CanadaWho was William Lyon Mackenzie King?
William Lyon Mackenzie King was born in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario, in 1874, grandson of the rebel William Lyon Mackenzie. He studied economics at Toronto, Chicago and Harvard, became Canada's first deputy minister of labour and advised the Rockefeller interests on industrial relations. He became Liberal leader in 1919 and prime minister in 1921, serving three times for a total of more than 21 years until 1948. He led Canada through the Second World War and died in 1950.
Political views
Argued in his 1918 book Industry and Humanity for conciliation between labour and capital, with a role for the community and government when its interests were ignored.
Source: biographi.caIntroduced unemployment insurance in 1940 and family allowances in 1944, after earlier means-tested old-age pensions.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPushed for Canadian autonomy within the Empire, refusing to back Britain in the 1922 Chanak Crisis without Parliament's consent.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgDelayed overseas conscription to preserve national unity, describing his policy in 1942 as 'not necessarily conscription but conscription if necessary'.
Source: biographi.caRefused to modify immigration rules to admit European Jewish refugees, and his government turned away the 907 Jewish passengers of the MS St. Louis in 1939.
Source: pm.gc.caOversaw the forced removal and internment of 22,000 Japanese Canadians from the British Columbia coast from 1942.
Source: cbc.caHis government passed the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, which banned most Chinese immigration.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Legacy
Admirers credit King with keeping a divided country together through depression and war, avoiding a repeat of the 1917 conscription crisis, winning greater independence from Britain and laying the foundations of Canada's welfare state; historians' surveys often rank him among the most effective prime ministers. Critics stress the human cost of his immigration and wartime policies: about 22,000 Japanese Canadians were uprooted and interned, their property sold, and thousands deported to Japan after the war, for which Brian Mulroney apologised in 1988. His government admitted very few Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe, and in 2018 Justin Trudeau apologised for its refusal of the MS St. Louis, of whose passengers more than 200 died after being returned to Europe. His private diaries revealed a lifelong belief in spiritualism.
In their words
not necessarily conscription but conscription if necessary