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Canadian federal election, 1874
206 seats in the 3rd Canadian Parliament
January 22, 1874
	Incumbent Prime Minister; John A. Macdonald; Conservative Prime Minister-designate; Alexander Mackenzie; Liberal

The Canadian parliament after the 1874 election

The Canadian federal election of 1874 was held on January 22, 1874, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 3rd Parliament of Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald, who had recently been forced out of office as prime minister, and his Conservatives were defeated by the Liberal Party under their new leader Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie.

Macdonald's government had been forced to resign on November 5, 1873 because of allegations of corruption relating to the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (see the Pacific Scandal). The Liberals under Mackenzie formed a government two days later with an election called for January. The Tories were unable to recover from the scandal and lost the election as a result.

The election was the first to use secret ballots in Canada.

Voter turn-out: 69.6%

[edit] National results

3rd Parliament
Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
Party		Party leader	# of candidates	1872	Elected	Change	#	%	Change
	Liberal	Alexander Mackenzie	140	95	129	+35.8%	128,455	39.49%	+4.77%
	Conservative	John A. Macdonald	65	63	39	-38.1%	57,691	17.74%	-8.02%
	Liberal-Conservative¹	John A. Macdonald	38	36	26	-27.8%	40,234	12.37%	-0.53%
	Conservative Labour		1	1	-	-100%	1,515	0.47%	+0.02%
	Independents		7	1	4	+300%	10,453	3.21%	+1.58%
	Independent Liberal		5	2	5	+300%	6,541	2.01%	+0.37%
	Independent Conservative		3	2	3	+50%	2,360	0.73%	+0.03%
	Unknown		104	-	-	-	78,008	23.98%	+1.78%
Total			355	200	206	+3.0%	325,247	100%
Source: Parliamentary website

Notes:

¹ Liberal-Conservatives sat with the Conservative caucus in the House of Commons.

Acclamations

The following Members of Parliament were elected by acclamation;

Ontario: 1 Liberal-Conservative, 13 Liberals
Quebec: 10 Conservatives, 4 Liberal-Conservatives, 15 Liberals
New Brunswick: 1 Conservative, 3 Liberals, 1 Independent Liberal
Nova Scotia: 5 Liberals
Prince Edward Island: 2 Liberals

[edit] Results by province

Party name			BC	MB	ON	QU	NB	NS	PEI	Total
	Liberal	Seats	3	1	61	34	10	15	5	129
	Liberal	Popular vote	34.1	47.0	39.6	34.8	47.1	38.1	56.8	39.5
	Conservative	Seats	1	1	15	17	2	2	1	39
	Conservative	Vote	4.5	13.8	19.5	17.6	6.8	17.8	17.5	17.7
	Liberal-Conservative	Seats	1		10	12	1	2	-	26
	Liberal-Conservative	Vote	16.9		10.4	14.9	8.6	19.2	15.4	12.4
	Conservative Labour	Seats			-					-
	Conservative Labour	Vote			0.9					0.5
	Unknown	Seats
	Unknown	Vote	29.2	13.8	27.2	27.5	19.9	9.0	10.3	24.0
	Independent	Seats		1	-	-	2	1		4
	Independent	Vote		9.5	0.8	2.3	17.6	7.7		3.2
	Independent Liberal	Seats	1		2		1	1		5
	Independent Liberal	Vote	15.4		1.7			8.2		2.0
	Independent Conservative	Seats		1		2				3
	Independent Conservative	Vote		15.9		2.9				0.7
Total seats			6	4	88	65	16	21	6	206

[edit] See also

For a list of candidates elected in the 1874 election, see 3rd Canadian Parliament.

For changes between the 1874 and 1878 elections, see By-elections of the 3rd Canadian Parliament.