Canadian federal election, 1963

Canadian federal election, 1963
	← outgoing members
265 seats in the 26th Canadian Parliament ; 133 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	79.2% [1] (0.2pp)
Prime Minister before election; John Diefenbaker ; Progressive Conservative	Prime Minister-designate; Lester B. Pearson ; Liberal

Last updated March 17, 2019

The Canadian federal election of 1963 was held on April 8 to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 26th Parliament of Canada. It resulted in the defeat of the minority Progressive Conservative (Tory) government of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. For Social Credit, despite getting their highest ever share of the vote, the party lost 6 seats compared to its high-water mark in 1962.

The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons currently meets in a temporary Commons chamber in the West Block of the parliament buildings on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, while the Centre Block, which houses the traditional Commons chamber, undergoes a ten-year renovation.

The 26th Canadian Parliament was in session from May 16, 1963, until September 8, 1965. The membership was set by the 1963 federal election on April 8, 1963, and it changed only somewhat due to resignations and by-elections until it was dissolved prior to the 1965 election.

Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Canada's southern border with the United States is the world's longest bi-national land border. Its capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its land area being dominated by forest and tundra. Consequently, its population is highly urbanized, with over 80 percent of its inhabitants concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, many near the southern border. Canada's climate varies widely across its vast area, ranging from arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons.

Overview

During the Tories' last year in office, members of the Diefenbaker Cabinet attempted to remove him from the leadership of the party, and therefore from the Prime Minister's office. In addition to concern within the party about Diefenbaker's mercurial style of leadership, there had been a serious split in party ranks over the issue of stationing American nuclear missiles (see Bomarc missile) on Canadian soil for protection from possible Soviet attack. Diefenbaker and his allies opposed this proposal, while many other Conservatives and the opposition Liberal Party were in favour. Minister of National Defence Douglas Harkness resigned from Cabinet on February 4, 1963, because of Diefenbaker's opposition to accepting the missiles. The next day, the government lost two non-confidence motions on the issue, prompting the election.

Tory A conservative political philosophy

A Tory is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved throughout history. The Tory ethos has been summed up with the phrase "God, King, and Country". Tories generally advocate monarchism, and were historically of a high church Anglican religious heritage, opposed to the liberalism of the Whig faction.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 30 December 1922 to 26 December 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Other major urban centres were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres east to west across 11 time zones, and over 7,200 kilometres north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, taiga, steppes, desert and mountains.

The Liberal Party of Canada is the oldest and longest-serving governing political party in Canada. The Liberals form the current government, elected in 2015. The party has dominated federal politics for much of Canada's history, holding power for almost 69 years in the 20th century—more than any other party in a developed country—and as a result, it is sometimes referred to as Canada's "natural governing party".

The Liberal Party of Lester Pearson ran on a platform promising that, if elected, they would begin their term with "60 Days of Decision" on questions such as introducing a new Canadian flag, reforming health care, and a public pension plan, along with other legislative reforms.

The flag of Canada or in French Le drapeau du Canada, often referred to as the Canadian flag, or unofficially as the Maple Leaf and l'Unifolié, is a national flag consisting of a red field with a white square at its centre in the ratio of 1:2:1, in the middle of which is featured a stylized, red, 11-pointed maple leaf charged in the centre. It is the first specified by law for use as the country's national flag.

Health care Prevention of disease and promotion of wellbeing

Health care or healthcare is the maintenance or improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals in allied health fields. Physicians and physician associates are a part of these health professionals. Dentistry, midwifery, nursing, medicine, optometry, audiology, pharmacy, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy and other health professions are all part of health care. It includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care, as well as in public health.

A pension is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years, and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments. A pension may be a "defined benefit plan" where a fixed sum is paid regularly to a person, or a "defined contribution plan" under which a fixed sum is invested and then becomes available at retirement age. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is usually paid in regular installments for life after retirement, while the latter is typically paid as a fixed amount after involuntary termination of employment prior to retirement.

Despite winning 41% of the vote, which is usually sufficient for ensuring the election of a majority government, the Liberals fell five seats short of their target. The Liberals formed a minority government that was dependent on the support of the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) in order to pass legislation.

A majority government refers to one or multiple governing parties that hold an absolute majority of seats in legislature. This is as opposed to a minority government, where the largest party in a legislature only has a plurality of seats.

A minority government, or minority cabinet or minority parliament, is a cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament. It is sworn into office, with or without the formal support of other parties, to enable a government to be formed. Under such a government, legislation can only be passed with the support of enough other members of the legislature to provide a majority, encouraging multi-partisanship. In bicameral parliaments, the term relates to the situation in chamber whose confidence is considered most crucial to the continuance in office of the government.

Social democracy is a political, social and economic ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist economy. The protocols and norms used to accomplish this involve a commitment to representative and participatory democracy, measures for income redistribution and regulation of the economy in the general interest and welfare state provisions. Social democracy thus aims to create the conditions for capitalism to lead to greater democratic, egalitarian and solidaristic outcomes. Due to longstanding governance by social democratic parties and their influence on socioeconomic policy development in the Nordic countries, in policy circles social democracy has become associated with the Nordic model in the latter part of the 20th century.

The social-democratic NDP had been formed in 1961 by a socialist party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and by the Canadian Labour Congress. The 1963 election was the second vote contested by the NDP. The party won slightly fewer votes, and two fewer seats, than they had received in the 1962 election. They were again disappointed by the failure of their new partnership with the labour movement to produce an electoral breakthrough, particularly in the province of Ontario, which has the largest population and the largest number of seats in the House of Commons.

