1917 Canadian federal election
235 seats in the House of Commons; 118 seats for a majority
Conservatives: 119 (-7)
Liberals: 64 (+11)
Ligue Nationaliste Canadienne: 42 (+2)
United Farmers: 8 (+8)
Labour: 2 (+1)
Independents: 0 (-1)
-
"...McCarthy sported a fairly impressive record to take to Canada. The years 1914-16 had been an absolute boomtime for the economy, particularly for agricultural exports of not only grain but syrup and molasses, pork and beef, and dairy, while the country's industrial capacity had ballooned and timber yields had spiked. Both Montreal and Vancouver had emerged as among the busiest ports in the Empire, Canadian soldiery had acquitted themselves marvelously in putting down the Ghadar Mutiny in India, and the kind of tense social unrest that had typified the first decade of the century seemed largely settled. New railroads crisscrossed the country, tens of thousands of people had immigrated from across the Empire and Europe to settle the Plains, and the ambitious mega-project of building a deepwater port in Hudson Bay at Port Nelson, Manitoba
[1] would be completed by summer. In addition, the Prime Minister himself was a more formidable electoral figure in his own right, shedding the more genteel trappings of much of his party for a more populist, middle class oeuvre, pivoting to portray the Liberals as creatures of the Montreal business establishment and the Tories as defenders of Canadian prosperity. The election's timing in the spring, before the realities of sharply declining agricultural prices became clear to the general public, worked in the government's favor, too.
Whatever one expected of McCarthy, however, the expected Tory landslide did not emerge - indeed, the Tories would be the only party to lose seats as the House of Commons was expanded by fourteen members for 1917, and they would hold a bare one-seat majority once the polls closed. McCarthy, thought of as the barnstorming, popular savior of the Anglophone Canadian ascendancy, had nearly cost the government its majority, even if he had lost much fewer seats than Whitney's substantial losses four years earlier. McCarthy, despite his Francophobic bonafides throughout his career, had never been popular with the "Old Lodge," as the shadowy establishment that coordinated various Orange organizations, Anglican lay societies and Conservative riding associations was known, and despite returning a third consecutive Tory majority, McCarthy was on borrowed time.
The 1917 elections were a watershed in many ways; they proved that the Tory dynasty, thought indestructible as recently as 1910 when it had conquered what remained of the Laurier-era Liberals and successfully contained French education and influence to the borders of Quebec, could be challenged. For Crerar, more importantly, it brought him to Ottawa, as one of eight "United Farmers" candidates who ran not as a party but as a coordinated slate of independents, auguring the performances they would turn in over the next three years across Canada. While their caucus in Ottawa may have been small and they were clearly subsidiary allies of William Fielding's opposition Liberals, small things had great beginnings, and the agrarian populist movement first triggered in 1912 had returned with a vengeance and some level of sophistication to enter the Commons as spokespeople of the farmer at a time when the economic stability of the homestead and the ranch came into serious question..."
- The People's Prime Minister: Thomas Crerar's Remarkable Canadian Life
[1] A project abandoned in OTL due to WW1
), but I'm wondering about New Bern, Edenton and Elizabeth City.
