Elections in Canada in the 1940s
Elections in Canada during the 1940s were marked by the dominance of the Liberal Party, which won three parliamentary elections while navigating the challenges of World War II and the Great Depression. Under Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, the Liberals initially enjoyed substantial support, securing a significant victory in the 1940 election with 181 seats. However, their strength diminished in western provinces and Quebec, where regional parties like the Social Credit Party and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) began to gain traction. A critical issue during this period was the contentious topic of conscription, which ultimately fractured the electorate along linguistic lines, with English speakers largely in favor and a significant portion of French speakers opposing it.
The 1945 election saw the Liberal majority shrink to 127 seats, reflecting growing resistance to King’s leadership and policies. Despite his initial electoral success, King faced a surprising defeat in his own district, ultimately leading to his resignation as party leader in 1948. Louis St. Laurent succeeded him and led the Liberals to a historic victory in 1949, capturing 49 percent of the popular vote. Throughout the decade, the Liberal Party's response to emerging regional parties and shifting political sentiments helped shape Canadian politics, moving it increasingly to the left. The political landscape was further complicated by the emergence of strong provincial parties, signaling a shift in public sentiment that would influence future elections.
Elections in Canada in the 1940s
The Events National parliamentary and provincial government elections to choose members of Parliament
During the 1940’s, the Canadian Liberal Party extended its dominance of the national political scene, winning three parliamentary elections with increasing majorities. The party, however, saw its influence diminished in the western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan as the Social Credit Party and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation gained control of provincial governments and were elected to seats in the national parliament.
Much like the United States, the Canadian political system during the 1940’s was dominated by a single political party that led the country through the Great Depression and World War II. The Canadian Liberal Party won three parliamentary elections in the decade, but while it racked up a large majority of seats, the party suffered from dwindling support in the western provinces and Quebec. Among the Liberals’ regional opponents were the populist Social Credit Party in Alberta, a socialist-oriented party in Saskatchewan, and French separatists in Quebec.
National Politics
The 1935 national election provided a Liberal Party majority under the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie King, a liberal member from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. When war struck in 1939, King and his party were popular with Canadians, and after the premier of Ontario sought a parliamentary vote condemning the Liberal Party’s war effort, King called new elections. The war was a major issue in the campaign, and King was forced to appeal to the French Quebec vote as the western provinces turned from the Liberal Party. The prime minister promised not to introduce conscription, a promise popular with the antiwar French in Quebec. On March 26, 1940, the Liberals smashed their opponents, winning 181 seats, three times those of the opposition parties combined. The Progressive Conservative Party hobbled into the next parliament with only 40 members, the Alberta-based Social Credit Party had 10, and the new Cooperative CommonwealthFederation (CCF) won 9. Only in the west did the Liberals see losses, with King squeaking to a 1,000-vote victory in his Saskatchewan district. This weakness would haunt him in the next election.
The massive Liberal majority was chipped away by the smaller parties as the death or retirement of Liberal parliament members led to by-elections in August, 1943. Two provincial parties, the CCF and the Quebec Separatists, won seats formerly held by the Liberals. In 1942, King was forced to retract his campaign promise on conscription. The Canadian army suffered a shortage of volunteers, so that military need clashed with politics. The prime minister scheduled a plebiscite asking voters to release him from his promise while campaigning on the slogan “Conscription if necessary but not necessarily conscription.” King was released from his promise with 63 percent of voters approving of his request, but the divisions in the country boded poorly for Canada. More than 80 percent of English-speakers approved, while nearly 73 percent of French-speakers in Quebec voted against conscription. A new party, the Bloc Populaire Canadian, was founded specifically to oppose King and conscription.
The 1945 Election
The prime minister maintained the Liberal majority through the war, and in June, 1945, hoping to ride political victory on the coattails of military victory, King called another national election. The Liberal Party saw its massive majority cut to 127 seats, with the conservatives winning 68 and the CCF nearly tripling its seats to 29. The Social Credit Party managed to win 13 seats, all in Alberta. Even as his party was winning a third consecutive term in power, King suffered a shocking defeat in his own district.
In 1943, Saskatchewan Province had elected a CCF government, with the Liberal Party being swept from power in King’s Prince Albert parliamentary district. The loss was a warning to the prime minister, who had barely won reelection in 1940. The Liberal Party offered King a safe district in which to run for reelection, but the prime minister refused; instead he ran in his Prince Albert district even though he did not live there and rarely visited. With the odds against him, King campaigned hard, holding a lead on election night but then losing it when votes from soldiers came in favoring the CCF candidate, who won by 129 votes.
