The Conscription Crisis of 1944 was a political and military crisis following the introduction of forced military service for men in Canada during World War II. It was similar to the Conscription Crisis of 1917, but not as politically damaging.
Background
Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King had been haunted by the way the Conscription Crisis of 1917 had fractured the Liberal Party between its English-Canadian and French-Canadian members. King, who experienced the split first-hand, was determined to avoid another such split. In 1922, during the Chanak Crisis, when the United Kingdom almost went to war with Turkey, King had first asserted that Canada would not automatically go to war as part of the British Empire if the United Kingdom did, saying he would consult the Canadian Parliament first and presumably declare neutrality if the House of Commons were unwilling to go to war with Turkey.Levine, Allen William Lyon Mackenzie King : a Life Guided by the Hand of Destiny Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2011, pp. 131–132. Though there were several reasons for King's reluctance to go to war with Turkey, at least one was the memory of how badly the First World War had strained Canadian domestic unity.
During the 1930s, Mackenzie King had displayed what the Canadian historian Colonel John A. English called "an abiding aversion to conscription" and "an apparently unshakable conviction in the efficacy of appeasement", regarding another world war as "the ultimate catastrophe" for which no price was too high to avoid. In 1935, King had been opposed to sanctions on Italy for invading Ethiopia; in 1936, he stated that Canada would not take part if Britain decided to take military action in response to the German remilitarization of the Rhineland; and in 1938, he had warmly supported the Munich Agreement as the necessary price for peace. King had laid down defence spending priorities in April 1939 that declared the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) was to be the main service, the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) the secondary service and the Canadian Militia the last on the list, as he wanted to avoid fighting another land war, which was likely to cause heavy losses.
Canada declared war on Germany on September 10, 1939, and sent one division to Europe, which did not have an opportunity to engage in combat before France was defeated by Germany. As a war leader, King sought to avoid repeating what he regarded as the mistakes of his Conservative predecessor Sir Robert Borden in the First World War, which meant avoiding conscription, and King initially attempted to limit Canada's participation in the war solely to the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). King had described the BCATP in a statement as "Canada's most effective contribution to the war effort", and privately complained that the British should not have asked for a division for Europe before approaching him with the BCATP, as he would never have sent the 1st Canadian Division to Britain if he could have settled only for the BCATP. As King saw it, "a big RCAF could never lead to conscription".
King feared the civil and political unrest that had occurred during World War I, and also hoped to defeat nationalist Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis. Thus when Duplessis called a snap election in September 1939 to seek a mandate to oppose the war, King pledged that same month not to introduce overseas conscription for the duration of the war. Duplessis's decision to dissolve the assembly on 25 September 1939 to seek a mandate to oppose the war created panic in Ottawa, with King calling Duplessis "diabolic" and a "little Hitler" in his diary, believing Duplessis's aim was to provoke such a crisis between French Canada and English Canada that Quebec would leave the Confederation.
During the 1939 Quebec election campaign, the Dominion government made an unprecedented intervention in a provincial election to defeat the Union Nationale government and ensure the victory of the pro-war Quebec Liberals under Adélard Godbout; all the resources of the Dominion government were thrown behind the provincial Liberals. All of the Dominion cabinet ministers representing ridings in Quebec threatened to resign if Duplessis was re-elected, claiming that no one would be left to stand up for Quebec in the cabinet if conscription become an issue again. Duplessis was one of Quebec's ablest politicians, a charismatic, colourful demagogue who preached a mixture of Catholic conservatism and Quebec nationalism. During the election campaign, the War Measures Act was used to stop Duplessis from speaking on the radio.
It soon became evident that Duplessis's alcoholism was out of control. He ran an inept campaign, appearing visibly drunk at numerous campaign rallies as he delivered rambling speeches denouncing the war, which were most notable for his slurred words and lack of lucidity. By electing Godbout as premier on 25 October 1939, there was an understanding in Quebec that the reward for voting Duplessis out would be no overseas conscription. Many Canadians supported Mackenzie King's pledge, even as it became obvious the war would not end quickly.
As in the First World War, young French Canadians joined the few traditional French-speaking regiments of the Canadian army, such as the Regular Army Royal 22e Régiment, and several Militia regiments that were mobilized. In the infantry, barracks life and most training was in French and only the command and radio language was in English.
In the rest of the military, however, similar French-speaking units were not created. Among the justifications for this policy were the predominance of the radio, and the fact that technical instruction was only available in English. The 12th Armoured Regiment, originally mobilized by the Francophone Three Rivers Regiment (Tank) militia unit, was reorganized and fought as an English-speaking unit. Many French-speaking soldiers were sidetracked in the process. One of the most famous was Jean-Victor Allard, who demanded a transfer from the Three Rivers Regiment to the infantry; he went on to become a brigade commander in Northwest Europe and then in Korea, command a British division in NATO and subsequently become Chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Armed Forces, where he was pleased to create the first French-speaking brigade.See .
While units such as the Royal 22e Régiment, Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal, the Régiment de la Chaudière and the Régiment de Maisonneuve all had outstanding records during World War II, some feel that if they had been grouped in the same brigade (as French Canadians had requested, and as currently exists in the Canadian Armed Forces), it could have become a focus of pride for French Canada, encouraging the war effort and political support in Quebec. These units were, however, distributed among the various English-speaking divisions of the Canadian Army overseas. Historian J. L. Granatstein, in his book The Generals, suggests that a shortage of French-speaking staff trained officers meant that any attempt to create an entire Francophone brigade would have likely ended in failure.
From the beginning, acceptance of French-speaking units was greater in Canada during World War II than World War I. In 1914, the drive to create the 22nd Infantry Battalion (French-Canadian) had necessitated large rallies of French Canadians and political pressure to overcome Minister Sam Hughes' abhorrence of the idea. But during World War II, greater acceptance of French-Canadian units, as well as informal use of their language, lessened the ferocity of Quebec's resistance to the war effort.Mason Wade, French Canadians, 1760–1967 (1968) vol 2 pp. 994–1106.
Opposition to conscription was not limited to Quebec. In British Columbia, where alarm over the "Yellow Peril" was a major issue, many were opposed to conscription, fearful that conscripting of Chinese-Canadians and Japanese-Canadians would lead to Asian-Canadian demands for the right to vote, to which the white population of British Columbia was adamantly opposed. Meanwhile, many on the political left had profound misgivings about the injustice of the war, and the attitude of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) towards the war has been described as "ambivalent".
The Zombies In June 1940, the government adopted conscription for home service in The National Resources Mobilization Act (NRMA), which allowed the government to register men and women and move them into jobs considered necessary for wartime production. The act also allowed for conscription for the defence of Canada, but did not allow conscripts to be deployed for overseas service. French-Canadian nationalist mayor of Montreal Camillien Houde gave a speech urging all French-Canadian men not to register under the NRMA. The Dominion government used the suspension of habeas corpus under the War Measures Act to have the RCMP arrest Houde, who was held without charge until 1944. From 1940 onward, Defence Minister James Ralston and Navy minister Angus MacDonald were seen as the advocates of the armed forces in the cabinet, favouring winning the war even at the price of domestic disunity, in opposition to King, who argued victory could not come at the cost of domestic unity.
After adoption of the NRMA, men who refused to "go active" were derisively called "Zombies", both in Canada and overseas. The term was used because soldiers who could not fight in the war were regarded by some as the reanimated corpses from Haitian mythology who were neither alive nor dead but somewhere in between. The Zombies were widely reviled by those who had volunteered for overseas service and referred to as cowards. The Canadian military was divided into two classes: "A" class servicemembers who volunteered to go overseas, and the "R" class servicemembers known as Zombies. At training camps, officers and NCOs constantly belittled, insulted and humiliated the Zombies to pressure them to "go active", making for tense relationships at the best of times.
King's efforts to keep the military out of action for as long as possible caused much dismay among more hawkish Canadians anxious to see Canada become more involved.. The Royal Canadian Legion issued its manifesto, "A Call for Total War", endorsed by some 500 civic groups across English Canada.. Ontario Premier Mitchell Hepburn and Premier of New Brunswick John B. McNair both demanded overseas conscription in speeches attacking King. A Gallup poll in November 1941 showed 61% of Canadians satisfied with the war effort, but 60% who also wanted conscription for overseas service. On 13 November 1941, King's old nemesis from the 1920s, former prime minister Arthur Meighen, became leader of the Conservative Party. His predecessor, "Fighting Bob" Manion, had supported King's conscription policies, but Meighen's call for "total war", including sending the Zombies overseas, was the centerpiece of his criticism of King. Meighen and King's rivalry was one of the most famous in Canadian political history; both men passionately hated one another, and Meighen travelled across the country accusing King of not doing everything within his power to win the war.