Canadian federal election, 1925

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The Canadian parliament after the 1925 election

The Canadian federal election of 1925 was held on October 29 to elect members of the 15th Parliament of the Canadian House of Commons. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal Party formed a minority government. This precipitated the "King-Byng Affair".

The Liberals under Mackenzie King won fewer seats than Arthur Meighen's Conservatives. A third party, the Progressives, which had nominated candidates for the first time in the 1921 election, held the balance of the seats. King decided to hold onto power with the help of the Progressives. The Progressives were closely aligned with the Liberals, and enabled King to form a minority government.

This plan was complicated by the fact that his party lost the election, and that King himself had lost his seat in the House of Commons. Meighen was outraged by King's move, and demanded that King resign from the Prime Minister's office. King asked a Liberal Member of Parliament for Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to resign so that he could run in the resulting by-election. Prince Albert was one of the safest seats in Canada for the Liberals, and King won easily.

An interesting side-note is that his Conservative opponent was John Diefenbaker. While Diefenbaker stood no chance against King in 1925, he would later win both the riding of Prince Albert and the Prime Minister's office.

With King back in Parliament, a huge scandal rocked the King cabinet when one of his appointees was discovered to be accepting bribes. Anticipating a defeat in the Commons, King asked the Governor General, Viscount Byng of Vimy, to call an election. The Governor General refused, and King resigned.

King was not a crusader, or a polemicist, or a debater, but he saw this as interference in Canadian politics by an official appointed by a foreign power. King showed rare fire, and rallied the Progressives back into his camp. He defeated Meighen on a vote of confidence after only a few months. This time, Byng called an election.

King formed a majority government as a result of the 1926 election. After his defeat, Meighen resigned as Conservative leader.

[edit] National results

Party		Party Leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular Vote
Party		Party Leader	# of candidates	1921	Elected	% Change	#	%	% Change
	Conservative	Arthur Meighen	232	49	115	+132.7%	1,454,253	46.13%	+16.18%
	Liberal	Mackenzie King	216	118	100	-15.3%	1,252,684	39.74%	-1.41%
	Progressive	Robert Forke	68	58	22	-62.1%	266,319	8.45%	-12.65%
	Labour	J.S. Woodsworth	20	3	2	-33.3%	56,987	1.81%	-0.93%
	Independent		8	2	2	-	16,212	0.51%	-2.52%
	United Farmers of Alberta		2	2	2	-	8,053	0.26%	-0.46%
	Independent Liberal		10	-	1		31,140	0.99%	+0.90%
	Independent Conservative		6	1	1	-	16,759	0.53%	+0.14%
	Unknown		5	-	-	-	20,583	0.65%	+0.16%
	Liberal-Protectionist		2	*	-	*	6,915	0.22%	*
	Independent Liberal-Progressive		1	*	-	*	4,958	0.16%	*
	Labour-Farmer		2	*	-	*	4,774	0.15%	*
	Liberal-Progressive		1	*	-	*	3,319	0.11%	*
	Independent Labour		1	*	-	*	2,901	0.09%	*
	Socialist		1	-	-	-	1,888	0.06%	-0.04%
	Independent Progressive		1	-	-	-	1,768	0.06%	-0.05%
	Farmer		1	*	-	*	1,130	0.04%	*
	Progressive-Conservative		1	*	-	*	1,120	0.04%	*
	Farmer-Labour		1	*	-	*	762	0.02%	*
Total			579	235	245	+3.8%	3,152,525	100%
Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Notes:

* not applicable - the party was not recognized in the previous election

[edit] Results by province

Party Name			BC	AB	SK	MB	ON	QC	NB	NS	PE	YK	Total
	Conservative	Seats:	10	3	-	7	67	4	10	11	2	1	115
	Conservative	Popular Vote (%):	49.3	31.8	25.4	41.3	56.3	34.2	59.7	56.4	33.1	59.4	46.1
	Liberal	Seats:	3	4	15	1	12	59	1	3	2	-	100
	Liberal	Vote (%):	34.7	27.6	41.9	20.3	30.9	59.6	37.0	41.9	52.0	40.6	39.7
	Progressive	Seats:	-	7	6	7	2						22
	Progressive	Vote (%):	6.1	26.5	31.8	25.1	8.8						8.5
	Labour	Seats:	-	-		2	-	-		-			2
	Labour	Vote:	6.3	6.1		9.6	1.2	0.2		1.6			1.8
	Independent	Seats:	1				-	1	-				2
	Independent	Vote (%):	2.6				0.6	1.4	0.8				0.5
	United Farmers of Alberta	Seats:		2									2
	United Farmers of Alberta	Vote (%):		5.0									0.3
	Independent Liberal	Seats:						1					1
	Independent Liberal	Vote (%):						3.8					1.0
	Independent Conservative	Seats:					1						1
	Independent Conservative	Vote (%):					1.4						0.5
Total Seats			14	16	21	17	82	65	11	14	4	1	245
Parties that won no seats:
	Unknown	Vote (%):			0.1		0.9	0.2			15.0		0.7
	Liberal-Protectionist	Vote (%):						0.9					0.2
	Independent Liberal-Progressive	Vote (%):							3.3				0.2
	Labour-Farmer	Vote (%):		3.0									0.2
	Liberal-Progressive	Vote (%):				1.9							0.1
	Independent Labour	Vote (%):				1.7							0.1
	Socialist	Vote (%):	1.0										0.1
	Independent Progressive	Vote (%):			0.9								0.1
	Farmer	Vote (%):						0.1					xx
	Progressive-Conservative	Vote (%):						0.1					xx
	Farmer-Labour	Vote (%):					0.1						xx