The 1919 Ontario general election, held on October 20, 1919, elected 111 Members of the 15th Legislative Assembly of Ontario ("MLAs"). The United Farmers of Ontario captured the most seats but won only a minority of the legislature. They joined with 11 Labour MPPs and three others to form a coalition government, ending the 14-year rule of Ontario's Conservatives. This is one of the few examples of coalition government in Canadian history.
Premier William Howard Hearst had aimed to win a fifth consecutive term for the Conservatives, but instead the party became the first in Ontario history to fall from first to third place. As newspaperman John Willison later remarked, "There could not have been a worse time for a general election."
Campaign The parties tended to have a targeted approach in fielding their candidates:
+ Candidates in the contests in the ridingsCandidates nominated Contests PartyConLibUFOLabIndFarm-LabInd-LibInd-ConSocFarm-LibSoldierSold-LabTotalsAcclamation 4 4 42 48 44 15 31 2 2 1 1 963 50 45 44 31 13 8 4 2 1 1 1 1504 8 8 5 3 4 3 1 2 2 2 1 1 325 –6 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 6Total 111 102 65 66 20 13 5 5 3 3 2 2 2 288
Toronto was divided into four districts, each with two seats and two separate contests.
Toronto Northeast A saw a Conservative elected by acclamation. Toronto Northeast B saw a four-way fight. Toronto Northwest saw two two-candidate fights. Toronto Southeast had two two-candidate fights. The Toronto Southwest A contest was a two-candidate fight. Toronto Southeast B saw a three-way fight.
Acclamation victories occurred in the Toronto Northeast A contest, as well as in the Addington, Hasting North and Kingston contests.
It was the first election in which women could vote and run for office. Election day was also held on the same day as the scheduled referendum on prohibition.
Conservatives Hearst alienated the business community with his progressive policies; he had a rift with Adam Beck (London) over the direction of the Ontario Hydro-Electric Commission; and his promotion of prohibition alienated the urban "wets".
Only the Conservatives attempted to field a full slateand were helped by having four candidates being declared elected by acclamationbut about two dozen incumbents decided to step aside in favour of the local farmer candidates.
Seventeen Conservative MLAs either retired from the Legislature, or had failed to be renominated. Arthur Pratt (Norfolk South) opted to campaign as an Independent-Conservative, claiming earlier in the year that at least 27 MLAs privately opposed Hearst's prohibition policy.
Beck also decided to stand as an Independent, saying, "I do not object to the Government having a control of the Hydro enterprise, but I object to its becoming a Government department; only as an Independent can I look after the interests of Hydro-Electric Power for the people of the Province in the most efficient manner."
Liberals The Liberals split between those still loyal to former leader Newton Rowell and his successor William Proudfoot (Huron Centre), and those who supported the new leader, Hartley Dewart. John Campbell Elliott (Middlesex West) (who had come in 3rd in the 1919 leadership contest), joined by five others, decided to drop out of the race.
They tried to avoid direct contests with UFO candidates, fielding candidates in only 66 ridings as opposed to the 90 named in the 1914 election. In many respects, however, they underestimated the discontent that was simmering among rural Ontarians, and Dewart focused his attention unnecessarily against the Conservative campaign manager George Howard Ferguson.
Proudfoot opted to campaign as an Independent.
United Farmers The UFO focused on rural areas. Its leader, R.H. Halbert, did not campaign, as he had been elected to the House of Commons of Canada in an earlier by-election. It had only two incumbent MPPs, Beniah Bowman and John Wesley Widdifield, who had entered the legislature by winning by-elections in Manitoulin and Ontario North.
Labour The labour political movement was fragmented between the Independent Labour Party, the Ontario section of the Canadian Labour Party, and the Ontario Labour Educational Association and its newspaper The Industrial Banner. The ILP was the effective organization on the campaign trail that year, and it promoted joint action with the UFO.
