The Canadian federal election of 1949 was the first election in Canada in almost thirty years in which the Liberals were not led by William Lyon Mackenzie King. King had retired in 1948, and was replaced as Liberal leader by Louis St. Laurent. The Liberal party was re-elected with its fourth consecutive majority government, winning just under 50% of the vote.

The Progressive Conservative Party, led by former Premier of Ontario George Drew, gained little ground in this election.

Smaller parties, such as the social democratic Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, and Social Credit, a party that advocated monetary reform, lost support to the Liberals, and to a lesser extent, the Conservatives.

National results

Party	Party Leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular Vote
			Before	After	% Change	#	%	Change
Liberal	Louis St. Laurent	258		191		2,874,813	49.15%	+9.37%
Progressive Conservative	George Drew	249		41		1,734,261	29.65%	+2.03%
Cooperative Commonwealth	M.J. Coldwell	180		13		784,770	13.42%	-2.13%
Social Credit	Solon Low	28		10		135,217	2.31%	-1.74%
Independent		28		4		119,827	2.05%	-2.84%
Independent Liberal		15		1		30,407	0.52%	-1.27%
Liberal-Labour		2		1		11,730	0.20%	+0.19%
Liberal-Progressive		1		1		9,192	0.16%	+0.04%
Union of Electors		56		0		86,087	1.47%	+1.46%
Labour Progressive	Tim Buck	17		0		32,623	0.56%	-1.58%
Independent PC		6		0		8,195	0.14%	-0.14%
Farmer-Labour		1		0		6,161	0.11%	-0.07%
National Unity	Adrien Arcand	1		0		5,590	0.10%	n.a.
Nationalist		1		0		4,994	0.09%	n.a.
Independent SC		2		0		4,598	0.08%	n.a.
Labour		2		0		415	0.01%	x
Socialist Labour		1		0		271	x	n.a.
Total		851		262		5,849,151	100.00%
Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Notes:

n.a. = not applicable - the party was not recognized in the previous election

x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote

Results by province

Party Name		BC	AB	SK	MB	ON	QC	NB	NS	PE	NL	Terr	Total
Liberal	Seats:	11	5	14	11	55	68	8	10	3	5	1	191
	Popular Vote:	36.7	33.8	43.4	45.1	45.1	60.4	53.8	52.7	49.2	71.9	49.0	49.1
Progressive Conservative	Seats:	3	2	1	1	25	2	2	2	1	2	-	41
	Vote:	27.9	16.8	14.4	22.0	37.4	24.5	39.4	37.5	48.4	27.9		29.7
Cooperative Commonwealth	Seats:	3	-	5	3	1	-	-	1	-	-	-	13
	Vote:	31.5	10.0	40.9	25.9	15.2	1.1	4.2	9.9	2.4	0.2	17.0	13.4
Social Credit	Seats:	-	10	-		-							10
	Vote:	0.5	37.4	0.9		0.2							2.3
Independent	Seats:	1			-	-	3	-					4
	Vote:	2.6			2.1	0.1	6.1	0.2				34.0	2.1
Independent Liberal	Seats:					1	-	-					1
	Vote:					0.3	1.3	1.4					0.5
Liberal-Labour	Seats:					1	-						1
	Vote:					0.6	xx						0.2
Liberal-Progressive	Seats:				1								1
	Vote:				2.9								0.2
Total Seats		18	17	20	16	83	73	10	13	4	7	1	262
Parties that won no seats:
Union of Electors	Vote:					0.1	5.1	1.0					1.5
Labour Progressive	Vote:	0.8	0.7	0.4	2.0	0.7	0.3						0.6
Independent PC	Vote:					xx	0.5						0.1
Farmer-Labour	Vote:					0.3							0.1
National Unity	Vote:						0.4						0.1
Nationalist	Vote:						0.3						0.1
Independent Social Credit	Vote:		1.4										0.1
Labour	Vote:					xx	xx						xx
Socialist Labour	Vote:					xx							xx

xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote