1962 Canadian federal election

The 1962 Canadian federal election was held on June 18, 1962, to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 25th Parliament of Canada. The governing Progressive Conservative (PC) Party won a plurality of seats in this election, and its majority government was reduced to a minority government.

When the writs were issued, PC Prime Minister John Diefenbaker had governed for four years with a 151-seat majority in the House. This election diminished the PCs to a tenuous minority government, winning 92 fewer seats than in the previous election, and losing 89 seats from its dissolution total. The PCs also only won the popular vote by 0.25%, the narrowest popular vote margin between the top two parties in Canadian federal election history. This came directly after the PCs won the largest majority government in Canadian federal election history, and the popular vote by the fourth-largest margin, in 1958. Many factors played a role in this dramatic shift, including economic difficulties such as high unemployment and a slumping Canadian dollar, as well as unpopular decisions such as the cancellation of the Avro Arrow.

Despite the Diefenbaker government's difficulties, the Liberal Party, led by Lester B. Pearson, was unable to make up enough ground in the election to defeat the government. This was also the first general election where the former Co-operative Commonwealth Federation contested under their new name, the New Democratic Party, upon affiliating with the Canadian Labour Congress. For the Social Credit Party, routed from the Commons just four years earlier, this election proved a high-water mark - though its share of the popular vote increased slightly in 1963, a split shortly thereafter marked the beginning of a steep decline in Western Canada, with Social Credit losing its last non-Quebec MPs in the 1965 election.

This was the first election in which all adult Indigenous peoples in Canada had the right to vote after the passage of a repeal of certain sections of the Canada Elections Act on March 31, 1960. First Nations and Status "Indians", which included Inuit, had been ineligible to vote under the Indian Act—considered "wards of the Crown" and excluded from full Canadian citizenship. They could not vote unless they gave up their treaty status through enfranchisement. On paper, Métis people have held the right to vote since before confederation and were not included in the Indian Act.

For the first time ever, the entire landmass of Canada was covered by federal electoral districts as the former Mackenzie River riding was expanded to cover the entire Northwest Territories, and renamed eponymously.