Media in the campaign Media support in the campaign was mixed. The Globe and The Toronto Star, at that time both Liberal in outlook, were hostile against Dewart because of his stand on temperance issues. The Toronto World, generally a Conservative backer, pursued a simmering scandal from 1916 concerning International Nickel and alleged provincial support of wartime shipments of the metal to Germany via the cargo submarine Deutschland. at 34 The Farmer's Sun, recently acquired by the UFO, was an enthusiastic promoter of farmer policies.
Electoral system Of the 111 seats, 103 were from single-member constituencies elected through first-past-the-post voting. The remaining eight came from four dual-member ridings in Toronto, each of which had parallel contests voting separately for seat A and seat B, each under FPTP.
Synopsis of results
Post-election pendulum
The robustness of the margins of victory for each party can be summarized in electoral pendulums. These are not necessarily a measure of the volatility of the respective riding results. The following tables show the margins over the various 2nd-place contenders, for which one-half of the value represents the swing needed to overturn the result. Actual seat turnovers to the opposition parties in the 1919 election are noted for reference.
= seats that opposition parties gained in the election
Coalition (58 seats)Margins 5% or less Northumberland East Con0.98 Lanark North Con1.18 Essex South Lib1.51 Huron Centre Ind1.97 Renfrew North Con2.38 Hastings East Con2.44 Renfrew South Con3.06 Niagara Falls Lib3.48 Simcoe East Con3.89 Wentworth South Con4.07Margins 5%10% Oxford South Con5.52 Grey Centre Con5.74 Peterborough West Lib6.01 Dufferin Con7.00 Simcoe South Con7.36 London Ind7.88 Bruce North Lib8.17 Ontario North Con8.24 Riverdale Lab8.31 Lambton West Lab8.64 Wellington West Con9.20 Halton Con9.54 Huron South Con9.84 Grey South Con9.98 Lanark South Con9.99Margins 10%20% Kent East Con10.56 Grey North Con11.84 Carleton Con12.48 Wellington East Con12.48 Brant Con12.59 Elgin West Con14.22 St. Catharines Con14.58 Durham East Con15.78 Simcoe Centre Con15.78 Victoria North Con15.88 Peterborough East Con16.36 Brant South Lib17.27 Sault Ste. Marie Con18.22 Dundas Con18.90 Elgin East Con18.94 Haldimand Con19.66Margins > 20% Manitoulin Con20.40 Fort William Lib20.80 Middlesex North Con22.18 Glengarry Lib24.20 Norfolk South I-Con25.34 Kenora Ind25.79 Norfolk North Con26.18 Lambton East Con28.01 Perth South Con28.40 Middlesex East Lib28.53 Hamilton East S-Lab28.55 Waterloo South Lib29.12 Hamilton West Con32.07 Victoria South Con37.94 Essex North Con42.18 Wentworth North Con44.42 Middlesex West Con51.18
Liberal (27 seats)Margins 5% or less Algoma Con0.61 Bruce West UFO1.30 Toronto NW - B Con1.60Margins 5%10% Lincoln UFO6.16 Parry Sound Con8.98 Russell UFO9.59Margins 10%20% Northumberland West Con10.64 Perth North UFO11.21 Prince Edward Con11.56 Bruce South UFO12.24 Durham West Con12.40 Nipissing Lab12.70 Brockville Con12.94 Stormont UFO13.43 Prescott UFO15.67 Welland Con16.49 Kent West UFO17.31 Toronto SE - A Con17.55 Toronto SW - B Con18.10 Cochrane Con18.69Margins > 20% Oxford North Con20.51 Windsor Con27.18 Toronto SW - A Con27.72 Ontario South Con27.94 Toronto SE - B Con33.84 Ottawa East Lab38.54 Sturgeon Falls Con41.46Conservative (25 seats)AcclaimedAddington Hastings North Kingston Toronto NE - A Margins 5% or less Timiskaming F-Lab0.89 Peel Lib0.93 Grenville UFO1.00 Wellington South Lib1.01 Sudbury Lib1.62 York North Lib2.63 Ottawa West Lab4.21 Hastings West Lib4.38 Muskoka Lib4.39 Huron North Lib4.43Margins 5%10% Lennox Lib5.39 York East UFO6.87 York West F-Lab7.61 Port Arthur Lib7.74 Toronto NW - A Lib7.86 Frontenac UFO7.99 Leeds Lib9.18 Rainy River Lib9.92Margins 10%20% Simcoe West UFO10.92 Toronto NE - B I-Con17.59Margins > 20% Parkdale Ind37.90Independent-Liberal (1 seat) Waterloo North Lab13.85
Impact The result was highly skewed as a result of the way the ridings were drawn up. The Ottawa Journal noted, "The arrangement of electoral districts in Ontario (and throughout Canada) is such that a farmer’s vote has practically twice the effect of the vote of any person resident in cities or large towns. Ottawa, for instance, with 110,000 population elects two members to the Ontario Legislature; Carleton County on one side with 20,000 people elects one member; Russell County on the other side has a population of 40,000 and elects one member."
