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Voting in the 1960 Federal By-Elections at Peterborough and Niagara Falls: Who Voted New Party and Why?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Pauline Jewett
Pauline Jewett*
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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Extract

The most interesting fact about the by-elections held in Peterborough and Niagara Falls on October 31, 1960, was not so much that the Conservatives (in power in Ottawa) lost them—or, rather, lost the one and failed to gain the other—as that the New Party won the Peterborough seat, with 46 per cent of the vote, and got 23 per cent of the vote in Niagara Falls. Taking the two constituencies together the New Party polled a larger popular vote than did either the Liberals or Conservatives: no minor achievement for a party that was making its first two appearances on the federal electoral scene, a party that at the time had neither a name nor a national leader and whose platform was still in the process of being formulated.

Who voted New Party and why? These were the first questions that seemed to need answering. Obviously, old-line socialists could not account for a very large part of the Peterborough poll since the best the CCF had ever done in Peterborough, in federal elections, was to get 12 per cent of the vote in 1945. In Niagara Falls, it is true, the CCF had reached the 23 per cent mark in 1949 but in subsequent federal elections its support had steadily fallen off—to 15 per cent in the 1950 by-election, 12 per cent in 1953 and 10 per cent in 1958. Was it, then, the alliance of the CCF with organized labour, under the New Party banner, that had done the trick? Had organized labour so rallied its supporters behind the New Party candidate, particularly in Peterborough, as to make the vote practically a labour affair? Or was the New Party vote more evenly distributed across the two constituencies, with all classes participating more or less equally in it? What about the different age groups and sexes? Whatever the distribution, was the vote simply a protest against the governing party in Ottawa as seems so frequently to be the case in by-election returns? If simply a protest why had it gone New Party rather than Liberal or, in the case of Niagara Falls, why had it not gone even more Liberal? Did the personalities of the candidates make very much difference? Or were election issues and party policies more important than personalities? Finally, to what extent, if any, did the New Party vote reflect or presage a fundamental realignment of political forces?

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , February 1962 , pp. 35 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1962

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Montreal, June 9, 1961. The survey on which it is based was made possible by a grant from the Faculty Fund for Research and Publication, Carleton University. The author is indebted to her colleagues, Professor S. F. Kaliski (Economics) and Professor R. A. Wendt (Psychology), for their patient counselling in the use of statistical methods.

References

1 In provincial elections the CCF had fared somewhat better, reaching its highest point in both constituencies in the 1943 provincial election, when it got 27 per cent of the vote in Peterborough, and actually took the seat in Niagara Falls, with 46 per cent of the vote.

2 The questionnaire is reproduced in Appendix A.

3 This difference between a third and a quarter is comparable, incidentally, to the difference in voter turn-out: in Peterborough 77 per cent of the voters went to the polls, in, Niagara Falls 69 per cent.

4 Classes 1 and 2 consist chiefly of business and professional people, classes 3 and 4 of high-level white collar and very highly skilled workers, class 5 of lower-level white collar and the great mass of skilled workers as well as farmers, classes 6 and 7 of semi-skilled and unskilled workers. See Blishen, Bernard R., “The Construction and Use of an Occupational Class Scale,” this Journal, XXIV, no. 4, 11, 1958, 519–31.Google Scholar

5 See Appendix B for the results of the tests of representativeness.

6 The reason I say “obviously” and “definitely” for Peterborough is because, whereas the relation between sex and voting and the relation between class and voting (classes 1 and 2 v. all the rest) reach the .10 and .05 levels of significance respectively (New Party v. Conservatives and Liberals), the relation between age and voting is significant at the .001 level (New Party v. Conservatives and Liberals). Furthermore, it is significant at this level even when all four age categories are employed. The reason I say “probably” for Niagara Falls—and even this may be a bit strong—is because the relations between sex and voting, class and voting (classes 1 and 2 v. all the rest) and age and voting (21–30 v. all the rest) all reach the .02 level of significance (New Party v. Conservatives and Liberals).

See Appendix C for chi square levels of significance in relations between sex and voting, age and voting and class and voting in the two samples.

7 Not a very large difference—to the naked eye, at any rate. This difference is, however, statistically significant. Furthermore, since the composition of category 5 is bound to be more heavily weighted in favour of farmers than that of the total sample, inferences from the latter to the former are attended with some danger.

8 This difference in the proportion of polls won is statistically significant at the .001 level.

9 Only respondents that voted in the two by-elections are dealt with in this paper. It might be useful to say a word here, however, about respondents that did not vote. Most of them gave the usual reasons: “out of town,” “sick,” “unable to get to the polls in time,” “didn't like the candidate my party put up,” “do not understand politics,” but a few said that they had been unable to make up their minds whether to vote New Party or not. Subjected to cross pressures, they had escaped by not voting at all. Another handful said that they had not voted because in their view “voting never changes anything anyway.”

10 The critical unemployment situation—close to nine per cent of the working force in each constituency—was undoubtedly a major issue in the two by-elections. Incidentally, all of the unemployed respondents from Peterborough that voted, voted New Party. From Niagara Falls the vote of unemployed respondents was divided between the three parties, chiefly between the Liberal and New parties.

11 Nor should the impression be conveyed that only candidates' personalities were discussed. Frequent references were also made, by Liberal and Conservative respondents, to the qualities of their respective national leaders. However, candidates were mentioned much more frequently than were national leaders.

12 Nor did any of them suggest that it was a labour-dominated party, or that its candidate was. Perhaps this was one of the main reasons for Pitman's success. In any event, it is interesting to note that in the Peterborough municipal elections held on December 5, 1960, not one of the candidates associated with labour was elected.

13 Liberal respondents from Niagara Falls and New Party respondents from Peterborough both mentioned the strong campaigns their parties put on. The use of press and radio in Niagara Falls and of press and television in Peterborough was favourably commented on, as were the candidates' many informal personal appearances. New Party respondents from Peterborough were also impressed by the lack of big business tie-in, and by the “open-to-inspection” manner in which the party's financial campaign was conducted; a few rural respondents mentioned the work of the Farmers' New Party Club in fostering discussion and debate.

14 The factor of ethnicity is important, too. Several respondents mentioned what country they had come from when answering the last question about earlier voting. The impression one gets is that respondents from the British Isles were much more likely to vote New Party than were those from Europe.