William Lyon Mackenzie King

Once he became the Liberal leader in 1919 he paid closer attention to the Prairies, a fast-developing region. With a highly romanticized view he envisioned the pioneers as morally sound, hardworking individuals who lived close to nature and to God. The reform ferment in the region meshed with his self-image as a social reformer and fighter for the "people" against the "interests". Viewing a glorious sunrise in Alberta in 1920, he wrote in his diary, "I thought of the New Day, the New Social Order. It seems like Heaven's prophecy of the dawn of a new era, revealed to me."[30] Pragmatism played a role as well, since his party depended for its survival on the votes of Progressive Party members of parliament who represented farmers in Ontario and the Prairies. He convinced many Progressives to return to the Liberal fold.[31]

During his first term of office, from 1921 to 1926, King pursued a conservative domestic policy with the object of lowering wartime taxes and, especially, wartime ethnic and labour tensions. "The War is over", he argued, "and for a long time to come it is going to take all that the energies of man can do to bridge the chasm and heal the wounds which the War has made in our social life."[34] He sought a Canadian voice independent of London in foreign affairs. In September 1922 the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, appealed repeatedly to King for Canadian support in the Chanak crisis, in which a war threatened between Britain and Turkey. King coldly replied that the Canadian Parliament would decide what policy to follow, making clear it would not be bound by London's suggestions; the crisis soon dissipated, but the episode led to the downfall of Lloyd George.[35]

Despite prolonged negotiations, King was unable to attract the Progressives into his government, but once Parliament opened, he relied on their support to defeat non-confidence motions from the Conservatives. King was opposed in some policies by the Progressives, who opposed the high tariffs of the National Policy. King faced a delicate balancing act of reducing tariffs enough to please the Prairie-based Progressives, but not too much to alienate his vital support in industrial Ontario and Quebec, who perceived tariffs were necessary to compete with American imports. King and Conservative leader Arthur Meighen sparred bitterly in Commons debates, and the decades-long rivalry between the two was among the nastiest in the history of Canadian politics.[36] Despite their university-days acquaintance, their personalities and working methods contrasted enormously in almost every respect.[37]

As King's term wore on, the Progressives gradually weakened. Their effective and passionate leader, Thomas Crerar, resigned to return to his grain business, and was replaced by the more placid Robert Forke. Socialist reformer J. S. Woodsworth gradually gained influence and power, and King was able to reach an accommodation with him on policy matters.[38] In any event, the Progressive caucus lacked the party discipline that was traditionally enforced by the Liberals and Conservatives. The Progressives had campaigned on a promise that their MP's would represent their constituents first. King used this to his advantage, as he could always count on at least a handful of Progressive MP's to shore up his near-majority position for any crucial vote.

In 1923, King government passed the Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 banning most forms of Chinese immigration to Canada. Immigration from most countries was controlled or restricted in some way, but only the Chinese were so completely prohibited from immigrating. This was after various members of the federal and some provincial governments (especially British Columbia) put pressure on the federal government to discourage Chinese immigration.

King had a long-standing concern with city planning and the development of the national capital, since he had been trained in the settlement house movement and envisioned town planning and garden cities as a component of his broader program of social reform. He drew on four broad traditions in early North American planning: social planning, the Parks Movement, the City Scientific, and the City Beautiful. King's greatest impact was as the political champion for the planning and development of Ottawa, Canada's national capital. His plans, much of which were completed in the two decades after his death, were part of a century of federal planning that repositioned Ottawa as a national space in the City Beautiful style. Confederation Square, for example, was initially planned to be a civic plaza to balance the nearby federal presence of Parliament Hill. The Great War monument was not installed until the 1939 royal visit, and King intended that the replanning of the capital would be the World War I memorial. However, the symbolic meaning of the World War I monument gradually expanded to become the place of remembrance for all Canadian war sacrifices.[39][40]

King called an election in 1925, in which the Conservatives won the most seats, but not a majority in the House of Commons. King held onto power with the support of the Progressives. A corruption scandal discovered late in his first term involved misdeeds around the expansion of the Beauharnois Canal in Quebec; this led to extensive inquiries and eventually a Royal Commission, which exposed the Beauharnois Scandal. The resulting press coverage damaged King's party in the election. Early in his second term, another corruption scandal, this time in the Department of Customs, was revealed, which led to more support for the Conservatives and Progressives, and the possibility that King would be forced to resign, if he lost sufficient support in the Commons. King had no personal connection to this scandal, although one of his own appointees was at the heart of it. Opposition leader Meighen unleashed his fierce invective towards King, stating he was hanging onto power "like a lobster with lockjaw".[41]`

