Alberta general election, 1963

← 1959

June 17, 1963 (1963-06-17)

1967 →

63 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta
32 seats were needed for a majority

	Majority party	Minority party	Third party

Leader	Ernest Manning	Dave Hunter	Milt Harradence
Party	Social Credit	Liberal	Progressive Conservative
Leader since	May 31, 1943	January 14, 1962	1962
Leader's seat	Strathcona East	ran in Athabasca (lost)	ran in Calgary-West (lost)
Last election	61 seats, 55.7%	1 seat, 13.9%	1 seat, 23.9%
Seats before	60	1	1
Seats won	60	2	0
Seat change	±0	1	1
Popular vote	221,107	79,709	51,278
Percentage	54.8%	19.8%	12.7%
Swing	0.9%	5.9%	11.2%

Premier before election

Ernest Manning
Social Credit

Premier-designate

Ernest Manning
Social Credit

The Alberta general election of 1963 was the fifteenth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on June 17, 1963 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.

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 legislature in the 1963 election. They fell short of this goal, but still had an overwhelming majority, reducing the opposition to only three MLAs in total. Indeed, as a share of the overall seats available, this represented Social Credit's greatest victory in its 36-year reign.

Much of the opposition vote shifted away from the Progressive Conservative Party, now led by Milt Harradence, 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.

1963 was the last year in Alberta provincial politics when an MLA was acclaimed with the acclamation of Leonard Halmrast in Taber-Warner.

After the PCs won power, they would later speak of "79 in '79".

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Wikipedia