As a party without a leader, the Liberals quickly found a district in Glengarry, Ontario, that elected King, allowing him to serve as prime minister for a third consecutive term. King’s popularity within the Liberal Party had declined, however, and at the party’s 1948 leadership conference, he stepped aside to allow Louis St. Laurent to lead the Liberals during the 1949 election. Known as Uncle Louis because of his common touch, St. Laurent led the Liberals to another large victory, with 49 percent of the popular vote and 191 parliamentary seats, the most in Canadian history. The Progressive Conservatives lost ground, dropping to 41 seats. Postwar prosperity undermined the CCF’s socialist message, and its seats fell by half, to 13.
National and Regional Parties
The Progressive Conservative Party, having lost power during the 1935 general election, struggled to remain an opposition force in Parliament. After their defeat in the 1940 election, the party ousted its leader, Robert Manein, but his chosen successor, Arthur Mayheim, was defeated in a by-election by a CCF candidate and could not serve. Leaderless, the Progressive Conservatives recruited John Bracken, a former liberal and former premier of Manitoba, to lead the party into the 1945 election. The Progressive Conservatives hoped that Bracken could lead a coalition of western conservatives and disgruntled liberal members to victory. The strategy failed, and the party lost two more national elections; it would not regain control of Parliament until 1957.
While the liberals were dominating national politics, they were losing support in the western provinces, where regional parties were gaining strength. In Alberta, the Social Credit Party won a provincial majority in the 1935 elections. The party was led by William “Bible Bill” Aberhart, who preached a populist and nationalistic message for ending the Depression. The party supported a form of populist economics, deemed social credit, by which the government would distribute twenty-dollar certificates to every Albertan to be used for basic commodities and to raise living standards. The plan was never fully implemented, and Aberhart was unclear on how the certificates would be funded. In 1940, the party strengthened its control of the province by winning nearly two-thirds of the provincial seats. The victory came even as the conservatives, liberals, and independents joined in a fusion ticket, hoping to combine their votes to defeat the Social Credit Party.
Just to the east, Saskatchewan Province experienced its own third-party genesis. The CCF formed the first socialist government in the Western Hemisphere. The party won its first parliamentary seats in the 1940 national elections, then extended its influence by winning by-elections in 1943. One of the main platform items for the party was creating a province-wide health system for all of its citizens. The CCF’s electoral success was noticed, and its policies were copied by the national Liberal Party, with Prime Minister King introducing legislation in 1944 to aid labor and start a national health service. The Liberal Party’s success at co-opting the CCF’s agenda weakened the CCF, which lost seats in the 1949 general election.
Impact
Liberal Party domination of Canadian politics during the 1940’s saw the country’s politics move to the left as the party tried to hold off provincial parties such as the Social Credit Party and the CCF. Louis St. Laurent led the Liberal Party to another victory in the elections of 1953. Under his leadership, Canada supported the United Nations actions in Korea and helped solve the Suez Crisis of 1956.
Bibliography
Bell, Edward. Social Classes and Social Credit in Alberta. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993. History of the philosophy and the leaders of the Social Credit Party in Alberta, its electoral successes, and its governing failures as the party sought to change the province’s economic system.
Bothwell, Robert. Penguin History of Canada. London: Penguin Global, 2008. Brief history of Canada includes a section on Canadian politics and society during the war and the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie King.
Clarkson, Stephen. The Big Red Machine: How the Liberal Party Dominates Canadian Politics. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006. Describes and analyzes the Canadian Liberal Party and its electoral success over the last sixty years. Includes discussion of the role of Liberal prime ministers.
Esberry, Joy. Knight of the Holy Spirit: A Study of William Lyon Mackenzie King. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980. Full-length biography of King’s political career, including his service as prime minister during World War II and his dominance of the political scene.
Rennie, Bradford Albert. Premiers of the Twentieth Century. Regina, Sask.: Canadian Plains Research Center, 2004. Listing and description of Alberta’s provincial leaders, with a focus on the Social Credit Party, which controlled provincial government from 1935 to 1971.
Wardhaugh, Robert. Mackenzie King and the Prairie West. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. Having risen from the western provinces to become prime minister, King and his Liberal Party struggled to maintain their western base. This struggle included the prime minister’s defeat in 1945 and gradual rejection of his party by western Canadians.