1945 Canadian federal election
The 1945 Canadian election was the 20th General Election in Canadian history. It was held June 11, 1945. William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberals were re-elected to their third consecutive majority government.
The federal election was the first since the victory of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan and many predicted a major breakthrough for the CCF nationally with the party expected to win 70 to 100 seats, possibly even enough to form a minority government but it was not to be and the party only won 28 seats.
1945 was also the first test of the newly named Progressive Conservatives who had acquired former Progressive Party Premier of Manitoba John Bracken as its new leader. The party improved its standing over the old Conservative Party but fell far short of challenging Liberal hegemony.
Results
National
| Party | Party Leader | # of candidates | Seats | Popular Vote | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before | After | % Change | # | % | Change | |||
| Liberal | 236 | 117 | 2,086,545 | 39.78% | -11.54% | |||
| Progressive Conservative (1) | 203 | 65 | 1,448,744 | 27.62% | -2.79% | |||
| Cooperative Commonwealth | 205 | 28 | 815,720 | 15.55% | +7.31% | |||
| Social Credit (2) | 93 | 13 | 212,220 | 4.05% | +1.46% | |||
| Independent Liberal | 20 | 8 | 93,791 | 1.79% | -1.40% | |||
| Independent | 64 | 6 | 256,381 | 4.89% | +3.65% | |||
| Bloc Populaire Canadien | 35 | 2 | 172,765 | 3.29% | n.a. | |||
| Labour Progressive (3) | 68 | 1 | 111,892 | 2.13% | +1.94% | |||
| Independent PC | 8 | 1 | 14,541 | 0.28% | n.a. | |||
| Independent CCF | 2 | 1 | 6,402 | 0.12% | n.a. | |||
| Liberal-Progressive | 1 | 1 | 6,147 | 0.12% | -0.48% | |||
| National Government | 1 | 0 | 4,872 | 0.09% | n.a. | |||
| Trades Union | 1 | 0 | 4,679 | 0.09% | n.a. | |||
| Farmer-Labour | 2 | 0 | 3,620 | 0.07% | -0.11% | |||
| Independent Conservative | 1 | 0 | 2,653 | 0.05% | -0.18% | |||
| Democrat | 5 | 0 | 2,603 | 0.05% | n.a. | |||
| Union of Electors | 1 | 0 | 596 | 0.01% | n.a. | |||
| Socialist Labour | 2 | 0 | 459 | 0.01% | n.a. | |||
| Labour | 1 | 0 | 423 | 0.01% | -0.07% | |||
| Liberal-Labour | 1 | 0 | 345 | 0.01% | n.a. | |||
| Independent Labour | 1 | 0 | 241 | x | n.a. | |||
| Unknown | 1 | 0 | 70 | x | x | |||
| Total | ||||||||
| Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867 | ||||||||
Notes: (1) 1945 Progressive Conservative vote compared to 1940 National Government + Conservative vote. (2) 1945 Social Credit vote compared to 1940 New Democracy + Social Credit vote (3) 1945 Labour Progressive vote compared to 1940 Communist vote.
n.a. = not applicable - the party was not recognized in the previous election
x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote