King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 1874-1950 : Prime minister of Canada (1921-26, 1926-30, 1935-48)
William Lyon Mackenzie King was born at Berlin (Kitchener), Ontario on 17 December 1874. He was the maternal grandson of William Lyon Mackenzie, leader of the 1837 Rebellion in Upper Canada. He attended the University of Toronto, studied law at Osgoode Hall, and worked briefly as a journalist before earning a master's degree in economics at the University of Chicago and a doctorate at Harvard.
As an expert on industrial relations, King was appointed the deputy minister of the new department of labour in 1900, in which role he oversaw the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act (1907) and served on royal commissions. He was elected as a Liberal in the riding of Waterloo North in 1908, and served as minister of labour (1909-11), in Sir Wilfrid Laurier's cabinet. After being defeated in the 1911 election, he worked for the Liberal Party in Ottawa.
In 1914, King began working in industrial relations in the United States, principally for the Rockefeller Foundation. He remained involved in Canadian politics and ran unsuccessfully in the riding of North York in 1917. King succeeded Laurier as Liberal leader in 1919 and returned to parliament for the riding of Prince.
King was elected prime minister in 1921, serving concurrently as secretary of state for external affairs. His minority government focussed on repairing wartime social divisions especially between Quebec and English-Canada, and between Canadians of northern European descent and other ethnic communities. He also lowered taxes and tariffs, built railways, supported agricultural development and tried to ease tensions with organised labour. Internationally, King championed Canadian autonomy in foreign affairs.
King led another minority government after the 1925 election. He lost his own seat, but was then elected for Prince Albert. When a scandal in the Department of Customs threatened his government, King asked the governor general to dissolve parliament in June 1926. Instead, the governor general invited the leader of the opposition, Arthur Meighen, to form a government, which fell on a motion of confidence after only three days.
The ensuing election returned King to power with another minority. He introduced old age pensions, tax reforms, clarified Canada's Dominion status and appointed diplomatic envoys.
King lost the 1930 election, but returned to power in 1935 with the largest majority up to that point in Canadian history. He expanded the government's economic role through employment and agricultural relief, by trade deals with the United States and Britain and by turning the Bank of Canada into a crown corporation. Provincial rights were explored through the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (1937-40). King also established the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (1936), Trans-Canada Airlines (1937), and the National Film Board (1939).
As war loomed, King increased defence spending while advocating for a diplomatic resolution. After winning another majority in March 1940, King built up Canada's military, acted as an intermediary between Britain and the United States, launched the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (1939) introduced conscription under the National Resources Mobilization Act (1940), expanded the National Research Council to conduct military research and hosted Allied strategic conferences in 1943 and 1944. He also prepared for post-war reconstruction by introducing unemployment insurance (1940) and family allowances (1944), thereby laying the foundations of the modern Canadian social welfare system.
The Liberals won the election of June 1945, but King lost his seat, only to be elected for the riding of Glengarry. He helped create the United Nations (1945), dismantled wartime economic and social controls, defined Canadian citizens as distinct from British subjects under the Canadian Citizenship Act (1946), subsidised medical services and paved the way for Newfoundland's entry into Confederation in 1949.
King was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1947, and retired the following year. He never married. He died at Kingsmere, Quebec on 22 July 1950 and was buried in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
King's racist, nativist beliefs influenced his actions in government. His Harvard PhD thesis, entitled Oriental Immigration to Canada, argued that the country should restrict Far Eastern immigrants in order to remain a 'White Man's country.' As prime minister, he banned Chinese immigration almost completely under the Chinese Immigration Act (1923), barred European Jewish refugees in the 1930s, including those who arrived on the ship MS St Louis in June 1939. During the Second World War, he dispossessed and interned approximately 21,000 Japanese-Canadians as 'enemy aliens,' along with smaller numbers of Italian and German-Canadians.
The damage done by King's policies and actions has been acknowledged in recent years. The prime minister at the time apologised on behalf of the government for the internment of Japanese-Canadians in 1988; for declaring Italian-Canadians enemy aliens in 1990 and for their internment in 2021; and for rejecting Jewish refugees and specifically those aboard the MS St Louis in 2018.
