The 1879 Ontario general election was the fourth general election held in the province of Ontario, Canada. It was held on June 5, 1879, to elect the 88 members of the 4th Legislative Assembly ("MLAs").
The Ontario Liberal Party, led by Oliver Mowat, won a third term in government with a larger majority in the legislature.
The Ontario Conservative Party, led by William Ralph Meredith, continued to lose seats.
|- ! colspan=2 rowspan=2 | Political party ! rowspan=2 | Party leader ! colspan=4 | MLAs ! colspan=4 | Votes |- ! Candidates !1875 !1879 !ñ !# ! ñ !% ! ñ (pp)
|style="text-align:left;"|Oliver Mowat | 81 || 50 || 57 || 7 || 119,148 || 28,339 || 48.07% || 0.52
|rowspan="2" style="text-align:left;"|William Ralph Meredith | 87 || 34 || 29 || 5 || 118,513 || 31,693 || 47.82% || 2.35
| – || 1 || – || 1 || – || 1,553 || – || 0.81
| || 2 || 2 || 2 || || 2,111 || 18 || 0.85% || 0.26
| || – || 1 || – || 1 || – || 1,125 || – || 0.59
| || 19 || – || – || – || 8,085 || 1,328 || 3.26% || 0.28 |- ! colspan="3" style="text-align:left;" | Total |189||88 ! " colspan="2"|88 ! " colspan="2"|247,857 ! " colspan="2"| 100.00% |- | colspan="7" style="text-align:left;" | Voter turnout | 247,857 | 56,891 | 63.22 | 4.06 |- | colspan="7" style="text-align:left;" | Registered electors | 392,085 | 108,229 | colspan="2"| |- | style="text-align:left;" rowspan="2" colspan="3" |Acclamations | style="text-align:left;" colspan="2" | ||1 |- | style="text-align:left;" colspan="2" | ||1
Party designations are as follows:
Northern Ontario
Ottawa Valley
Saint Lawrence Valley
Central Ontario
Georgian Bay
Wentworth/Halton/Niagara
Midwestern Ontario
Southwestern Ontario
Peel/York/Ontario