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was a social-democratic and democratic socialist political party in Canada. The CCF was founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, agrarian, co-operative, and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction. In 1944, the CCF formed the first social-democratic government in North America when it was elected to form the provincial government in Saskatchewan. In 1961, the CCF was succeeded by the New Democratic Party (NDP). The full, but little used, name of the party was Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Farmer-Labour-Socialist).

The Canadian Labour Congress, or CLC is a national trade union centre, the central labour body in English Canada to which most Canadian labour unions are affiliated.

Social Credit was unable to increase its representation in western Canada, and lost four of its Quebec seats - this despite gaining a slightly better share of the vote compared to 1962. Indeed, 1963 represented the highest share Social Credit would ever get. The continuing lop-sided result led to a split in the party when Thompson refused to step aside so that Caouette could become party leader. Caouette and his followers left the Social Credit Party to sit as a separate social credit caucus, the Ralliement des créditistes .

The Social Credit Party of Canada, colloquially known as the Socreds, was a conservative-populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform. It was the federal wing of the Canadian social credit movement.

Quebec is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is bordered to the west by the province of Ontario and the bodies of water James Bay and Hudson Bay; to the north by Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay; to the east by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador; and to the south by the province of New Brunswick and the U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. It also shares maritime borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Quebec is Canada's largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division; only the territory of Nunavut is larger. It is historically and politically considered to be part of Central Canada.

Historically in Quebec, Canada, there was a number of political parties that were part of the Canadian social credit movement. There were various parties at different times with different names at the provincial level, all broadly following the social credit philosophy; at various times they had varying degrees of affiliation with the Social Credit Party of Canada at the federal level.

National results

↓
128	95	24	17	1
Liberal	Progressive Conservative	SC	NDP	O

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
Party		Party leader	# of candidates	1962	Elected	% Change	#	%	pp Change
	Liberal	Lester Pearson	265	99	128	+29.3%	3,276,996	41.48%	+4.51
	Progressive Conservative	John Diefenbaker	265	116	95	-18.1%	2,591,613	32.80%	-4.42
	Social Credit	R.N. Thompson	224	30	24	-20.0%	940,703	11.91%	+0.30
	New Democrats	Tommy Douglas	232	19	17	-10.5%	1,044,701	13.22%	-0.35
	Liberal-Labour		1	1	1	-	16,794	0.21%	+0.01
	Independent Liberal		6	-	-	-	14,658	0.19%	+0.05
	Independent		9	-	-	-	5,236	0.07%	-0.04
	Communist	Leslie Morris	12	-	-	-	4,234	0.05%	-0.03
	Independent PC		2	-	-	-	1,965	0.02%	-0.01
	Independent Conservative		2	*	-	*	1,159	0.01%	*
	Ouvrier Indépendant		1	-	-	-	1,064	0.01%	+0.01
	Independent Social Credit		2	*	-	*	717	0.01%	*
	Nationalist		1	*	-	*	540	0.01%	*
	Candidat libéral des electeurs		1	-	-	-	496	0.01%	-0.02
	Socialist Labour		1	*	-	*	43	x	*
Total			1,023	265	265	-	7,900,919	100%
Sources: http://www.elections.ca History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Notes:

* The party did not nominate candidates in the previous election.

x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote

Vote and seat summaries

Popular vote

Liberal			41.48%
PC			32.80%
NDP			13.22%
Social Credit			11.91%
Others			0.59%

Seat totals

Liberal			48.30%
PC			35.85%
Social Credit			9.06%
NDP			6.42%
Others			0.38%

Results by province

Party name			BC	AB	SK	MB	ON	QC	NB	NS	PE	NL	YK	NW	Total
	Liberal	Seats:	7	1	-	2	51	47	6	5	2	7	-	-	128
	Liberal	Popular Vote:	32.3	22.1	24.1	33.8	45.8	45.6	47.3	46.7	46.4	64.5	41.0	43.2	41.5
	Progressive Conservative	Seats:	4	14	17	10	27	8	4	7	2	-	1	1	95
	Progressive Conservative	Vote:	23.4	45.3	53.7	42.3	35.0	19.5	40.4	46.9	52.0	30.1	49.6	56.8	32.8
	Social Credit	Seats:	2	2	-	-	-	20	-	-			-		24
	Social Credit	Vote:	13.3	25.8	3.9	7.0	2.0	27.3	8.6	0.1			9.4		11.9
	New Democrats	Seats:	9	-	-	2	6	-	-	-	-	-			17
	New Democrats	Vote:	30.3	6.5	18.2	16.7	16.2	7.1	3.7	6.4	1.6	4.2			13.2
	Liberal-Labour	Seats:					1								1
	Liberal-Labour	Vote:					0.6								0.2
Total seats:			22	17	17	14	85	75	10	12	4	7	1	1	265
Parties that won no seats:
	Independent Liberal	Vote:					0.3	0.1				1.3			0.2
	Independent	Vote:	xx	0.1	xx	0.2	xx	0.1							0.1
	Communist	Vote:	0.1	0.1	0.1		0.1	xx							0.1
	Independent PC	Vote:					xx	0.1							xx
	Independent Conservative	Vote:					xx								xx
	Ouvrier Indépendant	Vote:						0.1							xx
	Independent Social Credit	Vote:						xx							xx
	Nationalist	Vote:						xx							xx
	C. l. des electeurs	Vote:						xx							xx
	Socialist Labour	Vote:						xx							xx

xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote

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References

↑ Pomfret, R. "Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums". Elections Canada. Elections Canada. Retrieved 23 February 2014.

External links

A Sordid Affair, by Norman Hillmer

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[1] Pomfret, R. "Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums". Elections Canada. Elections Canada. Retrieved 23 February 2014.

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