The 1871 Ontario general election was the second general election held in the province of Ontario, Canada. It was held on March 21, 1871, to elect the 82 Members of the 2nd Parliament of Ontario ("MPPs").[1]
While it is generally accepted that that the Ontario Liberals led by Edward Blake secured a slim edge over the incumbent Conservatives led by Premier John Sandfield Macdonald, such an understanding was partially developed with the benefit of hindsight on a period during which the Liberals' ousted the Sandfield Macdonald ministry, commenced the building of a far more expansive administration, and within a year carried out an orderly transition of its party and the government leadership while largely remained stable and united. In the months following the election however, the incumbent government did not concede it has lost control of the legislature and continued to govern without convening the new parliament. Challenges to the election of a dozen members further muddied the situation and provided additional fodder for Sandfield Macdonald to resist convening the new parliament for eight months and to disregard multiple votes of no confidence.[2] The impasse was resolved on December 19 that year after his Treasurer resigned from cabinet and voted with the opposition.[3]
Neither the outgoing nor the incoming premier remained on the scene for long. The rapid decline of Premier Sandfield Macdonald's health was evident throughout that year. His ministry's demise at the year's end foretold his own in just five months. Matthew Crooks Cameron, his principal lieutenant in government and his most ardent defender in the legislature, assumed leadership of the Conservative Party and of the opposition. Premier Blake served only ten months, resigning in October 1972 to devote his attention to leading the national Liberal Party. He and George Brown convinced their former reform colleague Oliver Mowat to return to politics to succeed him, a move that secured his own legacy as founding head of a 34-year continuous Liberal rule.
The partisan makeup of the new parliament was not remotely as straight forward as the numbers suggest, as candidates' partisan affiliations were not formally registered as they are in modern days. While partisan affiliations were generally more clearly defined than during the 1867 election, there remained candidates who made use of party labels of past affiliations that did not reflect their political allegiance in practice, or were elected without having declared their allegiance.
Significant changes to the rules of engagement
As attorney general Sandfield Macdonald delivered in 1868 An Act respecting Elections of Members of the Legislative Assembly[4], the province's first statute that comprehensively consolidated and codified elections law. The statute instituted the key requirement to hold balloting for general elections on the same day throughout the province. It also considerably broadened the franchise.
He also delivered, at the eve the election call, the Controverted Elections Act of 1871[5], which consolidated an array of challenges to election conducts under corrupt practices, and depoliticised the adjudication process by transferring the power to adjudicate such challenges from parliamentary committees to the Court of Queen's Bench (predecessor of Ontario's superior court). This new regime end up playing a big role in ending his government.
While not a formal change to any legislation, both majors party held candidate nomination conventions with increased formality and managed the process with much firmer hands. The result of local nomination conventions of both parties received greater formal coverage in the press. Accordingly, while there remained no formal requirements for formal registration or declaration of candidates' partisan affiliations and no restrictions on usage, the identity of the two main parties' candidate were easier to discern than in the 1867 election. However, they also provided informal support to selected candidates not endorsed by them for various strategic reasons. Furthermore, certain candidates campaigned with labels of past affiliations but were not aligned with the party while other candidates downplay the party they are affiliated with.
This was the last election where sitting members of the federal parliament were not prevented from nomination or election. Before the federal election in the following year however, the Parliament of Canada would legislate the elimination of dual mandates by disallowing nominations of sitting provincial legislators in federal election contests.[6] This pending would impact both parties by removing six members elected in this election from the legislature, including the incumbent Liberal Premier and Treasurer, and two Conservative former cabinet members.
Results in summary
The results, as reported in formal records compiled in years by the Legislative Assembly and made available to the public (and in more recent years also reproduced by Elections Ontario) were as follows.
2nd Parliament of Ontario Liberal: 43 Conservative: 38
Conservative-Liberal: 1 seats vacated pending byelection when parliament first met in December 1871
Partisan affiliations were not recorded in contemporaneous formal elections record. Affiliations presented are the party affiliations as recorded in various resources maintained by the Legislative Assembly, which were not all compiled contemporaneously. Even contemporaneous affiliations data were a mixture of both formal undisputed declaration (made by the candidates or the parties), assessments by third parties such as the press, and presumptions from other events such as acceptance of specific offices. Such data inevitably contains some uncertainties, time lags, or inaccuracies, reflecting the lesser formality and permeance in partisan affiliation in that era.
