1958 Canadian federal election

The 1958 Canadian federal election was held to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada 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 majority government in Canadian history and the second-largest percentage of the popular vote. Although the Tories would surpass their 1958 seat total in the 1984 election, the 1958 result (achieved in a smaller House) remains unmatched both in terms of percentage of seats (78.5%) and the size of the government majority over all opposition parties (a 151-seat majority). Voter turnout was 79.4%.

1958 Canadian federal election

March 31, 1958
265 seats in the House of Commons 133 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	79.4% (5.3pp)
First party Second party   Leader John Diefenbaker Lester B. Pearson Party Progressive Conservative Liberal Leader since December 14, 1956 January 16, 1958 Leader's seat Prince Albert Algoma East Last election 112 105 Seats won 208 48 Seat change 96 57 Popular vote 3,910,852 2,459,700 Percentage 53.67% 33.75% Swing 14.64pp 8.58pp   Third party Fourth party   Leader Major James Coldwell Solon Earl Low Party Co-operative Commonwealth Social Credit Leader since March 22, 1942 April 6, 1944 Leader's seat Rosetown—Biggar (lost re-election) Peace River (lost re-election) Last election 25 19 Seats won 8 0 Seat change 17 19 Popular vote 692,398 188,717 Percentage 9.50% 2.59% Swing 1.21pp 4.03pp
The Canadian parliament after the 1958 election
Prime Minister before election John Diefenbaker Progressive Conservative Prime Minister after election John Diefenbaker Progressive Conservative

Overview

Diefenbaker called a snap election and capitalized on three factors:

• Nationally, the Liberals had just chosen a new leader, Lester Pearson, who had given an ill-advised maiden speech in Commons that asked Diefenbaker to resign and recommend the Governor General allow the Liberals to form a government without an election due to the recent economic downturn. Diefenbaker seized on the remark by describing a series of classified Liberal Cabinet documents stating that the economy would face a downturn in that year. This contrasted heavily with the Liberals' 1957 campaign promises. As election day drew near, the Liberals realized they had no chance of returning to power and hoped only to hold onto at least 100 seats. They were cut down to only 48, at the time the smallest seat count in their history.
• 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 its voters were open to new options. Seeking a greater voice in Ottawa, Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis' Union Nationale used their party machine to ally with the Tories, allowing Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives to win two thirds of the seats in what had been a Liberal stronghold for a generation. While the Liberals finished only four percentage points behind the Tories in Quebec, much of their vote was wasted racking up large majorities in their traditional safest seats. Nevertheless, the 25 seats the Liberals won in Quebec accounted for more than half of their decimated caucus and, on a proportional basis, was their best performance after Newfoundland.
• A collapse in support for the Social Credit Party, which lost all 19 of its seats. While it took half the votes it had taken in 1957, third parties historically do not do well in landslides, especially in first-past-the-post voting systems. Prior to the 1957 election, the Socreds were seen as a credible threat to replace the Tories as the main right-wing party in the country, as they had done in British Columbia and Alberta, but the popularity of the Diefenbaker government persuaded many Social Credit supporters to abandon the party. That not only allowed the Tories to pick up Social Credit seats, but also proved decisive in many seats that were four-way races between the PCs, Social Credit, Liberals, and CCF. Notably, the Tories swept all seventeen seats in Alberta, where they had previously held just three seats to Social Credit's thirteen (and Liberal one seat). The election proved to be the start of a long decline for the federal Social Credit Party. It would never seriously challenge the PCs dominance again in federal politics (even in the West) although the BC Social Credit Party would govern that province for all but three years until 1991.

Opinion polling

During the 23rd Parliament of Canada

Evolution of voting intentions at national level

Polling firm	Last day of survey	Source	PC	LPC	CCF	SC	Other	Undecided	ME	Sample
Election 1958	March 31, 1958		53.67	33.75	9.50	2.59	0.49			7,284,467
Gallup	March 1958		56	32	7	4	1	13	—	—
Gallup	January 1958		50	35	9	6	—	—	4.0	—
Gallup	November 1957		50	33	9	7	1	—	—	—
Gallup	October 1957		48	34	10	7	1	—	—	—
Gallup	July 1957		47	35	10	8	—	—	—	—
Election 1957	June 10, 1957		38.50	40.45	10.59	6.54	3.92			6,680,690

Regional polling

Quebec

Evolution of voting intentions at provincial level

Polling firm	Last day of survey	Source	PC	LPC	CCF	Other	ME	Sample
Election 1958	March 31, 1958		49.6	45.6	2.3	2.5
Gallup	March 1958		49	45	—	—	—	—
Gallup	January 1958		42	51	3	4	—	—
Gallup	November 1957		43	50	1	6	—	—
Gallup	July 1957		40	54	—	—	—	—
Election 1957	June 10, 1957		30.7	56.8	1.8	10.7

Ontario

Evolution of voting intentions at provincial level

Polling firm	Last day of survey	Source	PC	LPC	CCF	Other	ME	Sample
Election 1958	March 31, 1958		56.4	32.1	10.5	1.1
Gallup	January 1958		58	31	9	1	—	—
Gallup	November 1957		57	31	10	2	—	—
Election 1957	June 10, 1957		48.1	36.6	11.9	2.1

Maritime

Evolution of voting intentions at regional level

Polling firm	Last day of survey	Source	PC	LPC	CCF	Other	ME	Sample
Election 1958	March 31, 1958
Gallup	January 1958		57	40	2	1	—	—
Gallup	November 1957		61	37	1	1	—	—
Election 1957	June 10, 1957

Western Canada

Evolution of voting intentions at regional level

Polling firm	Last day of survey	Source	PC	LPC	CCF	Other	ME	Sample
Election 1958	March 31, 1958
Gallup	January 1958		44	20	19	17	—	—
Gallup	November 1957		45	17	17	21	—	—
Election 1957	June 10, 1957

National results

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
				1957	Elected	% Change	#	%	pp 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	0%	11,956	0.16%	-
	Social Credit	Solon Low	82	19	-	-100%	188,356	2.59%	-3.99
	Independent		9	2	-	-100%	14,211	0.20%	-0.87
	Independent Liberal		10	2	-	-100%	12,054	0.17%	-1.25
	Labor–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 Archived 2008-12-04 at the Wayback Machine

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

Vote and seat summaries

Popular vote PC   53.67% Liberal   33.75% CCF   9.50% Social Credit   2.59% Others   0.84%

Seat totals PC   78.49% Liberal   18.11% CCF   3.01% Others   0.37%

Results by province

Party name			BC	AB	SK	MB	ON	QC	NB	NS	PE	NL	YK	NW	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
	Labor–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

• List of Canadian federal general elections
• List of political parties in Canada
• 24th Canadian Parliament

Further reading

• LeDuc, Lawrence; Pammett, Jon H.; McKenzie, Judith L.; Turcotte, André (2010). Dynasties and Interludes: Past and Present in Canadian Electoral Politics. Toronto: Dundurn Press. ISBN 978-1-55488-886-3.
• Beck, James Murray (1968). Pendulum of Power; Canada's Federal Elections. Scarborough: Prentice-Hall of Canada. ISBN 978-0-13-655670-1.

External links

• The Elections of 1957 and 1958, by P.E. Bryden
• Electoral Results by Party, on Parliament of Canada site Archived 2014-03-29 at the Wayback Machine