Was the 1917 election Canada's most divisive ever?

It was an election that changed Canadian politics forever.

Credit: Canadian War Museum

In 1917, Canada was going through one of the country’s most difficult times in its history. The First World War was raging, and volunteer numbers were down as people became aware of the horrors of the trenches.

By this point, 130,000 Canadians had been killed or wounded on the battlefields.

With a need to increase enlistment, Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden began to contemplate conscription despite earlier promising not to enact conscription. That changed after he visited Europe and met with Allied leaders. He soon committed to increasing enlistment to hopefully help end the war.

He returned home with the decision firm in his mind to put in conscription into place.

Borden said in the House of Commons on May 18, 1917,

“I cannot too strongly emphasize my belief that a great effort still lies before the Allied nations if we are going to win this war.”

While conscription was favoured in by English-Canadians, it was deeply unpopular among French Canadians. Most Francophones in Canada were not aligned to either France or Britain and they viewed the war as a European affair. Borden had no illusions about what conscription would do to the country.