The Canadian federal election of 1930 was held on July 28, 1930 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons

Canadian House of Commons

The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...

 of the 17th Parliament

17th Canadian Parliament

The 17th Canadian Parliament was in session from September 8, 1930 until August 14, 1935. The membership was set by the 1930 federal election on July 28, 1930, and it changed only somewhat due to resignations and by-elections until it was dissolved prior to the 1935 election.It was controlled by a...

 of Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. Richard Bennett

R. B. Bennett

Richard Bedford Bennett, 1st Viscount Bennett, PC, KC was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, politician, and philanthropist. He served as the 11th Prime Minister of Canada from August 7, 1930, to October 23, 1935, during the worst of the Great Depression years...

's Conservative Party

Conservative Party of Canada (historical)

The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the...

 won a majority government

Majority government

A majority government is when the governing party has an absolute majority of seats in the legislature or parliament in a parliamentary system. This is as opposed to a minority government, where even the largest party wins only a plurality of seats and thus must constantly bargain for support from...

, defeating the Liberal Party

Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...

 led by Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Canada

The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...

 William Lyon Mackenzie King

William Lyon Mackenzie King

William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, OM, CMG was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921 to June 28, 1926; from September 25, 1926 to August 7, 1930; and from October 23, 1935 to November 15, 1948...

.

The first signs of the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 were clearly evident by the 1930 election, and Conservative party leader Richard Bennett campaigned on a platform of aggressive measures in order to combat it.

"I propose that any government of which I am the head will at the first session of parliament initiate whatever action is necessary to that end, or perish in the attempt." - Richard Bennett, June 9, 1930.

Part of the reason for Bennett's success lay in the Liberals' own handling of the rising unemployment of 1930. Touting the Liberal formula as the reason for the economic prosperity of the 1920s, for example, left the Liberals carrying much of the responsibility, whether deserved or not, for the consequences of the crash of the American stock market.
King was apparently oblivious to the rising unemployment that greeted the 1930s, and continued to laud his government's hand in Canada's prosperity. Demands for aid were met with accusations of being the part of a great "Tory conspiracy," which led King to make his famous "five-cent piece" outburst, alienating a growing number of voters. In retrospect, one can understand King's reasoning. Both the Western mayors and provincial Premiers who had visited King with requests of relief were overwhelmingly Conservative: in the Premiers' case, seven out of nine. King concluded in Parliamentary debates that though aid was a provincial jurisdiction, the fact that he believed there to be no unemployment problem meant that the requests from the provinces appeared to be nothing more than political grandstanding. The Federal Conservatives had certainly exaggerated the Depression in its early stages solely to attack King's government.

Several other factors entered into King's defeat. Though obtaining funds from sometimes dubious sources was not a problem, the Liberal election machine was not as efficient as it once was, primarily due to the cause of the age and poor health of many chief strategists. King's campaign was the epitome of Murphy's law

Murphy's law

Murphy's law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". - History :The perceived perversity of the universe has long been a subject of comment, and precursors to the modern version of Murphy's law are not hard to find. Recent significant...

: every campaign stop appeared to meet the Prime Minister with some kind of mishap.

By contrast, Bennett's Conservatives were electric. The self-made man who led them had practically rebuilt his party (a significant part of it with his own funds) and developed an election machine which could rival the Liberals'. Aside from superior party organization, the Tories used it. They bought out newspapers in key areas (notably the Liberal strongholds of the West, and Quebec) and ensured that pro-Tory slants were kept. In the first election where radio played an important role, Bennett's vibrant, zealous voice was extremely preferable to King's. (The Tory machine, of course, ensured that only the best radio spots were available to Bennett.)

Also, Bennett's tariff policy, epitomized by his infamous promise to "blast" Canada's way into world markets, was extremely well received in the key Liberal strongholds of the West and Quebec. In the West, agricultural production had been hurt by worldwide overproduction, and certain agricultural groups in Quebec firmly endorsed Bennett's tariff policy. Bennett's Conservatives won much of the former Progressive and Farmers' vote in the West, and they were elected with 44% of the popular vote in Quebec as a protest vote.

All those factors led to Bennett's eventual election.

