A portrait photograph of Sir Wilfrid Laurier taken during the 1917 federal election. Laurier served as Prime Minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911. As opposition leader during the war, he generally supported the government, but refused to support conscription which he believed unwarranted and needlessly divisive. Laurier's Liberal party fought the bitter 1917 election on this issue, but were defeated by Sir Robert Borden's Unionist coalition, which had drawn many important English-speaking Liberals into the pro-conscription camp.
George Metcalf Archival Collection
CWM 19930003-534
Canada and the First World War