In 1926, King, facing a House of Commons vote connected to the customs scandal that could force his government to resign, advised the Governor General, Lord Byng, to dissolve Parliament and call another election. Byng, however, declined the Prime Minister's request – the first time in Canadian history that a request for dissolution was refused; and, to date, the only time the governor general of Canada has done so. (The most recent refusal of dissolution in Canada was in 2017 when the lieutenant governor of British Columbia declined a request by the premier.[42]) Byng instead asked Leader of the Opposition, Arthur Meighen, to form government. Although the Conservatives held the most seats within parliament, they did not control a majority and were soon themselves defeated on a motion of confidence. Meighen then had to again request a dissolution of Parliament, which Byng now granted.

King ran the 1926 Liberal election campaign largely on the issue of the right of Canadians to govern themselves and against the interference of the Crown. The Liberal party was returned to power with a minority government, which bolstered King's position on the issue and the position of the Prime Minister generally. King later pushed for greater Canadian autonomy at the 1926 Imperial Conference which elicited the Balfour Declaration stating that upon the granting of dominion status, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State, while still autonomous communities within the British Empire, ceased to be subordinate to the United Kingdom. Thus, the Governor General ceased to represent the British government but was solely the personal representative of the sovereign. This ultimately was formalized in the Statute of Westminster 1931.[43]

Mackenzie King (seated right) at the 1926 Imperial Conference, which led to the Balfour Declaration

In the ensuing 1926 Canadian federal election, the Liberals claimed the Governor General, as an imperial representative, had interfered in politics and shown favour to one party over another. King thus appealed for public support of the constitutional principle that Governors General must accept the advice of their ministers. King and his party won the election with a plurality of seats in the Commons: 116 seats to the Conservatives' 91 in a 245-member House.[44]

The constitutional crisis of 1926 provoked a consideration of the constitutional relations between the self-governing dominions and the British government. During the next five years the position of the Governor General of a Dominion was clarified; he ceased to be a representative of the British government and became a representative of The Crown. The independent position of the Dominions in the British Empire (later the Commonwealth) and in the international community was put on a firm foundation by the Balfour Declaration of 1926, subsequently codified in the Statute of Westminster (1931).[45]

King expanded the Department of External Affairs, founded in 1909, to further promote Canadian autonomy from Britain. The new department took some time to develop, but over time it significantly increased the reach and projection of Canadian diplomacy.[46] Prior to this, Canada had relied on British diplomats who owed their first loyalty to London. King recruited many high-calibre people for the new venture, including future prime minister Lester Pearson and influential career administrators Norman Robertson and Hume Wrong. This project was a key element of his overall strategy, setting Canada on a course independent of Britain, of former colonizer France, as well as of the neighbouring powerful United States.[37][47]

Signing of the Dominion–Provincial Agreement on Old Age Pensions in 1928. (Seated, L–R): Peter Heenan, Thomas Donnelly, John Millar, W. R. Motherwell, William Lyon Mackenzie King, C. A. Dunning. (Standing, L–R): Fred Johnson, John Vallance, Ed Young, C. R. McIntosh, Robert McKenzie, Gordon Ross, A. F. Totzke, George McPhee, Malcolm McLean, William Bock.

In domestic affairs King strengthened the Liberal policy of increasing the powers of the provincial governments by transferring to the governments of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan the ownership of the crown lands within those provinces, as well as the subsoil rights; these in particular would become increasingly important, as petroleum and other natural resources proved very abundant. In collaboration with the provincial governments, he inaugurated a system of old-age pensions based on need.[48] In February 1930, he appointed Cairine Wilson as the first female senator in Canadian history.

King, in court dress, speaking on Parliament Hill during a ceremony celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation in 1927

His government was in power during the beginning of the Great Depression, but was slow to respond to the mounting crisis. He felt that the crisis was a temporary swing of the business cycle and that the economy would soon recover without government intervention.[49] Critics said he was out of touch. Just prior to the election, King carelessly remarked that he "would not give a five-cent piece" to Tory provincial governments for unemployment relief.[29] The opposition made this remark a catch-phrase; the main issue was the deterioration in the economy and whether the prime minister was out of touch with the hardships of ordinary people.[50] The Liberals lost the election of 1930 to the Conservative Party, led by Richard Bedford Bennett. The popular vote was very close between the two parties, with the Liberals actually earning more votes than in 1926, but the Conservatives had a geographical advantage that turned into enough seats to give a majority.[51]

In March 1936, in response to the German remilitarization of the Rhineland, King had the Canadian High Commissioner in London inform the British government that if Britain went to war with Germany over the Rhineland issue, Canada would remain neutral.[67] In June 1937, during an Imperial Conference of all the Dominion Prime Ministers in London, King informed British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that Canada would only go to war if Britain were directly attacked, and that if Britain were to become involved in a continental war then Chamberlain was not to expect Canadian support.[68]

In 1937, King visited Germany and met with Adolf Hitler.[69] Possessing a religious yearning for direct insight into the hidden mysteries of life and the universe, and strongly influenced by the operas of Richard Wagner (who was also Hitler's favourite composer), King decided Hitler was akin to mythical Wagnerian heroes within whom good and evil were struggling. He thought that good would eventually triumph and Hitler would redeem his people and lead them to a harmonious, uplifting future. These spiritual attitudes not only guided Canada's relations with Hitler but gave the prime minister the comforting sense of a higher mission, that of helping to lead Hitler to peace. King commented in his journal that "he is really one who truly loves his fellow-men, and his country, and would make any sacrifice for their good".[70][71] He forecast that "the world will yet come to see a very great man–mystic in Hitler ... I cannot abide in Nazism – the regimentation – cruelty – oppression of Jews – attitude towards religion, etc., but Hitler ... will rank some day with Joan of Arc among the deliverers of his people."[72]

In late 1938, during the great crisis in Europe over Czechoslovakia that culminated in the Munich Agreement, Canadians were divided. Francophones insisted on neutrality, as did some top advisers like Oscar D. Skelton. Imperialists stood behind Britain and were willing to fight Germany. King, who served as his own secretary of state for external affairs (foreign minister), said privately that if he had to choose he would not be neutral, but he made no public statement. All of Canada was relieved that the British appeasement at Munich, while sacrificing the rights of Czechoslovakia, seemed to bring peace.[73][74]

While Deputy Minister of Labour, King was appointed to investigate the causes of and claims for compensation resulting from the 1907 Asiatic Exclusion League riots in Vancouver's Chinatown and Japantown. One of the claims for damages came from Chinese opium dealers, which led King to investigate narcotics use in Vancouver, British Columbia. Following the investigation King reported that white women were also opium users, not just Chinese men, and the federal government used the report to justify the first legislation outlawing narcotics in Canada.[75] The report failed to include any reference regarding the Opium Wars, the involvement of the East Indian Trading company, or the official Chinese government's resistance to the opium trade which was renewed on September 20, 1906.

Under King's administration, the Canadian government, responding to strong public opinion, especially in Quebec, refused to expand immigration opportunities for Jewish refugees from Europe.[76] In June 1939 Canada, along with Cuba and the United States, refused to allow entry for the 900 Jewish refugees aboard the passenger ship MS St. Louis.[77]

As British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain "negotiated in Munich with Adolf Hitler in September 1938, Mackenzie King, Canada’s Prime Minister, grew agitated."[81] King realized the likelihood of World War II and began mobilizing on August 25, 1939, with full mobilization on September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland. In 1914, Canada was at war by virtue of King George V's declaration. In 1939, the Prime Minister asserted Canada's autonomy and convened the House of Commons on September 7, nearly a month ahead of schedule, to discuss the government's intention to enter the war, which was approved two days later. On September 10, Prime Minister King, through his high commissioner in London, issued a request to King George VI, asking him, in his capacity as King of Canada, to declare Canada at war against Germany.[82]

King linked Canada more and more closely to the United States, signing an agreement with Roosevelt at Ogdensburg, New York in August 1940 that provided for the close cooperation of Canadian and American forces, despite the fact that the U.S. remained officially neutral until the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. During the war the Americans took virtual control of the Yukon and the then-British colony of Newfoundland in building the Alaska Highway and major airbases.[83]

King—and Canada—were largely ignored by Winston Churchill, despite Canada's major role in supplying food, raw materials, munitions and money to the hard-pressed British economy, training airmen for the Commonwealth, guarding the western half of the North Atlantic Ocean against German U-boats, and providing combat troops for the invasions of Italy, France and Germany in 1943–45. King proved highly successful in mobilizing the economy for war, with impressive results in industrial and agricultural output. The depression ended, prosperity returned, and Canada's economy expanded significantly. On the political side, King rejected any notion of a government of national unity.[84] He held the 1940 Canadian federal election as normally scheduled, despite the ongoing World War, unlike Britain, which formed a government of national unity and did not hold a wartime election.