Canadian voters agreed with Bennett and the Conservatives were elected with a majority of 134 seats in the House Of Commons. The incumbent Liberals under William Lyon Mackenzie King became the official opposition after being reduced to 90, with the Progressives taking only 3.

"Richard Bennett leads the Tories to a smashing federal victory, defeating Mackenzie King's Liberals as voters vent their anger over the depression." - Newspaper headline from July 28, 1930

Unfortunately for Bennett and the Conservatives, the Depression brought complex problems to politicians and extreme hardship for most Canadians. Bennett and the Conservatives lost the 1935 election

Canadian federal election, 1935

The Canadian federal election of 1935 was held on October 14, 1935 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 18th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of William Lyon Mackenzie King won a majority government, defeating Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's Conservative Party.The central...

 to the Liberals under the previous Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Canada

The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...

 William Lyon Mackenzie King.

The voter turnout was 73.5%.

National results

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
				1926 Canadian federal election, 1926 The Canadian federal election of 1926 was held on September 14 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 16th Parliament of Canada. The election was called following an event known as the King-Byng Affair...	Elected	% Change	#	%	% Change	Conservative Conservative Party of Canada (historical) The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the...	Richard Bennett R. B. Bennett Richard Bedford Bennett, 1st Viscount Bennett, PC, KC was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, politician, and philanthropist. He served as the 11th Prime Minister of Canada from August 7, 1930, to October 23, 1935, during the worst of the Great Depression years...	229	91	134	+69.6%	1,863,115	47.79%	+3.07%	Liberal Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...	Mackenzie King William Lyon Mackenzie King William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, OM, CMG was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921 to June 28, 1926; from September 25, 1926 to August 7, 1930; and from October 23, 1935 to November 15, 1948...	226	116	90	-21.1%	1,716,798	44.03%	+1.29%	United Farmers of Alberta United Farmers of Alberta The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...		10	11	9	-18.2%	56,968	1.46%	-0.55%	Progressive Progressive Party of Canada The Progressive Party of Canada was a political party in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers parties in several provinces and, in Manitoba, ran candidates and formed governments as the Progressive Party of Manitoba...		15	11	3	-72.7%	70,822	1.82%	-2.41%	Liberal-Progressive Liberal-Progressive Liberal-Progressive was a label used by a number of candidates in Canadian elections between 1926 and 1953. In federal and Ontario politics, there was no formal Liberal-Progressive party, but it was an alliance between two separate parties...		8	8	3	-62.5%	44,822	1.15%	-0.94%	Labour	J.S. Woodsworth	8	4	2	-50.0%	26,548	0.68%	-0.95%	Independent		11	2	2	-	21,608	0.55%	-0.30%	Progressive-Conservative Progressive-Conservative (candidate) The label Progressive-Conservative was used by some candidates for the Canadian House of Commons in the 1925, 1926, 1930 and 1935 federal elections...		2	-	1		15,996	0.41%	+0.18%	Independent Labour		2	*	1	*	15,988	0.41%	*	Independent Liberal		8	1	-	-100%	14,426	0.37%	-0.25%	Farmer Farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...		5	*	-	*	11,999	0.31%	*	Independent Conservative		6	-	-	-	10,360	0.27%	-0.07%	Unknown		2	-	-	-	7,441	0.19%	+0.08%	Liberal-Labour Liberal-Labour (Canada) The Liberal-Labour banner has also been used several times by candidates in Canadian elections:In the early twentieth century when the idea of trade unionists running for elected office under their own banner gained ground, several working class candidates on the provincial or federal level were...		1	-	-	-	7,195	0.18%	+0.05%	Communist Communist Party of Canada The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. Although is it currently a minor or small political party without representation in the Federal Parliament or in provincial legislatures, historically the Party has elected representatives in Federal Parliament, Ontario...	Tim Buck Tim Buck Timothy "Tim" Buck was a long-time leader of the Communist Party of Canada...	6	*	-	*	4,557	0.12%	*	Labour-Farmer		2	-	-	-	3,276	0.08%	+0.04%	Liberal-Protectionist		1	*	-	*	2,723	0.07%	*	Farmer-Labour		1	*	-	*	2,091	0.05%	*	Independent Progressive Progressive Party of Canada The Progressive Party of Canada was a political party in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers parties in several provinces and, in Manitoba, ran candidates and formed governments as the Progressive Party of Manitoba...		1	*	-	*	1,294	0.03%	*	Franc Lib		1	*	-	*	429	0.01%	*	Prohibitionist		1	*	-	*	266	0.01%	*
Total			546	245	245	-	3,898,722	100%
Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Note:

* The party did not nominate candidates in the previous election.

