CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTION, 1867

The 'Canadian federal election of 1867', held from August 7 to September 20, was the first election for the new nation of Canada. It was held to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 1st Parliament of Canada.
The Conservative Party of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald won a majority of seats and votes in Ontario and Quebec. (Its candidates ran either as "Conservatives" or "Liberal-Conservatives".) Quebec and Ontario had previously been united as The Province of Canada with Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier's Liberal-Conservative coalition forming the government.
Officially, the Liberal Party of Canada had no leader, however while George Brown did not hold an official position in the party, he was generally considered the party's leader in the election campaign, and would have likely been Prime Minister in the unlikely event that the Liberals prevailed over Macdonald in the election. As it was, Brown ran concurrently for seats in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario and the Canadian House of Commons and hoped to become Premier of Ontario. However, he failed to win a seat in either body, and the Liberals remained officially leaderless until 1873.
Prior to Confederation, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick did not have formalized Liberal and Conservative parties. Political groups in those two provinces joined one of the two Province of Canada parties. Both provinces had weak Conservative parties. Opponents of the Conservatives joined the Liberal Party of Canada, which took the majority of seats and votes in both provinces. In Nova Scotia, opponents of the Conservatives (and of Confederation itself) ran as Anti-Confederates, but later sat with the Liberal Caucus.
Elections held in the previous year in the Provinces of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia focused on the issue of whether or not to form a confederation.
Voter turn-out: 73.1%
For a list of candidates elected in the 1867 election, and in by-elections prior to 1872, see 1st Canadian parliament.

Contents

Election results

National

Results by province

External links

Election results

National

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	'Elected'	Popular vote
					#	%	Conservative	Sir John A. Macdonald	80	'71'	62,992	23.45%	Liberal-Conservative1	32	'29'	29,730	11.08%	Liberal	George Brown (unofficial)	65	'62'	60,818	22.67%	Anti-Confederation2	Joseph Howe	20	'18'	21,239	7.92%	Independents		1	-	1,756	0.65%	Liberal-Independent		1	-	1,048	0.39%	Unknown		142	-	90,804	33.84%
'Total'			'341'	'180'	'268,317'	'100%'
'Source:' History of Federal Ridings since 1867

'Notes:'
¹ Liberal-Conservatives sat with the Conservative Party in the House of Commons.
² Anti-Confederates sat with the Liberal Party in the House of Commons.
'Acclamations'


The following MPs were acclaimed:

★ Ontario: 3 Conservative, 3 Liberal-Conservatives, 9 Liberals

★ Quebec: 14 Conservatives, 5 Liberal-Conservatives, 4 Liberals

★ New Brunswick: 1 Conservative, 3 Liberals

★ Nova Scotia: 4 Anti-Confederates

Results by province

Party name			Ontario	Quebec	NB	NS	Total	Conservative	Seats	33	36	1	1	71	Popular vote	26.2%	28.5%		13.8%	23.2%	Liberal-Conservative	Seats	16	11	2	-	29	Vote	12.5%	12.3%	11.1%	3.5%	11.1%	Liberal	Seats	33	17	12		62	Vote	23.7%	25.2%	49.5%		22.7%	Anti-Confederation	Seats				18	18	Vote				58.2%	7.9%	Unknown	Seats	-	-	-	-	-	Vote	35.6%	34.1%	39.3%	24.4%	34.0%	Independent	Seats	-				-	Vote	1.3%				0.7%	Independent Liberal	Seats	-				-	Vote	0.7%				0.4%
'Total seats'			82	64	15	19	180

External links

★ Map of electoral districts coloured for each party