Following the election, the incumbent Conservatives refused to concede and clung on to power for nine months until December 19, 1871. It claimed to commend the confidence of new parliament, but avoided testing that confidence by delaying the convocation of the new parliament seven times.[8] While its reasoning were less then credible, the government was able to resisted calls for its resignation by leaning on uncertainties provided through a combination of factors.
Partisan allegiance not all certain
The room to dispute the overall election outcome stemmed from the uncertainty of political affiliation for the some of the elected members, and from the fact that elected members' claimed political party affiliations were not the exclusive determining factor, and in some cases not even the main determining factor for their partisan allegiance. Afterall, the incumbent Conservative government was led by a former Liberal chosen by the national party leader in part to help legitimize the party's claim as a coalition.
In the months following the election, the press focused their analysis not on the elected members' professed partisan affiliations, but classified members as "ministerialists" committed to sustain the incumbent ministry versus those opposing the government. Known partisan affiliation were considered along with other factors such as family ties and previous behaviour, with the allegiances of certain members subject to extensive commentary and speculation. Unlike modern day election coverage, only a small number of outlets provided their summary tally of the likely strength of the two sides. The following are a few samples of reported tally. The early tallies reported 81 seats as the election for Algoma was held later on in May that year. The last tally reported in December that year took into account of seven vacancies caused by resignations and invalidations.
The election of elevens members were challenged under the newly adopted Controverted Elections Act of 1871. This prompted the incumbent ministry to delay the convening of parliament repeatedly over right months in the hopes that such challenges would results in its improved standing in the new parliament. Its standing was weakened rather than improved by the process however. While the election of members on both side of the aisle were challenged, the elections of five Conservatives but only one Liberal were invalidated. All six unseated members stood in the subsequent byelections and all but one were returned during in the resulting byelections. However, since writs for byelection could only be moved while the legislature was in session, these six seats were vacant when parliament finally met for a number of weeks.
Double return
Liberal leader Edward Blake was re-elected in Bruce South and also in Durham West (where he was the MP), but would only be able to cast one vote in each division (vote) to take place in parliament. This effectively reduced the opposition Liberal rank by one until a replacement could be elected through a byelection. At that time, resignations could only take effect when the parliament was in session.
Government defeat
Parliament was called into session on Friday December 7th, 1871. An additional Liberal member resigned on the fourth sitting day. By the time substantive debate regarding non-confidence on the government took place, eight seats were vacant, reducing the rank of the Conservatives by five and Liberals by three.
During the debate on the speech from the throne, the Sandfield Macdonald ministry suffered defeats in three recorded divisions on three consecutive days, respectively on December 13th, 14th, and 15th and each unmistakably expressed parliament's non-confidence on the ministry. The incumbent Conservative ministry initially refused to accept the recorded divisions as binding expression of non-confidence on the grounds that a tenth of the seats were vacant, but the government's position became untenable following the resignation of Provincial TreasurerEdmund Burke Wood on December 15[9] and defeats in two further recorded divisions on December 18, each by margin of close to 20 votes. Premier Macdonald announced the resignation of the ministry on December 19.
The transition of power mandated by this election was effected nine months after on December 20, 1971 with the formation of the province's first Liberal ministry led by Premier Edward Blake and featuring future Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie as Treasurer. While Blake and Mackenzie remained in their provincial offices for only a year, the Liberal Party led the Ontario government for 33 more years after their departures.
Byelections for the eight vacancies noted, along with four ministerial byelections necessitated by the formation of the Blake ministry, were held in the following January. The two parties each gain a seat against the other, result in no change to their respective standings in parliament.
Synopsis of results
Results by riding - 1871 Ontario general election[7]
↑ 8 Conservatives and 7 Liberals were elected by acclamation and thus received no votes
↑Election declared void because of corrupt practices. Writ for new election issued.[10] Lauder was returned in the subsequent byelection.
↑Declined the seat in favour of sitting for Bruce South[10]John McLeod (Liberal) won the subsequent byelection.
↑Election declared void because of corrupt practices. Writ for new election issued.[10] Ardagh was returned in the subsequent byelection.
↑Election declared void because of corrupt practices. Writ for new election issued.[10] Monk was returned in the subsequent byelection.
↑Election declared void because of corrupt practices. Writ for new election issued.[10] Hamilton was returned in the subsequent byelection.
↑Election declared void because of corrupt practices. Writ for new election issued.[10]James Bethune (Liberal) won the subsequent byelection.
↑Election declared void because of corrupt practices. Writ for new election issued.[10]James Simeon McCuaig (Conservative) won the subsequent byelection.
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