To re-arm Canada he built the Royal Canadian Air Force as a viable military power, while at the same time keeping it separate from Britain's Royal Air Force. He was instrumental in obtaining the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan Agreement, which was signed in Ottawa in December 1939, binding Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Australia to a program that eventually trained half the airmen from those four nations in the Second World War.[84]

King's government greatly expanded the role of the National Research Council of Canada during the war, moving into full-scale research in nuclear physics and commercial use of nuclear power in the following years. King, with C. D. Howe acting as point man, moved the nuclear group from Montreal to Chalk River, Ontario in 1944, with the establishment of Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories and the residential town of Deep River, Ontario. Canada became a world leader in this field, with the NRX reactor becoming operational in 1947; at the time, NRX was the only operational nuclear reactor outside the United States.[85] The NRC also contributed to wartime scientific development in other ways during this period.

King's promise not to impose conscription contributed to the defeat of Maurice Duplessis's Union Nationale Quebec provincial government in 1939 and the Liberals' re-election in the 1940 election. But after the fall of France in 1940, Canada introduced conscription for home service. Still, only volunteers were to be sent overseas. King wanted to avoid a repeat of the Conscription Crisis of 1917. By 1942, the military was pressing King hard to send conscripts to Europe. In 1942, King held a national plebiscite on the issue, asking the nation to relieve him of the commitment he had made during the election campaign. In the House of Commons on June 10, 1942, he said that his policy was "not necessarily conscription but conscription if necessary".[86]

French Canadians voted against conscription, with over 70% opposed, but an overwhelming majority – over 80% – of English Canadians supported it. French and English conscripts were sent to fight in the Aleutian Islands in 1943 – technically North American soil and therefore not "overseas" – but the mix of Canadian volunteers and draftees found that the Japanese troops had fled before their arrival. Otherwise, King continued with a campaign to recruit volunteers, hoping to address the problem with the shortage of troops caused by heavy losses in the Dieppe Raid in 1942, in Italy in 1943, and after the Battle of Normandy in 1944. In November 1944, the Government decided it was necessary to send conscripts to Europe for the war. This led to a brief political crisis (see Conscription Crisis of 1944) and a mutiny by conscripts posted in British Columbia, but the war ended a few months later. Over 15,000 conscripts went to Europe, though only a few hundred saw combat.

Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japanese Canadians were categorized as enemy aliens under the War Measures Act, which began to remove their personal rights.[87] Starting on December 8, 1941, 1,200 Japanese-Canadian-owned fishing vessels were impounded as a "defence measure."[88] On January 14, 1942, the federal government passed an order calling for the removal of male Japanese nationals between 18 and 45 years of age from a designated protected area of 100 miles inland from the British Columbia coast, enacted a ban against Japanese-Canadian fishing during the war, banned shortwave radios and controlled the sale of gasoline and dynamite to Japanese Canadians.[89] Japanese nationals removed from the coast after the January 14 order were sent to road camps around Jasper, Alberta. Three weeks later, on February 19, 1942, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which called for the removal of 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the American coastline. A historian of internment, Ann Sunahara, argues that "the American action sealed the fate of Japanese Canadians."[90] On February 24, the federal government passed order-in-council PC 1468 which allowed for the removal of "all persons of Japanese origin"[91] This order-in-council allowed the Minister of Justice the broad powers of removing people from any protected area in Canada, but was meant for Japanese Canadians on the Pacific coast in particular. On February 25, the federal government announced that Japanese Canadians were being moved for reasons of national security.[92] In all, some 27,000 people were detained without charge or trial, and their property confiscated. Others were deported to Japan.[93] King and his Cabinet ignored reports from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canadian military that most of the Japanese were law-abiding and not a threat. Major General Ken Stuart told Ottawa, "I cannot see that the Japanese Canadians constitute the slightest menace to national security."[94] King's political direction on this issue closely followed postulates from his 1909 doctoral thesis at Harvard.

