The 1945 Ontario general election was held on June 4, 1945, to elect the 90 members of the 22nd Legislative Assembly of Ontario (Members of Provincial Parliament, or "MPPs") of the province of Ontario.

Background

The Legislature was dissolved on March 24, 1945, upon the government's failure to defeat a non-confidence motion. The election call was delayed in order to implement new legislation relating to the collection of votes from servicemen and women overseas, but the date was later fixed for June 11. When the 1945 Canadian federal election was set for the same date, the Ontario date was accelerated by one week to June 4, in order to separate the two campaigns. The Drew government called the election in an attempt to get a majority government. By exploiting increasing Cold War tensions, the PC Party was able to defeat Jolliffe's CCF by stoking fears about communism. Jolliffe replied by giving a radio speech (written by Lister Sinclair) that accused Drew of running a political gestapo in Ontario, alleging that a secret department of the Ontario Provincial Police was acting as a political police spying on the opposition and the media. This accusation led to a backlash, and loss of support for the CCF, including the loss of Jolliffe's own seat of York South. This probably helped Drew win his majority, although in the 1970s, archival evidence was discovered proving the charge.

Campaign

Of the 90 ridings, only 8 had two-way races; 47 were three-way contests, and the Labor-Progressives forced 30 four way races:

Outcome

The Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, led by George Drew, won a second consecutive term in office, winning a solid majority of seats in the legislature—66, up from 38 in the previous election. The Ontario Liberal Party, led by former premier Mitchell Hepburn, was returned to the role of official opposition with 11 seats, plus 3 Liberal-Labour seats that it won, out of 6 contested, in coalition with the Labor-Progressive Party (which was, in fact, the Communist Party), in an effort to marginalize the CCF. The three new Liberal-Labour MPPs were James Newman of Rainy River, Joseph Meinzinger of Waterloo North and Alexander Parent of Essex North. The social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), led by Ted Jolliffe, was reduced from 34 seats to 8. Two seats were won by the Labor-Progressive Party on its own with the re-election of A.A. MacLeod and J.B. Salsberg. The LPP contested a total of 31 ridings under the leadership of Leslie Morris who was defeated in the Toronto riding of Bracondale.

Results

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Synopsis of results

Analysis

Seats that changed hands

There were 36 seats that changed allegiance in the election.

Notable group of candidates

Ten candidates who were not incumbents had served as MPPs prior to 1943: