Canadian House of Commons passes conscription

In the early hours of Friday 6 July 1917 the House of Commons of Canada passed at second reading the government’s Military Service Bill, the bill introducing conscription into the army. The debate lasted all night. After midnight members rejected in turn three opposition amendments, and the bill itself was decided by 118 votes to 55. The House did not rise until five minutes past five in the morning. The British chronology of the war records under this date that the conscription bill “passed” the Canadian House of Commons. In fact this was the second reading, which decided the principle of the bill. The third reading took place on 24 July.

Borden’s bill

For almost three years of war Canada had sent only volunteers to the front. In the spring of 1917 volunteers began to run short, and the losses of the Canadian Corps at Vimy and Arras were enormous. Prime Minister Robert Borden returned from the Imperial War Conference in London convinced that the corps could not be maintained without compulsion. On 18 May he declared in the House that the voluntary system “will not bring further substantial results”, and announced conscription on a selective basis. He defended himself against the charge that he was acting on London’s orders: the question of conscription, he assured the House, had not been discussed with members of the British government at all. The leader of the opposition, the Liberal Wilfrid Laurier, refused on 6 June to join a coalition government that would introduce conscription.

On 11 June Borden introduced the bill in parliament. He recalled that since 1868 the Militia Act had allowed all men aged 18 to 60 to be called up in an emergency, but only by ballot, which would have stripped agriculture and industry of skilled men. The new act was to allow selection. Borden stated that in April and May 11,790 volunteers had enlisted, while Canadian losses in the same two months had amounted to 23,939 men. To keep four divisions in the field at least 70,000 reinforcements were needed within seven months. Conscription was to cover at most 100,000 men aged 20 to 45, divided into classes. The first to be called up were to be unmarried men and childless widowers aged 20 to 34. Wide exemptions were provided, among others for workers essential to war industry, for clergy and for members of religious communities previously exempted from armed service, such as the Mennonites and Doukhobors. Exemptions were to be decided by special tribunals. The final text of the act also included a provision that a man who married after 6 July 1917 would be treated as a bachelor.

Borden also used in his campaign the appointment of Arthur Currie as commander of the Canadian Corps. The press throughout Canada published the new commander’s appeal that the corps urgently needed reinforcements to remain at full strength.

Night-time votes

According to the journals of the House of Commons, the first amendment, to put off the second reading for six months, which in practice meant burying the bill, was moved by the French-Canadian member Barrette. Only nine members supported it, all from Quebec, and 165 were against. Next Laurier’s motion failed, that further work on the bill be suspended until its principle had been submitted to the electors in a referendum and approved by them. It received 62 votes in favour and 111 against. The Liberal Arthur Copp in turn wanted to postpone the bill until the government ensured the support of soldiers’ families without the need for public collections on their behalf. This amendment fell by 56 votes to 115. Finally the bill was passed by 118 votes to 55.

The division did not follow party lines. As the Canadian military historian G. W. L. Nicholson writes, many Liberals, mainly from the English-speaking provinces, supported the Conservative government, while Conservatives from French Canada voted against. The votes did, however, divide largely along language lines. French Canadians, mostly unwilling to serve overseas, saw conscription as compulsion imposed on them by the English-speaking majority. In Quebec the nationalist Henri Bourassa and his newspaper “Le Devoir” campaigned against the act, and the Archbishop of Montreal, Paul Bruchési, wrote letters of protest to Borden.

What came next

On 24 July the House passed the bill at third reading by 102 votes to 44. After passing through the Senate, the act came into force on 29 August 1917. The dispute over conscription, however, shattered the political scene. On 17 July Borden tried unsuccessfully to extend the life of parliament, so an election became inevitable. In the autumn some Liberals joined Borden’s Unionist coalition government, and the December election was held in an atmosphere of bitter conflict between English and French Canada. Conscripts began to reach the army at the beginning of 1918, and in the spring there were anti-conscription riots in Quebec City, which were put down by the army.