1964 Saskatchewan general election

Saskatchewan general election, 1964
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59 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan; 30 seats needed for a majority
Premier before election; Woodrow Lloyd; Co-operative Commonwealth	Premier-designate ; Ross Thatcher; Liberal

The Saskatchewan general election of 1964 was the fifteenth provincial election held in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was held on April 22, 1964, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) government of Premier Woodrow Lloyd was defeated by the Liberal Party, led by Ross Thatcher. The CCF had governed Saskatchewan since the 1944 election under the leadership (until December 1961) of Tommy Douglas.

While the CCF held on to most of their vote from the previous election, the collapse of the Social Credit party appears to have helped push the Liberals to a majority government – although the Liberals led the CCF by only 0.1% in the popular vote.

The Progressive Conservative Party, led by Martin Pederson, won one seat in the legislature.

Election campaign

Douglas's government was the first social democratic government in North America, and had introduced the medicare system in Canada. This led to a 23-day strike by the province's physicians. Universal public health care, however, was not an issue in the campaign. In fact, following its successful introduction, the opposition Liberals proposed expanding medicare. The only Saskatchewan party to advocate eliminating medicare was the small Social Credit Party.

The Social Credit party nominated only two candidates in the election, and they were hurt by statements by the federal Social Credit party leader, Robert N. Thompson, supporting the Saskatchewan Liberals. The Socreds' leader, Martin Kelln, chose not to spend much time on the campaign, in part because of the recent death of his mother.

The Progressive Conservatives returned to the Legislative Assembly for the first time since 1934. They won only one seat despite winning almost 19% of the popular vote. The Tories argued that the Liberals were too radical, and that the Saskatchewan government was not doing enough to develop the province's natural resources.

The Liberals were able to capitalize on the collapse of Social Credit, and were more effective than the Tories in drawing the "anti-socialist" (i.e. anti-CCF) vote. The campaign however was not marked by any major issues.

There was, however, considerable animosity between the Liberals and the CCF. The Liberals employed what were called "Madison Avenue campaign tactics", and spent a lot of money on campaign advertising – especially television advertising. The Liberals tried to characterize the election as being a choice between socialism and private enterprise-oriented reform. The Saskatchewan Liberals positioned themselves as further to the right than the federal Liberal Party. The Liberals also claimed that the CCF government was stagnating.

The CCF, led by former teacher Woodrow Lloyd, campaigned on the CCF record. Lloyd attacked the Liberal campaign – stating that they had resorted to "hucksterism, the kind of sales attempts that one usually associates with useless pills, second hand cars and body deodorants."^[1]

Lloyd faced several challenges: taxes in Saskatchewan were among the highest in Canada; spending on health care, welfare and education were high; and Lloyd lacked the popular support that previous CCF leader and premier Tommy Douglas had enjoyed. However, Saskatchewan at this time had the second highest per capita income in Canada and the lowest unemployment rate in Canada.

Results

Party		Party Leader	# of candidates	Seats				Popular Vote
Party		Party Leader	# of candidates	1960	Dissol.	Elected	% Change	#	%	% Change
	Liberal	Ross Thatcher	59	17	19	32	+68.4%	269,402	40.40%	+7.73%
	Co-operative Commonwealth	Woodrow Lloyd	59	37	35	25/26¹	-25.7%	268,742	40.30%	-0.46%
	Progressive Conservative	Martin Pederson	42	–	–	1	+1000%	126,028	18.90%	+4.95%
	Social Credit	Martin Kelln	2	–	–	–	–	2,621	0.39%	-11.96%
	Communist		1	–	–	–	–	68	0.01%	-0.05%
Total			163	54	54	59¹	+9.3%	666,861	100%
Source: Elections Saskatchewan

Note: ¹ One seat declared void.

Ranking

Party		Seats	Second	Third
	Liberal	32	26	1
	Co-operative Commonwealth	26	31	2
	Progressive Conservative	1	2	39 Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Independents/row	Other parties	0	0	3

Riding results

Names in bold represent cabinet ministers and the Speaker. Party leaders are italicized. The symbol " ** " indicates MLAs who are not running again.

Northwestern Saskatchewan

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Northeastern Saskatchewan

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West Central Saskatchewan

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Re-run of voided election

December 16, 1964 By-Election: Hanley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	CCF	Robert Walker	4,608	45.14%	+7.55
	Liberal	Herb Pinder	3,864	37.86%	+0.28
	Prog. Conservative	W. Hugh Arscott	1,735	17.00%	-7.83
Total			10,207	100.00%

East Central Saskatchewan

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Southwest Saskatchewan

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Southeast Saskatchewan

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June 30, 1965 By-Election: Moosomin
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Frank Gardner	3,033	36.72%	-22.60
	CCF	William Francis Goodwin	2,821	34.14%	-6.54
	Prog. Conservative	Andrew Emerson Bruce	2,407	29.14%	-
Total			8,261	100.00%

February 16, 1966 By-Election: Bengough
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Alex Mitchell	2,423	42.74%	+0.02
	CCF	Hjalmar Dahlman	2,285	40.31%	+2.52
	Prog. Conservative	George W. Spicer	961	16.95%	-2.54
Total			5,669	100.00%

Moose Jaw & Saskatoon

Saskatchewan general election, 1964: Moose Jaw City (2 members elected)
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	CCF	(x) William Davies	7,749	24.55%	-
	CCF	(x) Gordon Snyder	7,550	23.92%	-
	Prog. Conservative	Daniel J. Patterson	7,115	22.54%	-
	Liberal	E. A. Astell	5,455	17.28%	-
	Prog. Conservative	Gordon A. Hume	3,697	11.71%	-
Total			31,566	100.00%

Saskatchewan general election, 1964: Saskatoon City (5 members elected)
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	CCF	(x) Alex M. Nicholson	16,701	7.83%	-
	CCF	(x) Edward Brockelbank	16,559	7.76%	-
	CCF	(x) Wes Robbins	16,126	7.56%	-
	Liberal	(x) Sally Merchant	16,068	7.53%	-
	CCF	(x) Harry D. Link	16,041	7.52%	-
	Liberal	Clarence Estey	15,761	7.39%	-
	CCF	Gladys Strum	15,741	7.38%	-
	Liberal	Keith McLean Crocker	15,661	7.34%	-
	Liberal	Joseph J. Charlebois	15,542	7.28%	-
	Liberal	Victor C. Hession	14,770	6.92%	-
	Prog. Conservative	Lewis Brand	11,401	5.34%	-
	Prog. Conservative	W. Hugh Arscott	11,344	5.32%	-
	Prog. Conservative	Ray Hnatyshyn	10,874	5.09%	-
	Prog. Conservative	Henry Clay Rees	10,543	4.94%	-
	Prog. Conservative	Irving Goldenberg	10,240	4.80%	-
Total			213,372	100.00%

Regina

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References

^ http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/politics/provincial-territorial-politics/showdown-on-the-prairies-a-history-of-saskatchewan-elections/useless-pills-second-hand-cars-and-body-deodorants.html

[1] ttp://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/politics/provincial-territorial-politics/showdown-on-the-prairies-a-history-of-saskatchewan-elections/useless-pills-second-hand-cars-and-body-deodorants.html

[1]

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