1911 Canadian election
Elections and parties in
Canada
|
|
The 1911 Canadian election saw fifteen years of Liberal Party rule under Wilfrid Laurier end in an election fought over free trade and the creation of a Canadian navy. The Conservatives formed a majority government under Robert Borden.
The Laurier Liberals, after many years in office, had run into important problems in their last term. The most important of these was the debate over the Canadian Navy. Laurier failed in his usually masterful balancing between French and English Canada and ended up annoying both groups.
The Quebec nationalist Henri Bourassa had quit the party in disgust with what he considered the government's pro-British policies. Many English-Canadians in Ontario, and the Maritimes felt Laurier was abandoning Britain.
The base of Liberal support shifted to Western Canada. The west had long been a proponent of free trade with the United States. The protected businesses of Central Canada were strongly against it. The Liberals, who by ideology and history were strongly in favour of free trade decided to make the issue the central plank of their reelection strategy. Thus a free trade agreement in natural products was negotiated with the United States.
The campaign went badly for the Liberals, however. The powerful manufacturing interests of Toronto and Montreal switched their allegiance and financing to the Tories. The Tories argued that free trade would undermine Canadian sovereignty and lead to a slow annexation of Canada by the U.S.
The election is often compared to the 1988 Canadian election, which was also fought over free trade. Ironically, in that later election the positions of the two parties were reversed with the Liberals battling against the Tories' free trade proposal.
