||
| Vote: | 17.9 | 11.2 | 5.1 | 3.9 | ||||||||
| United Farmers of Alberta | Seats: | 11 | 11 | |||||||||
| Vote: | 38.7 | 1.9 | ||||||||||
| Liberal-Progressive | Seats: | 1 | 7 | 8 | ||||||||
| Vote: | 3.2 | 19.5 | 1.4 | 1.9 | ||||||||
| Labour | Seats: | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | |||||||
| Vote: | 6.4 | 4.3 | 8.7 | 1.1 | 2.8 | 1.7 | ||||||
| Independent | Seats: | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||
| Vote: | 2.3 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 1.9 | 0.8 | |||||||
| Independent Liberal | Seats: | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Vote: | 2.3 | 0.6 | ||||||||||
| United Farmers of Ontario | Seats: | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Vote: | 0.6 | 0.2 | ||||||||||
| Parties that won no seats | ||||||||||||
| Independent Conservative | Vote: | 0.8 | 0.1 | 0.3 | ||||||||
| Progressive-Conservative | Vote: | 2.5 | 0.3 | 0.2 | ||||||||
| Liberal-Labour | Vote: | 0.3 | 0.1 | |||||||||
| Unknown | Vote: | 2.2 | 0.1 | |||||||||
| Labour-Farmer | Vote: | 0.9 | xx | |||||||||
| Socialist | Vote: | 0.1 | xx | |||||||||
| Protectionist | Vote: | xx | xx | |||||||||
| Total Seats | 14 | 16 | 21 | 17 | 82 | 65 | 11 | 14 | 4 | 1 | 245 | |
xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote
|
Preceded by: | Canadian federal elections |
Followed by: |
