- Laurier Liberals
Prior to the 1917 federal election in
Canada , theLiberal Party of Canada split into two factions:* the Laurier Liberals, who opposed
conscription of soldiers to supportCanada 's involvement inWorld War I and who were led by former Prime Minister SirWilfrid Laurier ; and
* the Liberal Unionists who joined SirRobert Borden 's Unionist government.The
Conscription Crisis of 1917 and Borden's decision to invite the Liberals into a wartimecoalition government with the Conservatives split the Liberal Party largely along linguistic lines. Many provincial Liberal parties in English-speaking Canada and a number of LiberalMembers of Parliament supported conscription and decided to support Borden's government. Many of them called themselves Liberal Unionists. Quebec Liberals and the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, refused to join Borden, and ran in the resulting election as "Laurier Liberals" or Opposition (Laurier Liberal).Of the 235 seats in the
Canadian House of Commons , only 82 returned Laurier Liberals in the election heldDecember 17 1917 :
* 62 were elected inQuebec ridings,
* 1 fromAlberta ,
* 1 was from aManitoba riding with a largefrancophone population,
* 5 were fromNew Brunswick (four of whom were French-Canadians),
* 4 were fromNova Scotia ,
* 2 were fromPrince Edward Island , and
* 8 were fromOntario .With only 20 seats from English Canada, the Liberal Party was reduced to a largely
French-Canadian parliamentary rump in 1917.The Conservatives attempted to make their alliance with Liberal Unionists permanent through the formation of the
National Liberal and Conservative Party . However, under a new leader,William Lyon Mackenzie King (One of the few English Canadian Laurier Liberals), the Liberals were able to recover enough of their support in English Canada to form aminority government following the 1921 federal election."See also:"
List of Canadian political parties
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