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The 1940 Canadian election was the 19th General Election in Canadian history. It was held March 26, 1940. William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberals were re-elected to their second consecutive majority government.
The election was overshadowed by the Second World War, which caused many Canadians to rally around the government. In response to this the Conservative Party of Robert Manion ran on a platform advocating the creation of an all-party national unity government and ran under the name National Government in this election. Though Manion was personally opposed to conscription, the Liberals faced intense pressure in Quebec on the question and promised not to institute the measure. This promise was to haunt the Liberals as they faced increasing pressure from the military and especially from English Canada to bring in the measure. To release him from his 1940 promise, King called a plebiscite in 1942 on the question. See also Conscription Crisis of 1944
Social Credit ran jointly with the New DemocracyFor the Canadian political party that ran in the 1940 Canadian election see New Democracy (Canada New Democracy or ND ( Greek: , Nea Dhimokratia , founded in 1974, is one of the main political parties in Greece. After an initial period of success, ND spen movement of William Duncan HerridgeWilliam Duncan Herridge P. September 18 1888 September 21 1961) was a Canadian politician and diplomat. Herridge was Canada's envoy to the United States with the title Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary for Canada in the United States of Ame.Some candidates of the Conservative and Social Credit parties insisted on running under the traditional names, however.
| Party | Party Leader | # of candidates | Seats | Popular Vote | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before | After | % Change | # | % | Change | |||
| Liberal | | 242 | 179 | 2,365,979 | 51.32% | +6.64% | ||
| National Government (1) | | 199 | 36 | 1,348,260 | 29.24% | +1.11% | ||
| Cooperative CommonwealthTommy Douglas (centre) stands in front of a CCF billboard during an election campaign in Saskatchewan. The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-oper | | 93 | 8 | 388,103 | 8.42% | -1.07% | ||
| Social Credit | | 9 | 7 | 46,271 | 1.00% | -1.51% | ||
| Conservative | | 8 | 3 | 53,799 | 1.17% | |||
| New Democracy | | 17 | 3 | n.a. | 73,083 | 1.59% | +1.59% | |
| Liberal-Progressive | | 4 | 3 | 27,815 | 0.60% | -0.07% | ||
| Independent Liberal | | 32 | 2 | 147,216 | 3.19% | +1.96% | ||
| Independent | | 19 | 1 | 57,247 | 1.24% | +0.85% | ||
| Independent Conservative | | 5 | 1 | 10,431 | 0.23% | +0.21% | ||
| Unity | | 2 | 1 | n.a. | 12,337 | 0.27% | +0.27% | |
| United Reform Movement | | 1 | 1 | n.a. | 13,868 | 0.30% | +0.30% | |
| Independent National | | 2 | 0 | n.a. | 12,710 | 0.28% | 0.28% | |
| Unknown | | 2 | 0 | n.a. | 4,622 | 0.10% | +0.02% | |
| Communist | | 8 | 0 | 8,699 | 0.19% | -0.27% | ||
| Farmer-Labour | | 2 | 0 | n.a. | 8,126 | 0.18% | +0.18% | |
| National Unity | | 1 | 0 | n.a. | 7,534 | 0.16% | +0.16% | |
| NDP (2) | | 2 | 0 | n.a. | 6,761 | 0.15% | +0.15% | |
| United Farmers of Ontario - Labour | | 1 | 0 | 4,761 | 0.10% | -0.06% | ||
| Labour | | 1 | 0 | 3,916 | 0.08% | -0.25% | ||
| United Progressive | | 1 | n.a. | 0 | n.a. | 2,727 | 0.06% | +0.06% |
| National Liberal Progressive | | 1 | n.a. | 0 | n.a. | 2,434 | 0.05% | +0.05% |
| National Labour | | 1 | n.a. | 0 | n.a. | 2,354 | 0.05% | +0.05% |
| Anti-Conscriptionist | | 1 | n.a. | 0 | n.a. | 642 | 0.01% | +0.01% |
| Canadian Labour | | 1 | n.a. | 0 | n.a. | 398 | 0.01% | +0.01% |
| United Reform | | 1 | n.a. | 0 | n.a. | 269 | 0.01% | +0.01% |
| Social Credit-National Unity | | 1 | n.a. | 0 | n.a. | 241 | 0.01% | +0.01% |
| Total | | | | | | | | |
| Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867 | ||||||||
Notes: (1) Popular vote compared to 1935 Conservative vote. (2) Two candidates appear to have run under the New Democratic Party banner. It is unlikely that this was related in any way to the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation's adoption of this name in 1960. This may be a mis-reporting of party label - these candidates may have been New Democracy candidates.
n.a. = not applicable - the party was not recognized in the previous election
x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote