A man of his country

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Recommended: Involvement of canada in the second world war

Behind every successful country is a strong leader. William Lyon Mackenzie King (WLMK) was a gold mine for Canada during World War 2 (WW2). He was the longest serving Prime Minister (PM) of Canada who possessed political smarts, skillful parliamentary tools, and brilliant tactics. He was also the most important PM. Mackenzie King was an effective Prime Minister during WW2. He prevented the split between Canadian French and English; he had good intentions for Canada and stabilized the economy.
During World War 1 (WW1) the Canadian French and English had a very unpleasant relationship because of conscription. With the help of almost all of the English speaking members in Parliament; disregarding the French members, Prime Minister Robert Borden imposed conscription which caused a riot in Montreal. Store windows were broken; railway cars were flipped upside down causing thousands wounded and four people killed. On the other hand WLMK was quite aware of this situation during WW2; he thought it was important to keep Canada united. In 1939 and 1940 during the election campaign, King was against mandatory overseas conscription because he knew most men would not want to participate out of the country. However, King imposed conscription in the National Resource Mobilization Act for service at home to help with wartime production. By 1942, King noticed that Canada would need more troops because of our great loss during the battle of Dieppe. To prevent another riot, he decided to hold a Plebiscite. He wanted Canadians to allow him to break his promise about overseas conscription; 69% of Canadians voted “yes” and 36% voted “no”. Mackenzie King always said, "not necessarily conscription, but conscription if necessary." He is saying that he would not necessarily impose conscription, but if he felt that it is a necessity he would impose it. King was very careful about

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