Alberta general election, 1940

Alberta general election, 1940

March 21, 1940 (1940-03-21)

57 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta 29 seats were needed for a majority   Majority party Minority party   Leader William Aberhart Andrew Davison Party Social Credit Independent Movement Leader since September 3, 1935 1940 Leader's seat Calgary Calgary Last election 56 seats, 54.2% pre-creation Seats before 47 — Seats won 36 19 Seat change 11 — Popular vote 132,507 131,172 Percentage 42.9% 42.5% Swing 11.3% —   Third party Fourth party   Leader unknown Edward L. Gray Party Labour Liberal Leader since — June 4, 1937 Leader's seat — ran in unknown Last election 0 seats, 1.7% 5 seats, 23.1% Seats before 0 6 Seats won 1 1 Seat change 1 5 Popular vote 3,258 2,755 Percentage 1.1% 0.9% Swing 0.6% 22.2%

Premier before election William Aberhart Social Credit Premier-designate William Aberhart Social Credit

The Alberta general election of 1940 was the ninth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada, was held on March 21, 1940 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.

Despite its failure to implement its key policy, providing prosperity certificates to all Albertans, the Social Credit Party of Premier William Aberhart won a second term in government. Nevertheless, it lost a considerable number of seats that it had gained in the 1935 landslide.

Unity Movement

The Conservative and Liberal parties as well as the remains of the United Farmers, recognizing the widespread popularity of the Social Credit party, ran joint candidates as independents in what was called the "Independent Movement" or the "Unity Movement". Although independent candidates won almost as many votes as Social Credit, the strategy was unsuccessful in preventing Social Credit from winning a majority of the seats in the legislature.

The Liberal party under leader Edward Gray chose only to support Independent candidates that it played a hand in nominating and it nominated other candidates under its own banner. Gray felt that candidates should not be machined into the field and left it up to the individual Liberal constituency associations to decide if they would support a candidate or not.^[1]

Co-operative Commonwealth

The social democratic Cooperative Commonwealth Federation nominated candidates for the first time, but failed to win any seats in the legislature, despite winning over 10% of the popular vote under the leadership of former United Farmers of Alberta MLA Chester Ronning. Like Ronning, most of the CCF's candidates had run in the 1935 election for the UFA.

Results

Notes:

¹ First vote count used.

Members elected

For complete electoral history, see individual districts

References

See also

• List of Alberta political parties

Elections and referendums in Alberta
General elections	1905 1909 1913 1917 1921 1926 1930 1935 1940 1944 1948 1952 1955 1959 1963 1967 1971 1975 1979 1982 1986 1989 1993 1997 2001 2004 2008 2012 2015 next
Senate nominee elections	1989 1998 2004 2012
Municipal elections	1968 1971 1974 1977 1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013
Referendums	1915 1920 1923 1948 1957 1967 1971
See also: List of Alberta by-elections