1908 Ontario general election
The 1908 Ontario general election was the 12th general election held in the Province of Ontario, Canada. It was held on June 8, 1908, to elect the 106 Members of the 12th Legislative Assembly of Ontario ("MLAs").[1]
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106 seats in the 12th Legislative Assembly of Ontario 54 seats were needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Ontario Conservative Party, led by Sir James P. Whitney, was elected for a second term in government, increasing its majority in the Legislature significantly.
The Ontario Liberal Party, led by Alexander Grant MacKay, continued to lose seats.
Allan Studholme became the province's first Labour MLA as the result of a 1906 Hamilton East by-election. He was re-elected in the 1908 general election and would remain in the legislature until his death in 1919.
The four Toronto districts each elected two members in this election. Each seat was contested separately, with each voter in the district allowed to vote for a candidate in each contest.
Expansion of the Legislative Assembly
The number of electoral districts was increased from 97 to 102, under an Act passed in 1902, returning a total of 106 MLAs.[2] The following electoral changes were made:
- Fort William and Lake of the Woods was split into Fort William and Kenora
- Port Arthur and Rainy River was split into Port Arthur and Rainy River
- Nipissing East was divided into Nipissing and Timiskaming
- Nipissing West was divided into Sudbury and Sturgeon Falls
- Cardwell was renamed Simcoe South, after the transfer of Albion and Bolton to Peel
- The three ridings of Huron County were reorganized:
- Huron South gained from Huron West the remainder of the Township of Goderich not previously included in it, in exchange for Seaforth
- Huron East and Huron West were reorganized into Huron North and Huron Centre respectively
- Ottawa was divided into Ottawa East and Ottawa West
- Toronto East, Toronto North, Toronto South and Toronto West now returned two MLAs each, elected separately in seats labelled A and B in each district.
Electoral system
The eight Toronto MPPs were elected in two-seat districts. Plurality block voting was used in these districts.
The other 94 MPPs were elected through First-past-the-post voting in single-member districts.
Results
| Political party | Party leader | MPPs | Votes | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidates | 1905 | Dissol. | 1908 | ± | # | % | ± (pp) | |||
| Conservative | James P. Whitney | 106 | 69 | 86 | 17 |
248,194 | 55.10% | 1.73 | ||
| Liberal | Alexander Grant MacKay | 90 | 28 | 19 | 9 |
177,719 | 39.45% | 5.16 | ||
| Labour | 8 | – | 1 | 1 |
7,842 | 1.74% | New | |||
| Independent-Liberal | 2 | 1 | – | 1 |
1,470 | 0.33% | 0.87 | |||
| Independent-Conservative | 5 | – | – | – | 6,107 | 1.36% | 1.34 | |||
| Independent | 5 | – | – | – | 3,042 | 0.68% | 0.66 | |||
| Socialist | 14 | – | – | – | 2,891 | 0.64% | 0.35 | |||
| Progressive | 1 | – | – | – | 2,187 | 0.49% | New | |||
| Liberal-Temperance | 1 | – | – | – | 1,017 | 0.23% | New | |||
| Prohibitionist | – | – | – | Did not campaign | ||||||
| Temperance | – | – | – | Did not campaign | ||||||
| Vacant | ||||||||||
| Total | 232 | 98 | 98 | 106 | 450,469 | 100.00% | ||||
| Blank and invalid ballots | 6,765 | |||||||||
| Registered voters / turnout | 681,564 | 72.68% | 5.59 | |||||||
| Party | Seats | Votes | Change (pp) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 86 / 106 | 55.10% | 1.73 | |||
| Liberal | 19 / 106 | 39.45% | -5.16 | |||
| Other | 1 / 106 | 5.45% | 3.43 | |||
Division and reorganization of ridings
The newly created ridings returned the following MLAs:
| 1905 | 1908 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Riding | Party | Riding | Party |
| Fort William and Lake of the Woods | █ Conservative | Fort William | █ Conservative |
| Kenora | █ Conservative | ||
| Port Arthur and Rainy River | █ Liberal | Port Arthur | █ Conservative |
| Rainy River | █ Conservative | ||
| Nipissing East | █ Conservative | Nipissing | █ Conservative |
| Timiskaming | █ Conservative | ||
| Nipissing West | █ Conservative | Sudbury | █ Conservative |
| Sturgeon Falls | █ Conservative | ||
| Ottawa | █ Liberal (2 MLAs) |
Ottawa East | █ Liberal |
| Ottawa West | █ Conservative | ||
| Toronto East | █ Conservative | Seat A | █ Conservative |
| Seat B | █ Conservative | ||
| Toronto North | █ Conservative | Seat A | █ Conservative |
| Seat B | █ Conservative | ||
| Toronto South | █ Conservative | Seat A | █ Conservative |
| Seat B | █ Conservative | ||
| Toronto West | █ Conservative | Seat A | █ Conservative |
| Seat B | █ Conservative | ||
| Huron East | █ Liberal | Huron North | █ Conservative |
| Huron West | █ Liberal | Huron Centre | █ Liberal |
Seats that changed hands
| Party | 1905 | Gain from (loss to) | 1908 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Con | Lib | I-Lib | Lab | ||||||||
| Conservative | 62 | 14 | (8) | 1 | (1) | 68 | |||||
| Liberal | 23 | 8 | (14) | 17 | |||||||
| Independent-Liberal | 1 | (1) | – | ||||||||
| Labour | – | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Total | 86 | 9 | (15) | 14 | (8) | 1 | – | – | (1) | 86 | |
Of the unaltered seats, there were 24 that changed allegiance in the election:
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See also
References
- "1908 General Election". Elections Ontario. Elections Ontario. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
- The Representation Act, 1908, S.O. 1908, c. 2
Further reading
- Hopkins, J. Castell (1909). The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs, 1908. Toronto: The Annual Review Publishing Company.
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