Canadian General Election 1867
The Canadian General Election in 1867 (English 1st Canadian General Election , French 1re élection fédérale canadienne ) took place from August 7th to September 20th, 1867. It was the first choice of the newly created Canadian House of Commons (Engl. House of Commons , fr. Chambre des Communes ). Its 180 members were elected.
The Conservatives , led by John Macdonald , won a majority of the seats and formed the country's first government.
The vote
The Conservative Party of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald won the majority of seats and votes in the two largest provinces , Ontario and Quebec ; the candidates ran under the designation "conservative" or "liberal-conservative". Ontario and Québec had previously formed the Province of Canada , with Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier as co-prime ministers.
Officially, the Liberal Party had no chairman, but publisher George Brown was widely perceived as the party leader during the election campaign and would have become Prime Minister if the Liberal had won the election. Brown ran for both the general election and the Ontario Liberal Party in the parallel election to the Ontario Legislative Assembly , but was unsuccessful in both. The Liberals officially remained without a chair until 1873.
Before the creation of the Canadian Confederation , Nova Scotia and New Brunswick did not have any formalized liberal and conservative parties. Political groups in these provinces joined one of the organizations in the former province of Canada. Conservative opponents in New Brunswick joined the Liberals and won the majority of seats and votes in that province. Opponents of the conservatives (and also of the union with the other provinces) in Nova Scotia entered the Anti-Confederation Party under the leadership of Joseph Howe , but after the election they formed a faction with the Liberals. When the British government refused to secede Nova Scotia, the majority of anti-Confederationists (11 out of 18 MPs) switched to the Conservatives.
The turnout was 73.1 percent.
Results
Overall result
Political party | Chairman | candidates data |
Seats | be right | Share of voters |
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative Party | John Macdonald | 81 | 71 | 63,752 | 23.45% | |
Liberal Conservative Party 1 | 32 | 29 | 29,730 | 11.08% | ||
Liberal Party | George Brown 2 | 65 | 62 | 60,818 | 22.67% | |
Anti-Confederation Party 3 | Joseph Howe | 20th | 18th | 21,239 | 7.92% | |
Independent | 1 | 1,756 | 0.65% | |||
Independent liberal | 1 | 1,048 | 0.39% | |||
not known | 141 | 90.044 | 33.84% | |||
total | 341 | 180 | 268,386 | 100.00% |
1 The Liberal Conservatives and the Conservatives formed a parliamentary group in the House of Commons
2 George Brown was only unofficially party leader
3 The Anti-Confederation Party formed a parliamentary group in the House of Commons with the Liberals
Acclamations
46 MPs were elected by acclamation due to a lack of opposing candidates :
- Ontario: 3 Conservatives, 3 Liberal Conservatives, 9 Liberals
- Québec: 14 Conservatives, 5 Liberal Conservatives, 4 Liberals
- New Brunswick: 1 Conservative, 3 Liberals
- Nova Scotia: 4 anti-Confederationists
Result by provinces
Political party | ON | QC | NB | NS | total | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative Party | Seats | 33 | 36 | 1 | 1 | 71 | |
Percentage ownership % | 26.2 | 28.5 | 13.8 | 23.5 | |||
Liberal Conservative Party | Seats | 16 | 11 | 2 | 29 | ||
Percentage ownership % | 12.5 | 12.3 | 11.1 | 3.5 | 11.1 | ||
Liberal Party | Seats | 33 | 17th | 12 | 62 | ||
Percentage ownership % | 23.7 | 25.2 | 49.5 | 22.7 | |||
Anti-Confederation Party | Seats | 18th | 18th | ||||
Percentage ownership % | 58.2 | 7.9 | |||||
Independent | Percentage ownership % | 1.3 | 0.7 | ||||
Independent liberal | Percentage ownership % | 0.6 | 0.4 | ||||
not known | Percentage ownership % | 35.6 | 34.1 | 39.3 | 24.4 | 33.8 | |
Total seats | 82 | 64 | 15th | 19th | 180 |
Web links
- Elections Canada (Electoral Authority)
- Map of constituencies
Individual evidence
- ^ Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums. Elections Canada, February 18, 2013, accessed July 3, 2015 .