When Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden promised on January 1, 1916 that Canada would maintain a fighting force of 500,000 men overseas, it was obvious this would be very difficult to achieve. By the summer of 1916, enlistment in Canada had dwindled to a trickle. Contrary to popular and often scholarly perception, French Canadians were not alone in their opposition to conscription. Many farmers and workers were also opposed. Farmers resented their sons being taken off the farm where they were contributing to the war effort through food production. Western farmers also suspected the Conservatives under Borden of using the conscription issue to cover up the government's poor record on economic reform and to divert attention from the political grievances of the West. Workers saw military conscription as the first step towards compulsory industrial service, forcing them to remain at one job for the duration of the war. Both farmers and workers demanded "conscription of wealth" rather than conscription of manpower.

In September 1917, the Borden government passed the Wartime Elections Act which gave the vote to Canadian women who were mothers, wives, widows, sisters, or daughters of persons, male or female, living or dead, who were serving or had served overseas in the Canadian or British forces. At the same time, it denied the right to vote to conscientious objectors and to naturalized Canadians from enemy countries who had been naturalized after 1902 (in other words, anyone who came from Germany or Austria-Hungary after 1899). It has been said that this was done mainly because these new Canadians tended to vote Liberal. Historians have noted that in the 1917 federal election, the voters did not choose the government, the government chose the voters. Two weeks before the federal election in December 1917, the newly-formed Union government under Borden passed an order-in-council giving rural farmers a military exemption, thereby neutralizing their opposition to conscription.

By early 1918, it was clear that Borden could not meet Canada's overextended military commitments and still exempt the nation's farmers from military service. He reneged on his promise in early 1918, only weeks after western Canadians voted overwhelmingly for his Union government in the December 1917 federal election.