1904 Canadian federal election
10th Canadian federal election
The 1904 Canadian federal election was held on November 3, 1904, to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 10th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier led the Liberal Party of Canada to a third term in government, with an increased majority, and over half of the popular vote.
Sir Robert Borden's Conservatives and Liberal-Conservatives were unable to challenge the Liberals effectively, and lost a small portion of their popular vote, along with four seats, including his own. Borden re-entered parliament the next year in a by-election.
This was the last election until 1949 in which the Northwest Territories was to have representation in the House of Commons.
During the term of this parliament, most of the settled region of the western prairies was hived off the NWT as the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan on 1 September 1905. The NWT MPs in what had become Alberta - representing Edmonton, Strathcona, Calgary and Medicine Hat - continued to sit as representatives of their old NWT ridings until the 10th Parliament's dissolution in 1908.
One of the key issues in the election was Imperial Preference.
National results
Note:
* Party did not nominate candidates in the previous election.
Results by province
xx - indicates less than 0.05% of the popular vote.
“1904 Canadian federal election” enters the record as 10th Canadian federal election. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Canadian, federal and election can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1904 Canadian federal election” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Canadian, federal and election provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q909860. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1904, 1949, 1905 and 1908.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1904 Canadian federal election”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1904 Canadian federal election primary sources, 1904 Canadian federal election archive and Canadian research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1904 Canadian federal election”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1904 Canadian federal election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.