1960 British Columbia general election

The 1960 British Columbia general election was the 26th 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 August 3, 1960, and held on September 12, 1960. The new legislature met for the first time on January 26, 1961.

The conservative Social Credit of Premier W.A.C. Bennett was re-elected with a majority in the legislature to a fourth term in government despite losing seven percentage points of the popular vote and seven of its seats in the legislature.

The opposition Co-operative Commonwealth Federation increased both its share of the popular vote and its number of seats.

The British Columbia Liberal Party lost a small part of its popular vote, but managed to double its caucus from two to four members.

The Progressive Conservative Party doubled its share of the popular vote to almost 7%, but won no seats in the legislature.

Results

|- ! colspan=2 rowspan=2 | Political party ! rowspan=2 | Party leader ! colspan=4 | MLAs ! colspan=4 | Votes |- ! Candidates !1956 !1960 !± !# ! ± !% ! ± (pp)

|style="text-align:left;" |W.A.C. Bennett | 52 || 39 || 32 || 7 || 386,886 || 12,175 || 38.83 || 7.01

|style="text-align:left;" |Bob Strachan | 52 || 10 || 16 || 6 || 326,094 || 94,583 || 32.73 || 4.41

|style="text-align:left;" |Ray Perrault | 50 || 2 || 4 || 2 || 208,249 || 30,327 || 20.90 || 0.87

|style="text-align:left;" |Deane Finlayson | 52 || – || – || – || 66,943 || 41,570 || 6.72 || 3.61

|style="text-align:left;" |Tom Uphill | – || 1 || – || 1 ||colspan="4" style="text-align:center;" |Retired

| || 19 || – || – || – || 5,675 || 2,294 || 0.57 || 0.16

| || 5 || – || – || – || 2,557 || 621 || 0.25 || 0.14 |- ! colspan="3" style="text-align:left;" | Total | 230 | 52 ! colspan="2"| 52 ! colspan="2"|996,404 ! colspan="2"| 100.00% |- | colspan="7" style="text-align:left;" | Rejected ballots | 9,862 ||3,220 | colspan="2"| |- | colspan="7" style="text-align:left;" | Actual voters who voted | 628,031 ||118,622 | 71.84% || 6.41 |- | colspan="7" style="text-align:left;" | Registered voters | 874,267 ||95,680 | colspan="2"|

MLAs elected

Single-member districts<br />

Multi-member districts<br />

Synopsis of results

= open seat

= turnout is above provincial average

= winning candidate was in previous Legislature

= incumbent had switched allegiance

= previously incumbent in another riding

= not incumbent; was previously elected to the Legislature

= incumbency arose from byelection gain

= other incumbents renominated

= previously an MP in the House of Commons of Canada

= multiple candidates

= winning candidate

See also

• List of British Columbia political parties

Further reading

References