British Columbia general election, 1952

The British Columbia general election, 1952 was the 23rd general election in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. It was held to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. The election was called on April 10, 1952, and held on June 12, 1952. The new legislature met for the first time on February 3, 1953. It was the first general election to use a preferential ballot.

This system had been designed to enable the Conservative and Liberal parties to keep the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation out of power. Unexpectedly, due to an elimination ballot system, also meant to forestall a CCF victory, this enabled Social Credit to win the largest number of seats with the benefit of second-preference ballots from Conservative and Liberal voters, and also from CCF voters.

The British Columbia Social Credit League (BCSCL) nominated and supported the candidates (who were BCSCL members) but in assuming power, the new government referred to itself as Social Credit.

W.A.C. Bennett was a member of the legislature who had left the Progressive Conservative Party to sit as an independent after failing in his bid to become leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1951. In December of that year, he took out a membership in the Social Credit League. Social Credit fell short of holding a majority after the election, however. Bennett had succeeded in convincing Tom Uphill, a Labour member of the Legislature (MLA), to support the party, and so the Socreds were able to form a minority government.

The party had no official leader. In a vote of the newly elected caucus, Bennett defeated Phil Gaglardi for the position of party leader and became premier-elect on July 15, 1952.

The centre-right coalition formed by the Liberal and Conservative parties in order to defeat the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in the 1945 and 1949 elections split, and the two parties nominated candidates under their own names. The Conservative Party adopted the "Progressive Conservative" name used by its federal counterpart.

Results

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
				1949	Elected	% Change	First count	%	Change	Final count	%
	Social Credit	WAC Bennett	47	-	19	-	209,049	27.20%	+25.99%	203,932	30.18%
	Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Harold Winch	48	7	18	+157.1%	236,562	30.78%	-4.32%	231,756	34.3%
	Liberal	Byron Ingemar Johnson	48	39^1	6	n/a^1	180,289	23.46%	n/a^1	170,674	25.26%
	Progressive Conservative	Herbert Anscomb	48		4		129,439	16.84%		65,285	9.66%
	Labour	Tom Uphill	1	1	1	-	1,290	0.16%	-0.05%	1,758	0.26%
	Christian Democratic		8	*	0	*	7,176	0.93%	*	1,318	0.2%
	Labour Progressive		5	-	-	-	2,514	0.33%	+0.09%	931	0.14%
	Independents		5	1	-	-100%	1,312	0.17%	-0.57%	-	-
	Labour Representation Committee		1	*	0	*	654	0.09%	*	-	-
	Socialist		1	*	0	*	276	0.04%	*	-	-
Total			212	48	48	-	768,561	100%	-	675,654	100%
Source: Elections BC

Note:

* Party did not nominate candidates in the previous election.

¹ In the previous election, the Liberal and Conservative parties ran candidates jointly as "Coalition" candidates, electing 39 MLAs. The Conservatives withdrew from the coalition in 1951 hastening the government's collapse.

Results by riding

Results of British Columbia general election, 1952
Government				Opposition
	Member	Riding & party		Riding & party		Member
	William Ralph Talbot Chetwynd	Cariboo BC Social Credit League			Alberni Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Stanley John Squire
	William Kenneth Kiernan	Chilliwack BC Social Credit League			Atlin Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Frank Calder
	Richard Orr Newton	Columbia BC Social Credit League			Burnaby Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Ernest Edward Winch
	Thomas Irwin	Delta BC Social Credit League			Comox Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	William Campbell Moore
	Lyle Wicks	Dewdney BC Social Credit League			Cowichan-Newcastle Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Robert Martin Strachan
	Llewllyn Leslie King	Fort George BC Social Credit League			Cranbrook Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Leo Thomas Nimsick
	Philip Arthur Gaglardi	Kamloops BC Social Credit League			Esquimalt Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Frank Mitchell
	Wesley Drewett Black	Nelson-Creston BC Social Credit League			Grand Forks-Greenwood Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Rupert Haggen
	Lorne Shantz	North Okanagan BC Social Credit League			Kaslo-Slocan Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Randolph Harding
	Cyril Morley Shelford	Omineca BC Social Credit League			Mackenzie Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Anthony John Gargrave
	Charles William Parker	Peace River BC Social Credit League			New Westminster Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Rae Eddie
	Robert Edward Sommers	Rossland-Trail BC Social Credit League			Prince Rupert Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	George Edwin Hills
	James Allan Reid	Salmon Arm BC Social Credit League			Revelstoke Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Vincent Segur
	Harry Denyer Francis	Similkameen BC Social Credit League			Saanich Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Frank Snowsell
	William Andrew Cecil Bennett	South Okanagan BC Social Credit League			Vancouver Centre Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	James Campbell Bury
	Eric Charles Fitzgerald Martin	Vancouver-Burrard BC Social Credit League				Laura Emma Marshall Jamieson
	Bert Price				Vancouver East Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Arthur James Turner
	Tilly Rolston	Vancouver-Point Grey BC Social Credit League				Harold Edward Winch
	Irvine Finlay Corbett	Yale BC Social Credit League			Fernie Labour	Thomas Aubert Uphill
					Lillooet Progressive Conservative	Ernest Crawford Carson
					Nanaimo and the Islands Progressive Conservative	Larry Giovando
					Vancouver-Point Grey Progressive Conservative	Albert Reginald MacDougall
						George Clark Miller
					Skeena Liberal	Edward Tourtellotte Kenney
					North Vancouver Liberal	Martin Elliott Sowden
					Oak Bay Liberal	Philip Archibald Gibbs
					Victoria City Liberal	Nancy Hodges
						Daniel John Proudfoot
						William Thomas Straith
Source: Elections BC

Further reading

• Argyle, Ray. Turning Points: The Campaigns That Changed Canada - 2011 and Before (2011) excerpt and text search ch 11

See also

• List of British Columbia political parties
• History and usage of the Single Transferable Vote