alberta general election, 1963

The 15th general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada, was held on June 17, 1963 to elect members of the Alberta legislature. The Social Credit Party, led by Ernest C. Manning, won its eighth consecutive term in government, winning roughly the same number of seats in the legislature and share of popular vote that it had in the 1959 election. Some Social Credit supporters were so confident of their party's chances that they talked of winning "63 in '63", i.e., all 63 seats in the 1963 election. They fell short of this goal, however. Much of the opposition vote shifted away from the Progressive Conservative Party, now led by Milt Harradance, resulting in the party losing its sole seat. The Liberal Party was a partial beneficiary of the PC Party's decline, but picked up only one additional seat, for a total of two, despite winning almost 20% of the popular vote.

owspan="2"\|Party	rowspan="2"\|Party Leader	rowspan="2"\|# of candidates	colspan="3"\|Seats	colspan="3"\|Popular Vote
lign="center"\|Previous	align="center"\|After	align="center"\|% Change	align="center"\|#	align="center"\|%	align="center"\|Change
Social Credit	Ernest C. Manning	align="right"\|63	align="right"\| 61	align="right"\| 60	align="right"\| -1.6%	align="right"\| 221,107	align="right"\| 54.81%	align="right"\| -0.88%
Liberal		align="right"\| 55	align="right"\| 1	align="right"\| 2	align="right"\| +100%	align="right"\| 79,709	align="right"\| 19.76%	align="right"\| +5.88%
Coalition		align="right"\| 1	align="right"\| 1	align="right"\| 1	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| 2,179	align="right"\| 0.54%	align="right"\| -0.01%
Progressive Conservative	Milt Harradance	align="right"\| 33	align="right"\| 1	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -100%	align="right"\| 51,278	align="right"\| 12.71%	align="right"\| -11.17%
New Democratic(1)	Neil Reimer	align="right"\| 56	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 37,133	align="right"\| 9.45%	align="right"\| -5.12%
Independent		align="right"\| 3	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 3,966	align="right"\| 0.98%	align="right"\| +0.10%
Independent Social Credit		align="right"\| 6	align="right"\| 1	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -100%	align="right"\| 3,178	align="right"\| 0.79%	align="right"\| +0.21%
Alberta Unity Movement		align="right"\| 3	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| 2,223	align="right"\| 0.55%	align="right"\| n.a.
Progressive Conservative-Liberal		align="right"\| 1	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| n.a.	align="right"\| 1,134	align="right"\| 0.28%	align="right"\| n.a.
Communist(2)		align="right"\| 4	align="right"\| -	align="right"\| -	align="right"\|	align="right"\| 527	align="right"\| 0.13%	align="right"\| -0.08%
Total		225	65	63	-3.1%	403,444	100.00%
align="center" colspan="9"\|Source: Elections Alberta

Notes: (1) The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation adopted the name "New Democratic Party" for the 1963 and subsequent elections. (2) The "Labour Progressive Party returned to its original "Communist Party of Alberta" name for the 1963 and subsequent elections. "Previous" refers to to standings at previous election, not to standings in the Legislature at dissolution. n.a. = not applicable - the party was not recognized in the previous election

Alberta General Election, 1963

See also