|
Golden Summer | European Powder
Keg | Sarajavo |
Canada Goes to War |
Building an Army |
Union Government |
Women get the Vote | Canada
Divided | Conscription
Act | Nationalism |
The Home Front |
Victory |
Aftermath
The Canadian Parliament had been extended
by one year by agreement of both the liberals and
Conservatives, in order to carry out the war plans of
the nation but when Prime Borden returned to Canada from
London in 1917 he was convinced that conscription would
have to be introduced. Laurier understood the arguments
behind conscription but also knew he could not support
it. Borden invited him to join a Union Government which
would carry out the prosecution of the war on a
united front.
Laurier struggled with
the issues at hand and decided that not only could he
not join a Union Government, but that he could also not
support the extension of the current government. An
election would have to be called and conscription, the
single most decisive issue between English and French
Canada, would be the only real issue. Even before the
election was held, Laurier started to lose Liberal
friend, colleagues and fellow MP's to the Borden
coalition. Laurier was tempted to resign and step
down as leader of the Liberals but an emotional and
fraternal tie to the rights of the French Canadians and
their opposition toward being forced to serve in a
foreign war that really had no effect upon them, keep
him in the game, if not to win, then for his place in
posterity.
Borden also passed a Bill which gave the vote to the
mothers, wives and sisters of the soldiers in the armed
forces as well as prohibiting immigrants from German and
Austria who had been in Canada for less then 15 years
from voting. Borden formed his Union Government without
Laurier but with many Liberal Cabinet Ministers and MP's
and called and election at the end of the year running
as the leader of the Union Government. The election of
December 1917 became a decisive and divisive event.
Borden captured 74 of
Ontario's 82 seats, 55 of the west's 57 seats about
twice as many seats in the Maritimes as Laurier and in
Quebec Borden lost 62 of the 65 seats. The Union
Government had taken in the Conservatives and Liberal
from all across the country except in Quebec where it
was virtually shut out. It would govern for the rest of
the war and had created a split between English and
French Canada that was to remerge again during World War
2.
Although the Union
Government lasted until July 1920, Borden's retirement
from politics became the event which dissolved the
movement and many members returned to the Liberal party
of joined a new party known as the Progressives. The
Conservative party would be saddled with the issue of
forcing conscription onto Quebec and has never been able
to really build it's strength up again in Quebec, except
for a temporary coalition between Mulroney's
Conservatives and French Canadian nationalists, in the
1980's. |