Results by province

Party name			BC British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...	AB Alberta Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...	SK Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....	MB Manitoba Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...	ON Ontario Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....	QC Quebec Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....	NB New Brunswick New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...	NS Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...	PE Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island is a Canadian province consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population...	YK Yukon Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....	Total | rowspan="2"|Conservative Conservative Party of Canada (historical) The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the...	Seats:	7	4	6	10	59	24	10	10	3	1	134	Popular vote (%):	49.3%	35.0%	33.6%	44.1%	53.9%	43.7%	59.3%	52.5%	50.0%	60.3%	47.8%	Liberal Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...	Seats:	5	3	13	1	22	40	1	4	1	-	90	Vote:	40.9%	30.0%	48.4%	19.6%	42.4%	53.2%	40.7%	47.5%	50.0%	39.7%	44.0%	UF Alberta United Farmers of Alberta The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...	Seats:		9									9	Vote:		28.4%									1.5%	Progressive Progressive Party of Canada The Progressive Party of Canada was a political party in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers parties in several provinces and, in Manitoba, ran candidates and formed governments as the Progressive Party of Manitoba...	Seats:		-	2	-	1						3	Vote:		1.9%	8.1%	6.4%	1.8%						1.8%	Liberal-Progressive Liberal-Progressive Liberal-Progressive was a label used by a number of candidates in Canadian elections between 1926 and 1953. In federal and Ontario politics, there was no formal Liberal-Progressive party, but it was an alliance between two separate parties...	Seats:			-	3							3	Vote:			2.1%	16.2%							1.2%	Labour	Seats:		-		2	-						2	Vote:		3.0		8.4	0.1						0.7	Independent	Seats:	1		-		-	1					2	Vote:	2.6		3.5		0.1	0.3					0.6	Progressive-Conservative Progressive-Conservative (candidate) The label Progressive-Conservative was used by some candidates for the Canadian House of Commons in the 1925, 1926, 1930 and 1935 federal elections...	Seats:				1		-					1	Vote:				2.7		1.0					0.4	Independent Labour	Seats:	1			-							1	Vote:	6.5			0.1							0.4
Total Seats			14	16	21	17	82	65	11	14	4	1	245
Parties that won no seats:														Independent Liberal	Vote:				0.4		1.3					0.4	Farmer Farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...	Vote:			3.6								0.3	Independent Conservative	Vote:				1.2	0.5	0.1						Unknown	Vote:					0.5						0.2	Liberal-Labour Liberal-Labour (Canada) The Liberal-Labour banner has also been used several times by candidates in Canadian elections:In the early twentieth century when the idea of trade unionists running for elected office under their own banner gained ground, several working class candidates on the provincial or federal level were...	Vote:					0.5						0.2	Communist Communist Party of Canada The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. Although is it currently a minor or small political party without representation in the Federal Parliament or in provincial legislatures, historically the Party has elected representatives in Federal Parliament, Ontario...	Vote:	0.4			0.9	0.1						0.1	Labour-Farmer	Vote :		0.6									0.1	Liberal-Protectionist	Vote:						0.3					0.1	Farmer-Labour	Vote:			0.6								0.1	Independent Progressive Progressive Party of Canada The Progressive Party of Canada was a political party in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers parties in several provinces and, in Manitoba, ran candidates and formed governments as the Progressive Party of Manitoba...	Vote:						0.1					xx	Franc Lib	Vote:	0.2										xx	Prohibitionist	Vote:	0.1										xx

• xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote

See also

• 17th Canadian Parliament
  17th Canadian Parliament
  The 17th Canadian Parliament was in session from September 8, 1930 until August 14, 1935. The membership was set by the 1930 federal election on July 28, 1930, and it changed only somewhat due to resignations and by-elections until it was dissolved prior to the 1935 election.It was controlled by a...
  
  
• List of Canadian federal general elections
• List of political parties in Canada