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. Diefenbaker had called a snap election and capitalized on two 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 Liberal's 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.
National results
| 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 | - | 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 | - | -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
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| Federal political parties | Federal electoral districts | Historical federal electoral districts |
