Saskatchewan general election, 1956

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Saskatchewan general election, 1956

← 1952 June 20, 1956 (1956-06-20) 1960 →

53 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan
27 seats needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
  150x150px
LIB
SC
Leader Tommy Douglas Alexander McDonald
Party Co-operative Commonwealth Liberal Social Credit
Leader since July 17, 1942 November 26, 1954
Leader's seat Weyburn Moosomin
Last election 42 11 0
Seats won 36 14 3
Seat change –6 +3 +3
Popular vote 249,634 167,427 118,491
Percentage 45.3% 30.3% 21.5%
Swing –8.8pp –8.9pp +17.6pp

Premier before election

Tommy Douglas
Co-operative Commonwealth

Premier-designate

Tommy Douglas
Co-operative Commonwealth

The Saskatchewan general election of 1956 was the thirteenth provincial election held in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was held on June 20, 1956, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.

The campaign

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government of Tommy Douglas lost a significant share of the popular vote, and 6 of the seats it had won in the 1952 election; but retained its majority in the legislature, winning a fourth term in office.

The Liberal Party of Alexander H. McDonald also lost votes, but picked up an additional three seats.

The Social Credit Party of Saskatchewan rebounded from its poor results in previous elections to win over 21% of the popular vote. Because this was spread out across the province, however, the party won only 3 seats in the legislature under the British parliamentary first-past-the-post system.

Results

Party Party Leader # of
candidates
Seats Popular Vote
1952 Elected % Change # % % Change
Co-operative Commonwealth Tommy Douglas 53 42 36 -14.3% 249,634 45.25% -8.81%
Liberal Alexander McDonald 52 11 14 +27.3% 167,427 30.34% -8.93%
Social Credit 53 3   118,491 21.48% +17.58%
Progressive Conservative Alvin Hamilton 9 10,921 1.98% +0.01%
     Independent 2 4,714 0.85% +0.57%
Labor–Progressive 2 536 0.10% -0.11%
Total 171 53 53 551,723 100%  
Source: Elections Saskatchewan

See also