Canadian federal election, 1925
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The Canadian federal election of 1925 was held on October 29 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 15th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal Party formed a minority government. This precipitated the "King-Byng Affair".
The Liberals under Mackenzie King won fewer seats than Arthur Meighen's Conservatives. A third party, the Progressives, which had nominated candidates for the first time in the 1921 election, held the balance of the seats. King decided to hold on to power with the help of the Progressives. The Progressives were closely aligned with the Liberals, and enabled King to form a minority government.
This plan was complicated by the fact that his party won fewer seats than the Conservatives, and that King himself had lost his seat in the House of Commons. Meighen was outraged by King's move, and demanded that King resign from the Prime Minister's office. King asked a Liberal Member of Parliament from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to resign so that he could run in the resulting by-election. Prince Albert was one of the safest seats in Canada for the Liberals, and King won easily.
With King back in Parliament, a huge scandal rocked the King cabinet when one of his appointees was discovered to be accepting bribes. Anticipating a vote of censure by the Commons, King asked the Governor General, Baron Byng of Vimy, to call an election. The Governor General refused, and King resigned.
King claimed this was interference in Canadian politics by an official appointed by a foreign power. King showed rare fire, and rallied the Progressives back into his camp. He defeated Meighen on a vote of confidence after only three days, making the Meighen government of 1926 the shortest lived government in Canadian history. This time, Byng called an election.
National results
| ↓ | ||||
| 115 | 100 | 22 | 8 | |
| Conservative | Liberal | Progressive | O | |
| Party | Party leader | # of candidates |
Seats | Popular vote | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1921 | Elected | % Change | # | % | pp Change | ||||
| Conservative | Arthur Meighen | 232 | 49 | 115 | +132.7% | 1,454,253 | 46.13% | +16.18 | |
| Liberal | W. L. Mackenzie King | 216 | 118 | 100 | -15.3% | 1,252,684 | 39.74% | -1.41 | |
| Progressive | Robert Forke | 68 | 58 | 22 | -62.1% | 266,319 | 8.45% | -12.65 | |
| Labour | J.S. Woodsworth | 20 | 3 | 2 | -33.3% | 56,987 | 1.81% | -0.93 | |
| Independent | 8 | 2 | 2 | - | 16,212 | 0.51% | -2.52 | ||
| United Farmers of Alberta | 2 | 2 | 2 | - | 8,053 | 0.26% | -0.46 | ||
| Independent Liberal | 10 | - | 1 | 31,140 | 0.99% | +0.90 | |||
| Independent Conservative | 6 | 1 | 1 | - | 16,759 | 0.53% | +0.14 | ||
| Unknown | 5 | - | - | - | 20,583 | 0.65% | +0.16 | ||
| Liberal-Protectionist | 2 | * | - | * | 6,915 | 0.22% | * | ||
| Independent Liberal-Progressive | 1 | * | - | * | 4,958 | 0.16% | * | ||
| Labour-Farmer | 2 | * | - | * | 4,774 | 0.15% | * | ||
| Liberal–Progressive | 1 | * | - | * | 3,319 | 0.11% | * | ||
| Independent Labour | 1 | * | - | * | 2,901 | 0.09% | * | ||
| Socialist | 1 | - | - | - | 1,888 | 0.06% | -0.04 | ||
| Independent Progressive | 1 | 1 | - | -100% | 1,768 | 0.06% | -0.05 | ||
| Farmer | 1 | * | - | * | 1,130 | 0.04% | * | ||
| Progressive-Conservative | 1 | * | - | * | 1,120 | 0.04% | * | ||
| Farmer Labour | 1 | * | - | * | 762 | 0.02% | * | ||
| Total | 579 | 235 | 245 | +3.8% | 3,152,525 | 100% | |||
| Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867 | |||||||||
Notes:
* not applicable - the party was not recognized in the previous election
Vote and seat summaries
Results by province
| Party name | BC | AB | SK | MB | ON | QC | NB | NS | PE | YK | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Seats: | 10 | 3 | - | 7 | 67 | 4 | 10 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 115 | |
| Popular Vote (%): | 49.3 | 31.8 | 25.4 | 41.3 | 56.3 | 34.2 | 59.7 | 56.4 | 33.1 | 59.4 | 46.1 | ||
| Liberal | Seats: | 3 | 4 | 15 | 1 | 12 | 59 | 1 | 3 | 2 | - | 100 | |
| Vote (%): | 34.7 | 27.6 | 41.9 | 20.3 | 30.9 | 59.6 | 37.0 | 41.9 | 52.0 | 40.6 | 39.7 | ||
| Progressive | Seats: | - | 7 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 22 | ||||||
| Vote (%): | 6.1 | 26.5 | 31.8 | 25.1 | 8.8 | 8.5 | |||||||
| Labour | Seats: | - | - | 2 | - | - | - | 2 | |||||
| Vote: | 6.3 | 6.1 | 9.6 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 1.6 | 1.8 | ||||||
| Independent | Seats: | 1 | - | 1 | - | 2 | |||||||
| Vote (%): | 2.6 | 0.6 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 0.5 | ||||||||
| United Farmers of Alberta | Seats: | 2 | 2 | ||||||||||
| Vote (%): | 5.0 | 0.3 | |||||||||||
| Independent Liberal | Seats: | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Vote (%): | 3.8 | 1.0 | |||||||||||
| Independent Conservative | Seats: | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Vote (%): | 1.4 | 0.5 | |||||||||||
| Total seats | 14 | 16 | 21 | 17 | 82 | 65 | 11 | 14 | 4 | 1 | 245 | ||
| Parties that won no seats: | |||||||||||||
| Unknown | Vote (%): | 0.1 | 0.9 | 0.2 | 15.0 | 0.7 | |||||||
| Liberal-Protectionist | Vote (%): | 0.9 | 0.2 | ||||||||||
| Independent Liberal-Progressive | Vote (%): | 3.3 | 0.2 | ||||||||||
| Labour-Farmer | Vote (%): | 3.0 | 0.2 | ||||||||||
| Liberal–Progressive | Vote (%): | 1.9 | 0.1 | ||||||||||
| Independent Labour | Vote (%): | 1.7 | 0.1 | ||||||||||
| Socialist | Vote (%): | 1.0 | 0.1 | ||||||||||
| Independent Progressive | Vote (%): | 0.9 | 0.1 | ||||||||||
| Farmer | Vote (%): | 0.1 | xx | ||||||||||
| Progressive-Conservative | Vote (%): | 0.1 | xx | ||||||||||
| Farmer Labour | Vote (%): | 0.1 | xx | ||||||||||
See also
- List of Canadian federal general elections
- List of political parties in Canada
- 15th Canadian Parliament
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