2nd Parliament of Ontario

Even though the election was held in March 1871, its results was not reflected in the make up of the Ontario government until December that year. While it is now generally accepted that the Ontario Liberals led by Edward Blake secured a slim edge over the incumbent Conservatives led by Premier John Sandfield Macdonald, such an understanding was partially developed with the benefit of hindsight on a period during which the Liberals' ousted the Sandfield Macdonald ministry, commenced the building of a far more expansive administration, and within a year carried out an orderly transition of its party and the government leadership while largely remained stable and united, in doing so ushering in the longest-tenured ministry in the province's history. Few would have predicted the decades of stable government in the early months of this parliament, however, as the event followed the election harkened back to the disputes and gridlocks that plagued the government of the province of Ontario before confederation.

This section is an excerpt from 1871 Ontario general election § Results in summary.[edit]

The results, as reported in formal records compiled in years by the Legislative Assembly and made available to the public (and in more recent years also reproduced by Elections Ontario) were as follows.

More information Partisan Affiliation, Party leader ...

Elections to the 2nd Parliament of Ontario (1871)^[2]

Partisan Affiliation		Party leader	Seats				Votes [a]
			Candi- dates	1867	1871	±	Votes	±	%	± (%)
	Liberal	Edward Blake	76	41	43	2	68,366	9,323	52.30%	3.54
	Liberal–Conservative	John Sandfield Macdonald	73	41	38	3	59,926	20,185	45.85%	4.44
	Conservative-Liberal	(label only)	1	–	1	n/a	1,116	n/a	0.85%	n/a
	Others		9	–	–	–	1,303	n/a	1.00%	n/a
Total			159	82	82		130,711		100.00%
Voter turnout							130,711	28,612	62.93	10.93
Registered electors							207,717	8,005

Close

Partisan affiliations were not recorded in contemporaneous formal elections record. Affiliations presented are the party affiliations as recorded in various resources maintained by the Legislative Assembly, which were not all compiled contemporaneously. Even contemporaneous affiliations data were a mixture of both formal undisputed declaration (made by the candidates or the parties), assessments by third parties such as the press, and presumptions from other events such as acceptance of specific offices. Such data inevitably contains some uncertainties, time lags, or inaccuracies, reflecting the lesser formality and permanence in partisan affiliation in that era.

s=== Makeup of Parliament===

2nd Parliament of Ontario   Liberal: 43     Conservative: 38   Conservative-Liberal: 1 seats vacated pending byelection when parliament first met in December 1871

Parliament was called into session on Friday December 7, 1871. An additional Liberal member resigned on the fourth sitting day. By the time substantive debate regarding non-confidence on the government took place, eight seats were vacant, reducing the rank of the Conservatives by five and Liberals by three.

During the debate on the speech from the throne, the Sandfield Macdonald ministry suffered defeats in three recorded divisions on three consecutive days, respectively on December 13th, 14th, and 15th and each unmistakably expressed parliament's non-confidence on the ministry. The incumbent Conservative ministry initially refused to accept the recorded divisions as binding expression of non-confidence on the grounds that a tenth of the seats were vacant, but the government's position became untenable following the resignation of Provincial Treasurer Edmund Burke Wood on December 15^[4] and defeats in two further recorded divisions on December 18, each by margin of close to 20 votes. Premier Macdonald announced the resignation of the ministry on December 19.

The transition of power mandated by this election was effected nine months after on December 20, 1971, with the formation of the province's first Liberal ministry led by Premier Edward Blake and featuring future Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie as Treasurer. While Blake and Mackenzie remained in their provincial offices for only a year, the Liberal Party led the Ontario government for 33 more years after their departures.

Byelections for the eight vacancies noted, along with four ministerial byelections necessitated by the formation of the Blake ministry, were held in the following January. The two parties each gain a seat against the other, result in no change to their respective standings in parliament.

After a short tenure of a year, Blake resigned the premiership and his seat in the legislature departed to contest the 1872 dominion election. Departed with Blake was the Treasurer of his ministry Alexander Mackenzie. Blake led the national Liberal Party in three dominion elections (in 1872, 1882, and 1887) but was never able to secure the premiership of Canada. Mackenzie however was successful in doing so in 1874, and thus became the first Liberal Prime Minister of Canada.

Blake and George Brown, the spiritual leader of the Liberal movement, convinced their former colleagues Oliver Mowat to resign from the judicial bench and to return to electoral politics to succeed Blake. The move kicked off a three decade long Liberal rule in Ontario.