Ontario general election, 1923

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Ontario general election, 1923
Flag of Ontario.svg
  1919 June 25, 1923 1926  

111 seats in the 16th Legislative Assembly of Ontario
56 seats were needed for a majority

  First party Second party Third party
  Howard Ferguson.jpg Ernest Drury.jpg LIB
Leader Howard Ferguson Ernest C. Drury Wellington Hay
Party Conservative United Farmers-Labour coalition Liberal
Leader since 1919 1919 1921
Leader's seat Grenville Halton (lost re-election) Perth North (lostre-election)
Last election 25 58 27
Seats won 75 21 14
Seat changeIncrease2.svg50Decrease2.svg37Decrease2.svg13
Percentage 49.8% 25.6% 21.8%
SwingIncrease2.svg14.9pp Decrease2.svg7.7pp Decrease2.svg5.1pp

Premier before election

Ernest Charles Drury
United Farmers

Premier-designate

Howard Ferguson
Conservative

The Ontario general election, 1923 was the 16th general election held in the Province of Ontario, Canada. It was held on June 25, 1923, to elect the 111 Members of the 16th Legislative Assembly of Ontario ("MLAs").

Ontario Province of Canada

Ontario is one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada and is located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province accounting for 38.3 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto, which is also Ontario's provincial capital.

Contents

The Ontario Conservative Party, led by George Howard Ferguson, was returned to power with a majority in the Legislature as voters rejected the United Farmers of Ontario-Labour coalition government of Ernest C. Drury.

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.

The United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) was an agrarian and populist provincial political party in Ontario, Canada. It was the Ontario provincial branch of the United Farmers movement of the early part of the 20th century.

The Ontario Liberal Party, led by Wellington Hay, lost close to half its caucus in the Conservative landslide.

The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and have separate, though overlapping, memberships.

Francis Wellington Hay was a grain merchant and Canadian politician.

Voter turnout

The election saw a voter turnout of just 54.7 per cent, the lowest voter turnout in Ontario history until the 2007 election. [1]

Results

  Party Leader 1919 Elected% changePopular vote
%change
  Conservative George Howard Ferguson 2575+200%49.8% +14.9%
United Farmers Ernest C. Drury 44 17 [lower-alpha 1] [lower-alpha 2] -61.4%20.9% -0.8%
     Labour 11 4 [lower-alpha 3] -63.6%4.7% -6.9%
 Labour-United Farmers 1 [lower-alpha 3] -100%   
  Liberal-United Farmers 1 [lower-alpha 2] -100%   
Soldier 1 [lower-alpha 4] -100%   
  Liberal Wellington Hay 2714-48.1%21.8% -5.1%
 Independent  -1    
 Liberal Independent  1 -100%   
Total Seats111111- 100% 

See also

The Province of Ontario is governed by a unicameral legislature, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, which operates in the Westminster system of government. The political party that wins the largest number of seats in the legislature normally forms the government, and the party's leader becomes premier of the province, i.e., the head of the government. Ontario's primary political parties are the centre-right Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC), the centre-left to left Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP), the centre-left Ontario Liberal Party and the left-wing Green Party of Ontario.

Premier of Ontario first minister of the government of Ontario

The Premier of Ontario is the first minister of the Crown for the Canadian province of Ontario and the province’s head of government. The position was formerly styled "Prime Minister of Ontario" until the ministry of Bill Davis formally changed the title to premier.

Notes

  1. Though the UFO emerged with the second largest bloc of seats, they were denied Official Opposition status by new Premier Howard Ferguson who used as justification an announcement by UFO general secretary James J. Morrison that the UFO would be withdrawing from party politics.
  2. 1 2 David James Taylor was elected as a Liberal-United Farmers MLA in 1919 was re-elected as a straight UFO MLA in 1923.
  3. 1 2 Karl Homuth, who was elected as the UFO-Labour MLA for Waterloo South in 1919 was re-elected as a Labour MLA in 1923 and 1927. He would cross the floor to join the Conservative Party in 1929. Morrison MacBride broke with the Labour caucus shortly after the 1919 election in a dispute over its relationship with the UFO and sat in opposition for the entire life of the legislature. He ran for re-election as a "Conservative-Labour" candidate in 1926 though he sat as a Labour MLA after the election.
  4. Joseph McNamara, MLA for Riverdale listed his political affiliation as "Soldier" in Ontario Legislative Assembly records while Elections Ontario records indicate he was elected as a UFO candidate. He did not run for re-election in 1923 but attempted to regain the Riverdale seat in 1948 as a Liberal candidate and came in third place behind the CCF and the Progressive Conservatives.

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References