1952 British Columbia general election

1952 British Columbia general election

← 1949 June 12, 1952 1953 →
← outgoing members elected members →
48 seats of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia 25 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party   CCF Leader W. A. C. Bennett[a] Harold Winch Party Social Credit Co-operative Commonwealth Leader since 1952 1938 Leader's seat South Okanagan Vancouver East Last election 0 7 Seats won 19 18 Seat change 19 11 First count 209,049 236,562   Percentage 27.20% 30.78%   Swing 25.99pp 4.32pp Final count 203,932 231,756   Percentage 30.18% 34.3%   Third party Fourth party   PC Leader Boss Johnson Herbert Anscomb Party Liberal Progressive Conservative Leader since 1947 1946 Leader's seat New Westminster (lost re-election) Oak Bay (lost re-election) Last election 39[1] 39[1] Seats won 6 4 Seat change n/a[1] n/a[1] First count 180,289 129,439   Percentage 23.46% 16.84%   Swing n/a[1] n/a[1] Final count 170,674 65,285   Percentage 25.26% 9.66%
Premier before election Byron Ingemar Johnson Coalition Premier after election W. A. C. Bennett Social Credit

The 1952 British Columbia general election was the 23rd general election in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It was held to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, alongside a plebiscite on daylight saving time and liquor. The election was called on April 10, 1952, and held on June 12, 1952. The new legislature met for the first time on February 3, 1953.

In 1951, the Legislative Assembly passed an act that allowed the use of preferential ballots in the next election.^[2] The voting system used was instant-runoff voting (IRV). The presence of multi-member districts, such as Victoria City with 3 MLAs, was handled by an innovation where the district's candidates were split into three "ballots", each with no more than one candidate from each party, with the member in each being elected by IRV.^[3] The voting age was also lower from 21 to 19 prior to this election.^[4]

Due to the preferential ballot, the election resulted in a surprise victory for the new Social Credit Party. Not even the Socreds had expected to win the election; the party had no official leader, and was nominally lead through the election by Ernest George Hansell, an Alberta MP who did not contest a seat himself. The newly elected caucus selected W. A. C. Bennett, a former Conservative MLA, to be their leader and premier-designate.

This began what would be 20 years of uninterrupted Social Credit rule in British Columbia. This would also be the last election to produce a minority government until the 2017 election.

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