The UFO emerged from the vote with the largest bloc of seats, joining the eleven Labour MLAs to form a coalition government. Liberal-UFO MLA David James Taylor of Grey North, "Soldier" MLA Joseph McNamara of Riverdale and Labour-UFO MLA Karl Homuth of Waterloo South were also members of the governing caucus giving Drury's coalition 58 seats in total, a slight majority.
The Ontario Liberal Party, led by Hartley Dewart, increased the size of its caucus by a small number, despite turning over more than half the seats held. The Conservative Party lost ground to all other parties, despite receiving the most votes.
The election had several sweeping results:
only about two dozen MPPs from the previous Legislative Assembly were re-elected; notably, Conservative William Hearst was defeated by a Labour candidate; Beck and Proudfoot were also defeated by Labour candidates, despite the decision of the Conservatives and Liberals not to contest the seats; three clergymen were elected; eighteen returned soldiers were elected; and all anti-Prohibition candidates were defeated.
Upon hearing the news of the Conservative defeat, Hearst noted:
Three days after the election, James J. Morrison, Secretary of the UFO, reported on the way he had addressed the need to form a working majority in the chamber. He released the following statement:
Ernest C. Drury agreed to lead the new government as Premier of Ontario, and a UFO-Labour coalition cabinet was formed. Although he was vice-president of the UFO, Drury had not been a candidate in the election and had to run in a by-election to enter the legislature following his appointment to the office of Premier.
Results overview
! colspan=2 rowspan=2 | Political party ! rowspan=2 | Party leader ! colspan=5 | MPPs ! colspan=3 | Votes |- ! Candidates !1914 !Dissol. !1919 !± !# !% ! ± (pp) |- |rowspan="7" | |style="text-align:left;" colspan="10"|UFO-Labour Coalition |- |style="text-align:left;" | |style="text-align:left;"|– |66 |– |2 |44 |44 |248,274 |20.97%
|style="text-align:left;" | |style="text-align:left;"|Walter Rollo |21 |1 |1 |11 |10 |107,588 |9.09% |7.75 |- |style="text-align:left;" | |style="text-align:left;"| |5 |– |– |1 |1 |27,841 |2.35%
|style="text-align:left;" | |style="text-align:left;"| |2 |– |– |1 |1 |7,448 |0.63%
|style="text-align:left;" | |style="text-align:left;"| |2 |– |– |1 |1 |9,618 |0.81%
|style="text-align:left;" colspan="5"|Coalition Total |58 | |400,679 |33.85% |
|style="text-align:left;"|Hartley Dewart |66 |24 |27 |27 |3 |301,995 |25.51% |12.41
|style="text-align:left;"|William Hearst |103 |84 |79 |25 |59 |403,655 |34.09% |19.78
|style="text-align:left;"| |1 |1 |1 |1 | |5,354 |0.45% |0.01
|style="text-align:left;"|Liberal-Temperance |style="text-align:left;"| |– |1 |1 |– |1 |colspan="3"|Did not campaign
|style="text-align:left;"| |14 |– |– |– |– |48,244 |4.07% |3.08
|style="text-align:left;"| |3 |– |– |– |– |14,213 |1.20% |0.81
|style="text-align:left;"| |2 |– |– |– |– |9,088 |0.77% |
|style="text-align:left;"| |3 |– |– |– |– |637 |0.05%