The Wartime Elections Act was a bill passed on September 20, 1917 by the Canadian Unionist government of Robert Borden. While the bill was an explicit attempt to get more votes for the government, it was also the first act giving women the vote in federal elections.

The act was passed at the height of the First World War. The Unionist, a merger of the Conservative Party and some Liberals had already delayed the election by a year, citing the wartime conditions. The 1917 Canadian election was certain to be centered on the controversial plan by the government to introduce conscription. Conscription was strongly opposed by a good section of the Canadian population and by the Liberals.

The act took the vote away from conscientious objectors, and anyone who had been born in an enemy country and had immigrated to Canada since 1902, even if they were now Canadian citizens. Recent immigrants were generally Liberal voters, as were those opposed to the war.

The act gave the vote to the wives, widows, mothers, and sisters of soldiers serving overseas. They were the first women ever to be able to vote in a Canadian federal elections. They were also a demographic that was strongly in favour of conscription. At the time the act was passed it was justified through the patriotic fever surrounding the First World War. While it was opposed by those who were disenfranchised and other opponents of the government, it was widely supported by the majority of Canadians.

The act was coupled with the Military Voters Act that further skewed the vote in favour of the Unionists.

The two laws were effective and the government was reelected in the 1917 election, but the Unionist were elected by a large enough margin that such measures did not make the difference between victory and defeat. In the long run it so alienated French-Canadians and recent immigrants that they would vote Liberal for decades greatly hurting the Conservative Party. After the war the act was repealed and all women were given the vote.