The 1908 Canadian federal election was held on Monday October 26, 1908 to elect members of the
House of Commons of Canada of the
11th Parliament of
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
.
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
Sir
Wilfrid Laurier
Sir Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier, ( ; ; November 20, 1841 – February 17, 1919) was a Canadian lawyer, statesman, and politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911. The first French Canadian prime minis ...
's
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada (french: Parti libéral du Canada, region=CA) is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism,McCall, Christina; Stephen Clarkson"Liberal Party". ''The Canadian Encyclopedia' ...
was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term in government with a
majority government
A majority government is a government by one or more governing parties that hold an absolute majority of seats in a legislature. This is as opposed to a minority government, where the largest party in a legislature only has a plurality of seats ...
. The Liberals lost four seats and a small share of the popular vote.
Sir
Robert Borden
Sir Robert Laird Borden (June 26, 1854 – June 10, 1937) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the eighth prime minister of Canada from 1911 to 1920. He is best known for his leadership of Canada during World War I.
Borden ...
's
Conservatives
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
and
Liberal-Conservative
Liberal conservatism is a political ideology combining conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic issues but also on social and ethical matters, representing a brand of political conservatism strongly influenced by lib ...
s won ten additional seats.
This was the first election in which
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
and
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North ...
voted as provinces. Following their creation in 1905, the two new provinces continued to be represented by MP's initially elected under the old Northwest Territories riding boundaries, some of which straddled the new provincial border. The remainder of the Northwest Territories that previously had Parliamentary representation lost it, although parts of the NWT would gain or re-gain representation after being added to Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec in 1912. A seat would not be created for the NWT itself again (which then contained the modern NWT and Nunavut) until
1949
Events
January
* January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2022.
* January 2 – ...
.
National results
Results by province
See also
*
List of Canadian federal general elections
*
List of political parties in Canada
This article lists political parties in Canada.
Federal parties
In contrast with the political party systems of many nations, Canadian parties at the federal level are often only loosely connected with parties at the provincial level, despite h ...
*
11th Canadian Parliament
The 11th Canadian Parliament was in session from January 20, 1909, until July 29, 1911. The membership was set by the 1908 federal election on October 26, 1908, and it changed only somewhat due to resignations and by-elections until it was diss ...
Notes
References
Further reading
*
{{election canada
1908 elections in Canada
1908
Events
January
* January 1 – The British ''Nimrod'' Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton sets sail from New Zealand on the ''Nimrod'' for Antarctica.
* January 3 – A total solar eclipse is visible in the Pacific Ocean, and is the 46 ...
October 1908 events