A Real Companion and Friend:
The diary of William Lyon Mackenzie King

Behind the Diary

Politics, Themes, and Events from King's Life

The Mackenzie King Ministries

"A United Canada I made the first consideration ... I want farmers, Labor, soldiers, Business & professions represented, & balance between Protest. & Catholic." W.L.M. King on the composition of his Cabinet. (Diary, December 8, 1921)

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Dinner at Lancaster House for Prime Ministers attending the Imperial Conference, 1926

Group portrait of the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth at Lancaster House, taken during the Imperial Conference in London, England, in 1926. Prime Minister King is in the front row, third from the left.

There can be little doubt that during his 22-year tenure as Prime Minister, Mackenzie King transformed Canada's socio-political landscape. In The Liberal Idea of Canada (1977), James and Robert Laxer assert that King achieved this by adopting three fundamental principles  -  developing closer trade relations with the United States, playing a more active part in the mediation of disputes involving labour and management, and improving relations between English and French Canadians.

When King first became Prime Minister in 1921, he began to lead Canada's twelfth Ministry (December 29, 1921-June 28, 1926). Significantly, King did not hold a government majority during this period, and the Liberal Party was still recovering from the decision of several party members to join the Unionist Party in 1917. Given the lack of unity in his party at the time, King chose to grant his ministers a certain political autonomy. Although King initiated very few new policies, those he did introduce, like tariff reductions and the reorganization of Canadian railroads, were aimed at meeting the growing social and economic needs of a quickly developing urban industrial society, a society which depended increasingly on American, and less on British, economic interests. The main thrust of King's work during this period, however, was the reorganization of the Liberal Party. To further strengthen his party, King arranged for his Justice Minister, Ernest Lapointe, to become responsible for political matters in Quebec. Thus began a solid and unique political partnership that would endure until Lapointe's death in 1941. Another noteworthy minister in King's Cabinet in 1925 was a Minister without Portfolio, Vincent Massey, who later served as the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada, from 1952 to 1959.

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Group portrait of Prime Minister King and his Cabinet, 1945

Back row, from left to right: Hon. Dr. J.J. McCann, Hon. Paul Martin, Hon. Joseph Jean, Hon. J.A. Glen, Hon. Brooke Claxton, Hon. Alphonse Fournier, Hon. Ernest Bertrand, Hon. Gen. A.G.L. McNaughton, Hon. Lionel Chevrier, Hon. D.C. Abbott and Hon. D.L. MacLaren. Front row, from left to right: Rt. Hon. Louis St. Laurent, Hon. J.A. MacKinnon, Rt. Hon. C.D. Howe, Rt. Hon. Ian Mackenzie, Rt. Hon. W.L.M. King, Rt. Hon. J.L. Ilsley, Rt. Hon. James Gardiner, Hon. C.W.G. Gibson and Hon. Humphrey Mitchell. This photograph is from Mackenzie King's personal collection.

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Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and his Ministers at a Cabinet meeting in the Privy Council Chamber, 1947

Clockwise from foreground centre: Hon. Humphrey Mitchell, Hon. Paul Martin (insert), Hon. Ernest Bertrand, Hon. James McCann, Hon. Lionel Chevrier, Hon. Colin Gibson, Rt. Hon. C.D. Howe, Rt. Hon. Louis St. Laurent, Rt. Hon. W.L.M. King, Rt. Hon. James Ilsley, Hon. Douglas Abbott, Hon. Wishart Robertson, Rt. Hon. James Gardiner, Hon. Alphonse Fournier, Rt. Hon. Ian Mackenzie, Hon. Brooke Claxton, Hon. H.F.G. Bridges, Hon. James McKinnon, Hon. James Glen (insert) and Hon. Joseph Jean.

Following the constitutional crisis known as the King-Byng Affair, and the brief ministry of Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, Mackenzie King was returned to Parliament as Prime Minister in the autumn of 1926. With a working government majority, King began to lead Canada's fourteenth Ministry (September 25, 1926 -August 7, 1930). By this time, the rift within the Liberal Party had been healed and King was the leader of a strong, national party. In 1926, King attended the Imperial Conference in England and advocated transforming the British Empire into a Commonwealth of equal nations. This idea was accepted and a statement known as the Balfour Report (1926) was drafted. It included a new definition of Commonwealth members as autonomous and eventually led to the Statute of Westminster (1931). This was arguably the greatest achievement of the fourteenth Ministry and further strengthened national unity. But the King Liberals were little prepared for the unprecedented Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Depression. Accused of not implementing appropriate measures to counter the economic slowdown, the King government was defeated in the 1930 general election, and Conservative leader Richard Bedford Bennett became Prime Minister and led the fifteenth Ministry.

As Leader of the Opposition Liberals during the worst years of the Depression, King was in a position to hammer the governing Conservatives for their ineffective economic policies. In the 1935 general election, King won an impressive parliamentary majority  -  the first of his three consecutive majorities  -  and he began to lead the sixteenth Ministry (October 23, 1935-November 15, 1948). Continuing his continentalist approach to economic matters, King further reduced trade barriers between Canada and the United States. Perhaps concerned by the influence of the newly formed Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, King introduced legislation aimed at creating a Canadian social safety net. Building on his old age pensions legislation (1926), King added unemployment insurance (1940) and family allowances (1944). But the greatest accomplishment of the sixteenth Ministry was undoubtedly the firm direction it gave Canada during the Second World War. In this conflict, not only did King lead a united country, but he also played a critical part on the international scene by serving as the intermediary between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. At home, the King government tabled the National Resources Mobilization Act (1940) and held a National Plebiscite on Conscription (1942). King also introduced post-war recovery legislation, including reconstruction plans, before the end of the Second World War. In this, he was assisted by Clarence Decatur Howe, Minister of Munitions and Supply (1940-1945) and Minister of Reconstruction (1944-1945).

Following Mackenzie King's resignation as Prime Minister in 1948, his appointed successor, Louis St. Laurent, became Prime Minister and headed the seventeenth Ministry (November 15, 1948-June 21, 1957). It is evidence of the strength of the Liberal Party at the time of King's resignation that St. Laurent managed to secure two more consecutive majority governments in addition to the three that King had obtained since 1935.

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