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You are now entering the PoliCan Forest!

by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)

Enter the forest! (Image credit: Sven Lachmann [Pixabay])As I explained in my opening article of how PoliCan came into being, it can be difficult and time-consuming to find the detailed results of an election that was held only a few years ago, let alone one that happened 100 years ago. In fact, this seemingly simple task, namely to find some public information, can be so opaque that most people who try simply give up after a few minutes of trying. That’s especially true if, in their case, the information they are seeking is only a “nice to have” instead of a “have to know.”

At least, that was before PoliCan.

With PoliCan, anyone can quickly find as much or as little information as they want, and they have multiple ways of unearthing it. But then, once they will have found that bit of info, they are likely to start looking for more details on some people they weren’t necessarily thinking about when they started their search. Quickly, one thing can lead to another, as they say.

As indicated on the table in the introduction to this section (reproduced here), since 1866 in the 15 jurisdictions tracked by PoliCan, there have been 470 general elections and 41,069 riding-level events (general elections, by-elections or plebiscites). All of these are accessible from the the submenu on the right, by jurisdiction, and you can choose to focus on detailed results, statistics, or lists of candidates.

Size of database in terms of electoral events and races
Jurisdiction Elections Referendums
Juri. Year Assem. General By-Elections
Elec Races Elec Races
Min Max Min Max N Accl. n Acc? N Accl. n Acc? Minis. Q Races
1 CA 1867 2025 1 44 44 11,384 263 11,121 0 647 1,014 366 648 0 145 3 31
9 AB 1905 2024 1 31 31 2,153 29 2,124 0 89 112 19 93 0 17 5 769
8 BC 1871 2024 1 43 43 2,266 24 2,242 0 164 211 59 152 0 67 15 806
11 MB 1870 2025 1 43 43 2,119 114 2,005 0 142 183 52 131 5 40 4 245
3 NB 1866 2024 21 61 41 2,033 48 1,985 0 187 248 86 162 0 53 1 12
7 NL 1949 2024 29 50 22 967 18 949 0 62 73 4 69 5 0 4 150
2 NS 1867 2024 24 65 42 1,821 25 1,796 0 118 176 56 120 0 24 0 0
14 NT 1951 2023 1 20 20 334 72 262 1 15 17 4 13 2 0 3 47
13 NU 1999 2021 1 6 6 123 11 112 0 11 14 2 12 0 0 0 0
15 NW 1888 1903 1 5 5 143 36 107 0 13 21 9 12 0 7 0 0
6 ON 1867 2025 1 44 44 4,629 93 4,536 0 296 406 93 313 193 57 1 107
4 PE 1873 2025 26 67 42 1,254 37 1,217 0 99 152 37 115 43 34 3 70
5 QC 1867 2025 1 43 43 4,089 294 3,795 0 276 429 90 339 0 53 5 377
10 SK 1905 2024 1 30 30 1,713 23 1,690 0 104 131 31 100 0 20 0 0
12 YT 1970 2021 22 35 14 227 0 227 0 11 13 0 13 0 0 0 0
ΣElec+Q = 2,748  ΣN = 41,069 470 35,255 1,087 34,168 1 2,234 3,200 908 2,292 248 517 44 2,614
The jurisdiction numbers are arbitrary and only hold significance for the maintenance of the data.
Future-dated events are excluded from these tallies.

The MMP simulator can be run on 413 of the 470 general elections.

“Acc?” stands for missing data (namely races entered as having been won by acclamation when in fact the results are unknown), while “Minis.” shows the number of ministerial by-elections.

A small handful of by-elections that did not really occur was added to this database to record when someone’s election was overturned and the seat was handed over to the challenger who had lost.

Because it was a two-pronged question, the 2018 referendum in British Columbia on electoral reform had to be recorded as two separate events but is counted as a single event. What’s more, at this time, only the aggregate results by provinces and territories are available for the 1992 Canada/Québec referendum on the Charlottetown Accord, although efforts are underway to obtain the results by riding.

Up until the middle of the 20th century, unseating a member was commonplace and the mechanism to challenge someone’s election seems to have been very lax when viewed through presentist lens, as many by-elections were held merely because the challenger — often the government or the defeated incumbent — did not like the result. What’s more, newly appointed ministers had to resign and run in a ministerial by-election. Therefore, by-elections were far more frequent than they are today.

So, the PoliCan Forest contains all you could possibly want to know about the results of 99.39% of all the federal, provincial or territorial electoral events ever held since Confederation!


© 2005, 2025 :: PoliCan.ca (Maurice Y. Michaud) (Maurice Y. Michaud)
Pub.: 20 Aug 2024 05:00
Rev.:  4 Jan 2025 21:17 (but data presented dynamically)

© 2019-2025 :: PoliCan.ca
Given that electoral results are by their very nature public information, such data presented in PoliCan are considered to be in the public domain. However, unless indicated otherwise, all other elements — the concept of consolidating these data into a single format, the detailed research on each election, legislature and candidate, the organization and searchability of the data, the programming allowing the entry and maintenance of the data, as well as the analyses and explanatory articles found in this website — are the intellectual property of Maurice Y. Michaud.