Fruit Cocktail Grilled Chicken Maître D’Hotel Green Peas
His eyes stopped. Green Peas. I hate green peas. To King it seemed that everything about the day had been perfect. Despite the storm clouds of war drawing ever nearer, Liberal supporters had made this his day. The whole thing was delightful – except for the peas. If he had been in charge of the details, this oversight would never have occurred.
King read the Toast List. The twenty-first speaker, the Honourable Cairine Wilson, was giving her tribute. Wilson represented one of the important changes since King had become Liberal Leader. She was the first woman appointed to the Canadian Senate and the only one listed on the Roll Call pages of Liberal members in the cabinet, House of Commons, and Senate.
That program section devoted to King’s Significant Record listed the Imperial Conferences attended, the four elections won, and the books authored. The article informed readers that “of political leaders in Canada, Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier alone were leaders of their party for over twenty years.”
King thought of some of his happy memories. Such a lovely time he’d had just a short while ago when, during the royal visit, Pat, with his little red bow, had lain at Queen Elizabeth’s feet throughout the luncheon at Laurier House.
The confident response he had prepared to Wilson’s toast recalled some of the many triumphant moments of his leadership. No one must sense that he was beginning to tire. The question squeezing his stomach was How will I hold the nation together if war comes? In March he’d promised the House of Commons “conscription of men for overseas service will not be a necessary or effective step.” If once again, as in the First World War, the French interests were pitted against the English, King was sure the country would be torn asunder.
The spirits informed him God had chosen him for a special mission. He would prevent civil war at all costs.
Prime Minister’s Office
East Block, Parliament Buildings
Ottawa
September 5, 1939
“Mackenzie,” Franklin D. Roosevelt’s voice on the other end of the telephone boomed. F.D.R., the American president, was as friendly as usual, but King sensed a slight nervousness. Earlier in the conversation, King had assured Cordell Hull, the American secretary of state, that Canada would not be at war until Parliament met to make a decision.
Roosevelt seemed pleased. It was clear where American sympathies lay, but officially the United States was not supporting any active belligerents in the war. Until Canada’s status was decided, America could hurriedly ship planes and guns north. Canadians would help this war equipment make its way over to Europe.
King did not tell the American president, his grandfather had told him a few days earlier that Hitler does not want to have war. Nor had Mackenzie wanted the Rebellion.
However, five days later Parliament held a Special War Session.
On Sunday, September 10, at the request of his Parliament, King George VI approved the Canadian declaration of war.
Prime Minister’s Office
East Block, Parliament Buildings, Ottawa
December 17, 1939
The lights were still burning in the prime minister’s office, even though the Peace Tower clock was striking midnight. As the last gong faded away, the door to the office opened. Arnold Heeney, Canada’s secretary of the War Committee, rushed in and seized King’s hand. “Let me be the first to congratulate you,” he said cheerily, before the Governor General and the British Commonwealth and Canadians members of the signing party could add their wishes.
King’s “birthday present” was to sign the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. He felt that the long-negotiated document was to be one of Canada’s most important contributions to the war. At Britain’s side, Canada provided the mother country with volunteer soldiers, food, and supplies and helped facilitate communications between Britain and the United States. Significant financial commitment and the building of sixty airfields over the next three years would go a long way to boost the training of Commonwealth pilots.
Volunteer soldiers were sailing to Britain, and Parliament might soon need to enact legislation that would mobilize men to protect Canadian shores. Conscription for overseas, the prime minister predicted, would not be necessary. However, King was aware that there were those who were willing to stake more than their reputations on a different path of action.
Ontario Legislature Building, Toronto
January 18, 1940
“Let me say again,” Premier Hepburn fixed his intense blue-fire gaze on both his fellow Liberals and the Conservatives, “that I stand firm in my statements that Mr. King has not done his duty to his country – never has and never will.” Next, the Ontario premier called for a vote on a resolution “regretting that the Federal Government at Ottawa has made so little effort to prosecute Canada’s duty in the war in the vigorous manner the people of Canada desire to see.”
The surprise was so great that one could have heard a pin drop, despite the new rose-coloured carpet on the floor of the Ontario Legislature. A provincial Liberal leader turning on the leader of his own federal party!
The unpredictable leader of the Ontario Liberals, Mitch Hepburn, had long felt that the federal government was deliberately stunting his provinces growth. He’d already gone on record saying that he was a Liberal, but not a Mackenzie King Liberal. King, he was sure, was personally responsible for blocking the sale of Ontario hydroelectric power to the United States and Canada’s lackadaisical response to the war. This was not a time for fence-sitting on the issue of conscription. It was a time for action.
When the results of the vote were added up, the Ontario War Resolution was passed with forty-four votes to ten! Canada, it seemed, was about to tear herself to bits.
Massey Hall, Toronto
March 14, 1940
King felt his eyes misting. This is the kind of man, he thought, my grandfather must have had around him in the Rebellion days. Men who were prepared to endure all kinds of hardship for the sake of the cause and of personal loyalty.
On stage was Henry Corwin Nixon, the person Hepburn had considered his right-hand man. Not any more. Nixon had arrived at the rally unannounced and told the audience, “My good wife and I just drove down from the farm to be here and to say to you that come what may we are behind Mr. King.” Applause rolled across the room like storm waves breaking. It was the turning point in the evening and, King felt, in the federal election campaign.
King had met the challenge of Hepburn’s War Resolution by calling a federal election. Up to that time the prime minister had refused to enter the boxing ring of provincial politics. Hepburn and Quebec’s premier, Maurice Duplessis,
