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1940 Alberta general election

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1940 Alberta general election

← 1935 March 21, 1940 (1940-03-21) 1944 →
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57 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta 29 seats were needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   IM 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   LAB LIB Leader unknown Edward L. Gray Party Labour Liberal Leader since — June 4, 1937 Leader's seat — ran in Edmonton presumably 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 after election William Aberhart Social Credit

The 1940 Alberta general election 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 eleven seats that it had won in the 1935 landslide.

This provincial election, like the previous three, saw district-level proportional representation (Single transferable voting) used to elect the MLAs of Edmonton and Calgary. City-wide districts were used to elect multiple MLAs in the cities. All the other MLAs were elected in single-member districts through Instant-runoff voting.

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, their support was dispersed across many areas so few of the movement's candidates took a majority of the votes (required under Instant-runoff voting to take the seat) so the movement's overall vote tally did not translate into its due share of seats overall. The Independent Movement lost a number of races by small margins. However, due to the Parliamentary system, which awards power solely on the basis of seats won, Social Credit was returned for a second term, albeit with a considerably reduced majority.

The Liberals under leader Edward Gray chose only to support Independent candidates that they played a hand in nominating, and 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]

This would be the most opposition that Social Credit would face until 1959.

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.

An Act was passed in 1939 that provided for the reduction of the number of MLAs from 63 to 57, upon the next election.^[2] Calgary and Edmonton now returned five MLAs each instead of six, and the following other changes were made:

Elections to the 9th Alberta Legislative Assembly (1940)

Party		Leader	Candidates	First-preference votes						Seats
				Votes	±	% Fpv	Change (pp)			1935	1940	±
	Social Credit	William Aberhart	56	132,507	31,193	42.90	-11.35			56	36 / 57	20
	Independent Movement[a 1]	Andrew Davison	57	130,603	11,178	42.28	2.51		2.51	6	19 / 57	13
	Liberal	Edward Gray	2	2,755	483	0.89	0.14		0.14	1	1 / 57
	Labour		2	3,258	1,828	1.05	-0.63			–	1 / 57	1
	Co-operative Commonwealth	Chester Ronning	36	34,316	34,316	11.11	11.11		11.11
	Independent Liberal		1	1,136	181	0.37	0.06		0.06
	Communist		1	1,067	4,704	0.35	-1.56
	Independent[a 2]		2	569	2,171	0.18	-0.72
	Independent Labour		1	251	27	0.08	0.01		0.01
	Independent Progressive		4	1,726	1,726	0.56
	Independent Social Credit		1	362	362	0.12
	Independent Farmer		2	314	314	0.10
Total			165	308,864		100.00%
Rejected ballots				10,615	2,346
Turnout				319,479	9,458	74.8%	7.0
Registered voters				427,335	49,086

  = Open seat

  = turnout is above provincial average

  = Candidate was in previous Legislature

  = Incumbent had switched allegiance

  = Previously incumbent in another riding

  = Not incumbent; was previously elected to the Legislature

  = Incumbency arose from by-election gain

  = previously an MP in the House of Commons of Canada

  = Multiple candidates

  = Candidate was in previous Legislature

  = First-time MLA

  = Previously incumbent in another district.

Twenty-eight districts went beyond first-preference counts in order to determine winning candidates:

The Independent Movement (also called the "Citizens' Slate) fielded six candidates for the five seats. The other parties nominated fewer candidates than the maximum seats sought.

Party		Candidates			MLAs elected
		1940	1935	±	1940	1935	±
	Independent Movement	6	–	6	3	–	3
	Social Credit	4	6	2	2	4	2
	Co-operative Commonwealth	2	–	2	–	–	–
	Independent Labour	1	1		–	–	–
	Independent	1	1		–	–	–
	Conservative	–	4	4	–	1	1
	Liberal	–	4	4	–	1	1
	Labour	–	3	3	–	–	–
	Communist	–	1	1	–	–	–
Total		14	20	6	5	6	1

The Independent Movement presented seven candidates for the five seats being contested.

Party		Candidates			MLAs elected
		1940	1935	±	1940	1935	±
	Independent Movement	7	–	7	3	–	3
	Social Credit	5	6	1	2	2
	Co-operative Commonwealth	3	–	3	–	–	–
	Independent Progressive	2	–	2	–	–	–
	Independent	1	–	1	–	–	–
	Communist	1	1		–	–	–
	Conservative	–	6	6	–	1	1
	Liberal	–	6	6	–	3	3
	United Farmers	–	1	1	–	–	–
	Labour	–	6	6	–	–	–
	Reconstruction	–	1	1	–	–	–
Total		19	27	8	5	6	1

• Bell, Edward A. (1993). Social classes and Social Credit in Alberta. McGill-Queens's University Press. ISBN 9780773564596.

• Irvine, William (1940). C.C.F. Provincial Policy (PDF). Co-operative Commonwealth Federation of Alberta.
• Manifesto (PDF). Willingdon, Alberta: United Farmers of Alberta. 1940.

• List of Alberta political parties