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Interested in finding out more about Canadian elections? This guide has been created to help you to find information on a variety of topics related to the current and past Canadian elections.
Related guides
General information
Since May 2007, the Canada Elections Act calls for federal general elections to be held on the third Monday of October in the fourth calendar year following the previous general election. However, it is possible that a general election could still be called at another date.
Canadian Electoral System
Research paper from the library of Parliament that reviews the existing electoral system.
Elections Canada
Elections Canada is an independent, non-partisan agency that reports directly to Parliament and is an official source of information on federal elections, electoral law and policy, election financing, and the electoral districts of Canada.
Elections
Created and maintained by Andrew Heard, SFU Dept of Political Science, this site provides statistics, graphs, and background information on a variety of topics, including polling data, parties & candidates, riding information, women & elections, electoral reform, past election results and more.
Historical elections research
Canadian Election Results, 1867-2011
A page from Andrew Heard's Elections site that provides historical Canadian election results from 1867-2011.
A History of the Vote in Canada
A detailed history of Canadian democracy created by Elections Canada.
History of Federal Ridings since 1867
Look up any Canadian Federal electoral riding since 1867.
The Canadian Election Study
A project by researchers from three Canadian universities (Montreal, McGill, and Toronto) that uses survey data to examine why Canadians vote the way they do from one election to another.
Provincial elections research
University of Windsor: Canadian Federal and Provincial Election Results
Library guide with links to Federal and Provincial elections pages.
Election news & commentary sources
CBC Canada Votes
CBC page dedicated to current election news and outcomes.
Canadian Newsstream
Contains the full text of articles in major Canadian and small market BC newspapers, with a 2-7 day publication lag.
Elections Canada News Releases and Media Advisories
Includes current news releases from Elections Canada and archival materials.
PressReader
Provides online access to current newspapers from around the world in full-color, full-page format. Includes over 1000 newspapers in over 40 languages from around the world, including more than 110 Canadian newspapers. A rolling backfile of 30 to 60 days is provided for each paper, but older issues are not available.
rabble.ca Elections
Canadian alternative online magazine by progressive journalists, writers, artists and activists across the country.
Behind the Numbers
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' federal election blog. The CCPA is an "independent, non-partisan research institute concerned with issues of social, economic and environmental justice."
The Tyee
An independent, online magazine created in British Columbia. Try a topic search for Politics or BC Politics.
Journal articles & databases
America: History and Life
Indexes literature on all aspects of U.S. and Canadian history, culture and current affairs from prehistoric times to the present from approximately 2100 journals published worldwide. Links to fulltext of articles available in the JSTOR collection.
Canadian Electronic Library
This collection provides access to Canadian public policy documents. It brings together monograph publications from a variety of Canadian public policy institutes, research institutes, think tanks, advocacy groups, government agencies and university research centers. The organizations included in this collection represent primary research and opinion in all areas of Canadian public policy.
CBCA Complete
Direct access to the full text articles indexed from over 475 Canadian periodicals and other sources of current affairs information. In addition, CBCA Complete also includes indexing of about 800 additional active periodicals and a variety of daily news sources.
Political Science Complete
Contains full text for over 480 journals, and indexing and abstracts for nearly 2,100 titles (including top-ranked scholarly journals).
Canadian Research Index
Contains federal, provincial, and municipal documents of research value, including policy and political reports.
Books
Search for books using Catalogue Search. Each book has been assigned Subject Headings, which can help you find other books on the same topic. Below are some Subject Headings related to elections in Canada. For provincial subject headings, try substituting "Canada" with the name of a province. For municipal subject headings, use "Municipal Government" and add the relevant province.