At the beginning of , war was all but certain in Europe and it was time for all nations, including Canada, to prepare for that eventuality. After expounding on the success of the Liberal government in achieving a trade agreement with the United States in , and the positive impacts of that trade agreement for Canadians, King explained that the United Kingdom and the United States were interested in striking a trade deal between themselves and that Canada supported such an agreement.
In fact, he would help usher it along. The vision of Canada as player on the world stage had the potential to come with a domestic political cost. For example, historically, many French-speaking Canadians were frequently concerned with Canada becoming too close with Great Britain, and many Canadians, more generally, have been wary of becoming intertwined with — or pulled into the orbit — of the United States.
Such rhetoric and perceptions were not lost on Mackenzie King and those views were likely front of mind in any decision that he would make for the country as a means of preserving national unity. King was particularly acutely aware, especially for English-speaking Canada, of the necessity of reminding Canadians that Canada was an important member of the British Commonwealth.
King mentioned the Crown many times in the period before the war. To King, while the relationship to the Crown was extremely important, so too was national autonomy.
While these two values may seem competing — and they were in some respects — King was careful to hold them both at once in harmony. Mackenzie King could make any grand claim of Canada as a cooperator in peace time. However, war proved to be unavoidable and King had increased Canadian military expenditure in the few years before Would the concepts that King espoused during peace time remain and continue to be pursued during war time?
Canada was a partner to its traditional allies in the Commonwealth and to the US before the war to try and he even attempted to avert a conflict, but once the war began, Canada not only remained a partner but also increased it effort to wage the war against Nazi Germany to ensure that good prevailed in the battle and overcame the evil that he believed had engulfed the globe.
In June of , France capitulated to Nazi Germany. In short, Canada was seemingly ready to cooperate with any nation fighting on the side of good versus evil and he was preparing the Canadian people to cooperate fully with its two most important Allies at the time: the United Kingdom and the United States of America. King left Canadians with no doubt that Canada would be a key member of the Allied fight against Nazi aggression.
But, as has been discussed above, Canada could not be a true global leader in this fight; it simply did not have the power or resources to do so. Factories would be retrofitted to create war materials, Canada would train war pilots on its soil, and create many new initiatives to fight the good fight.
Of ultimate importance, it far surpasses the formation of the [T]riple [A]xis. Not only was Canada in a total war footing and supporting the war effort through materiel at every junction, but it was also ensuring that the United States supported the war effort too.
While Canada was being pushed to its limits and fully engaged in what Mackenzie King labelled as total war, the cracks in national unity which showed at the best of times had the potential to be exacerbated. Firstly, King made it clear that Canada must not resort to partisan infighting and must remain united. He argued that his government during the war was exactly what the people wanted, and he claimed to have the strong mandate of the Canadian people, citing his strong election victory as evidence.
His only goal — as it related to national unity during the war years — was to assert that Canada was, indeed, united and the only threat to that unity was the leaders across the aisle. So, too, was his strategy on conscription. In the early years of the war, it quickly became clear that even more soldiers would be needed than already provided and were later volunteering.
King, extremely wary of the impact on national unity that conscription would have given the divisions it caused in , he delayed as long as possible to avoid straining national unity and he initially instituted only half-measures to placate the advocates of conscription.
In , King introduced conscription but only for the purposes of defending Canada and not for sending soldiers overseas. In , a plebiscite was held to release the Canadian government from its promise of not sending those conscripted men overseas.
In , King reluctantly sent men overseas. French Canada showed its dismay with this decision and national unity was strained. Despite this, this strain was eventually lifted when, in , the war came to an end. The reputation Mackenzie King has today — that of equivocating and indecisiveness — certainly did not come from the speeches examined in this paper.
These speeches show a clear vision of Canada, both before and during the war. In fact, he may have doubled down on that vision during the war.
He became prime minister in as the result of an election which brought an end to the two-party system in federal politics. A large part of his support then and later lay in a solid block of conservative French-Canadian members of Parliament.
While keeping their allegiance he endeavored to woo the 65 members of the second largest group in Parliament, the agrarian Progressive party, whom King described as "Liberals in a hurry," temporarily adrift from their true political home. By most of the Progressives had returned to the Liberal fold, thanks mainly to King's judicious concessions in the direction of a lower tariff. By adroit maneuvering rather than through any correct constitutional interpretation, King survived the "King-Byng constitutional crisis" of and held office again after a few weeks in opposition until he was defeated in , an event he later perceived as good fortune since it labeled the victorious Conservatives for years to come as the "party of depression.
On his return to power in , where he was to remain until his retirement in , King found a new force on the political scene in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation CCF. He was not unwilling to use the existence of the new socialist group to strengthen reform elements within his own party.
By the end of World War II he was genuinely alarmed by the apparently growing threat presented by the CCF, and this awareness did much to push through a program of postwar reconstruction measures, including the extension of social insurance and the establishment of family allowances. In external relations King was a steady proponent of Canadian autonomy, and during his years in office complete sovereignty within the British Commonwealth was achieved.
He exercised this sovereignty with great caution, pursuing a policy of "no commitments" in the League of Nations and toward collective security generally. As the threat of war increased in the s, King consistently refused to declare Canadian policy beyond the assertion that "Parliament will decide.
Under King's leadership Canada moved into a new era of closer relations with the United States, notably during World War II, when the Ogdensburg Agreement of , establishing the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, was followed by the Hyde Park Agreement of , to promote cooperation between the two countries in defense production.
King's enormous skill as a politician was never better demonstrated than during the war, when he managed to prevent the conscription question from tearing the nation apart as it had in It was perhaps his greatest achievement that he brought French and English Canadians through the war in relative harmony. Indeed, the most consistent theme in King's political philosophy and practice was his commitment to Canadian unity, and increasingly he saw the unity of the Liberal party as synonymous with national unity.
Photographer: F. Back to Exhibitions. Go to Educational Lab. Woodsworth William Lyon Mackenzie King Born in Berlin now Kitchener , Ontario, William Lyon Mackenzie King — was a labour relations expert, civil servant and politician who led the Liberal Party from to and was Prime Minister of Canada between and , and , and and
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