Canadian Federal Elections

This article provides a summary of results for Canadian general elections (where all seats are contested) to the House of Commons, the elected lower half of Canada's federal bicameral legislative body, the Parliament of Canada. The number of seats has increased steadily over time, from 180 for the first election to the current total of 343. The current federal government structure was established in 1867 by the Constitution Act.

For federal by-elections (for one or a few seats as a result of retirement, etc.) see List of federal by-elections in Canada. For the eight general elections of the Province of Canada held in 1843 to 1864 before confederation in 1867, see List of elections in the Province of Canada. There were also earlier elections in Canada, such as for the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada (held in 1792–1836, now part of Ontario) and the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada (held in 1792–1834, now part of Quebec).

Three political parties have dominated politics in Canada: the Liberal Party, the historic Conservative party (known as the Progressive Conservative Party from 1942 to 2003), and the modern Conservative Party are the only parties to have formed a government, although often the Liberals and historic Conservatives have led in a minority government or a coalition government where either party unified with one or more smaller parties. (The 1917 win was by a pro-conscription Unionist coalition of sitting Conservative and Liberal members of Parliament.)

Although governance has primarily been by single-party majority governments, Canadian federal politics has been a multi-party affair since Confederation. Since 1921, there has been significant parliamentary presence of "third parties", with the Progressive Party and the United Farmers movement being elected in the 1920s. They were supplanted by the Social Credit Party and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in the 1930s. The CCF evolved into the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961. The Social Credit Party and the CCF/NDP first won representation in the House of Commons in 1935, and the CCF/NDP has done so in each election since that time. (The Social Credit Party failed to win any seats in the 1980 election.) Since 1980, the NDP has been a presence in the Canadian parliament.

The Progressive Conservative Party suffered a significant defeat in the 1993 election when it went from being the majority government with 169 seats to a group without official party status, having only won two seats. The downfall of the traditional Progressive Conservative Party in the 1990s was a result of the rise of the populist Reform Party. The Reform Party rebranded as the Canadian Alliance in 2000; it then merged with the remaining elected Progressive Conservative members in 2003 and became the modern Conservative Party''.'' By 2006, this modern Conservative Party was again in government.

Further, in 1993 the separatist Bloc Québécois won seats for the first time. It has been a constant presence in parliament since then. The Green Party has held a seat or two every election since 2011. As well, independent MPs have been elected at various times.

Summary of results

The third, fourth, and fifth parties' results are included in "Other" if the party did not win at least four seats in an election at some point in its history. Results for parties placing sixth or lower (as in the 1926 election) are also included in "Other", as are Independent seats.

Notes

Further reading

* – covers federal elections of 1878, 1896, 1911, 1917, 1926, 1945, 1957, 1968, 1988, and 2004
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Graphs of results

Bar graph of seats from 1867 to 2021

Line graph of votes

See also

*List of political parties in Canada
*Voter turnout in Canada

References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Canadian federal general elections, List of
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Federal