The 1965 Canadian federal election was held on November 8, 1965, to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 27th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson was re-elected to government, winning more seats than any other party. It won more seats in the House even though it received a smaller share of the popular vote. It fell short of a majority government. It formed a minority government that due to support from other MPs, lasted three years.
Lester Bowles Pearson (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian politician, diplomat, and scholar who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968. He also served as leader of the Liberal Party from 1958 to 1968 and as leader of the Official Opposition from 1958 to 1963.
Born in Newtonbrook, Ontario (now part of Toronto), Pearson pursued a career in the Department of External Affairs went on to serve as the Canadian ambassador to the United States from 1944 to 1946. He entered politics in 1948 as Secretary of State for External Affairs, serving in that position until 1957 in the governments of William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent. Pearson was also the seventh president of the United Nations General Assembly from 1952 to 1953. He was a candidate to become secretary-general of the United Nations in 1953, but was vetoed by the Soviet Union. He later won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Crisis, for which he received worldwide attention. After the Liberal Party was defeated in the 1957 federal election, Pearson handily won the leadership of the party in 1958. He suffered two consecutive defeats by Progressive Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker in 1958 and 1962. He successfully challenged Diefenbaker for a third time in the 1963 federal election, winning a minority government. Pearson's Liberals won another minority government in the 1965 federal election.
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000) was a Canadian politician and lawyer who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1984. Between his non-consecutive terms as prime minister, he served as the leader of the Official Opposition from 1979 to 1980.
Trudeau was born and raised in Outremont, Quebec, and studied politics and law. In the 1950s, he rose to prominence as a labour activist in Quebec politics by opposing the conservative Union Nationale government. Trudeau was then an associate professor of law at the Université de Montréal. He was originally part of the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), but then joined the Liberal Party in 1965, believing that the NDP could not achieve power. That year, he was elected to the House of Commons, and was quickly appointed as prime minister Lester B. Pearson's parliamentary secretary. In 1967, Trudeau was appointed as minister of justice and attorney general, during which time he liberalized divorce and abortion laws and decriminalized homosexuality. Trudeau's outgoing personality and charisma caused a sensation, termed "Trudeaumania", which helped him win the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1968. He then succeeded Pearson and became prime minister of Canada.