On September 22, 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney delivered an apology for the internment, and the Canadian government announced a compensation package.[95]

Throughout his tenure, King led Canada from a colony with responsible government to an autonomous nation within the British Commonwealth. King asserted Canadian autonomy against the British government's attempts to turn the Commonwealth into an alliance. His biographer asserts that "in this struggle MacKenzie King was the constant aggressor".[96] The Canadian High Commissioner to Britain, Vincent Massey, claimed that an "anti-British bias" was "one of the most powerful factors in his make-up".[97]

During the Chanak Crisis of 1922, King refused to support the British without first consulting Parliament, while the Conservative leader, Arthur Meighen, supported Britain. King wrote in his diary of the British appeal: "I confess it annoyed me. It is drafted designedly to play the imperial game, to test out centralization versus autonomy as regards European wars...No [Canadian] contingent will go without parliament being summoned in the first instance".[98] The British were disappointed with King's response but the crisis was soon resolved, as King had anticipated.[37] After Chanak, King was concerned about the possibility that Canada might go to war because of its connections with Britain, writing to Violet Markham:

Anything like centralization in London, to say nothing of a direct or indirect attempt on the part of those in office in Downing Street to tell the people of the Dominions what they should or should not do, and to dictate their duty in matters of foreign policy, is certain to prove just as injurious to the so-called 'imperial solidarity' as any attempt at interference in questions of purely domestic concern. If membership within the British Commonwealth means participation by the Dominions in any and every war in which Great Britain becomes involved, without consultation, conference, or agreement of any kind in advance, I can see no hope for an enduring relationship.[99]

King therefore went to the Imperial Conference of 1926 and argued for greater autonomy of the Dominions. This resulted in the Balfour Declaration 1926, which announced the equal status of all members of the British Commonwealth (as it was known then), including Britain. This eventually led to the Statute of Westminster 1931. The Canadian city of Hamilton hosted the first Empire Games in 1930; this competition later became known as the Commonwealth Games, and is held every four years.

In the lead-up to World War II in 1939, King affirmed Canadian autonomy by saying that the Canadian Parliament would make the final decision on the issue of going to war. He reassured the pro-British Canadians that Parliament would surely decide that Canada would be at Britain's side if Great Britain was drawn into a major war. At the same time, he reassured those who were suspicious of British influence in Canada by promising that Canada would not participate in British colonial wars. His Quebec lieutenant, Ernest Lapointe, promised French-Canadians that the government would not introduce conscription; individual participation would be voluntary. In 1939, in a country which had seemed deeply divided, these promises made it possible for Parliament to agree almost unanimously to declare war.

King played two roles. On the one hand, he told English Canadians that Canada would no doubt enter war if Britain did. On the other hand, he and his Quebec lieutenant Ernest Lapointe told French Canadians that Canada would only go to war if it was in the country's best interests. With the dual messages, King slowly led Canada toward war without causing strife between Canada's two main linguistic communities. As his final step in asserting Canada's autonomy, King ensured that the Canadian Parliament made its own declaration of war one week after Britain.

During the war, Canada rapidly expanded its diplomatic missions abroad. However British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made all the major military and diplomatic decisions for Canada and the other dominions, with minimal consultation. While Canada hosted two major Allied conferences in Quebec in 1943 and 1944, neither Mackenzie King nor his senior generals and admirals were invited to take part in any of the discussions.[100]

King becomes the first person to take the Oath of Citizenship, from Chief Justice Thibaudeau Rinfret, in the Supreme Court, January 3, 1947

King's government introduced the Canadian Citizenship Act in 1946, which officially created the notion of "Canadian citizens". Prior to this, Canadians were considered British subjects living in Canada. On January 3, 1947, King received Canadian citizenship certificate number 0001.[101]

• Bliss, Michael (1994). Right Honourable Men: The Descent of Canadian Politics from MacDonald to Mulroney. pp. 123–184. ISBN 978-1-4434-0342-9.
• Courtney, John C. (March 1976). "Prime Ministerial Character: An Examination of Mackenzie King's Political Leadership". Canadian Journal of Political Science. 9 (1): 77–100. doi:10.1017/s0008423900043195. JSTOR 3230872.
• Dawson, Robert, and H. Blair Neatby. William Lyon Mackenzie King: vol 1 1874-1923 (1958) Online free to borrow; William Lyon Mackenzie King: vol 1 1874-1923 (1958)
• English, John; Stubbs, J.O., eds. (1977). Mackenzie King: Widening the Debate. Macmillan of Canada. ISBN 0-7705-1529-0. 11 essays by scholars.
• Esberey, Joy E. (1980). Knight of the Holy Spirit: A Study of William Lyon Mackenzie King. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5502-8.; a psychobiography stressing his spirituality.
• Ferns, Henry; Ostry, Bernard (1976). The Age of Mackenzie King. Toronto, Ontario: James Lorimer & Company. ISBN 0-8886-2115-9.; a scholarly biography to 1919.
• Henderson, George F. (2015). W.L. Mackenzie King: A Bibliography and Research Guide. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-5560-7.
• Hutchison, Bruce. The incredible Canadian; a candid portrait of Mackenzie King: his works, his times, and his nation (1953) 480pp Online free to borrow
• McGregor, Fred A. (1962). The Fall & Rise of Mackenzie King, 1911–1919. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada.
• Wardhaugh, Robert A. (1996). "A Marriage of Convenience? Mackenzie King and Prince Albert Constituency". Prairie Forum. 21 (2): 177–199.; He represented the safe Saskatchewan district 1926–45; his goal was to disarm the Progressives.
• Whitaker, Reginald (1978–1979). "Political Thought and Political Action in Mackenzie King". Journal of Canadian Studies. 13 (4): 40–60.

• Allen, Ralph (1961). Ordeal by Fire: Canada, 1910–1945. Canadian History Series. Volume 5. Toronto, Ontario: Doubleday Canada.
• Cook, Tim. Warlords: Borden, Mackenzie King and Canada's World Wars (2012) 472pp excerpt and text search
• Cuff, R.D. and Granatstein, J.L. Canadian-American Relations in Wartime: From the Great War to the Cold War. (1975). 205 pp.
• Donaghy, Greg, ed. Canada and the Early Cold War, 1943–1957 (1998) online edition.
• Dziuban, Stanley W. Military Relations between the United States and Canada, 1939–1945 (1959) online edition.
• Eayrs, James. In Defence of Canada. 5 vols. 1964–1983. the standard history of defense policy.
• Esberey, J.B. "Personality and Politics: A New Look at the King-Byng Dispute," Canadian Journal of Political Science vol 6 no. 1 (March 1973), 37–55.
• Granatstein, J. L. Canada's War: The politics of the Mackenzie King government, 1939–1945 (1975)
• Granatstein, J.L. Conscription in the Second World War, 1939–1945;: A study in political management (1969).
• Granatstein, J.L. and Norman Hillmer. Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders, 1999, pp. 83–101.
• Macfarlane, John. "Double Vision: Ernest Lapointe, Mackenzie King and the Quebec Voice in Canadian Foreign Policy, 1935–1939," Journal of Canadian Studies 1999 34(1): 93–111; argues Lapointe guided the more imperialist Mackenzie King through three explosive situations: the Ethiopian crisis of 1935, the Munich crisis of 1938, and the formulation of Ottawa's 'no-neutrality-no-conscription' pact in 1939.
• Neatby, Blair. "Mackenzie King and the National Identity," Manitoba Historical Society Transactions, Series 3, Number 24, 1967-68 online
• Stacey, C. P. Canada and the Age of Conflict: Volume 2: 1921–1948; the Mackenzie King Era (U of Toronto Press 1981), ISBN 0-80-202397-5.
• Whitaker, Reginald. The Government Party: Organizing and Financing the Liberal Party of Canada, 1930–1958 (1977).

• The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs (annual, 1901–1938), full text for 1920 online and downloadable.
• Mackenzie King, W. L. Industry and Humanity: A Study in the Principles Under-Lying Industrial Reconstruction (1918) online edition; also full text online and downloadable.
• The diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, 50,000 pages, typescript; fully searchable.
• Pickersgill, J.W., and Donald F. Forster, The Mackenzie King Record. 4 vols. Vol. 1: 1939–1944 and Vol. 2: 1944–1945 (University of Toronto Press, 1960); and Vol. 3: 1945–1946 online and Vol. 4: 1946–1947 online (University of Toronto Press, 1970). Edited from King's private diary.
• Canadian Department of External Affairs, Documents on Canadian External Relations (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967–). These cover the period 1909–1960. (Often referred to as DCER.)
• Henderson, George F. ed W.L. Mackenzie King: a bibliography and research guide (2nd ed. University of Toronto Press, 2015); 392pp excerpt and text search
• Hou, Charles, and Cynthia Hou, eds. Great Canadian Political Cartoons, 1915 to 1945. (2002). 244pp.

• Brittain, Donald. The King Chronicles, National Film Board, 1988.