1934 Ontario general election


The 1934 Ontario general election was the 19th general election held in the Province of Ontario, Canada. It was held on June 19, 1934, to elect the 90 Members of the 19th Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
The Ontario Liberal Party, led by Mitchell Hepburn, defeated the governing Ontario Conservative Party, led by George Stewart Henry. Hepburn was assisted by Harry Nixon's Progressive bloc of MLAs who ran in this election as Liberal-Progressives on the understanding that they would support a Hepburn led government. Nixon, himself, became a senior cabinet minister in the Hepburn government.
The Liberals won a majority in the Legislature, while the Conservatives lost four out of every five seats that they had won in the previous election.
The legislature shrunk in size after the election of 1934 from 112 seats to 90.
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, in its first provincial election, ran 37 candidates and won a seat in the Ontario Legislature for the first time with the election of Samuel Lawrence in Hamilton East.
The United Farmers of Ontario had affiliated with the CCF but disaffiliated immediately prior to the 1934 election due to a row over suspected Communist infiltration of the party. Accordingly, two UFO nominated candidates, incumbent MLA Farquhar Oliver and Leslie Warner Oke, former MLA for Lambton East, ran as UFO candidates rather than with the CCF. Oliver was re-elected and would subsequently support the Hepburn government.
Earl Hutchinson of Kenora was re-elected as a Labour MLA but resigns a month later in order to allow Peter Heenan, a former Labour MLA in the riding, to contest Kenora in a by-election as a Liberal so that he could be appointed to Cabinet. Hutchinson is subsequently appointed vice-chairman of the Workmen's Compensation Board.

Results

Note:
* Party did not nominate candidates.
** 4 Progressives and 1 Liberal-Progressive were elected in 1929. In the 1934 election, Progressive leader Harry Nixon led the party into a coalition with the Liberals under the Liberal-Progressive label. While there are three more Liberal-Progressives in 1934 than in 1929 there was a net loss of one seat if one adds in the Progressives elected in 1929.