The Canadian federal election of 1963 was held to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons. It resulted in the defeat of the minority Progressive Conservative (Tory) government of John Diefenbaker.

During the Tories' last year in office, members of the Diefenbaker's Cabinet attempt to remove him from the leadership of the party, and therefore from the Prime Minister's office. In addition to concern within the party about Diefenbaker's mercurial style of leadership, there had been a serious split in party ranks over the issue of stationing American nuclear missiles (see Bomarc missile) on Canadian soil. Diefenbaker and his allies opposed this proposal, while many other Conservatives and the opposition Liberal Party were in favour. Minister of National Defence Douglas Harkness resigned from Cabinet on February 4, 1963, because of Diefenbaker's opposition to accepting the missiles. The next day, the government lost two non-confidence motions on the issue, prompting the election.

The Liberal Party of Lester Pearson ran on a platform promising that, if elected, they would begin their term with "60 Days of Decision" on questions such as introducing a new Canadian flag, reforming health care, and a public pension plan, along with other legislative reforms.

Despite winning 41% of the vote, which is usually sufficient for ensuring the election of a majority government, the Liberals fell seven seats short of their target. The Liberals formed a minority government that was dependent on the support of the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) in order to pass legislation.

The NDP had been formed in 1961 by another social democratic party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and by the Canadian Labour Congress. The 1963 election was the second vote contested by the NDP. The party won slightly fewer votes, and two fewer seats, than they had received in the 1962 election. They were again disappointed by the failure of their new partnership with the labour movement to produce an electoral breakthrough, particularly in the province of Ontario, which has the largest population and the largest number of seats in the House of Commons.

Social Credit was unable to increase its representation in western Canada, and lost four of its Quebec seats. The continuing lop-sided result led to a split in the party when Thompson refused to step aside so that Caouette could become party leader. Caouette and his followers left the Social Credit Party to sit as a separate social credit caucus, the Ralliement des créditistes.

National results

Party		Party Leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular Vote
				Previous1	After	% Change	#	%	% Change	Liberal	Lester Pearson	265	99	128	+29.3%	3,276,995	41.52%	+4.55%	Progressive Conservative	John Diefenbaker	265	116	93	-18.1%	2,582,322	32.72%	-4.50%	Social Credit	R.N. Thompson	224	30	24	-20.0%	940,703	11.92%	+0.32%	New Democratic	Tommy Douglas	232	19	17	-10.5%	1,044,701	13.24%	-0.33%
	Liberal-Labour		1	1	1	-	16,794	0.21%	+0.01%	Independent Liberal		6	-	-		14,658	0.19%	+0.05%
	Independent		9	-	-		5,236	0.07%	-0.04%	Communist	Leslie Morris	12	-	-		4,234	0.05%	-0.03%
	Independent PC		2	-	-		1,965	0.02%	-0.01%
	Independent Conservative		2		-		1,159	0.01%
	Ouvrier indépendant		1	-	-		1,064	0.01%	+0.01%
	Independent Social Credit		2		-		717	0.01%	n.a.
	Nationalist		1		-		540	0.01%	n.a.
	Candidat libéral des electeurs		1	-	-		496	0.01%	-0.02%
	Socialist Labour		1		-		43	x
Total			1,023	265	265	-	7,891,627	100%
Sources: http://www.elections.ca History of Federal Ridings since 1867

Notes:

¹ "Previous" refers to to standings at previous election, not to standings in the House of Commons at dissolution.

x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote

Results by province

Party Name			BC	AB	SK	MB	ON	QC	NB	NS	PE	NL	NW	YK	Total
	Liberal	Seats:	7	1	-	2	51	47	6	5	2	7	-	-	128
		Popular Vote:	32.3	22.1	24.1	33.8	45.8	45.6	47.3	46.7	46.4	64.5	41.0	43.2	41.5
	Progressive Conservative	Seats:	4	14	17	10	27	8	4	7	2	-	1	1	95
		Vote:	23.4	45.3	53.7	42.3	35.0	19.5	40.4	46.9	52.0	30.1	49.6	56.8	32.7
	Social Credit	Seats:	2	2	-	-	-	20	-	-			-		24
		Vote:	13.3	25.8	3.9	7.0	2.0	27.3	8.6	0.1			9.4		11.9
	New Democratic	Seats:	9	-	-	2	6	-	-	-	-	-			17
		Vote:	30.3	6.5	18.2	16.7	16.2	7.1	3.7	6.4	1.6	4.2			13.2
	Liberal-Labour	Seats:					1								1
		Vote:					0.6								0.2
Total seats:			22	17	17	14	85	75	10	12	4	7	1	1	265
Parties that won no seats:
	Independent Liberal	Vote:					0.3	0.1				1.3			0.2
	Independent	Vote:	xx	0.1	xx	0.2	xx	0.1							0.1
	Communist	Vote:	0.1	0.1	0.1		0.1	xx							0.1
	Independent PC	Vote:					xx	0.1							xx
	Independent Conservative	Vote:					xx								xx
	Ouvrier Indépendant	Vote:						0.1							xx
	Independent Social Credit	Vote:						xx							xx
	Nationalist	Vote:						xx							xx
	C. l. des electeurs	Vote:						xx							xx
	Socialist Labour	Vote:						xx							xx

xx - less than 0.05% of the popular vote